Complete Series before DVD/Blu-Ray (1 Viewer)

[cpalmer2k]

The whole TV on DVD/Blu-Ray thing has spoiled all of us I think. I was thinking back this week to what it was like before DVDs. How many people made it your mission back in the old VHS days to collect every episode of a series, or multiple series, by recording them off TV or using places like Columbia House? I remember trying to record every episode of "Andy Griffith" on VHS, and did record many tapes full of "Mama's Family". I know every episode of I Love Lucy was actually released on VHS by Columbia House.

 

[Jasper70]

In the early 80’s when we had our first VCR I recorded a lot, mainly Star Trek, Miami Vice and other various shows. Because I was young and tapes weren’t cheap I always used the slowest speed to get as many episodes on one tape. I shudder now to think about the quality lol or lack there of.

 

[mrz7]

The whole TV on DVD/Blu-Ray thing has spoiled all of us I think. I was thinking back this week to what it was like before DVDs. How many people made it your mission back in the old VHS days to collect every episode of a series, or multiple series, by recording them off TV or using places like Columbia House? I remember trying to record every episode of "Andy Griffith" on VHS, and did record many tapes full of "Mama's Family". I know every episode of I Love Lucy was actually released on VHS by Columbia House.

In addition to "I Love Lucy" being completed by Columbia House on VHS...…"The Honeymooners" (The Classic 39) and "Soap" were also completed...….I collected every single one of these VHS tapes for all 3 series!!!!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

As a kid, I always wanted the complete Star Trek original series VHS set but obviously had no way to afford it.

So, earlier this year, purely for nostalgia, I treated myself to a set.

 

[Jack P]

I only did it with four shows. "Battlestar Galactica", "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (thanks to a multi-night Nick at Nite marathon, circa 1991), "Columbo" and "Ellery Queen."

 

[mark-edk]

I only did it with four shows. "Battlestar Galactica", "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (thanks to a multi-night Nick at Nite marathon, circa 1991), "Columbo" and "Ellery Queen."

You must have excellent taste, as I did two of your four shows: Battlestar and Ellery Queen. I did quite a few others too: Breaking Away, Eischied, UNSUB, She-Wolf of London, Space: Above and Beyond, and a show I liked so much I made a website about it: VR.5. Later I did Green Hornet (from Encore satellite). Luckily most of these were short-run shows or else I'd have to buy tapes by the gross. Some of these that were saved on S-VHS or SuperBeta actually made pretty decent DVD-Rs. Some incomplete shows: That's Hollywood! (all but a handful), Babylon 5 (gave up, couldn't afford that many tapes), two Sherlock Holmes shows from Sheldon Reynolds, and several seasons of The Avengers.

Another project that occupied roughly 15-20 cassettes was 30+ hours of tv series opening titles and closing credits. This was such an intensive project that I saved to DVD-R ASAP because I feared the various Beta, Super-Beta, and S-VHS tapes would eventually develop playback problems. That had already happened when I did the transfers (several tapes wouldn't track cleanly), and I had to scrounge around for additional decks to complete the transfers. Then I boiled them all down to 24 mp4 files so I can stream them at will. (My ultimate goal is to re-rip the DVDs, put all the themes in some sort of orderly groupings or sequence, use iMovie to clean up the audio and video, then save them all back to new DVDs and mp4 collections. Realistically, I don't think that's ever going to get done.)

 

[BobO'Link]

I purchased commercial VHS for Star Trek: TOS via a Columbia House subscription (mine set looks like the one Josh purchased - but all mine have been opened). Everything else was tapped off air. That was partly due to the expense, partly availability, and partly the fragile nature of video tape. ST:TOS was an exception I made as it wasn't being aired in syndication in my area, the episodes were uncut, and it's in my Top 10 All-time Favorites.

I collected via off-air tapings:
The Bob Newhart Show
'Allo 'Allo
Fawlty Towers

I started ST:TNG but was so disgusted with it after S1 that I stopped and recorded over all the tapes.

 

[MartinP.]

The Monkees was available in a VHS box set (shaped like a portable television).

On hindsight, I unfortunately purchased every single VHS tape of Columbia House's I LOVE LUCY series, including the special VHS's of the pilot, the Babalu musical program (I forget exactly what that was) and the special "Christmas" episode VHS. (The Christmas episode box had Lucy as Santa on it.) When Columbia House started these releases in 1985 they were about $45 a pop. ($39.95 + shipping.) 60+ volumes of this were a real pain in terms of space and I was astounded to figure out I may have spent between 2-3 thousand dollars on these tapes! (Ugh!)

I did enjoy receiving them and later on a friend from Britain, who had never seen many Lucy shows, and I watched the entire series in order with these tapes. The episodes were not at all in order on these cassettes and you had to spend time finding them etc., as well as FF'ing or rewinding them to the right locations. But, hey. Whatever. I finally tried selling them to little interest and got $100. But I had to get rid of them at that point.

By the way, I don't think that semi-colorized opening before the menu (the people were colorized, but not the backgrounds) on these tapes was ever put onto any of the DVD releases, so Lucy fans could keep it.

 

[bmasters9]

As a kid, I always wanted the complete Star Trek original series VHS set but obviously had no way to afford it.

So, earlier this year, purely for nostalgia, I treated myself to a set.

View attachment 59871

Wow! Seems like you have all of Trek canon, in more ways than one.

 

[Likecats]

I finished Star Trek on VHS in 1998, and The Honeymooners in 1999, I finished Gilligan's Island in 2003, I Dream of Jeanne in 2003, Leave It to Beaver in 2005, and Bewitched in 2006 before getting them on DVD through recordings I made, I only had Bewitched season one at the time. I have the complete Petticoat Junction, seasons 1-3 on DVD and the rest recorded from TVLand, Me TV and YouTube, I recorded Tate on VHS I recorded off YouTube.

 

[LouA]

Columbia House gave us a ton of old shows. Besides the ones already mentioned , Untouchables, Beverly Hillbillies , Gunsmoke , Have Gun Will Travel, Adventures Of Superman , Lost In Space , Perry Mason, Green Acres , Gilligan's Island , Rawhide , Burns And Allen (true -they did release about 20 tapes) Maverick, and Twilight Zone . I'm sure I missed some. All came in large boxes that took up more shelf space than regular VHS releases . Can you believe that was only 20 years ago!

 

[Harry-N]

I got my first VHS machine in late 1978. Recording every episode of any series was a non-starter because of the cost of blank tapes. I still recall that Fotomat had the best deal on blanks. $20.95 plus tax, which in Pennsylvania came to 6% for a total of $22.21.

Yes, tapes were that expensive. And at that time there weren't a whole lot of choices. You could get them in a department store or a camera store for around $25 - plus tax, so the $22.21 seemed like a good deal.

Gradually, over the next few years, tape prices started to moderate a bit, and you might be able to get a case of 10 or 12 for 50 or 60 dollars. These were actually great gift items for us hobbyists. Having a large bunch of blank tapes made it so we didn't have to erase our stuff so quickly.

My first forays into taping and "owning" any TV shows had to concentrate around these few:

M*A*S*H - running in syndication, I'd collected a few that I really liked, and as the show was still running on CBS, I'd tape some of those too - particularly the special ones like Radar's farewell, the "Interview", and the real-time clock episode.

STAR TREK - these were really hard to do for me, given the time that it aired - and I really wanted them without commercials. I got a couple from Philly's channel 48 - and then they dumped the show and channel 17 picked it up, and the prints looked so much worse! I didn't have the heart to collect too many.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - I saved quite a few of these from ABC as they aired. I recall that they started in bunches of two and three part episodes on Sunday nights, and then spread the rest out over weeks where there were no special Sunday night events. I didn't get them all, but saved a few of them.

THE OUTER LIMITS - one of our Philly stations was airing this series and I saved a few of my favorites.

Then, our handy Fotomat began a program where they'd rent out tapes to customers. You'd call their toll-free number, reserve a tape at a specified location, and drive-up after work to pick up your movie, take it home, and bring it back within the specified time. It was a decent model, but after a couple of years, the idea went belly-up - but they had a ton of tapes that they were selling second hand.

STAR TREK again:
I had rented a few of the STAR TREK tapes - each one had two episodes, and for the day, were nicely remastered. They certainly looked a heck of a lot better than the films running on local UHF. So when the opportunity presented itself, I bought the five tapes that they had, giving me ten of the best episodes of the series in pristine quality. Which only made me want the rest.

Paramount then began to issue the rest. This time in single-episode tapes, ten at a time. They retailed for $15 MSRP, but could be found for $10 or $11 if you did your homework or knew someone in the business. I eagerly threw down that first $100+ and bought the first 10 episodes. And through gifts, and spending wisely over the next couple of years, I assembled the whole series. For one of the sets of episodes, a Blockbuster in our area had James Doohan come by to autograph your purchase, and I got his autograph on one of them. That tape survives in my collection, but all the others went the way of the dinosaur after DVDs came out.

THE OUTER LIMITS again:
MGM followed suit and issued all of the episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS on VHS and I bought those too. I remember the first three or four were in those puffy plastic holders, while the balance came in standard cardboard slipcases.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE:
My only foray into Columbia House Video. I got suckered into buying one of their tapes with four great episodes on it for just a couple of bucks, and future tapes would come each month or so with four more episodes for about $25 each. I recall rationalizing that I'd be getting these lovely remastered episodes for about $6 each, which seemed like a decent deal, considering how much STAR TREK and OUTER LIMITS had cost. These were the heady days of working and the decent money was easy to come by and easy to spend.

As blank tapes became cheaper, I also continued to tape episodes of shows that I liked and save the really good ones, along with the movies I was collecting from HBO. I'd always look for that extra half-hour at the end of a movie that was only 90 minutes and then use the tape in LP speed to grab a couple of episodes of something or other to fill out the tape. I had to keep a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet to keep track of it all.

All the while this was going on, there was still one series that I longed to own on videotape - THE TIME TUNNEL. But no-one seemed to offer it, and even when SciFi ran it at start-up, my cable company didn't offer that channel. Then I got wind of Columbia House offering THE TIME TUNNEL - but it wasn't in any of my brochures. I checked them carefully as they came in the mail, and even went so far as to call them on the phone and ask about it. Each time, I got the response that they did not offer THE TIME TUNNEL. Ohm they had LOST IN SPACE, but they claimed no TIME TUNNEL.

There's photographic evidence that they were LYING through their teeth. Why was I being denied THE TIME TUNNEL? I'd have happily paid their ridiculous rates to own that series, but they claimed they knew nothing about it and didn't offer it. That image above is from a current ebay auction so it will disappear someday, but you see the Columbia House logo in the lower left.

These VHS tapes - I've never seen one in person - but I've heard they don't look all that great - STILL sell for pretty big bucks on ebay. I'd love to know what the deal was here, but Columbia House made an enemy of me and I think I wished them into the cornfield, because they went out of business!

I also got wind of THE TIME TUNNEL being available on two Japanese LaserDisc sets that was at a price point that Bill Gates balked at. Needless to say, I never saw one of those either.

I did manage to get the SciFi channel at some point in the early 2000s and they did a run of THE TIME TUNNEL on weekday mornings, where I managed to tape all 30 of them. Later on, I got a DVD recorder and fastidiously edited the show's commercials out and had a decent full set of the syndicated episodes of the show. Five minutes after I finished THAT project, the show was announced on DVD.

 

[BobO'Link]

Columbia House ran both the mail-order subscription service - a tape a month of a specific series for a specified price - and also a VHS club which operated like the record & CD clubs. It's quite possible they offered some episodes of The Time Tunnel via the club and not the subscription service. They'd sometimes gauge interest in a series by offering a few episodes via the club. If they sold well enough and/or had lots of people asking for more they'd transition it to the subscription service.

 

[cpalmer2k]

As a kid, I always wanted the complete Star Trek original series VHS set but obviously had no way to afford it.

So, earlier this year, purely for nostalgia, I treated myself to a set.

Ironically I've done the same thing with "I Love Lucy". I own all the volumes of the Columbia House VHS series.

Our local Waldenbooks store stocked VHS releases of The Andy Griffith Show- they called them "Double Features" with two episodes per tape. These were sourced mainly from other 16mm syndication prints of the show and often you would spot things left behind from the original broadcasts like the longer version of the closing credits, or a set of credits with the "Post" logo included. I happen to come across a huge lot of these on eBay a few years ago and bought them. I now own about 70 of these Andy Griffith Tapes. I'm missing just two of the "Double Feature" tapes and have a lot of the "Four Episode" releases. I remember those fondly because a local video rental store stocked most of them in the 1990's. I use to rent them constantly. I've transferred some of those over to DVD and will still pop one in occasionally just to reminisce and flash back to my childhood.

 

[Harry-N]

Another show that I wanted to own in the VHS days was THE FUGITIVE. I managed to assemble the complete series - or as close as I could come - with episodes from NuVentures Video, Goodtimes Video, and the old WOR cable service that ran the show nightly at 9 PM Eastern.

The NuVentures set assembled 20 volumes of 2 episodes each and Goodtimes offered the finale two episodes and the episode "The Girl From Little Egypt" that was sort of an explanation show for the series. So that was 43 episodes of the 120 that were made.

The rest came from WOR cable service, a sort-of low-rent version of the channel 9 New York channel with older programming overlaying most of their newer syndicated fare to prevent doubling up in markets that were paying for those shows' exclusivity.

Having those VHS tapes proved helpful in the days of trying to identify music cues that CBS had replaced on their first runs of DVDs.

The NuVentures videos also had intros by Barry Morse and occasionally some network promos and bumpers, none of which were on the DVDs.

 

[Gary Seven]

I recorded on Super-Beta HI Fi. I went around to all the Erol's in the 80s and copied all the Star Trek episodes as buying them back then was impossible for me (and I wanted them uncut, commercial free). I did not collect recordings off the TV until the 90s, which was Batman the Animated series, The Flash, and the Spider-man animated series, the first and second now being replaced by the DVD's ( then Blu-Ray for Batman). I have since recorded the Spidey tapes onto DVD.

 

[ScottRE]

Goodtimes offered the finale two episodes and the episode "The Girl From Little Egypt" that was sort of an explanation show for the series. So that was 43 episodes of the 120 that were made.

"The Girl from Little Egypt" was on the NuVentures tapes, wasn't it? Goodtimes had "Fear in a Desert City." on the LP mode.

I wound up with the laserdiscs of The Fugitive, which were VERY easy to come by after the initial DVDs were released. At least I had those with original music, even if they were mostly time compressed.

I had The Time Tunnel recorded from the Japanese lasers, but they had Japanese subtitles burned into the image.

I still have classic Star Trek in every format other than Beta. I have a full run of the single episode VHS tapes, the CBS Video Library set (before they changed their name to Columbia House on the boxes), the laserdiscs, the DVDs, the blu-rays and even an episode on 16mm.

I also still have all of my Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea recordings on VHS. From 16mm prints, the syndication prints, the laserdiscs and ten episodes from UK PAL transfers. The 16mm prints have the episode previews, In Color and network bumpers that never made it to DVD. I'll hold onto these until Fox does the series right.

I also scraped up the complete V- The Series from the late Bill Anchors, who had them from original broadcast. He took blank VHS tapes in trade. I got a lot of complete series from him, some in good quality, others not really. Back in the day when you worried about "first, second or third generation maters from an SP source." Or SLP in Super-VHS.

I still have my Go Video double deck!

 

[Harry-N]

"The Girl from Little Egypt" was on the NuVentures tapes, wasn't it? Goodtimes had "Fear in a Desert City." on the LP mode.

Yeah, my memory confused the two as one was the real pilot and the other served as the origin story.

When the movie was about to hit theaters, NBC picked up three episodes of THE FUGITIVE for a quick run that summer. They aired "The Girl From Little Egypt" ad followed it with the two-part finale the next night, I think.

Interesting that THE FUGITIVE ran on ABC, had that brief appearance on NBC, and is now owned by CBS!

 

[Jeff*H]

I collected the following shows in the 80s and 90s, complete:

• STAR TREK : Columbia House circa 1987-1991
• BATMAN ‘66: off-air from uncut syndicated run in 1984, horrible-looking 16mm film prints, faded and scratchy.
• SLEDGE HAMMER!: original ABC recordings on Beta
• TWIN PEAKS: original ABC recordings on Beta
• WISEGUY: original off-air CBS recordings. Sadly, I erased the music arc because I didn’t enjoy it at the time. Little did I know those would become an endangered species years later! (Smacks forehead!). I did record the music arc again off a syndication run, at least, so my collection is complete.
• THE FLASH: original off-air CBS recordings
• BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: off-air from a Spokane channel in 1984 that ran them overnight weekly, and out-of-order! They also ran the telemovies, but the year before I got the VCR unfortunately. Would have loved to have those recorded!
• HAWAII FIVE-O: All 283 hours, mostly uncut, from an Orlando station that ran them for 15 years (that took some effort), along with a few from WOR. I also had the 10 Columbia House volumes. I even grabbed the other 284th “lost” hour from a friend.

 

[Harry-N]

Even in the era of DVDs and Blu-rays, there are always series that have not and probably will not ever be released to home video. Such is the case with 12 O'CLOCK HIGH. When I first moved to Florida and found that MeTV was running the series weeknights at 4 AM, I set up a recorder to capture them. Naturally, with the vagaries of over-the-air reception, timer glitches, power outages, getting them all on one run was too much to expect. And it actually took me three runs to finally grab the last of them, but I've assembled the whole series.

If the series had been run anywhere in my area while in the VHS era, I might have attempted it then, but I hadn't seen any since it left ABC and had one run on a local UHF.