Search/Probe/Search Control and Name of the Game - Any chance of a release?

Re: Search/Probe/Search Control and Name of the Game - Any chance of a release?

"The Name of the Game" was a series of weekly 90-minute episodes, yes. (About 75 mins actual running time, without commercials.) One of the Encore channels ran some of these a few years back. Sadly not all the episodes, but just the same handful over and over again, mostly the Gene Barry and Robert Stack episodes. I don't remember seeing a Tony Franciosa one at all during that run, but I think they did run "L.A. 2017" -- one of Spielberg's earliest directing jobs -- several times.

I'd love to see that on DVD, as well as "Search" (as it was called Stateside). At least NOTG was in syndication for many years after its cancellation, so I've seen some episodes a few times since then, but not so with "Search."

I wish both Universal and Warners were doing more with their back catalog. There wasn't much licensed music used in television in those days, so that shouldn't be an issue. Granted, that's not the *only* issue that keeps something from being released. Neither of these would likely be huge sellers for either company, but I sure would buy them.

Re: Search/Probe/Search Control and Name of the Game - Any chance of a release?

Universal also has yet to put James Drury's excellent 90 minute series The Virginian out on DVD. Why the hold up? Drury himself would make an excellent spokesman and he could sell it on his website.

Re: Search/Probe/Search Control and Name of the Game - Any chance of a release?

oooh...
The Virginian. I totally forgot about that series....
Thanks Jeff#, Just one more for my list of wants and likely not get. *grin*

Nearly three years on and still no sign of these shows coming on DVD.

I guess we will never get to see them again.

SEARCH (and PROBE) are Warner proprties so there is a chance they could go the Archive route.

As for NAME OF THE GAME, as Universal Properites, they could be licenced out to a third party (like Timeless) 

Keep in mind that E1 will release "It Takes a Thief" (Universal) this summer (2011)

so there is a chance they might pick next "The Name of the Game" (Universal).

Both were Leslie Stevens' projects, had a main title theme music by Dave Grusin and featured actress Susan Saint James.

Regarding The Name of the Game could be Shout!Factory is interested which should be a great thing of course, or maybe the company Madman in Australia would be another possible contender for a DVD release, I'd sure as heck buy it no matter who did them! 

I did contact Madman last week about The Name of The Game and they told me they had no plans for TNOTG.  They did thank me for the suggestion though and said they'd be sure to look into it.

 

In my email I did mention that by releasing series that are not available elsewhere that they would be guaranteed worldwide sales rather than just from Australia. 

That'd be great if they might check out any possibilities of getting it, so many fine Universal shows are just waiting to be dusted off again, read here recently Delvecchio could be coming so that's good and with luck others like it. 

Warner Archive have replied to a question on their Facebook page (on Monday) about the TV movie Probe and the TV series Search, and they replied saying

 

 

TVShowsOnDVD posted a new news article on their website yesterday about the pilot TV film for the TV series Search, called Probe:

 

 

Probe (pilot TV film for the TV series Search) - TVShowsOnDVD.com news article

Nice. Hopefully with all these pilots for crime shows getting released lately it means they're looking into the possibilities of the series themselves. 

Are there any other TV film pilots which Warner own the rights to?

There's actually 2 different cuts of PROBE - the "movie of the week" stand alone,and SEARCH - the reedited version that is a stronger lead-in to an ongoing series - additional and alternate scenes. 

 

Well, I can think of several TVM pilots that didn't go to series -

 

WONDER WOMAN (1974) - The Cathy Lee Crosby one (Which isn't bad,actually) 

THE SPIRIT (1987) - Sam Jones based on the comic.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (1997) - there's a longer TV Movie cut of the unaired pilot that was sold overseas. 

Do Warner Archive know that there are two different cuts of Probe?

 

Who knows :)

 

It's good to see that Probe (not to be confused with the 80's TV series Probe) is being released on DVD.

I watched the Archive release of Probe last night, and was quite pleased with how vivid the colors were. Not a pristine print but it looked good to me. I'm not sure which cut it was but I suspect it was the first, before they knew a series would be picked up. The only thing that didn't seem right about it: the commercial breaks. They are really sudden. It looked to me like they had taken the show and re-edited it to remove the commercial breaks and make it flow like a standard movie. Then someone decided to put the breaks back in. That's how clumsy the breaks appear.

 

It would be nice if they were able to release the rest of this series. I seem to recall that about half way thru its run, either to save money or try to bump up ratings, all of Burgess Meredith's assistants at Probe Control were fired except for Angel. The rest of the crew was replaced by one guy! And the set was made less high-tech as well. I have no idea why anyone thought that would improve the show's appeal.

Thanks for posting some comments about the Probe TV movie.

DVD Talk review for Probe (the pilot TV movie for Search):

 

 

Probe (TV movie pilot for Search) - DVD Talk review

Edited by WaveCrest - 9/12/11 at 2:24pm