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Is the b&w era of TV on DVD slowly coming to an end? (1 Viewer)

BobO'Link

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Ron1973 said:
I've figured on ILL for a while and I really wouldn't be shocked to see TAGS go Blu. I also wouldn't be TOO shocked to see Perry Mason go Blu-Ray.

As for colorization, I'm 50/50 on that. I've seen some awesome work on some of The Three Stooges shorts. If I were watching it as a new fan, I wouldn't know it was originally in b&w. It's A Wonderful Life was awesome colorized as well. On the other hand, I bought IDOJ's 1st season in color and it didn't look right. I haven't watched Bewitched colorized to know what it's like but I may wind up springing for the complete series soon, so maybe I'll find out.
Like you, I've seen some amazing colorization work. Even though I own a few colorized films and TV shows I rarely watch the colorized versions preferring the original B/W.

Bewitched is not one of those amazing colorization work products. I purchased the colorized versions of S1 & S2 because I felt that if I didn't like the colorization work I could always turn the color off and watch in B/W. It turned out I *didn't* care for the colorization. Like IDOJ (which I also purchased colorized) it just doesn't "look right". The bad part is that it's a bit of a nuisance to turn off the color just for those 3 seasons so I plan to re-purchase the B/W versions at some point and gift the colorized ones.
 

BobO'Link

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I may have mentioned this before but am just too lazy to check... :D

A while back my grandkids and I had been watching one of The Three Stooges sets when my grandson said: "These would be funnier if they were in color" to which his sister replied "Yeah." After receiving the "just because something is in color doesn't make it funnier" lecture from me they no longer have problems with shows in B/W. My grandson regularly asks to watch ILL and The Lone Ranger. Both like Leave it to Beaver, Dennis the Menace, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island (both B/W and color seasons) and The Little Rascals. I just purchased The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and expect them to like it as well. As time goes on I'm slowly introducing them to other classic B/W programs and have yet to find one they do not like! My grandson is now old enough for Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits so they'll be introduced soon. While not TV, I was watching some of the Popeye cartoons from the 30s a few days ago when my grandson came in and exclaimed "Wow! I didn't know you had *Popeye* cartoons!" and sat down for a 2 hour marathon. There's still hope... :)
 

Ockeghem

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"When I received S2 of TBH several years ago, I was utterly astounded at how sharp the picture was."

Ron,

TBH? I've been trying to come up with it, to no avail. And I've been searching this thread! Please tell me what this acronym means. Thanks. :)
 

Ockeghem

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Ron1973 said:
I'm sorry, yes, The Beverly Hillbillies :rolleyes:
Ron,No apology necessary. :) I just knew that I was going to kick myself once you posted what it was. I was thinking "To Be Honest," "The Big H?," etc. I just couldn't come up with it no matter how much I tried!
 

JoeDoakes

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Ockeghem said:
Ron,No apology necessary. :) I just knew that I was going to kick myself once you posted what it was. I was thinking "To Be Honest," "The Big H?," etc. I just couldn't come up with it no matter how much I tried!
Well, it's not as if that was a very well known classic show anyway :P However, I know how you feel when you think you should remember something and it just doesn't come.
 

Ron1973

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JoeDoakes said:
Well, it's not as if that was a very well known classic show anyway :P However, I know how you feel when you think you should remember something and it just doesn't come.
TAGS used to trip me up. Now it's "duh," The Andy Griffith Show.....lol
 

Gary OS

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Steve...O said:
Amen to that! I've found that particular favorites in TV Land are like comfort food - just what the doctor ordered when you've had a stressful day/week. Additionally, the best of the best hold up after repeated viewings. TAGS is like that. I also routinely pull out the Dick Van Dyke episode where they all stage a variety show and Dick does his Stan Laurel routine with Henry Calvin's Oliver Hardy. That always puts me in a good mood.

It's amazing that one can amass a large collection of movies and TV shows but its a relatively small subset that I go back to over and over when I need to relax.
Bingo, Steve. A friend of mine just used the same wording that you did yesterday when describing the effect of well-known favorites - "Comfort Food." That's what shows like TAGS, LITB, and DVDS (among many others) are for me. It really is amazing how often I return to shows like these even when there are others, that I've hardly put a dent in, sitting on the shelf practically crying out to be watched.


Gary "great comments today by many of my favorite posters - thanks everyone" O.
 

BobO'Link

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Ockeghem, don't feel bad... it took me a while to "get" DVDS especially when someone would use DVD. I kept thinking "they're *all* DVDs... what are they talking about?!?" when suddently it hit me... "Dick Van Dyke Show" (it should really be TDVDS but I'm sure that would have been just as puzzling)...and TAGS took a bit at first too... :D
 

Gary OS

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BobO'Link said:
Ockeghem, don't feel bad... it took me a while to "get" DVDS especially when someone would use DVD. I kept thinking "they're *all* DVDs... what are they talking about?!?" when suddently it hit me... "Dick Van Dyke Show" (it should really be TDVDS but I'm sure that would have been just as puzzling)...and TAGS took a bit at first too... :D
Now I'm starting to feel guilty for using these abbreviations. Sorry guys, I'll try to do better in the future. :)


Gary "and it's not like I'm one of these teenagers that uses 'text' language all the time - I'm still lost with half of what my daughters are saying when they text me" O.
 

JoeDoakes

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Ron1973 said:
TAGS used to trip me up. Now it's "duh," The Andy Griffith Show.....lol
I used to live by a place called TAGS AUTO REPAIR, with a big sign out front. I could never help myself from substituting, "The Andy Griffith Show."
 

Neil Brock

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So, my question for the posters in this thread is this. If older black and white shows are desireable to you for their familiarity, what about other shows that might be just as good, just as funny, etc., but are unfamiliar because they haven't been run to death over the last few decades. Would you feel the same way about something like The Gale Storm Show for instance? Or The Bill Dana Show? Just curious. Because to the best of my knowledge, a lot of it has more to do with people wanting the familiar. Just like oldies radio. The majority of listeners love to hear the same songs over and over and if they played other great oldies that haven't been in constant rotation forever, the ratings would suffer, no matter how good the music was.
 

Rob_Ray

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I'd love to see The Gale Storm Show, Our Miss Brooks and Private Secretary and it's followup series set in the hotel, rarities that haven't been run to death.

Also Topper and The Bob Cummings Show. And the Complete Make Room for Daddy.
 

jcroy

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Neil Brock said:
So, my question for the posters in this thread is this. If older black and white shows are desireable to you for their familiarity, what about other shows that might be just as good, just as funny, etc., but are unfamiliar because they haven't been run to death over the last few decades. Would you feel the same way about something like The Gale Storm Show for instance? Or The Bill Dana Show? Just curious. Because to the best of my knowledge, a lot of it has more to do with people wanting the familiar. Just like oldies radio. The majority of listeners love to hear the same songs over and over and if they played other great oldies that haven't been in constant rotation forever, the ratings would suffer, no matter how good the music was.
I think this is a good point. More generally, the same can be said for just about any era (or genre) in any niche.

When I was a kid/teenager, I use to like watching superhero type live-action movies and tv shows. Stuff like Superman, The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, Batman, etc ... (Back then, I even read some of the monthly comic books semi-regularly).

Fast forward to the present, these days I find I just don't "connect" at all with the type of superhero action movies produced over the last 15-20 years. For many years, I thought that these modern superhero live-action movies were sterile and mindless.

I eventually came to the realization that 70's and 80's era superhero movie and tv shows were largely something nostalgic and familar to me from when I was a kid/teenager, while modern 2000's era superhero movies was something I never really watched much of (until recently). Essentially it is my mind preferring stuff I am familiar with, while pushing aside stuff which I am not really familiar with.
 

Ron1973

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Neil Brock said:
So, my question for the posters in this thread is this. If older black and white shows are desireable to you for their familiarity, what about other shows that might be just as good, just as funny, etc., but are unfamiliar because they haven't been run to death over the last few decades. Would you feel the same way about something like The Gale Storm Show for instance? Or The Bill Dana Show? Just curious. Because to the best of my knowledge, a lot of it has more to do with people wanting the familiar. Just like oldies radio. The majority of listeners love to hear the same songs over and over and if they played other great oldies that haven't been in constant rotation forever, the ratings would suffer, no matter how good the music was.
That's actually the very thing that turns me OFF to oldies radio stations. I love classic country music but the stations in this area think "classic" is 80's and 90's. Okay, I'll give you the 80's and maybe some of the early 90's. One station even thinks stuff in the 00's is classic/oldie. You hear a smattering of 60's and 70's but hardly nothing past that. I want to cringe. I offered one "classic" station (the one thinking the 00's music is classic) that I would burn off CD's of Jimmie Rodgers for them since they obviously never heard of him. No response of course. I suppose I'm the minority but I want to hear something besides "top 40" even in oldies. Thankfully, I have somewhere around 1000 records, 100's of CD's, 100's of cassettes and some 8-tracks to fill the bill for my classic music fix.
 

smithbrad

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Neil Brock said:
So, my question for the posters in this thread is this. If older black and white shows are desireable to you for their familiarity, what about other shows that might be just as good, just as funny, etc., but are unfamiliar because they haven't been run to death over the last few decades. Would you feel the same way about something like The Gale Storm Show for instance? Or The Bill Dana Show? Just curious. Because to the best of my knowledge, a lot of it has more to do with people wanting the familiar. Just like oldies radio. The majority of listeners love to hear the same songs over and over and if they played other great oldies that haven't been in constant rotation forever, the ratings would suffer, no matter how good the music was.
For me, I would say that seeing again many of the b/w shows syndicationed in my youth brought me to the well, but it is the wealth of shows I have purchased as "blind-buys" since via comments seen here on the forum that has had me coming back for more. The number of b/w shows I now own as first time viewings far out number those I originally saw in my youth. So yes familarity is part of it, but quality of content is the bigger draw in the end.
 

Guy Foulard

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Neil Brock said:
So, my question for the posters in this thread is this. If older black and white shows are desireable to you for their familiarity, what about other shows that might be just as good, just as funny, etc., but are unfamiliar because they haven't been run to death over the last few decades.
For me, the lack of familiarity is a draw. My tastes run to dramas (any genre) from about 1957-1975, as long as they're fairly well-written. I'm not particularly interested in re-watching a show I saw the first time around. A great early sixties black & white drama I'd never heard of (like The Lieutenant) is an exciting prospect to me, and a blind buy if it's gotten good reviews. I've been watching tons of late 60-early 70s british videotape dramas on Region 2 DVDs for this same reason.

ETA: like smithbrad said!
 

Professor Echo

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I think most of the posters in this thread are more adventurous when it comes to vintage TV and would lean more toward embracing everything, even if just for historical and scholarly reasons, but as far as the general public goes, I'm afraid they are as Neil alludes, the type who want to hear the same oldies over and over again.

I personally have experimented with so many different types of shows from the past and subjected my gf to many of them, regardless of pedigree or established tradition. Often her response has been: "There are reasons why some things are classics and some are not," a generally negative reaction to what was heretofore unknown to her. There have been some successes that have thwarted her expectations, but without that inherent curiosity and enthusiasm that many of us who post in this thread possess, it can sometimes be a tough sell.

After showing my gf the old series GRINDL, she was ready to swear off all vintage TV forever. And who can blame her?!
 

maskedmala

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For me, watching vintage TV shows (50's, 60's and 70's) means a way to escape (for brief moments) some of the modern things that bugs me. Call me a dreamer but it's good to see children or teenagers showing respect to their parents, people talking and having fun in a restaurant instead of doing textos on their cell phones, watching TV shows full with american cars instead of japanese cars. There's always good thing and bad things in every era, that's for sure but I'll take vintage TV shows over most of the things done on TV these days. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to watch another Perry Mason épisodes.
 

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