Canadian Alf: The Complete Series any different? (1 Viewer)

[Randy*S]

Anyone know if the Canadian release of Alf: The Complete Series is any different from our US Lion's Gate DVD sets?
Thanks!
Randy*S

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I believe that importing from Germany is the only way to get complete, almost totally unbutchered ALF episodes.

 

[MatthewA]

I put together a mostly complete set by buying seasons 1 and 3 from Japan and seasons 2 and 4 from Germany. The Gilligan's Island reunion episode in season 2 is the only one edited, though.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

I put together a mostly complete set by buying seasons 1 and 3 from Japan and seasons 2 and 4 from Germany. The Gilligan's Island reunion episode in season 2 is the only one edited, though.

A couple of questions:

1) Are you aware of the fact that they changed up "Try To Remember" a bit, because parents groups complained about how a boy imitated ALF getting electrified, despite ALF's warnings at the end of the original broadcast?

2) Why would Paul Fusco throw away the original network master of "Somewhere Over the Rerun"?

 

[MatthewA]

A couple of questions:

1) Are you aware of the fact that they changed up "Try To Remember" a bit, because parents groups complained about how a boy imitated ALF getting electrified, despite ALF's warnings at the end of the original broadcast?

2) Why would Paul Fusco throw away the original network master of "Somewhere Over the Rerun"?

1. I didn't know that. I would have been four years old when that happened, and it's been years since I saw that episode. That was one of the ones on "The ALF Files" DVD from VSC, where all the episodes were network-length. Why couldn't they have gotten the rights to the whole thing instead of Lionsgate?

2. After the debacle of the American DVDs, I have no earthly idea.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

1. I didn't know that. I would have been four years old when that happened, and it's been years since I saw that episode. That was one of the ones on "The ALF Files" DVD from VSC, where all the episodes were network-length. Why couldn't they have gotten the rights to the whole thing instead of Lionsgate?

They changed the plot to ALF bumping his head. Originally ALF electrified himself by using an Electric blender in the bathtub; luckily, the boy who imitated what ALF did survived. And this was the PSA that originally ended this episode.

 

[cpalmer2k]

I put together a mostly complete set by buying seasons 1 and 3 from Japan and seasons 2 and 4 from Germany. The Gilligan's Island reunion episode in season 2 is the only one edited, though.

Out of curiosity what are the differences between the Japanese versions of 1 & 2 and the German versions? Do you know which episodes were edited in the German sets that aren't in the Japanese sets?

 

[MatthewA]

The Japanese versions of season 2 and 4 are inexplicably 21 1/2-minute syndicated versions; the Japanese website for Warner Home Video had the listings of running times for all four seasons. So unless you had the foresight to tape it when it was new or on Odyssey when they managed to get the uncut versions,* you'll have to switch between PAL and NTSC, and of course the show was shot on tape, so something has to give with the PAL-to-NTSC conversion.

The uncut version of the Gilligan reunion episode still existed in an acceptable-for-broadcast form as late as 1999; IIRC it was shown that way on Odyssey before it became The Hallmark Channel; they even had the "In Stereo Where Available" animation** with a tiny version of the Odyssey logo carefully plastered over the NBC Peacock.

*And wouldn't you know it, season 4's "Make 'Em Laugh," the one episode I actually taped off NBC is the one episode for which Lionsgate actually bothered to find a network-length version. That was also the last episode before The Simpsons, which poached some of their writers who didn't end up in rehab, began as a regular series.
**What I wouldn't give to find THAT in the clear.

 

[battlebeast]

Why on earth would they release this series AT ALL on disc in a cut form???

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Why on earth would they release this series AT ALL on disc in a cut form???

Well, sad as it is to say, most people don't know or give a damn about syndicated edits, so the cheapest option for Lion's Gate was probably to use the syndicated masters they could cheaply and easily get their hands on, especially since the whole "there are no useable network edits available" excuse was blown out of the water in R2 just a few years later.

Basically, they could make their money off of the average person who saw the sets and bought them, because the people who care about things like edits aren't a large enough group to matter.

 

[battlebeast]

I hate syndicated tv. Especially after I watched MASH on DVD for the first time. The stuff they cut out... Made whole episodes make
More sense.

 

[cpalmer2k]

The Japanese versions of season 2 and 4 are inexplicably 21 1/2-minute syndicated versions; the Japanese website for Warner Home Video had the listings of running times for all four seasons. So unless you had the foresight to tape it when it was new or on Odyssey when they managed to get the uncut versions,* you'll have to switch between PAL and NTSC, and of course the show was shot on tape, so something has to give with the PAL-to-NTSC conversion.

The uncut version of the Gilligan reunion episode still existed in an acceptable-for-broadcast form as late as 1999; IIRC it was shown that way on Odyssey before it became The Hallmark Channel; they even had the "In Stereo Where Available" animation** with a tiny version of the Odyssey logo carefully plastered over the NBC Peacock.

*And wouldn't you know it, season 4's "Make 'Em Laugh," the one episode I actually taped off NBC is the one episode for which Lionsgate actually bothered to find a network-length version. That was also the last episode before The Simpsons, which poached some of their writers who didn't end up in rehab, began as a regular series.
**What I wouldn't give to find THAT in the clear.

So just to clarify, does buying the combination of Japanese/German sets offer any additional footage or would you get the same uncut episodes (with the noted exceptions) by just buying the German complete series box set now? I was just sort of confused as to why you bought two seasons from Germany and two from Japan versus all four seasons from Germany. It makes sense to skip the two Japanese sets with edits.

I want to order a few of the Nick series from Amazon.de, and I try to group my orders together when I can. I was thinking of picking up Alf at the same time.

 

[Neil Brock]

Why on earth would they release this series AT ALL on disc in a cut form???

Because its a lot easier to take a set of Betacam tapes to transfer than to dig out old 1-inch tapes and find a facility to do transfers.

 

[chrislong2]

So just to clarify, does buying the combination of Japanese/German sets offer any additional footage or would you get the same uncut episodes (with the noted exceptions) by just buying the German complete series box set now? I was just sort of confused as to why you bought two seasons from Germany and two from Japan versus all four seasons from Germany. It makes sense to skip the two Japanese sets with edits.

I want to order a few of the Nick series from Amazon.de, and I try to group my orders together when I can. I was thinking of picking up Alf at the same time.

I bought the complete German set and they are all unedited (except for the one or two eps mentioned). The only thing that annoys me is that the whole look of the show/the colors seem more pale (not as vibrant) as the Lionsgate syndicated sets do. The Lionsgate sets LOOK a lot better. But they are cut up to no end. So it makes a frustrating proposition: watch the complete show in just "ok" quality, or watch the syndicated/cut show in good quality. I always go for the complete/unedited, but it frustrates me every time. Since Japan is NTSC like the U.S. (not PAL like Germany), the aforementioned unedited S1 & S3 are probably better quality than the German set's S1&S3. Tho I imagine it also costs quite a bit more to buy them individually from Japan & Germany than just buying 1 complete set from Germany (which I recall being fairly inexpensive).

 

[cpalmer2k]

I bought the complete German set and they are all unedited (except for the one or two eps mentioned). .

Good point about the NTSC thing. I didn't consider that. Are the on screen words in German on the German version, or in English? I remember seeing a reference above that on the Japanese ones the credits are in Japanese.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

"For Your Eyes Only" is also edited. Either they tried but couldn't, or they chose not to licence it, but the scene where ALF and the blind girl sing along to The Chipmunks' "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" and "The Chipmunk Song" is missing.

 

[chrislong2]

Good point about the NTSC thing. I didn't consider that. Are the on screen words in German on the German version, or in English? I remember seeing a reference above that on the Japanese ones the credits are in Japanese.

They're in English.

 

[MatthewA]

The irony of Odyssey getting the network versions is that now the Hallmark Channel is one of the worst basic cable networks for syndicated cuts of the shows they rerun. Why Lionsgate didn't just get those tapes is beyond me. Add to that the fact that VSC could get uncut versions of the three hour-long episodes on their one-shot compilation.

It's easy to tell which version you're getting for the first two seasons; the theme song was in the key of D in the network run, and the syndicated opening lowered it to the key of C and shortened it by removing the shot where Kate blocks ALF from the refrigerator. Interestingly, when the season 1 theme was released on CD on "Television's Greatest Hits Volume 6: Remote Control," they slowed it down to the key of C but it presented the whole song as it aired originally.

 

[DaneClark]

The version of "Make 'em Laugh" on the American DVD is NOT completely uncut...the first few seconds of the episode are missing, probably to cover up the NBC "In Stereo Where Available" logo. This kind of proves my theory that that logo was part of the reason why Lionsgate didn't want to use the network masters. Every uncut master that Fusco has seems to have that mark- it was on the ALF Files DVD, it was on Odyssey, and it was on WGN America. They can't just use a version of the opening credits that doesn't have that mark because almost every ALF episode has a cold opening before the credits, and on many episodes the very beginning of the cold opening was one of the things that was cut in syndication. Warner Bros probably has uncut logo - free NTSC international masters in their vaults, but Fusco might have had to pay WB to have access to those masters. He owns the show, but I think that you still need to pay whoever is storing a set of masters in order to use them. I bet that the original 1" masters haven't even been touched since the original network run.

 

[dawnshadow]

Is the best way to get the complete series still Seasons 1 and 4 from Japan and Seasons 2 and 3 from Germany?

Anyone have info on the Australian and Italian DVDs? And is it actually confirmed that Seasons 2 and 3 from Japan are edited? Because that wouldn’t really make any sense...