B&W Seasons of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie on DVD — Colored Versions or Urban Legend? (1 Viewer)

[LCD22]

Would there be someone “in the know” that could give an definitive answer on whether or not Sony’s release of the B&W seasons of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were the colorized versions or the original B&W?

Continue reading...

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Here you go

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/co...-creeks-bewitched-full-series-release.344996/

We went through this a couple years back, and had people turning off color, pulling caps from the old Columbia House VHSs, and the final determination is...

It didn't really matter, they all look the same, no matter what source was used.

That's not really an answer as to what was used, but it is an answer as to whether it's incorrect.

Read through the thread, though. It's interesting.

 

[Osato]

I’m on season 2 of Jeannie right now. Such a fun show and a fantastic cast!!!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Supposed the way they colorized the black and white seasons, the luminosity for each pixel was supposed to match the luminosity of the black and white originals. Not sure how that works, exactly, since a pixel with 100 percent saturation and 42 percent luminosity will be darker than a pixel with 0 percent saturation and 42 percent luminosity, once you remove the color.

 

[Larry Tate]

The Grey scaled B/W Bewitched DVD sets the first Two seasons.

The point is that Sony used a colorized turn the color off grey scale print for their B/W option on seasons one & two not the original print, if you have the colorized version & turn the color off then you get the exact same version as the B/W one that Sony offered, even though it is very different then the original version seen in the 1960's which you can see on the CH VHS tapes.

That is just Sony being cheap & not wanting to pay for two restored versions.

I don't consider the colors fake looking at all, in fact they in my view look very realistic as if they were filmed in color which creates a seamlessness as you go into the actual color filmed season 3.

Even N@N when they got the color episodes as well in 1998 i think it was, used the restored grey scale prints in showing the B/W episodes before the colorization took place & as such the B/W episodes clearly looked as they do now & different then they had in the early 1990's when they had used the original un-restored prints from the 1960's, the restoration process altered the B/W look from the original well before the colorization took place.

I thought they did a wonderful & overall superb & accurate job of colorizing Bewitched.

Of course if you get the first two seasons in Color you get them in B/W as well, all you have to do is turn off the color on your remote control for your TV & it is exactly the same grey scale as the B/W sets are.

The B/W sets are not an accurate replication of how Bewitched was originally seen in B/W in 1964 to 1966, if you want the original shadows, lighting, witchy feel, contrast and visual feel then you need to see original studio 16 mm prints or the Columbia House & Screen Gems VHS tapes which were done before the show was restored & remastered and used old 35 mm master prints that were made during the shows actual run from Fall 1964 thru the spring of 1966.

The Columbia House tapes are especially as the show was originally seen in the vintage sense with the same aesthetic quality's that were seen back in the 1960's.

So you really don't need to record or buy the shows again in B/W as you will have them already on your Color DVD's with the color turned off.

So i am a proponent of the Colorized episodes as it is a Two for One deal in effect, both Color & B/W.

 

[BobO'Link]

I don't consider the colors fake looking at all, in fact they in my view look very realistic as if they were filmed in color which creates a seamlessness as you go into the actual color filmed season 3.

Not to me. It's overall fairly good but just a bit off. You see evidence of colorization in almost every shot. Watch mouths. No color inside. While it's usually difficult to see color inside a mouth it's very obvious, to me, if the color is missing as it is with those prints. Also watch fades to black, cross fades, and/or shots with swish pans. You lose color in all of those. You'll see the image go BW towards the end of a fade to black and to partial grey scale in the middle of cross fades. Swish pans can lose all color when done fast enough.

I grew tired of turning the color off on my colorized versions, which I'd purchased for the sole reason to have both options, so purchased BW copies. Both Bewitched and IDOJ.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Me TV is showing the early black & white episodes of Gilligan's Island in color. I wished they would not do that.

 

[bmasters9]

Me TV is showing the early black & white episodes of Gilligan's Island in color. I wished they would not do that.

Sacrilege, it is, that colorization!

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

Me TV is showing the early black & white episodes of Gilligan's Island in color. I wished they would not do that.

Not only that, but the image is now zoomed to fill the 16x9 frame. Those old colorized episodes didn't look fantastic in standard def 4x3, but they really look grungy zoomed in on that already blurry, low bandwidth station.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Not only that, but the image is now zoomed to fill the 16x9 frame. Those old colorized episodes didn't look fantastic in standard def 4x3, but they really look grungy zoomed in on that already blurry, low bandwidth station.

Those poor castaways. They suffered on that Island and now on tv reruns.

 

[MartinP.]

Sacrilege, it is, that colorization!

The Gilligan's Island season or colorization in general?

I really don't mind it as long as both versions are available. I've only seen a couple of the Gilligan's Island
colorized episodes. They could probably use an update.

Come to think of it, CBS didn't do an I Love Lucy Special this spring with new colorized episodes.
Anyone know why?

 

[bmasters9]

The Gilligan's Island season or colorization in general?

Colorization-- what was B/W should stay B/W (at least IMO).

 

[The Obsolete Man]

The Gilligan's Island season or colorization in general?

I really don't mind it as long as both versions are available. I've only seen a couple of the Gilligan's Island
colorized episodes. They could probably use an update.

Come to think of it, CBS didn't do an I Love Lucy Special this spring with new colorized episodes.
Anyone know why?

I thought they only did those at Christmas.

 

[MartinP.]

^^^

You're the victim of incorrect thinking! Heh!

The past three years they've called them I Love Lucy Superstar Specials and aired colorized episodes with famous celebrities in them. Last year, May 19th, the episodes were the Hollywood episodes with Harpo Marx and Van Johnson. If you recall, around the same time last May, CBS also aired two Dick Van Dyke colorized episodes.

I tried looking up something about this and found many queries about it but only one thing with any information. It's a post on the Lucy Lounge where the poster "tjw" wrote this last May:

Sorry to report that there will NOT be a colorized I LOVE LUCY special on CBS this spring... However, we are at work colorizing two additional LUCY episodes, one of which will almost definitely be used as part of this year's I LOVE LUCY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL... The other will either be used as part of a spring special NEXT year, or held for the following Christmas...Just wanted you to know...

I am assuming "tjw" stands for Thomas J. Watson who works on many Lucy related things.

 

[darkrock17]

Does anyone know who did the colorization for the Lucy specials? Could it of been done by this person who did a fantastic job on The Addams Family.

 

[Matt Hough]

This is a fantastic job on The Addams Family. I never would have thought it was colorized.

 

[darkrock17]

This is a fantastic job on The Addams Family. I never would have thought it was colorized.

That person also did a fantastic job on The Munsters as well. If you had never seen either of these series before and you saw these clips, you would swear that they were always in color.





This person also did a few clips of The Lucy Show Season 1 in color.

 

[mrz7]

CBS has stated to one other poster on some other topic here on the forum that they will not be doing a "Superstar Special" of "I Love Lucy" this year. They really didn't give a reason why (Budgeting maybe? Low Ratings on last special?)…..but they did state that there will be another colorized "I Love Lucy" episode during Christmas this year along with the "Christmas Episode" they do every year. I don't recall if they mentioned which new "I Love Lucy" episode was being colorized.

 

[mrz7]

Sorry I was going to write something about "Bewitched"/"I Dream Of Jeannie"/"Gilligan's Island" black and white episodes, but got off track on The "I Love Lucy" Specials. I don't mind watching the black and white episodes. I know some of the younger generation (friends of mine who have kids in their teens) don't like the black and white episodes. They don't understand why they would film these shows back then in black and white. So I do try my best to explain to them on some of the history on why some shows were filmed in black and white vs. color. And for me, I think that is what bothers me about colorization of these shows. Because your kind of revamping their "history". Shows like "Bewitched", "I Dream Of Jeannie", "Gilligan's Island", "Lost In Space", "The Andy Griffith Show" are some of the more popular shows that started out in black and white for the first one or two seasons (in the case of "Andy Griffith Show" the first five seasons were in black and white, which is also what I call the "Barney Fife" years, cause Don Knotts left the show coincidently before the show started filming in color). So there is some "history" to these shows that I personally think is missing on the younger generation. I prefer watching these shows in black and white, as they were originally done. I don't mind watching colorized versions of a show. In fact I am a HUGE fan of "I Love Lucy", which was never filmed in color. The new colorized versions, though sometimes a little too cartoonish with Lucy's red or should I say "orange" hair, are fun to watch and kind of gives new life to the younger generations of the talents of Ms. Lucille Ball. I just prefer that the history is still kept in tacked for the black and white versions, which CBS/Paramount does on the DVD releases of the colorized versions of "I Love Lucy" by giving both versions. That's just my two cents on the subject.

 

[Ron Lee Green]

I think colorization is good way to introduce new, younger viewers to an old b&w show they wouldn't normally watch.
I grew up on b&w reruns, so I find it distracting because I'm already familiar with them. It brings a new aspect to the viewing experience. I spend more time analyzing the color choices instead of paying attention to the story and performances.