leave it to beaver (1 Viewer)

i am just on the 3rd disc of season 1. gosh, the shows are really cute. i like it even more today than i did as a kid. and it was a big favorite back then.

the interplay between ward and june is really funny - i suspect i missed that as a little kid.

anyways, so far, there is a fair amount of graininess to the shows. lots of flicker.

i mean it is still clearer than what we saw with the old tv sets.

but i have watched quite a few shows, now. some of them are older than the beaver.

and i would say that litb has the grainiest look of all. there are a few areas which appear very clear. and the credits at the end of the show are all crystal clear.

the credits do seem to change from show to show, naming the correct actors. so i dont think it is just one set of credits that happened to be good.

i was just curious as to what any of you thought about the transfers ? maybe they get better in later seasons ?

jimmyjet said:

i am just on the 3rd disc of season 1. gosh, the shows are really cute. i like it even more today than i did as a kid. and it was a big favorite back then.

the interplay between ward and june is really funny - i suspect i missed that as a little kid.

anyways, so far, there is a fair amount of graininess to the shows. lots of flicker.

i mean it is still clearer than what we saw with the old tv sets.

but i have watched quite a few shows, now. some of them are older than the beaver.

and i would say that litb has the grainiest look of all. there are a few areas which appear very clear. and the credits at the end of the show are all crystal clear.

the credits do seem to change from show to show, naming the correct actors. so i dont think it is just one set of credits that happened to be good.

i was just curious as to what any of you thought about the transfers ? maybe they get better in later seasons ?

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Do you have the Complete Series box set or the individual season 1 release from Universal. Many people seemed to think that the tranfers in the box set were better than the prior season 1 set.

complete series

I'm going to direct jimmyjet to these four threads.

LitB is one of my favorite shows of all time and I remember some discussions in these review threads about the film stocks and techniques that were used in the various seasons of the show that are the reason for that resulting graininess we see today in some of the shots (IIRC they were most interior scenes that were affected).

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/295721-leave-it-to-beaver-the-complete-series-a-personal-review/?hl=%2Breview+%2Bleave+%2Bbeaver

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/295689-htf-dvd-review-leave-it-to-beaver-complete-series-set/?hl=%2Breview+%2Bleave+%2Bbeaver

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/223912-leave-it-to-beaver-season-1-a-personal-review/?hl=%2Breview+%2Bleave+%2Bbeaver

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/232748-leave-it-to-beaver-season-2-a-personal-review/?hl=%2Breview+%2Bleave+%2Bbeaver

thanks mike,

at some point, i plan to look into blu-ray, or hi-def.

at this point, i am acquiring as much as i can on dvd. i am not only buying old stuff, but new stuff that i have not even heard of before.

if it gets good amazon reviews, and seems reasonable enough, i get it.

while a lot of it is viewable, some of it i dont care so much for.

even with old shows, i dont know how much i am gonna like it.

for example, andy griffith is fine to a point, when andy and opie are in the scene. but barney and gomer are a bit too slapstick for me. i dont find it funny. so overall, the show is okay.

but beaver is turning out to be even better than i remember it to be. and being that it has the worse video quality of any show that i have bought, it would be a great choice for me to go blu-ray.

and if i think the improvement is good enough, i will buy blu-ray with the stuff that i will want to watch again.

i just finished family affair. both it and beaver are great shows, if you like shows with a message in them, which was very common back in the time.

jimmyjet said:

i just finished family affair. both it and beaver are great shows, if you like shows with a message in them, which was very common back in the time.

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I have always said that the major message of LitB...over all the seasons...was to promote the need to be understanding in terms of parenting and the importance of communication and trust in your parents on the part of being a child.

Common sense for some, not so much for others.

I think the show holds up perfectly well...but I realize there are those who consider it to be an anachronism. And I always think that's a shame.

what this country needs is a helluva lot more anachronisms !!

today, less than half of the kids are still living with both their parents, so we aint doin somethin right, that's for sure !!!!!

thanks for the forum, i enjoy it, and learn from it.

jimmyjet said:

i just finished family affair. both it and beaver are great shows, if you like shows with a message in them, which was very common back in the time.

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Two great shows for sure, Jimmy. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd also recommend Father Knows Best as another show in the same vein as LITB and Family Affair. And I agree with the sentiments you expressed in your last post as well.


Gary "the only place where we might be different is that I do love TAGS, and don't mind the fun that Barney, Gomer and others brought" O.

jimmyjet said:

but beaver is turning out to be even better than i remember it to be.

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There's alot of TV shows and movies that I loved as a kid that I've watched again as an adult and I've found them to be awful. Happily, Leave It To Beaver did not fall into that category. It's a legitimately funny and pleasant series that I think that basically anyone can enjoy.

jimmyjet said:

... being that it has the worse video quality of any show that i have bought, it would be a great choice for me to go blu-ray.

and if i think the improvement is good enough, i will buy blu-ray with the stuff that i will want to watch again.

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I might be wrong about this, but just putting "Leave It to Beaver" on Blu-Ray wouldn't necessarily result in a better video quality. If they just use the same transfers, the graininess that shows up in the first two seasons might actually be more noticeable on Blu-Ray.

Gary OS said:

Two great shows for sure, Jimmy. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd also recommend Father Knows Best as another show in the same vein as LITB and Family Affair. And I agree with the sentiments you expressed in your last post as well.


Gary "the only place where we might be different is that I do love TAGS, and don't mind the fun that Barney, Gomer and others brought" O.

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yes, fkb is another great show. back then, family shows was a big staple. along with these, there was donna reed, ozzie and harriet, bachelor father, my 3 sons, make room for daddy. weserns like bonanza and the rifleman. the 70s had little house and the waltons. i am sure there were others, but these come to mind.

Gary OS said:

Gary "the only place where we might be different is that I do love TAGS, and don't mind the fun that Barney, Gomer and others brought" O.

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i dont dislike tags. but i remember watching the show on reruns all the time. i think it started at 10am. usually, they had game shows on from 9-10, regular shows on from 10-12, the noon hour was a bit strange. and then the fugitive came on at 1. and i liked it a lot as a kid.

and while i still enjoy it, if i see an episode at a time, i can tire of it pretty quickly when i see too much of barney or gomer. too bad elinor donahue wasnt used more during that first year.

from what i read, elinor quit because her girlfriend role with andy looked ridiculous. andy would later admit that he did not feel comfortable with being a gf to her. so it did always look more like a father daughter relationship.

i did understand elinor's decision.

Joe Lugoff said:

I might be wrong about this, but just putting "Leave It to Beaver" on Blu-Ray wouldn't necessarily result in a better video quality. If they just use the same transfers, the graininess that shows up in the first two seasons might actually be more noticeable on Blu-Ray.

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i see. i guess we would have to hope that they re-did the transfer process. which i am guessing they would, if they are going to the trouble to put them on blu-ray ? the main problem that i have heard about blu-ray with older stuff, is that it reveals things that were not supposed to be seen - like cables holding things up, etc.

jimmyjet said:

i see. i guess we would have to hope that they re-did the transfer process. which i am guessing they would, if they are going to the trouble to put them on blu-ray ? the main problem that i have heard about blu-ray with older stuff, is that it reveals things that were not supposed to be seen - like cables holding things up, etc.

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To the best of my knowledge, Universal created HD transfers for Leave It To Beaver primarily for use in future syndication. Those HD transfers were what was used for the series set DVDs (with the HD being 'dumbed down' to SD resolution). It's almost impossible that they'll be doing new HD transfers for years (if ever) since the current transfers look perfectly fine given the source and because there's no financial upside when they already have a set of HD transfers. As for seeing things that you're not supposed to see, that's an entirely separate thing but for this show, it's a non-issue since it's a standard sitcom.

by that, do you mean that there were no special effects that were "hidden" ?

jimmyjet said:

by that, do you mean that there were no special effects that were "hidden" ?

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Yeah, it's not like Star Trek or Lost In Space where there'd be special effects shots. The biggest thing that was probably ever on LITB was rear screen projection for shots of people riding in a car.

Semi-related to the topic: In the case of TV, I think that the creative people on older shows figured that some revealing mistakes (such as wires, seams on makeup, etc.) wouldn't be seen due to basically everyone seeing the show via OTA broadcasts on relatively small screens rather than today when they can see the same show on an HD version of the show on a 70 inch screen and those things are going to be much more noticable. That being said, in the case of movies, they had to know that mistakes like wires, etc. would be seen when a film print would be projected on a large movie theater screen but they just had to hope that the audience didn't care.

i am still in the first season, but every episode has humorous ward-june exchanges !!

it is just a very well written show.

that is a big secret to a show's success - when it appeals to both kids and adults.

i now can appreciate the adult appeal.

same was true of the flintstones - had a lot of adult humor for the adults, and of course the kids saw it completely differently.

I see Lumpy Rutherford died yesterday at the age of 71. I feel so old. Eddie Haskell will be 70 in June. Wally is 68 and Beaver will be 65 in June.

Joe Lugoff said:

I see Lumpy Rutherford died yesterday at the age of 71.

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I love Lumpy. What a bummer. Thanks for the laughs, Frank Bank.

RIP, Clarence...you big ape.