A DVD set of failed/'lost' pilots: why not? (1 Viewer)

[Charles Ellis]

What do these shows have in common?
Three's Company
Star Trek
The Big Bang Theory
All in the Family
Peyton Place
The Munsters
The Mothers-in-Law
General Hospital
Leave it to Beaver
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Dr. Kildare
Gilligan's Island
Wheel of Fortune

Simple: each show began with a pilot that was rejected by the network(s) for one reason or another. Yet each show was given a second chance to create a pilot with changes (script, actors) and those shows made it to the small screen on its second try. But each year there are even more pilots for shows that never got to be fully produced, let alone seen by the public outside network executives and some test audiences. I feel someday someone should release a box set of failed pilots. I bet the vaults at Universal, Fox, Warners, Sony/Columbia, Paramount/CBS, MGM/UA, and Disney must have hundreds of unsold pilots going back decades. Not surprisingly some of those failed pilots featured future stars or Hollywood legends. It's rare for a rejected pilot to be put out UNLESS a redone version succeeds: the box sets for Gilligan's Island and Star Trek include their initial, rejected pilots and the redone and recast pilots that started those shows. Sometimes a failed pilot based on a hit movie is put out with the film on DVD/Blu-ray: you can see the failed TV spinoffs of Blazing Saddles and Meet Me in St. Louis with the films. Some become legendary in spite of their failures: the most famous case being Lookwell starring the late Adam West and written by Conan O'Brien. Otherwise, thousands of pilots are gathering dust in vaults. Once clearance issues have been settled, it should be relatively easy to put out these orphan pieces of TV history for a whole new audience at a low cost.

There could be a potential gold mine in these 'lost' shows- if done right. Perhaps with the passage of history the visions of some TV producers/writers/directors will be vindicated with a second look- this time by the public!

 

[MartinP.]

I remember that the defunct TRIO channel used to show some pilots occasionally. It seems to me when I was growing up that the networks often would show some pilots that didn't get picked up, during the summer. Right now I'm remembering one with married couple Fred Gwynne and Abbe Dalton who ran a department store in the 1890's. Wonder what that was called?

 

[KPmusmag]

I would buy that in an instant.

 

[Jack P]

We've had these failed pilots also released on DVD.

"Two's Company" (1965-Marlo Thomas sitcom about a young married couple. In one of the "That Girl" DVD sets)
"Man In The Square Suit" (1966-Unsold Jack Chertok sitcom in the bonus section of "My Favorite Martian" S3)
"The Time Tunnel" (2002-Failed reimagining in Time Tunnel bonus section)

A S1 "Love American Style" has a failed pilot for a series based on "Barefoot In The Park" in one episode (they would try again with the same script several years later for an all-black cast version that did sell but didn't last).

 

[Guy Foulard]

What do these shows have in common?
Three's Company
Star Trek
The Big Bang Theory
All in the Family
Peyton Place
The Munsters
The Mothers-in-Law
General Hospital
Leave it to Beaver
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Dr. Kildare
Gilligan's Island
Wheel of Fortune

Simple: each show began with a pilot that was rejected by the network(s) for one reason or another. !

Is the Dick van Dyke show pilot the one that starred Carl Reiner in the lead role ("Head of the Family")? That one was included in the Season One set of TDVDS.

 

[Richard V]

Lookwell with the late, great Adam West has been floating around the Net for a long time. Not sure if ever officially released on DVD though.

 

[oldtvshowbuff]

I remember that the defunct TRIO channel used to show some pilots occasionally. It seems to me when I was growing up that the networks often would show some pilots that didn't get picked up, during the summer. Right now I'm remembering one with married couple Fred Gwynne and Abbe Dalton who ran a department store in the 1890's. Wonder what that was called?

I believe that was "Anderson & Company" and a clip from that unsold pilot was seen in an A&E Biography episode on Gwynne. I have it among the bonus features in The Munsters Complete Series DVD set.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

TV movies and unsold 30-minute pilots by Paramount Television (from 1969-1976) that are on my grail list:
Seven in Darkness
The Silent Gun
Quarantined
Two Boys
The Murdocks and the McClays
Weekend of Terror
Assault on the Wayne
Dr. Cook's Garden
Escape
Terror in the Sky
God Bless Mr. Ferguson
Women in Chains
Wheeler and Murdoch
The New Healers
Night of Terror
The Heist
The Weekend Nun
Poor Devil
Call to Danger
A Time for Love
Catch-22 (TV)
Egan
Paramount Presents (a rare 1974 behind-the-scenes TV documentary seen on ABC hosted by Gloria Swanson, featuring numerous clips and highlights that document the studio's 62nd anniversary as a theatrical film company; such highlights include some of its then new films like Chinatown and The Godfather: Part II, and also featuring footage from Paramount Pictures' 61st anniversary in 1973, which was also the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Adolph Zukor)
The Underground Man
Locusts
Delancey Street: The Crisis Within
Wives
The Lives of Jenny Dolan
The Killer Who Wouldn't Die
Law and Order (1976; not to be confused with the 1990-2010 series of the same name produced by Universal Television)
Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby

If any of the above have been recently released on DVD, I will cross out such entries from this list.

~Ben

 

[Neil Brock]

Here's a simple answer: such a set would be expensive to produce as all elements would have to be mastered and sales would be minimal.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Here's a simple answer: such a set would be expensive to produce as all elements would have to be mastered and sales would be minimal.

That may explain why Paramount did not release a similar series of multiple VHS tapes back in the 1980s under the Marquee Collection...

~Ben

 

[Ethan Riley]

Here's a simple answer: such a set would be expensive to produce as all elements would have to be mastered and sales would be minimal.

Wasn't there a lost pilot based on "Grumpy Old Men?"

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Rights issues might be tricky on them, too.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Rights issues might be tricky on them, too.

I consider the 1974 "Paramount Presents" documentary to be the holy grail of them all... a nice in-depth view of the history of Paramount Pictures up from its beginnings in 1912 up to 1974, which also featured clips from 1973, which marked the 100th anniversary of Paramount's founding father Adolph Zukor.

~Ben

 

[phenri]

TV movies and unsold 30-minute pilots by Paramount Television (from 1969-1976) that are on my grail list:
Seven in Darkness
The Silent Gun
Quarantined
Two Boys
The Murdocks and the McClays
Weekend of Terror
Assault on the Wayne
Dr. Cook's Garden
Escape
Terror in the Sky
God Bless Mr. Ferguson
Women in Chains
Wheeler and Murdoch
The New Healers
Night of Terror
The Heist
The Weekend Nun
Poor Devil
Call to Danger
A Time for Love
Catch-22 (TV)
Egan
Paramount Presents (a rare 1974 behind-the-scenes TV documentary seen on ABC hosted by Gloria Swanson, featuring numerous clips and highlights that document the studio's 62nd anniversary as a theatrical film company; such highlights include some of its then new films like Chinatown and The Godfather: Part II, and also featuring footage from Paramount Pictures' 61st anniversary in 1973, which was also the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Adolph Zukor)
The Underground Man
Locusts
Delancey Street: The Crisis Within
Wives
The Lives of Jenny Dolan
The Killer Who Wouldn't Die
Law and Order (1976; not to be confused with the 1990-2010 series of the same name produced by Universal Television)
Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby

If any of the above have been recently released on DVD, I will cross out such entries from this list.

~Ben

I had to look up Seven in Darkness to find its significance. Its the first ABC Movie of the Week and the first Paramount made-for-TV movie. This should have been released on DVD by now.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

I had to look up Seven in Darkness to find its significance. Its the first ABC Movie of the Week and the first Paramount made-for-TV movie. This should have been released on DVD by now.

I am hoping this release will be licensed to VEI!

~Ben

 

[MartinP.]

I believe that was "Anderson & Company" and a clip from that unsold pilot was seen in an A&E Biography episode on Gwynne. I have it among the bonus features in The Munsters Complete Series DVD set.

I didn't expect an answer to that question! Thanks so much. For some reason I was intrigued by that idea at the time; a department store from another era.

I tried googling info about this pilot. Two entries came up from newspapers(dot)com showing that this was aired on May 12, 1969, at 8 p.m. on NBC. One newspaper was the Decatur Herald and the other Florida Today.

You have to have a membership to access seeing the entire newspaper page, which I don't, but the Decatur Herald entry appears to have a whole article about the episode and a picture of Fred Gwynne with a young boy who played his son. Apparently "Anderson & Company" refers both to the department store and Anderson's large brood of children. It took place in New York City.

Now I want to see that pilot again.

 

[Charles Ellis]

There was also that Sherlock Holmes parody Paul Lynde did in the mid-60s (it still exists and was filmed in color) that was very close to being picked up but for an unfortunate scandal that implicated him: a friend of Lynde's died in a drunken fall off the balcony of a hotel room Lynde was staying in. Apparently he was cleared since some cops actually were passing by when the fall took place, but the scandal caused the project to be scrapped.

 

[Stencil]

I remember that the defunct TRIO channel used to show some pilots occasionally. It seems to me when I was growing up that the networks often would show some pilots that didn't get picked up, during the summer. Right now I'm remembering one with married couple Fred Gwynne and Abbe Dalton who ran a department store in the 1890's. Wonder what that was called?

Oh wow. I remember seeing that. They had a large family and he brought this new fangled device called a bicycle home. I actually thought the Brady Bunch was this show until I realized it didn't take place in the 1890s.lol

 

[bmasters9]

You have to have a membership to access seeing the entire newspaper page, which I don't, but the Decatur Herald entry appears to have a whole article about the episode and a picture of Fred Gwynne with a young boy who played his son. Apparently "Anderson & Company" refers both to the department store and Anderson's large brood of children. It took place in New York City.

That's what I don't like about newspapers.com-- that's why I'm even afraid to try it for the 14 days they allow you to, because I'm worried that the subscription will be expensive as all get out.

 

[Jack P]

Well this is interesting. A lost failed pilot from the US is getting a release in the UK because it was the first attempt at an American version of a hit British show. We're more familiar with the one that made it in 1972.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B079ZSVMSY/comedyguide-21/