Episodes of Classic TV Shows Out Of Syndication (1 Viewer)

[LouA]

UPDATES:

•So far, nothing new about the normal culprits (My Three Sons, etc).
•Our Miss Brooks has finally been transferred to tape. They are syndication masters instead of network masters and are not listed as HD, which is strange (I still believe the transfers are NOT HD).Since the transfer of the series about a few months ago, it hasn't aired anywhere. What are they waiting for?

So, syndicated masters for Our Miss Brooks pretty much means no DVD release is planned .

 

[DeWilson]

UPDATES:

•Our Miss Brooks has finally been transferred to tape. They are syndication masters instead of network masters and are not listed as HD, which is strange (I still believe the transfers are NOT HD).Since the transfer of the series about a few months ago, it hasn't aired anywhere. What are they waiting for?

The current CBS syndication bible lists the following:

This series has been transferred into HD and has the following masters:
Syndication 4x3

Since they would HAVE to have made a set of uncut from the 35mm elements before making the edited syndication masters, there has to be an uncut set on-hand but not available for whatever reason.

Perhaps they just are not listing the "Network" length episodes in the bible, or making them available to MeTV/Decades.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

The Dick Ebersol SNL Seasons (7-10). Last time Comedy Central ran them was in 1997.

What about the infamous 6th season? I know THAT had to have been rerun at least one time after it ended.

 

[Neil Brock]

It seems that this topic has gotten confused. If we are talking purely syndication, as in available for purchase by any local, over the air station, it is vastly different than just saying rerun. Lots of shows have been rerun by various cable networks over the past 35 or so years which are NOT available in syndication. Just for example, the first five black and white seasons of My Three Sons ran on Nick at Nite and later on another cable network, but they are not syndicated. Same with the first 2 seasons of Petticoat Junction.

 

[Larry.P]

The current CBS syndication bible lists the following:

This series has been transferred into HD and has the following masters:
Syndication 4x3

Since they would HAVE to have made a set of uncut from the 35mm elements before making the edited syndication masters, there has to be an uncut set on-hand but not available for whatever reason.

Perhaps they just are not listing the "Network" length episodes in the bible, or making them available to MeTV/Decades.

CBS intended to transfer complete HD network versions. However, when they went back to the original elements they found that they were cut. There was some attempt made to find the missing pieces but no such luck. I don't know the details on how much or how many were cut - I don't think they were cut heavily - but this is why they are listed as syndication masters. CBS did not intentionally edit anything down for the HD transfers. Also, word is they have considered a DVD release but they are unsure about the home video rights (Al Lewis estate and maybe one other potential rights holder) so haven't pursued it.

 

[DeWilson]

CBS intended to transfer complete HD network versions. However, when they went back to the original elements they found that they were cut. There was some attempt made to find the missing pieces but no such luck. I don't know the details on how much or how many were cut - I don't think they were cut heavily - but this is why they are listed as syndication masters. CBS did not intentionally edit anything down for the HD transfers. Also, word is they have considered a DVD release but they are unsure about the home video rights (Al Lewis estate and maybe one other potential rights holder) so haven't pursued it.

When were the master elements cut? By CBS films? By Viacom? It's odd that the 35mm prints would have physical edits?

Did these have daytime runs on CBS before syndication by any chance? Edits could have been done then, which would explain smaller cuts.

 

[TheLogoGuy94]

When were the master elements cut? By CBS films? By Viacom? It's odd that the 35mm prints would have physical edits?

Did these have daytime runs on CBS before syndication by any chance? Edits could have been done then, which would explain smaller cuts.

Here's my take: surely, they wouldn't touch the original 35mm prints. Like The Millionaire, they could be re-transferring old Viacom tapes. Then again, they could be making new transfers of the old syndication prints. These prints are from 16mm film. That's my take. Feel free to criticize.

 

[MatthewA]

Is it possible the cuts were to original sponsor references? CBS cut the Philip Morris references out of the negatives of every episode I Love Lucy once the show went into reruns and the deal with PM expired.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

I wonder if, when Happy Days originally went into syndication in the fall of 1979 (as Happy Days Again through 1984), that the last episode to air in the original 130-episode minimum was "Richie Gets Framed" (season 6, episode 15) provided none of the other first 130 episodes were skipped over?

~Ben

 

[TheLogoGuy94]

Hello all! It's been well over a year since the last post on this thread, so I decided to give you guys an update on one show that made me start this thread: "My Three Sons".

It has now been confirmed that Me-TV has now acquired ALL seasons of MTS. This includes the first 5 seasons in B&W and the last 2 seasons of the show, seasons 11-12. There is no mention on the CBS Syndication Bible about the series (besides seasons 1-2) being remastered, so it makes me wonder if Me-TV has HD, fresh out the box prints of these season, or if they somehow acquired older syndication prints of the show, if somehow possible. Either way, this is a huge update!

 

[Ron1973]

Hello all! It's been well over a year since the last post on this thread, so I decided to give you guys an update on one show that made me start this thread: "My Three Sons".

It has now been confirmed that Me-TV has now acquired ALL seasons of MTS. This includes the first 5 seasons in B&W and the last 2 seasons of the show, seasons 11-12. There is no mention on the CBS Syndication Bible about the series (besides seasons 1-2) being remastered, so it makes me wonder if Me-TV has HD, fresh out the box prints of these season, or if they somehow acquired older syndication prints of the show, if somehow possible. Either way, this is a huge update!

We know, obviously, that S1 of The Beverly Hillbillies has been transferred to HD since it was done to DVD, yet the Syndication Bible doesn't list it. IF this is the case with My Three Sons, maybe they'll redo their DVD releases.

 

[Ron1973]

They had a "Best of the Beverly Hillbillies" package and a Complete Beverly Hillbillies package.

And they still do. I can read the Syndication Bible as well as you. My point was that I have not saw any station or cable network air only color episodes. WBBJ in Jackson, Tn. ran color and b&w. WREG in Memphis ran both color and b&w. To the best of my recollection, KAIT in Jonesboro, Ar. ran both-I distinctly remember b&w episodes. KBSI in Cape Girardeau, Mo. ran both. TBS and WGN ran both. Me-TV is running both. KPOB in Poplar Bluff, Mo. ran both. I'm assuming Decades runs both.

 

[Mark Y]

Animated shows are affected as well:

Rocky & Bullwinkle: Seasons 1-2 originally aired on ABC (in B&W) as "Rocky And His Friends," while the following seasons aired on NBC as "The Bullwinkle Show" in color. Saturday morning network reruns (on ABC in the 1960s-1970s and NBC in the early 1980s) differed from the syndicated versions. There are two separate syndication packages, one called "The Bullwinkle Show" and one called "Rocky And His Friends" (which shows the on-screen title as "The Rocky Show"). It's a real jigsaw puzzle:

The Bullwinkle Show (syndicated version): As far as the Rocky and Bullwinkle storylines are concerned, the syndication package consists of the first two seasons aired on "Rocky And His Friends," then skips to the final season of "The Bullwinkle Show," starting with "Bumbling Bros. Circus" through "Moosylvania Saved" (but skipping "Moosylvania"). (The rest of the cartoon segments like Peabody, Fractured Fairy Tales, etc. are kind of arbitrarily sequenced, with very few Dudley Do-Right segments included in "The Bullwinkle Show" package, the majority are on "The Rocky Show.")

The syndicated "Rocky Show" has most of the Rocky & Bullwinkle storylines skipped by "The Bullwinkle Show" (though IIRC ":Moosylvania" isn't included there either) and repeats a few storylines like "Upsidasium" and "Greenpernt Oogle" to increase the episode count. It seems like the syndicated Bullwinkle has appeared much more often than the syndicated Rocky. The last time I saw the syndicated "Rocky Show" was about five years ago on VH1 Classic (of all channels). Before that, Nickelodeon had run some of them in the early 1990s, and before that, they hadn't played in Chicago since the 1970s.

So if you're watching the syndicated "Bullwinkle Show," the content is more likely to be from "Rocky And His Friends," and vice versa.

Hanna-Barbera's "Banana Splits Adventure Hour" (which ran two seasons) was cut into half-hours for US syndication (with each episode losing a couple minutes) and only the first season shows included. The show was retitled "The Banana Splits And Friends Show," with complete runs of other Hanna-Barbera shows thrown into the mix (Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, The New Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures Of Gulliver) to increase the episode count. (Since Turner bought Hanna-Barbera in the early 1990s, the shows have been split up, but the Banana Splits remained in half-hour cutdown form and retained the "And Friends" title. In fact, Turner even went so far as to remaster the shows, but reassembled them to match the half-hour cut-down versions, and even then they don't completely match up.) The second season of the Banana Splits was MIA in the US except for the show opening, closing and some brief re-edited, redubbed clips repurposed as cartoon intros for the other shows in the package. None of the second season material was otherwise included, though apparently different edits of the show were done for different international territories and I have one episode from "alternative sources" that's supposedly from England, which includes some Season 1 and some Season 2 segments. All the Banana Splits material (other than possibly the songs) was new for the second season; all the cartoons and "Danger Island" serial were repeats. All of this has a lot to do with why the show hasn't been on DVD in the United States; apparently the masters were cut up in the process.

 

[Davis2]

I signed up just to give my two cents to this fascinating post.

I was 8 years old in 1978, and an avid Brady Bunch watcher. The one Christmas episode they did was never shown. Or, if it was, I missed it every time. Didn't see it till the 80s.

Two episodes of All in the Family were never, or rarely shown in the original syndication package. Edith's 50th Birthday, in which an intruder attempted to rape Edith. It was a two partner, and they were always skipped. It was another episode I didn't see till years later.

I remember when the black and white and color episodes of Bewitched and Jeannie ran concurrently, and when the BW episodes were eliminated. I was so annoyed. It was even worse with Gilligan's Island because that didn't have many episodes. You were eliminating one third of them.

I can remember in the 70s the first episode of My Three Sons I saw started with Steve Douglas saying goodbye to his son Mike, in color. I don't believe Mike is ever mentioned again in the series. I had NO IDEA that Fred Mertz was the original housekeeper until Nick aired the black and white episodes.

I would be fascinated to see the early seasons of The Danny Thomas Show. Do they exist? It seems like eventually the show retconed the first wife out of existence. And in the last season Danny Thomas is hardly in it.

 

[LeoA]

There's episodes that have circulated from those early seasons of The Danny Thomas Show. Hopefully the full run is extant in a vault, although little good that does anyone.

I believe the first wife is killed off due to an illness. Urban legend says Danny Thomas forbade these early seasons being syndicated due to disagreements between him and the actress that played his first wife, although nobody has any proof of it all like even a quote.

As for My Three Sons, Mike gets mentioned again in episode 13 of the first color season. That's the season that was kicked off with his marriage to Sally that you just mentioned. The episode is called 'Marriage and Stuff'.

The boys mistakenly think Steve is going to get married to a very young woman that's around Mike's age and that they're going to be in their way. So the kids call up Mike on the phone to see if they can stay with Mike and Sally for a while while the newlyweds get settled in (And presumably Uncle Charley is going to go back to sea to get out of the way, but I don't remember for sure).

Later on, they not only don't mention him again, but suddenly Robbie is the oldest son. I hate that when shows do that. I prefer something like how Cheers handled the passing of Coach or Diane Chambers moving away to pursue her dreams. They not only didn't pretend that they hadn't existed, but they also weren't afraid to work their names into a script on occasion when it fit with the moment.

 

[Davis2]

Right, Danny Thomas and Jean Hagen (his first wife on the show) did not get along, and I don't believe she got on with producer Sheldon Leonard either. From what I know, they never specifically said how she died, but one could surmise that it was cancer.

So season 4 of the show involves Danny dating women, and at the end of the season, he starts seeing Kathy (Marjorie Lord) and proposes to her. Season 5 (where the syndication package I watched in the '70s started) starts with them coming back from their honeymoon. In the first year, there are stories about the kids adjusting to having a new mom. Then, slowly, they started to just say that Kathy was their birth mother. That she had always lived with them. Jean Hagen went the way of Chuck Cunningham and Mike Douglas (My Three Sons, not the talk show host!)

Sherry Jackson played the oldest daughter Terry, and also left the show due to clashes with Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard. There was an interview floating around the internet a while back where she alleged some pretty upsetting stuff about both of them. She left the show in 1958, but the character returned in 1960 played by a different actress, and she was engaged to a guy played by Pat Harrington, Jr (Schneider from One Day at a Time)

I would be interested to see the first few seasons because Jean Hagen won three Emmy awards for them. And then the final season sounds fascinating. Danny Thomas got sick of doing the show, so he sends Danny on vacation, with Kathy joining him for most of it. The kids are left with the housekeeper, Louise. It sounds like when they did Welcome Back, Kotter for a year with no Kotter!!

And again, yeah it was very weird for them to write Mike out of My Three Sons. Maybe the actor Tim Considine refused to come back for guest spots, and it really made no sense for him to NEVER be there.

Agree about Diane/Coach on Cheers. In the modern era, TV characters tend not to be retconned out like they used to.

PS in the early '70s they did Make Room For Granddaddy, and Sherry Jackson actually returned as Terry for an episode.

 

[Charles Ellis]

The color 1967-70 Dragnet has been in regular syndication as well as on DVD over the years, but all we have from the 1951-59 B/W series available for viewing are the same bunch of PD episodes that's been on DVD for ages! Why can't NBC/Universal put out the original Dragnet into syndication again? It would be perfect for Me-TV. Just go into the vaults and either pull out the prints that are there or better yet make new ones from the negatives!

 

[Ron1973]

The color 1967-70 Dragnet has been in regular syndication as well as on DVD over the years, but all we have from the 1951-59 B/W series available for viewing are the same bunch of PD episodes that's been on DVD for ages! Why can't NBC/Universal put out the original Dragnet into syndication again? It would be perfect for Me-TV. Just go into the vaults and either pull out the prints that are there or better yet make new ones from the negatives!

It would be nice, but what kind of condition are the negatives even in? The majority of us here would love to see it, but what about the general public? We're talking a series that's approaching 60 years old. It stinks!

 

[Davis2]

I agree Charles Ellis. Those original black and white episodes of Dragnet I imagine are less campy than the color ones, and would be very cool to see. I'd pay 2 bucks an ep to watch them online.

 

[Frank Soyke]

I signed up just to give my two cents to this fascinating post.

I was 8 years old in 1978, and an avid Brady Bunch watcher. The one Christmas episode they did was never shown. Or, if it was, I missed it every time. Didn't see it till the 80s.

Two episodes of All in the Family were never, or rarely shown in the original syndication package. Edith's 50th Birthday, in which an intruder attempted to rape Edith. It was a two partner, and they were always skipped. It was another episode I didn't see till years later.

I remember when the black and white and color episodes of Bewitched and Jeannie ran concurrently, and when the BW episodes were eliminated. I was so annoyed. It was even worse with Gilligan's Island because that didn't have many episodes. You were eliminating one third of them.

I can remember in the 70s the first episode of My Three Sons I saw started with Steve Douglas saying goodbye to his son Mike, in color. I don't believe Mike is ever mentioned again in the series. I had NO IDEA that Fred Mertz was the original housekeeper until Nick aired the black and white episodes.

I would be fascinated to see the early seasons of The Danny Thomas Show. Do they exist? It seems like eventually the show retconed the first wife out of existence. And in the last season Danny Thomas is hardly in it.

I remember watching reruns of Jeannie and Gilligan in the late 70s and all the b/w Eps were included and then by the early 80s, they had disappeared and then I didn't see them again till Nick started showing Jeannie in the 90s and the Gilligan b/w's even later. Does anyone know why they were initially included in the package and then removed. It is weird for a three season show like Gilligan to have a third removed. Anybody know how F Troop was handled in syndication cause I don't remember . One season was b/w, one was color. Did they just show one season? That is a strange protocol to do with shows. I didn't even know there were non color eps of My 3 Sons or bewitched till Nick at Nite picked them up. What about dramas done that way too. Shows like Wild Wild West, Voyage, and The Fugitive that started in B/W. Did they remove eps of those too? I honestly don't remember.