Honeymooners CBS Logo (1 Viewer)

[Wiseguy]

Could it be they just did one end credit for the whole syndicated run? Did they leave the guest stars off the original network broadcasts?

Not an expert on credits but it seems to me that in most series of the 1950s, it was either too much trouble or too expensive to do a different end credit for each episode especially since most of the production people stayed the same for maybe the whole season. An announcer would just do a voiceover for guest stars. It seems most credits were a one-time all-in-one production rather than having simple titles overlaid on a blank video. Some series, including The Honeymooners, didn't have an announcement, although they had long versions (when episodes ran short) and short versions and versions for each group of writers.

There have been exceptions. Betty White's first series (68 years ago!) Life with Elizabeth (1953-55) routinely listed guest stars in each episode.

And the infamous Amos 'n' Andy Show had a troublesome history (no, not that LOL). The CBS episodes (1951-53) originally had long opening credits (the library open) mentioning the sponsor Blatz Beer and including a Blatz jingle and a short closing credits featuring all the actors who appeared in that episode. When it went into syndication in 1953, of course, the opening was removed, and, instead of keeping the closing credits as they were (today they would just keep the shorter credits to show more commercials) they LENGTHENED the closing credits to match the original episode length. Unfortunately, they decided (too expensive, too much trouble?) to not include guest stars but just to have generic credits changing, I believe, only for differences in writers.* (Many of the Blatz Beer episodes still exist due to stations, perhaps not connected to the network, receiving actual films of the episodes and copies were made of those episodes.) All of these episodes had a copyright date of 1953 regardless of the original air date.

For the third season (1953-54), syndicated along with the reruns, the guest stars were again listed, although one episode appears to have the wrong credits (from another third season episode) stuck to it. For the fourth season (1954-55)(© Hal Roach Studios, not CBS), however, they were back to generic credits listing only the six recurring actors ("Lightnin'" didn't appear in the fourth season) with no announcing of guest stars either.

*The pilot episode, or at least the version available now, credits director Charles Barton although that was the only episode he didn't direct.

 

[Mark Y]

Gotta say, this is the version I remember the most. I'm an extremely nostalgic person so when I watch a classic show, I prefer to see the version I grew up with. That goes for Logos, and in this case it's Viacom.



I usually have two versions of a show on file: Night of original broadcast (when possible) and Syndication Childhood. Both usually take some research and editing.

Something I noticed (and I'm probably not the only one) -- on the DVD set, a lot of the episodes have the audio edit "smoothed" (at about 42 seconds into this clip) which sounds very unnatural to me after hearing it like this since I was about 10 years old. (There was an audio edit to eliminate a Buick sponsor reference.) But some have it "unfixed."

Also, when I watched the show as a kid on Channel 32 in Chicago, they had a slightly shortened opening which they had transferred to video, which eliminated the drum roll at the beginning. And for a time, they often eliminated the closing credits altogether, replacing them with a brief homemade closing on video.

 

[Sa5150]

Could it be they just did one end credit for the whole syndicated run? Did they leave the guest stars off the original network broadcasts?

This one doesn't list anyone, but I don't know if it's from an episode that only featured the main cast...



Lord, I love the full version of this theme. The syndie version was slightly edited. Such a sweeping piece of music and it really brings up nostalgic feels of staying up late to watch the reruns.

This guys voice is horrible . Thank god they replaced it .

 

[Harry-N]

This guys voice is horrible . Thank god they replaced it .

That's Jack Lescoulie, who also was a host on The Today Show on NBC.

 

[Mark Y]

Could it be they just did one end credit for the whole syndicated run? Did they leave the guest stars off the original network broadcasts?

This one doesn't list anyone, but I don't know if it's from an episode that only featured the main cast...



Lord, I love the full version of this theme. The syndie version was slightly edited. Such a sweeping piece of music and it really brings up nostalgic feels of staying up late to watch the reruns.

I remember back in the early to mid 1980s when Channel 32 in Chicago reverted back to playing the whole show from 16mm including the opening and closing (as opposed to their own shortened version on video), one episode (I don't remember which one) had this guy (Jack Lescoulie) announcing -- probably abruptly spliced where the sponsor stuff comes in -- and I thought that sounded weird having always heard the "standard" version in syndication. I think I read that they dubbed in a different announcer because Lescoulie was associated with Buick, the sponsor.

"Back in the day," when local stations had film chains and ran 16mm prints, it was common to hear an announcer saying "brought to you by" at the end of a show opening on, say, "The Lucy Show" or "The Munsters," but they would then cut out the sponsor billboard that would have followed.

 

[Mark Y]

I've always had a problem with the CBS eye logo that is usually seen on THE TWILIGHT ZONE Image sets also being used universally on Image's DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. If I recall correctly, that opening/closing eye was a late-50s/early 60s thing. By the end of the DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, CBS was in its first year of color shows, and I think that the simpler device of a static logo and a voiceover saying "This is CBS" was about all that was used in Van Dyke's later years.

Anyone know different?

Different studio, but the whole third season of "Batman" on DVD (and I would guess Blu-Ray as well) has the wrong 20th Century Fox logo at the end of every episode. The logo at the end of the third season shows was shorter than the one in the first two seasons.

This is the correct one which "should" appear at the end of the third season shows.


I always wondered how (and why) this kind of thing happens. Based on comments I have read from people in the industry who actually have worked on this kind of stuff, I think they just goofed and overlooked the fact that the third season had a different version of the end logo. From comments I have read on the subject, it seems in many cases when it's the same piece of footage (studio logo, show opening etc.) they remaster it, color-correct it, clean it up etc., but if they're just using the same one on every episode, it's simpler, easier and cheaper to just do it once and drop it into every show. No one would ever notice, unless it's a case where something was changed or modified and they overlooked it. Familiarity with the show in question certainly helps to keep everything accurate.

Something similar happened on the Warner Archive DVD release of the Hanna-Barbera "Secret Squirrel" cartoon show. "Secret Squirrel" was kind of a "twin show" of "Atom Ant" (in the final year, reruns of both were combined into one half-hour show) and each cartoon had a brief opening and end title. Each featured character had its own musical fanfare and for whatever reason, three of the early Secret Squirrel cartoons used Atom Ant's fanfares. When they were remastered for DVD by Warner Archive, someone was asleep at the switch, and every Secret Squirrel cartoon has Atom Ant's closing fanfare at the end. Whoops!

(The correct Secret Squirrel end fanfare -- for 23 of the 26 cartoons -- is at 1:16 in this You Tube clip.)


This kind of stuff could make an interesting thread of its own -- shows where they had little screw-ups like this.

 

[ScottRE]

"Back in the day," when local stations had film chains and ran 16mm prints, it was common to hear an announcer saying "brought to you by" at the end of a show opening on, say, "The Lucy Show" or "The Munsters," but they would then cut out the sponsor billboard that would have followed.

Yes! I thankfully have a lot of 16mm to VHS tapes in storage which have those announcements. If you hear anything on the DVDs at all, it's just the name of the show a second time. I saw early I Dream of Jeannie episodes on 16mm about 10 years ago for the first time and it was a nice treat to hear Paul Frees do the announcements. He isn't in any of the syndicated episodes I ever saw. I'm always grateful for collectors of 16mm and even some of the PD releases of rare shows directly from syndie prints. Often I go to the pure form "night of original broadcast" of episode over HD quality.

 

[DVBRD]

Different studio, but the whole third season of "Batman" on DVD (and I would guess Blu-Ray as well) has the wrong 20th Century Fox logo at the end of every episode. The logo at the end of the third season shows was shorter than the one in the first two seasons.

This is the correct one which "should" appear at the end of the third season shows.


I always wondered how (and why) this kind of thing happens. Based on comments I have read from people in the industry who actually have worked on this kind of stuff, I think they just goofed and overlooked the fact that the third season had a different version of the end logo. From comments I have read on the subject, it seems in many cases when it's the same piece of footage (studio logo, show opening etc.) they remaster it, color-correct it, clean it up etc., but if they're just using the same one on every episode, it's simpler, easier and cheaper to just do it once and drop it into every show. No one would ever notice, unless it's a case where something was changed or modified and they overlooked it. Familiarity with the show in question certainly helps to keep everything accurate.

The same issue with M*A*S*H. The recent HD remasters have the wrong Fox logo on most episodes. This is from an early season 5 episode.



This is the logo they were using at the time.

 

[bmasters9]

From comments I have read on the subject, it seems in many cases when it's the same piece of footage (studio logo, show opening etc.) they remaster it, color-correct it, clean it up etc., but if they're just using the same one on every episode, it's simpler, easier and cheaper to just do it once and drop it into every show. No one would ever notice, unless it's a case where something was changed or modified and they overlooked it. Familiarity with the show in question certainly helps to keep everything accurate.

Is that why the same bylineless 80s Torch Lady of Columbia Pictures Television was on all 44 of the fourth-season and fifth-and-final-season episodes of Hart to Hart from Shout!'s releases of the final two gos of that ABC romance/mystery/adventure series?

 

[Mark Y]

Is that why the same bylineless 80s Torch Lady of Columbia Pictures Television was on all 44 of the fourth-season and fifth-and-final-season episodes of Hart to Hart from Shout!'s releases of the final two gos of that ABC romance/mystery/adventure series?

No idea, but it makes sense.

 

[Sky King]

Hi all,

This thread really morphed from my original post.

John

 

[Sa5150]

Anyone have any idea what this new dvd set is coming in April ? https://www.target.com/p/jackie-gle...ooners-70th-anniversary-dvd-2022/-/A-85920109

 

[RobertMG]

Trivia for Honeymooners fans -- the episode where the $99,000 game show is part of the story the game show host is the voice you hear on the Father Knows Best episodes where you see the house and the announcer says "Robert Young, Jane Wyatt . . . ."

 

[Gary16]

Trivia for Honeymooners fans -- the episode where the $99,000 game show is part of the story the game show host is the voice you hear on the Father Knows Best episodes where you see the house and the announcer says "Robert Young, Jane Wyatt . . . ."

Additional trivia. It’s Jay Jackson and he was also the voice on the “Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” episodes that were sponsored by Eastman Kodak Company.

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

Anyone have any idea what this new dvd set is coming in April ? https://www.target.com/p/jackie-gle...ooners-70th-anniversary-dvd-2022/-/A-85920109

Says it is from MPI, and they are releasing all 4 Holiday specials in March, which will include last year's standalone release of "The Honeymooners' Christmas Carol", in 1 set.

Holiday Specials on Amazon

Maybe this April release is a best-of culled from the "Lost Episodes"? 420 minutes doesn't sound like a comprehensive runtime, does it?

 

[Sa5150]

Says it is from MPI, and they are releasing all 4 Holiday specials in March, which will include last year's standalone release of "The Honeymooners' Christmas Carol", in 1 set.

Holiday Specials on Amazon

Maybe this April release is a best-of culled from the "Lost Episodes"? 420 minutes doesn't sound like a comprehensive runtime, does it?

Thanks for the info , I do not have the lost episodes yet , So I'm gonna hold off buying the big set till we can see what this is all about . Too bad they couldn't of done a few of the best lost episodes on a bluray .

 

[oldtvshowbuff]

I have all season sets of Dennis The Menace from Shout, but in the season two set all but one of the episodes have the Screen Gems torch lady I, A SCREEN GEMS FILM PRODUCTION TELEVISION SUBSIDIARY COLUMBIA PICTURES CORPORATION, the closing announcement from torch lady II is still intact, BTW, that closing logo only had the words SCREEN GEMS, and the announcement, "This has been a Screen Gems film production, from the Hollywood studios of Columbia Pictures."

 

[ScottRE]

Thanks for the info , I do not have the lost episodes yet , So I'm gonna hold off buying the big set till we can see what this is all about . Too bad they couldn't of done a few of the best lost episodes on a bluray .

I'm gonna keep my eye on this as well. I'm just a little disappointed that it's standard DVD when the classic 39 are on Blu. Were the specials made on film or video tape? If tape, I guess they really wouldn't benefit from HD the way the film prints did, but man I would love an Ultimate Honeymooners blu ray set, with all of the Gleason show skits, the classic 39 and the specials.

 

[Gary16]

I'm gonna keep my eye on this as well. I'm just a little disappointed that it's standard DVD when the classic 39 are on Blu. Were the specials made on film or video tape? If tape, I guess they really wouldn't benefit from HD the way the film prints did, but man I would love an Ultimate Honeymooners blu ray set, with all of the Gleason show skits, the classic 39 and the specials.

All the Honeymooners other than the classic 39 were either done live and exist as kinescopes or on videotape. Only the 39 were shot on 35mm film.

 

[Sa5150]

There is some really good information here about the Kinescopes , From what I read they would be really good for blu-ray considering there condition . https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=17737