Tales of the Gold Monkey in the works ? - Page 2

Re: Tales of the Gold Monkey in the works ?

Nope!

Re: Tales of the Gold Monkey in the works ?

I too think this is a shame. I never saw the show, but love Indy, action adventure stories and pulp fiction, so I'm sure I would enjoy this program.

And, with it only being one season, it's complete and a good blind buy!

Reconsider this one Universal!

Jack

Re: Tales of the Gold Monkey in the works ?

Did any more info come out about the restoration problems for this show? (was it in particularly worse shape than other shows, or is it that they just don't want to spend the money that is normally needed?)

Re: Tales of the Gold Monkey in the works ?

I too am intertested if there are any updates on this. I really want to see this show.

Re: Tales of the Gold Monkey in the works ?

This is one set that I would purchase day and date upon release. Are you listening, Universal?

Finally some good news regarding Tales of the Gold Monkey on DVD. I spoke to Richard Walker of Fabulous Films today. His company has purchased the DVD rights for the UK and Australia. He hopes to have a 6 disc set (the complete series and to be determined extras) available before Christmas 2009.

Regarding the rumors about problems with the masters and Universal refusing to sell the rights to any company that would not pay for remastering, he knew nothing about that. He hasn't seen the masters and hopes to receive them next week, but he assumes they are fine as no one at Universal has told him otherwise. The major issue seems to be music clearances. About 2/3 of the episodes still need clearances for the incidental background music playing in the Monkey Bar and other places. The rights have been secured from the music publishers, but the performers, whose clearance is also needed, aren't listed anywhere. Mr. Walker will be doing some research into this matter, but if all else fails, he plans to have the music rerecorded. If Universal wanted to go ahead with a US DVD release, they could get the music clearances through Fabulous Films.

I hope to hear back from Mr. Walker once he receives the masters and any other material from Universal. If the masters are in decent shape and since the music issue would have been a relatively easy fix for Universal, then what's their problem with producing or selling the license for a Region 1 set? Brian Ward from Shout! Factory posted an interesting comment about 6 months ago in reply to a request that Shout! put out a Tales of the Gold Monkey DVD set, "Believe me, we've tried and tried again. There is no real likelihood of Tales of the Gold Monkey hitting DVD for reasons I'm not really at liberty to go into." I may be reading more into it than was intended, but that sounds like it's more of a legal issue than a technical one.

Oh well, I've been thinking about buying a multiregion DVD player anyway.

Pat,

Thanks for the update on this one.  I'd probably get the R2/4 set if there's not much music editing but I haven't seen this show since it originally aired so any music subs wouldn't impact me as much as a diehard fan of the show.

Speaking for myself, you can't go wrong with getting a Region-free player.  I bought my 1st one about 3 years ago and it's paid for itself many times with TV/DVD's (and movies) not available in R1.

Ditto to everything Jeff said.  While I'm generally a purist about music clearance issues, I can't remember much about this show since it's been... what?... 25+ years since I've seen this show.  I'd quickly jump on a R2/R4 release just to revisit the series.

Gary "about the only thing I remember about this one is that I definitely enjoyed it while in high school" O.

I have a multi-region player, and I would ABSOLUTELY buy this set, music replacement or not.  God, I loved this show!

From what I understand, most, if not all, of the songs would remain the same, but would be rerecorded by performers from whom clearances can be obtained.  I don't think it would seriously impact the series, even for diehard fans.  Most of the music is just instrumental music playing in the background of scenes.  But they'll always be a few purists who will be a tad upset.

I too will buy the region 2 dvd when it comes out.  A region free dvd player is such a good investment.

I completely agree, and have to thank my good friend Jeff Willis for introducing me to the wonders and advantages of owning a region free player!

Gary "no 6 Million Dollar Man in my library without one" O.

High School?  You really know how to hurt a 'Boomer like me   (I was out of HS when this one aired). 

This show was, if  remember, trying to cash in on the "Indiana Jones" movie craze at the time.  I thought it was well-done for a TV series.


No problem, dude.  I owed you that one, at least, for waking me up to that '50's decade   FKB, Donna Reed, etc.  That Lone Ranger set!!  Man, I never fast-track a set as you know.  I have to watch myself with this one to slow it down some.  Great set!  I'm going through it faster than "Silver" makes it up to that rock

R-free players....the only way to go

i just got season 3 of the Bionic Woman from Germany.  Great sound and video.  And it has the original English track.  Great!!!

Yes, very well done - ever notice Jake and Corky seem similar to Terry and Hotshot Charlie From the 1950's TV Version of "Terry and The Pirates"? :)

Sounds good.  I'm still trying to wait for a UK or Au release but not sure how much longer I can hold out.  I've known about that German release but have not wanted to navigate the German Amazon site for it.

I tried waiting myself, but after 5 or 6 months I figured it wasn't coming out.  Of course with my luck, they will announce a British release in just a few weeks, now that I bit the bullet and spent the money for the German version.  Oh well.

One of my favorites shows of the 80's!
I had all the episodes recorded from TVLand but I can't find them and I don't have a vcr anymore so I'm waiting too.

Edited by Randy*S - 7/18/2009 at 07:08 am GMT

Ironicly I was just today looking at my collection and noticed that I only had one of the two sets of Talespin, and that got me thinking "Man, I wish Tales of the Gold Monkey was out!"

So yes, I'll buy this show in a hot second!

It's finally going to happen!!!  I just heard from Richard Walker of Fabulous Films again.  The masters were in excellent shape and the music issues have been resolved.  So Tales Of The Gold Monkey - The Complete Series [DVD] is scheduled to be released on October 26.  The SRP is £59.99, but Amazon.co.uk has it available for preorder for £43.99.

Planned extras include: episode synopses; series synopsis; cast biographies; stills gallery; a brand new Making Of documentary featuring Stephen Collins, Caitlin O'Heaney, producer Tom Greene and director Harvey Laidman and a 26 page Collectors Booklet.  Mr. Walker is going to LA next week to conduct interviews and ask NBC/Universal if they have any outtakes available.

I almost forgot to mention more good news.  It seems that Fabulous Films has bought the UK/Australia DVD rights to another short-lived '80s cult show from NBC/Universal:

STREET HAWK!

Edited by DVDiva - 8/27/09 at 11:15am

Anybody have any questions they'd like answered?

Just wanted to ask to make sure: This release is a UK Region 2 PAL release, right?  I wanted to ask for others here as well.

Any news about a possible Region 1 upcoming release?

The info above is for the Region 2 set.  The Region 4 set will probably come out around the same time.  There's still no news about the fate of a Region 1 set.  I have no idea if Universal still wants to release it themselves or if they would be willing to sell the US rights.

Thanks for the info!  I'll have to think about this one due to the current exchange rates.  At today's rate, £43.99 = $71.58 .  I remember the days when the US/UK rate was a lot less than this.

Not neccessarily a question, but it would be nice if Stephen Collins could talk a little about how he met his wife on the set.

I would love to buy this set, but right now don't have a region free DVD player.  Also with the exhange rate quoted above, plus shipping, this will be an extremely expensive set. 

If the masters are in such great shape, I don't undertsand why Universal can't just release region 1 already?

Region 1 vs R2: Anyone's guess on why we're not hearing about an R1 release.  The clearance/rights issues vary with different regions.  Examples are the 70's Bionic shows that have been partially released in R2/4 but nothing in R1.

Regarding an R-free player, you may be able to hack your with a code from your remote unit to enable the R--free funtionality.  An online code site is here 

Another option is to buy a chipped player (internally modified for permanent R-free capability).

Here is an online store site.  That's the way I went with my player.  Best home ent purchase I've made.

I will wait to see if Australia carries this title

44 pounds? Yikes - that's something like about 80 bucks (give or take). That's worse than the Doctor Who releases. As much as I'd love to get my hands on the show, I'll have to pass until it hits a much lower price point. . . .