Peter M Fitzgerald
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Mar 21, 1999
- Messages
- 2,312
- Real Name
- Peter Fitzgerald
It's Sunday afternoon as I write this, and I've been thinking of an area of vintage TV-on-DVD that has largely been neglected: the general-appeal non-fiction/documentary series, many of which used to air on weekend afternoons and evenings, especially Sunday afternoons.
Sure, a few have come out over the years, like IN SEARCH OF..., VICTORY AT SEA, COSMOS, James Burke's CONNECTIONS and THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED... but it's amazing to me that Region 1/Region A hasn't had a release of THE UNDERSEA WORLD OF JACQUES COUSTEAU (though R2 got a whole-series release in 2011) and none of the classic NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIALS prior to 1982 are on DVD (one 1982 special on Egypt was released, but was an edited/altered copy from a 1990s rerun), even though oodles of post-2000 National Geo docs are readily available on disc.
A lot of this is simple nostalgia on my part, but these 1960s/1970s (and a few 1980s) series/specials had a certain class and gravitas to them, without the shallow flash and the constant ADD-ish push to "get on to the next thing" (or to the next of their endless commercial breaks) that a lot of their more modern counterparts regularly display; they were true events, back when most people watched the same stuff on 4 or 5 channels (at most), before cable TV really took over the landscape. I miss the grandeur, dynamism and sense of wonder that the best of these series regularly featured. Stentorian narrators like Alexander Scourby and Rod Serling, or old-school stars like Glenn Ford or Jack Palance acting as your hosts ... music scores by Leonard Rosenman, Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini... top-flight producers like David L. Wolper and Jack Haley, Jr.
Even the cheesier or more "dated" stuff is great to see as time capsules... people, places, technology and theories that are, in many cases, no longer with us and/or vastly different today. These work as both video "comfort food" and informational resources, both for what has remained timeless and for what had been superseded by further research or more sophisticate looks into their subjects.
Some of these can be readily seen right now, if you poke around on YouTube and the like, which is cool, but I'd sure like the opportunity to have hard copies on the shelf, not subject to the always-shifting whims of streaming services and rights holders, who can have them taken down at a moment's notice.
Unfortunately, official releases are probably a pipe dream for most or all of these. Some, especially the cinema-related series, would be a rights nightmare, with clips and music from myriad sources creating a mountain of legal wrangling and production costs, along the lines of WKRP and THE WONDER YEARS. I'm sure the actual market for a lot of these is miniscule, and not worth the effort to legally clear and manufacture.
So, this is more a frivolous exercise in "wouldn't it be nice if..." rather than an actual expectation that we'll see any of these as DVD/Blu sets, anytime soon. I'll throw in a few interview/variety series into the mix, too, since they seem to fit some of the same criteria.
Here's some of what I'd like to see, in an ideal world... and for those of you with foggy memories, or those of you who are young whippersnappers, born in the '80s/'90s/2000s, click on the titles to get sample peeks at what these were like:
THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN (from 1965-1986 (originally spun-off from ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS), celebrities from the worlds of film, tv, music and sports were filmed engaging in various outdoor activities, hosted (most famously) by Curt Gowdy)
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIALS (the 1960s & 1970s originals, back when they premiered on CBS, ABC and PBS)
WHEN HAVOC STRUCK (short series on historical disasters, both natural and man-made, hosted by Glenn Ford, back in his "Pa Kent" days)
RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! here's a 1st season promo
(I really loved this 1980s version, both as a young teen the time, and later, when Sci-Fi Channel re-ran it in the 1990s, though they edited it down)
BUSTER KEATON: A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW (3-part Thames/PBS mini-series from the 1980s, by Kevin Brownlow & David Gill, on the comedy genius)
THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILM SHOW (great 1980s UK series on cult movie makers, hosted by Jonathan Ross... ran for a brief time here in the USA on Discovery Channel, back when it was still worth a damn)
WILD WILD WORLD OF ANIMALS and closing (classic Time-Life nature series, focusing on animal survival, narrated by Cannon himself, the late, great William Conrad)
THAT'S HOLLYWOOD (syndicated off-shoot of the THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT films, narrated by Tom Bosley, focusing on a wider canvas than just Musicals... largely Fox-centric, as can be seen from the opening sequence, but featured clips from other studios, as well)
HOLLYWOOD AND THE STARS (the precursor to THAT'S HOLLYWOOD, produced by David L. Wolper and Jack Haley, Jr., narrated by Joseph Cotten)
THE BODY HUMAN (an Emmy-winning series of specials about the human body, airing between 1977 and 1984, produced by the National Geographic Society, but done separately from the regular National Geographic Specials)
LATER WITH BOB COSTAS (for my money, possibly the best of the one-on-one celebrity interview shows, running for 5 years, late '80s-early '90s, after Letterman on NBC, prior to the creation of LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN. Costas had interesting guests, asked good questions, and was less in love with the sound of his own voice than Dick Cavett, Charlie Rose and Tom Snyder, so you got to hear more of the guests' responses!)
HOLLYWOOD BACKSTAGE (a.k.a. HOLLYWOOD STAR NEWSREEL... hokey narration, but priceless footage of stars and film/TV productions from the 1960s... AMC used to sometimes run these as between-film filler in the 1990s)
More MUTUAL OF OMAHA'S ... WILD KINGDOM (got some R1 DVD releases through BCI/Eclipse, but I'd like to see more, especially more episodes from the 1960s and early 1970s, and in better condition, the audio, especially, sounds too murky/compressed a lot of the time)
More THIS IS YOUR LIFE (got a nice, multi-disc R1 collection several years ago, but there are still several choice episodes I'd still like to own)
More PLAYBOY'S PENTHOUSE and PLAYBOY AFTER DARK
(syndicated throughout the country in 1959-60, then again as a color series in 1968-70... the fake 'lounge lizard' party atmosphere is fun (you half expect to see some MAD MEN characters pop in at any moment) and some amazing musical guests frequently appear... a couple of R1 DVD sets were released several years ago, but I'd love to have more, especially the 1959-60 series, which are less-represented in the sets than the later color episodes)
So, what's on your 'Dream List'?
Sure, a few have come out over the years, like IN SEARCH OF..., VICTORY AT SEA, COSMOS, James Burke's CONNECTIONS and THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED... but it's amazing to me that Region 1/Region A hasn't had a release of THE UNDERSEA WORLD OF JACQUES COUSTEAU (though R2 got a whole-series release in 2011) and none of the classic NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIALS prior to 1982 are on DVD (one 1982 special on Egypt was released, but was an edited/altered copy from a 1990s rerun), even though oodles of post-2000 National Geo docs are readily available on disc.
A lot of this is simple nostalgia on my part, but these 1960s/1970s (and a few 1980s) series/specials had a certain class and gravitas to them, without the shallow flash and the constant ADD-ish push to "get on to the next thing" (or to the next of their endless commercial breaks) that a lot of their more modern counterparts regularly display; they were true events, back when most people watched the same stuff on 4 or 5 channels (at most), before cable TV really took over the landscape. I miss the grandeur, dynamism and sense of wonder that the best of these series regularly featured. Stentorian narrators like Alexander Scourby and Rod Serling, or old-school stars like Glenn Ford or Jack Palance acting as your hosts ... music scores by Leonard Rosenman, Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini... top-flight producers like David L. Wolper and Jack Haley, Jr.
Even the cheesier or more "dated" stuff is great to see as time capsules... people, places, technology and theories that are, in many cases, no longer with us and/or vastly different today. These work as both video "comfort food" and informational resources, both for what has remained timeless and for what had been superseded by further research or more sophisticate looks into their subjects.
Some of these can be readily seen right now, if you poke around on YouTube and the like, which is cool, but I'd sure like the opportunity to have hard copies on the shelf, not subject to the always-shifting whims of streaming services and rights holders, who can have them taken down at a moment's notice.
Unfortunately, official releases are probably a pipe dream for most or all of these. Some, especially the cinema-related series, would be a rights nightmare, with clips and music from myriad sources creating a mountain of legal wrangling and production costs, along the lines of WKRP and THE WONDER YEARS. I'm sure the actual market for a lot of these is miniscule, and not worth the effort to legally clear and manufacture.
So, this is more a frivolous exercise in "wouldn't it be nice if..." rather than an actual expectation that we'll see any of these as DVD/Blu sets, anytime soon. I'll throw in a few interview/variety series into the mix, too, since they seem to fit some of the same criteria.
Here's some of what I'd like to see, in an ideal world... and for those of you with foggy memories, or those of you who are young whippersnappers, born in the '80s/'90s/2000s, click on the titles to get sample peeks at what these were like:
THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN (from 1965-1986 (originally spun-off from ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS), celebrities from the worlds of film, tv, music and sports were filmed engaging in various outdoor activities, hosted (most famously) by Curt Gowdy)
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIALS (the 1960s & 1970s originals, back when they premiered on CBS, ABC and PBS)
WHEN HAVOC STRUCK (short series on historical disasters, both natural and man-made, hosted by Glenn Ford, back in his "Pa Kent" days)
RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! here's a 1st season promo
(I really loved this 1980s version, both as a young teen the time, and later, when Sci-Fi Channel re-ran it in the 1990s, though they edited it down)
BUSTER KEATON: A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW (3-part Thames/PBS mini-series from the 1980s, by Kevin Brownlow & David Gill, on the comedy genius)
THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILM SHOW (great 1980s UK series on cult movie makers, hosted by Jonathan Ross... ran for a brief time here in the USA on Discovery Channel, back when it was still worth a damn)
WILD WILD WORLD OF ANIMALS and closing (classic Time-Life nature series, focusing on animal survival, narrated by Cannon himself, the late, great William Conrad)
THAT'S HOLLYWOOD (syndicated off-shoot of the THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT films, narrated by Tom Bosley, focusing on a wider canvas than just Musicals... largely Fox-centric, as can be seen from the opening sequence, but featured clips from other studios, as well)
HOLLYWOOD AND THE STARS (the precursor to THAT'S HOLLYWOOD, produced by David L. Wolper and Jack Haley, Jr., narrated by Joseph Cotten)
THE BODY HUMAN (an Emmy-winning series of specials about the human body, airing between 1977 and 1984, produced by the National Geographic Society, but done separately from the regular National Geographic Specials)
LATER WITH BOB COSTAS (for my money, possibly the best of the one-on-one celebrity interview shows, running for 5 years, late '80s-early '90s, after Letterman on NBC, prior to the creation of LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN. Costas had interesting guests, asked good questions, and was less in love with the sound of his own voice than Dick Cavett, Charlie Rose and Tom Snyder, so you got to hear more of the guests' responses!)
HOLLYWOOD BACKSTAGE (a.k.a. HOLLYWOOD STAR NEWSREEL... hokey narration, but priceless footage of stars and film/TV productions from the 1960s... AMC used to sometimes run these as between-film filler in the 1990s)
More MUTUAL OF OMAHA'S ... WILD KINGDOM (got some R1 DVD releases through BCI/Eclipse, but I'd like to see more, especially more episodes from the 1960s and early 1970s, and in better condition, the audio, especially, sounds too murky/compressed a lot of the time)
More THIS IS YOUR LIFE (got a nice, multi-disc R1 collection several years ago, but there are still several choice episodes I'd still like to own)
More PLAYBOY'S PENTHOUSE and PLAYBOY AFTER DARK
(syndicated throughout the country in 1959-60, then again as a color series in 1968-70... the fake 'lounge lizard' party atmosphere is fun (you half expect to see some MAD MEN characters pop in at any moment) and some amazing musical guests frequently appear... a couple of R1 DVD sets were released several years ago, but I'd love to have more, especially the 1959-60 series, which are less-represented in the sets than the later color episodes)
So, what's on your 'Dream List'?