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Episodes of Classic TV Shows Out Of Syndication (1 Viewer)

TheLogoGuy94

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For some particular reason, a classic TV show (e.g. “The Millionaire”) will have a number of episodes, or in some cases, a couple of seasons out of syndication. Why do you think this is? And what would be the case if a diginet (e.g. Me-TV) wanted to air the episodes/seasons that are out of syndication? How would a deal be arranged? One good example of a diginet acquiring seasons of a show that were out of syndication would be “Petticoat Junction” According to the CBS Syndication Bible, the first two seasons were previously out of syndication. Then in 2012, Me-TV announced they acquired the rights to the first two seasons. Some notible examples of episodes/seasons out of syndication are:

•“The Millionaire” - 18 episodes OOS
•“Our Miss Brooks” - 3 episodes OOS
•“My Three Sons” - Seasons 1-5 (B&W) and 11-12 (Color) OOS
•“Petticoat Junction” - Season 1 & 2 OOS (Until 2012; acquired by Me-TV)

For seasons 11-12 (as well as season 1-5) of “My Three Sons”, I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that old tape masters exist from those seasons. They were used by Hallmark Channel in the late 1990's and early 2000's. They were transfers from, surprising very clean, 16mm syndication prints. For seasons 1-5, I think tape masters exist of those seasons as well because TV Land aired those seasons back in the mid 1990's and early 2000's as well. Would tape masters like that still exist? Oh, and by the way, the CBS Syndication Bible lists something about “Dubbing Inventory”. Could someone explain what that term means?
 

Jack P

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The first and last years of "Mannix" were never syndicated originally nor I believe was the final year of "The FBI" part of the package that aired on GoodLife a decade ago.
 

LeoA

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I think My Three Sons was split up due to its huge size, with season 12 further cut to make the more attractive color package a bit more manageable (It's also the weakest season of the run).


No clue why it has been cut down further in the 2000's by eliminating season 11 from the package, which had traditionally been aired with seasons 6-10.


The Phil Silvers Show also throughout the years didn't include certain episodes. And I noticed when I ran through it on MeTV 2 or 3 years ago, that almost all of season 1 wasn't aired for some reason (No evidence that it's not part of the syndication package though, judging by the CBS site).


Rewatching it recently on the Shout set, only the final episode of season 1 is one I had saw on Me-TV.


And I notice that the final season of The Rockford Files isn't aired on Me-TV.
 

TheLogoGuy94

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LeoA said:
I think My Three Sons was split up due to its huge size, with season 12 further cut to make the more attractive color package a bit more manageable (It's also the weakest season of the run).

No clue why it has been cut down further in the 2000's by eliminating season 11 from the package, which had traditionally been aired with seasons 6-10.

The Phil Silvers Show also throughout the years didn't include certain episodes. And I noticed when I ran through it on MeTV 2 or 3 years ago, that almost all of season 1 wasn't aired for some reason (No evidence that it's not part of the syndication package though, judging by the CBS site).

Rewatching it recently on the Shout set, only the final episode of season 1 is one I had saw on Me-TV.

And I notice that the final season of The Rockford Files isn't aired on Me-TV.
I wonder why Me-TV can't air some seasons of some shows. Many people are requesting for all the other seasons of “My Three Sons” to be aired. Is it too expensive? They could always trade the package they currently have (seasons 6-10) for the other 7 seasons. Though, I doubt they could do that.
 

John Morgan

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I remember talking to Stan Livingston years ago about this (he played Chip) He preferred the black and white/William Frawley seasons. Anyway, he said the participants had a much better deal with residuals for the early seasons and their deal for the color seasons were more standard and after a several reruns, they go nothing. He thought that was probably the reason since he and others would have to still be paid. This was in the 80s and we were talking about reruns on cable and at the time the black and white seasons were absent.
 

Lord Dalek

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Gunsmoke is a fairly notorious example of this. Because the format changes it had over the years (30 minute B&W -> 60 minute B&W -> 60 minute color) there are three separate syndication packages, and of those three the middle period hasn't been seen outside of Encore Westerns for a while.


Others...


Bonanza: Most common packages of Bonanza only cover the "classic" Pernell Roberts years. Less frequent are the 1966-1970 seasons and the final two without Dan Blocker weren't added to syndication until 1982! (they've since fallen out again)


Twilight Zone: The hour-long Season 4 episodes were omitted from syndication in the 70s (they were subsquently reinstated by the early 80s in some markets, I know KOFY in San Francisco used to air 'em). And then there are the two banned episodes.


Bewitched: B&W, Dick York, or Dick Sargeant. It wasn't until Nick at Night that you could see all three in order.
 

Regulus

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One of the most NOTORIOUS cases of an episode being left out of syndication is an episode of the second season of Hawaii Five-O called Bored, She Hung Herself. In the episode someone hangs himself then loosens the nose to get out, shortly after this episode aired some buffoon tried to do the stunt himself, with fatal results. The episode was never aired again by CBS or included in syndication and/or the DVD sets.


Another case of episodes (in this case ENTIRE SEASONS) left out of syndication occurred in my area with the stations that showed Lassie. I was introduced to this show back in 1966, when this show was into its "Ranger" Years. Shortly thereafter I "discovered" two older versions of this show called "Jeff's Collie" and "Timmy and Lassie". It wasn't until a little something called the Internet came along did I discover that these weren't three separate shows, but instead one HUGE series! A total of FOUR Seasons were LEFT OUT of syndication, including the two where the Lassie changed owners (That's seasons four and eleven for those of you in Rio Linda!). Seasons nine and ten were also left out, from what I've read these contained several "Experimental" episodes which were shown to determine who would be Lassie's third owner (The episodes with the Forest Rangers sealed the dawg's Fate). It wasn't until I was able to get these "Lost Seasons" via "Other Sources" was I finally able to put things together!
 

LeoA

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That's stupid that they left it off on the DVD's.


At the very least, they should've included it but kept it hidden like we've seen a few times with cigarette advertisements featuring the original cast in some releases for other programs.


Other than the fact that some idiot apparently killed themselves trying to replicate it, how is it different than any other action that happened throughout the show's run that led to the death of a character on the screen?


Lord Dalek said:
And then there are the two banned episodes.


Which episodes are they?


For fans of Disney cartoons from the 1980's and early 1990's, there's an episode of TaleSpin that Disney withholds out of political correctness (Although at least this one was included on DVD).
 

Jack P

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The problem is that legally CBS can not put the episode on DVD. It's my understanding that a legal deal was made way back in 1970 or thereabouts that in effect meant the episode was to be permanently suppressed.


I have however seen the episode in question and first off, it's misleading because no one actually hangs themselves, we have a hanging that in the end is revealed to be a murder (and the victim is a woman incidentally). The episode itself though is *terrible*, one of the worst Five-O episodes I've ever seen (and certainly the worst of the early years). John Newland (who also has an unbilled cameo) directs with absolutely no understanding for what kind of show Five-O is, and the climax is a confession straight out of Perry Mason land followed by a final tag so unintentionally hilarious I was left wondering how this episode ever got made. Trust me when I say that we're not missing much of anything with the absence of this episode. I don't know if its still on-line (taken from a bad quality print projected onto a wall) but once you've seen it just once, you never want to see it again because it'd be a wasted hour of your life.
 

Frank Soyke

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For years, the Bewitched episode "Samantha's Secret is Discovered" was removed from the syndication package due to the use of hallucinogenic drugs in the episode. I'm not sure if it was ever re - inserted into the package
 

phillyrobt

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Just want to mention that there is a new network Decades that was launched with complete series of the Millionaire, Mothers In Law, Family Affair, F-Troop, Get Smart. They are now on the Phil Silvers Show and next is Doris Day..I don';t know if there were missing episodes though...
 

Lord Dalek

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LeoA said:
Which episodes are they?

The Encounter and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The first one is banned for objectionable content, the second they just can't air anymore because it was the one episode of the original TZ that Cayuga Productions didn't make.
 

Frank Soyke

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Lord Dalek said:
The Encounter and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The first one is banned for objectionable content, the second they just can't air anymore because it was the one episode of the original TZ that Cayuga Productions didn't make.
What's questionable about it. This is based on a classic American short story. I read it in high school English class ions ago.
 

Jack P

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The first one was banned for objectionable content because it involves a character whose father was a Japanese-American traitor in the war. This also I would note led to a Season 1 episode of "The FBI" being banned from airing altogether in its original broadcast, since it also involved the subject of treasonous wartime behavior by a Japanese-American. That episode though did get released on DVD as was "The Encounter". The latter which is based on the short story was TZ screening a film it didn't produce (to save on the budget).
 

Lord Dalek

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Yeah, the contract William Froug set up with Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge's filmmakers was for one broadcast and one repeat. Since syndicated reruns were not a thing in 1964, any further repeats were not included as it would cost CBS more money, although as I understand it, there really is nothing stopping them from reintegrating it now.
 

Regulus

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Unlike H5O's Bored, She Hung Herself Both The Encounter and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge are included in the TZ Box Sets.


Yes, I have seen H5O's "Banned Episode", naturally when I heard about it I just HAD to see what all the fuss was about even though I had to do so via "evil means" (Ever notice whenever something controversial comes out it gets popular for a brief period of time). :wacko:
 

Brian Himes

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I think Hawaii Five-O has more than one syndication package similar to Bonanza and Gunsmoke. MeTV only airs the first four seasons, part of season five and a smattering of episodes from seasons 6-11.


Also, due to a special deal, the SciFi channel is the only one that can air all 1,225 episodes of Dark Shadows. If the show ever goes back into syndication, the first year and last year are unavailable for repeats.
 

John Karras

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John Morgan said:
I remember talking to Stan Livingston years ago about this (he played Chip) He preferred the black and white/William Frawley seasons. Anyway, he said the participants had a much better deal with residuals for the early seasons and their deal for the color seasons were more standard and after a several reruns, they go nothing. He thought that was probably the reason since he and others would have to still be paid. This was in the 80s and we were talking about reruns on cable and at the time the black and white seasons were absent.
Although by 1985, Nickelodeon finally ran the complete B/W My Three Sons episodes. Several years later, a percentage of them were put in a syndication package for local stations. One of the issues could have been that the B/W episodes were produced by Don Fedderson in association with MCA (Universal). When the show moved to CBS and went color, Fedderson's new deal was in association with CBS, who controlled those syndication rights.


I remember CBS/Viacom had no episode guides or station press kits for the B/W episodes when I tried to track this info back when Nick started running the B/W episodes. On a hunch, I contacted Universal/MCA, and they had all the paperwork and guides for these episodes.
 

TheLogoGuy94

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John Karras said:
Although by 1985, Nickelodeon finally ran the complete B/W My Three Sons episodes. Several years later, a percentage of them were put in a syndication package for local stations. One of the issues could have been that the B/W episodes were produced by Don Fedderson in association with MCA (Universal). When the show moved to CBS and went color, Fedderson's new deal was in association with CBS, who controlled those syndication rights.

I remember CBS/Viacom had no episode guides or station press kits for the B/W episodes when I tried to track this info back when Nick started running the B/W episodes. On a hunch, I contacted Universal/MCA, and they had all the paperwork and guides for these episodes.
I wish somebody like Me-TV would air the B&W episodes. Like I said, they've aired seasons 6-10 for almost 3 1/2 years. They should get rid of that package and try someway to air the B&W episodes along with seasons 11 & 12 if possible.
 

TravisR

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Lord Dalek said:
The Encounter and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The first one is banned for objectionable content, the second they just can't air anymore because it was the one episode of the original TZ that Cayuga Productions didn't make.
Also from The Twilight Zone, Miniature and A Short Drink From A Certain Fountain were caught up in unfounded plagiarism lawsuits so they didn't get into syndication until the mid-80's.
 

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