ALF Season 1 (Code 2) - UNCUT!!!  

To Lion's Gate:

You reap what you sow over what you have done to U.S. audiences of the show.

Hooray for Warner's overseas division.

Lion's Gate, thanks for the nice job on the Mad Men BDs. Too bad you couldn't extend a fraction of that effort into the ALF DVDs.

Season 2 has been released in Japan, and I received it from Amazon, and every single solitary episode runs around 21:30.

I take back every nice thing I said about Warner Bros. Seriously, whoever is in charge of supplying masters of this show needs to be forbidden from holding gainful employment.

And I found WHV Japan's web site claiming otherwise:

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.whv.jp/database/database.cgi%3Fcmd%3Ddp%26num%3D9787&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhizCithtgspEQ1XVWBWO-pHA8XZpA

Oh well.

I was looking to R2 for some hope of having ALF DVDs one day.

Looks like that dream has been shattered.

I wonder, how long until Lionsgate's rights to the show expire and a decent company can maybe attempt to put the show out uncut?

How would the international division of Warner even get cut tape copies when they were only used in the US (and possibly Canada), while Lorimar sent out uncut versions to all other countries (syndication cutting is a primarily North American phenomenon), presumably keeping them and using them as the source for the first season?

As for a decent company, I seriously doubt anything would be different unless Paul Fusco, who supplied the edited versions to LG in the first place, gets a clue.
Edited by MatthewA - 12/23/09 at 11:31pm

Exactly!  As much as I blame Lionsgate for the horrible US Alf DVDs, Paul Fusco deserves just as much blame.  He could have struck a better deal with Lionsgate to clean up the full length episodes, but instead he wanted a larger profit.  Take a look at Moonlighting, a Lionsgate release that was overseen by its creator, someone who actually cares about his shows.  All episodes are uncut and include susbstantial music. 

Even if another company were to pick up the rights to Alf, I just don't see anything improving when the creator of the show doesn't care enough about it to give fans what they want.

Don't know what you guys are talking about. I have already purchased Seasons 1-3 of the television series from Lion's Gate and I'm impressed with the quality of these releases. Lion's Gate really outdid themselves and I can't wait to purchase the final season of this hit series.

Thanks you, Lion's Gate, for releasing this wonderful series to DVD. My whole family enjoys the show and we can watch it whenever we want. 

Lemme just try to stem the flow of responses to Mark... because I know they're coming

I think he and I had this same debate in another ALF thread.

For some reason, he enjoys having the chopped up ALF Episodes that Lionsgate released. Good for him. It's his money, and his enjoyment, so who are we to tell him what is and isn't good for him?

For the rest of us discussing ALF, I'm thinking we would rather see complete episodes instead of losing a few episodes worth of material over the course of a season, three to four minutes per episode at a time.

I mean, really, it's like they just released _LF.

Yeah, thank Lion's Gate for releasing these butchered beyond belief episodes, and thank Lion's Gate for making a fool out of themselves with these horrible versions of these episodes.

But hey, since you truly believe that this is the only way to get the series (failing to realize that there are plenty of people out there who taped all 4 seasons from their original airings), and that you truly believe in this load of steaming dog****:

"They don't do that.

if the studio doesn't have the original broadcast episodes, and they get lost quite frequently, or studio employees abscond with the original episodes (happens more often than you think) (My response: No it doesn't. You are just looking for every excuse in the book to defend somebody).. If the studio doesn't have the broadcast episodes, then they provide the syndicated episodes.

It really is not a conspiracy, guys." (My response: Yes it is).

then hey, continue to send the message that these butchered beyond belief versions of TV Shows are A-Okay!

FYI - I am not an ALF fan but season 2 has just been released in Germany

I think you guys have the wrong impression about me.

When a studio releases a television season set, they release the set knowing that there's a Catch-22 involved in a particular release. For an edited DVD set, consumers can either purchase the set or boycott the release and refuse to buy the DVD set. For those who purchase these edited sets, they are purchasing something that they enjoy. The majority of consumers don't care whether or not something is edited. Americans watch edited television shows all of the time, especially when they are placed into syndication where television shows are often edited for content or for length to make room for commercials/advertisers or because of a different variety of reasons. So, everyone is already used to it. This happens with movies that are shown on cable or satellite TV when every sinigle American has watched a movie being broadcast on any cable or network TV station.

For those consumers who boycott and refuse to buy the DVD release, the studio loses money on the release, and by default, they won't waste any more time releasing the rest of that show to DVD (see Baywatch DVD releases, Region 1) and no further releases for that title will be released. This means that anyone's chances of seeing that show released in an unedited format has basically been crushed beyond belief.

Boycotting a TV show's DVD release because it's edited will have an unexpected effect that nobody would count on. Refusing a purchase a DVD release because it's edited just sends the message to the studio that fans won't buy your product because it's edited. If the studio loses money on that release, chances are that an unedited release of that particular release will not be forth-coming because the studio isn't going to release that set since they have already lost money on it.

While refusing to buy a release may be a good idea, the simple fact is that it won't have the desired effect that everyone thinks it would.

Now, everyone wants to know why I've enjoyed these ALF DVD releases. Simply put, I remember watching them on television but it had been so long since I watched them that it doesn't matter to me. Additionally, I also realize that Lion's Gate nor any other company is going to re-release these sets simply because they already have their money invested in these current sets and that it's going to take even more money to have these sets re-authored with unedited versions.

It's similar to a company who has just printed a few million copies of their new catalog for the merchandise they sell only to discover that half of the contents of their catalog weren't printed for the catalog. They simply aren't going to spend more money to have a new catalog printed.

Now, I've purchased the sets because I love the show. So I don't care whether there is one or two minutes missing fro some episodes or from every episode. I still enjoy these episodes. And, I know that the uncut episodes will never be released to DVD.

Someone has the broadcast episodes. And backup copies. And if they were good enough for Canadian, German, and Japanese DVDs then they were surely good enough for the show's country of origin.

If nobody cares whether the show is uncut or not, then why are more than half of all legitimate releases of TV shows uncut or almost uncut?

And if nobody cares, then why did Shout! Factory go out of its way to obtain uncut episodes for subsequent seasons of Father Knows Best after they screwed the pooch on season 1?

And if nobody cares, why did the first season of The Cosby Show get uncut episodes in its complete series set when First Look could have easily used the existing cut versions that were released?

A lot of people care. But Paul Fusco and Lionsgate are not among their ranks. The sets they put out are no better than bootlegs. In fact, they are worse as some of the episodes are UNDER 20 MINUTES. People complained, and they stuck their fingers in their ears and went "la-la-la-la-la-la-I-Can't-Hear-You-la-la-la-la-la-la". And they have the gall to put these versions up on Hulu!

If you claim to "love" a show yet are indifferent to its treatment at the hands of its owners, that's not love, that's apathy. And if enough people boycott it that the studio refuses to release more bastardized versions (that didn't happen, obviously), the studio is to blame for acting as though 100% of fans would passively accept whatever the studio farted out. Because such an insult to this (or any) show is an insult to every potential customer whether they realize it or not. You may be enjoying the show, but the show you are enjoying is not "ALF" any more than a Reader's Digest version of "Wuthering Heights" is the same novel Emily Brontë wrote.

You could have easily saved your money for one of the region 2 sets and then figured out how to make your player region-free.

So has anyone found a list of running times of the German DVDs of season 2?

B.S. Mark. B.S.

Pretty much any network sitcom in the 80's that was syndicated in the U.S. made tape transfers for both the edited syndicated version AND the uncut network version. So if anything, they could have gone with the tape transfers for the network version that were made around that time, but they didn't.

No it's not. How else do you explain it? When other countries have released the show in its uncut form? It's because they were able to afford the cost to license the show and release it in the country they licensed the show for. If Germany decides to pay the extra cost to release the uncut version of a television show then that is their right since they could probably afford it. Many companies have licensed American television shows for release in their respective countries.

Just look at such shows as Alf, Baywatch and whatever other shows that they acquire. Those versions were probably allowed to be released because they wouldn't be made available in the United States due to regional encoding.

WKRP is just one example of how studios do retain two versions of a particular show. How else would you explain why every show that is syndicated for release in other emerging markets are edited for those markets? It's because of cost. Those markets simply broadcast the syndicated version of that show but will pay the extra fee to release that show on DVD in its original broadcast form.

Oh, by the way, I reported your post, vnisanian

Go back to kissing Paul Fusco and Lion's Gate in the rear end Mark for their terrible job on the series on DVD.

Oh, by the way, Mark, I have a shirt for you that says "EDITED SYNDICATED VERSIONS FOR LIFE!"

I never can figure how ALF always becomes the focal point of such heated debates.

And all of 'em are with Mark.

Anyway, even though I'm not able to read much German, I went to Amazon Germany anyway, and season 2 of ALF supposedly runs 628 minutes.

Does that sound uncut?

Compared to the US's 550 minutes, it sure does sound a lot better.

I don't understand it either, but this one is over. There is nothing being said here that hasn't been said before.

Any participant in this argument who is found having the same argument in a subsequent Alf thread will be removed. Consider yourselves warned.
Edited by Michael Reuben - 3/24/10 at 5:01pm