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Is the b&w era of TV on DVD slowly coming to an end? (2 Viewers)

Jack P

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Obviously, Kildare will be a must-buy for me too. No more blind buy westerns for me though. If Warner Archive releases "Cains Hundred" (which they said last fall is on their radio along with the 1966 color show "Jericho") I'll get that since I have the soundtrack release from Film Score Monthly.

Hearing that the VCI releases of "Burke's Law" S1 are now out of print is also disheartening news, because that clearly means they wouldn't even try to push Fox again for S2. Just a real pity.
 

Guy Foulard

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Looks like Stoney Burke is now shipping from Amazon! I'm hoping this will look as good as other recent MGM-branded releases like Bat Masterson and Sea Hunt...
 

Professor Echo

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Gary OS said:
I've already got the Gunsmoke b/w hour long eps from Encore, but I hear these new releases look absolutely fantastic so way down the road I'd consider picking them up (if the price drops enough).

Gary "2013 has been a solid year thus far for me" O.
Gary, keep me in mind if you do wind up upgrading on GUNSMOKE and need to find a good home for your Encore copies. Ever the cheap opportunist, I'll always and gladly take your discards for my meager collection. ;) :P :D
 

Gary OS

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Professor Echo said:
Gary, keep me in mind if you do wind up upgrading on GUNSMOKE and need to find a good home for your Encore copies. Ever the cheap opportunist, I'll always and gladly take your discards for my meager collection. ;) :P :D
No problem. I'll keep that in mind, buddy.


Gary "I don't think I'd call your collection 'meager' though" O. :lol:
 

Gary OS

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With Dr Kildare S1 being announced today, I'm down to only one b/w TV show that's on my "holy grail" list - The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet. Don't get me wrong, there are still many shows from the b/w era I'd like to see get a release, but the Nelson family series is the only one left that I'd put in the "must have" category. Everything else would be gravy.


Gary "can't wait for my Kildare set to arrive" O.
 

Cynthia Boris

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Jack P said:
But if another year goes by without S2 of "Burke's Law" the year will still be unfufilling alas.
Love Burke's Law - it's really the precurser to all of those all-star cast shows such as Murder She Wrote. It's so smart and witty. The writing is just stellar. But if they do release another season, I hope they match it to the case of the last volume. I hate when they switch packaging mid-stream.

I just got Maverick S2 for review. That's another show that was too smart for its own good. And I hear Robert Conrad's in this season. A bonus!
 

Jack P

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Kildare is ordered! It'll be nice to match at last some episodes to the music scores released by FSM.

With "Burke's Law" I won't care so much about the packaging so long as I can see some great episodes of S2 improved from my boot at long last. But alas if S1 is OOP now that means VCI obviously has given up. Fox is just the worst of all studios when it comes to their catalogs (their subpar releases of movies in movie on demand programs also doesn't speak well of them).

As for B/W Grail titles with no releases on DVD officially, the only ones left are Burns And Allen and Sheena (now that Jack Benny is coming).
 

Jeff Willis

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Cynthia Boris said:
Love Burke's Law - it's really the precurser to all of those all-star cast shows such as Murder She Wrote. It's so smart and witty. The writing is just stellar. But if they do release another season, I hope they match it to the case of the last volume. I hate when they switch packaging mid-stream.

I just got Maverick S2 for review. That's another show that was too smart for its own good. And I hear Robert Conrad's in this season. A bonus!
o085u.jpg
to the forum. I'm also a Robert Conrad fan. WWW (Wild Wild West) is a big favorite of mine.
 

Ejanss

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Cynthia Boris said:
I just got Maverick S2 for review. That's another show that was too smart for its own good. And I hear Robert Conrad's in this season. A bonus!
Maverick S1 hadn't really found James Garner's niche yet, and kept trying to play Maverick as a straight Western hero (probably by borrowing storylines from other series). The show didn't start finding its groove till S2. (And if Starz had kept their western shows on Instant Netflix, I'd have been able to watch more of them, darnit.)
Jack P said:
As for B/W Grail titles with no releases on DVD officially, the only ones left are Burns And Allen and Sheena (now that Jack Benny is coming).
Not too many B/W Grail titles left:
Our Miss Brooks, with Eve Arden, only exists as a scattered handful of third and fourth-generation public-domain sightings, as are the limited PD-orphan collection of TV Amos & Andy episodes (yes, they're hysterical, like lost Honeymooners episodes, and surprisingly smart for their unfairly besmirched reputations :D ).

I'd gotten hooked on R2's limited "Ultimate Vol. 1" best-of sampler of This Is Your Life (taken from the best-of syndication of the 50's-60's episodes during the 80's), and this show is pure addiction--If you've think you've seen it parodied a hundred times, you've never seen the classiness of the real thing.
Never did get that Vol. 2, though, and Vol. 1 was just piecemealed into two-episode single disks.
 

Professor Echo

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Gary OS said:
Gary "can't wait for my Kildare set to arrive" O.
So here's the plan: As soon as you receive the KILDARE set,, immediately send it to me and I will take my time enjoying it at my leisure and then send it back to you when I get a chance. I promise you I will send it back within a year or so. How does that sound? :D

Congratulations on this release, Gary! I know you've been waiting for it for a long time and I'm happy you will finally get your beloved Christmas episode in a good copy. Make sure you come back and report here on the rest of the season and if you like it just as much as that one episode, which I hope you do.
 

Peter M Fitzgerald

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My remaining B&W Grails are:

DRAGNET
THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR
SUSPICION
WAY OUT
AMOS & ANDY
BUS STOP
PANIC!
WICHITA TOWN
THE WESTERNER
 

Gary OS

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Professor Echo said:
So here's the plan: As soon as you receive the KILDARE set,, immediately send it to me and I will take my time enjoying it at my leisure and then send it back to you when I get a chance. I promise you I will send it back within a year or so. How does that sound? :D

Congratulations on this release, Gary! I know you've been waiting for it for a long time and I'm happy you will finally get your beloved Christmas episode in a good copy. Make sure you come back and report here on the rest of the season and if you like it just as much as that one episode, which I hope you do.

LOL, Glen. I like to think of myself as a nice guy, but I'm not sure I could do that. :lol:


Gary "thanks for the congrats, buddy - this is a huge release for me" O.
 

BobO'Link

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Ejanss said:
...Not too many B/W Grail titles left:
Our Miss Brooks, with Eve Arden, only exists as a scattered handful of third and fourth-generation public-domain sightings, as are the limited PD-orphan collection of TV Amos & Andy episodes (yes, they're hysterical, like lost Honeymooners episodes, and surprisingly smart for their unfairly besmirched reputations :D )...
I watched Amos & Andy as a kid and loved them. When I was finally able to watch them again as a adult I *still* loved them! To this day I don't understand what was/is so offensive as you could put in an all white cast and not have to change a thing. That's another series I'd purchase on release date should someone be brave enough to do a release.
 

Ejanss

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BobO'Link said:
I watched Amos & Andy as a kid and loved them. When I was finally able to watch them again as a adult I *still* loved them! To this day I don't understand what was/is so offensive as you could put in an all white cast and not have to change a thing. That's another series I'd purchase on release date should someone be brave enough to do a release.
The black actors were filling in for the white radio actors and had to deliberately imitate the voices from the show, and Tim Moore as the Kingfish, although a great comic actor, might've been overdoing it a tad. (When you hear a parody of offensive black stereotypes going "Ohh, holy mac-kerel, dere", that's Moore's signature delivery.) By the 60's, everyone had forgotten about the radio show, and was getting on their high horses about the roles blacks were "forced" to play on TV, and the reruns had been on so annoyingly long, it made too easy a scapegoat.
But apart from whatever it brought from 40's radio, there's almost nothing offensive in it--We even see other mainstream professional black policemen, judges, secretaries, etc. in the stories; like Ralph & Ed, it's only our heroes that aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
 

DaveHof2

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Ejanss said:
(When you hear a parody of offensive black stereotypes going "Ohh, holy mac-kerel, dere", that's Moore's signature delivery.)
You'll actually hear Ricky Nelson deliver this line in the Ozzie & Harriet episode "The Girl in the Emporium" - and it's hilarious.
 

JoeDoakes

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Ejanss said:
The black actors were filling in for the white radio actors and had to deliberately imitate the voices from the show, and Tim Moore as the Kingfish, although a great comic actor, might've been overdoing it a tad. (When you hear a parody of offensive black stereotypes going "Ohh, holy mac-kerel, dere", that's Moore's signature delivery.) By the 60's, everyone had forgotten about the radio show, and was getting on their high horses about the roles blacks were "forced" to play on TV, and the reruns had been on so annoyingly long, it made too easy a scapegoat.
But apart from whatever it brought from 40's radio, there's almost nothing offensive in it--We even see other mainstream professional black policemen, judges, secretaries, etc. in the stories; like Ralph & Ed, it's only our heroes that aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
I don't know much about this show. I do have an OTR compilation that includes a A&A radio show from the 1950s with Tim Moore as Kingfish (along with the regular white actors playing Amos and Andy). From the little bit I heard, it was obvious that Tim Moore was dripping with talent. According to Wikipedia, he had been on the black vaudeville circuit for decades, and had also appeared on Broadway several times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore,_tim). Although he may have conformed somewhat to the pre-existing script style of the show, my guess is that he made a new creation of the character, which was why he was put on the radio show too. Personally, his characterization seemed less racial and more personal, in the way Buddy Ebson's Jed Clampett was ("Weeelll Doggies"), or Jackie Gleeson's Ralph Cramdon.
 

BobO'Link

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Ejanss said:
The black actors were filling in for the white radio actors and had to deliberately imitate the voices from the show, and Tim Moore as the Kingfish, although a great comic actor, might've been overdoing it a tad. (When you hear a parody of offensive black stereotypes going "Ohh, holy mac-kerel, dere", that's Moore's signature delivery.) By the 60's, everyone had forgotten about the radio show, and was getting on their high horses about the roles blacks were "forced" to play on TV, and the reruns had been on so annoyingly long, it made too easy a scapegoat.
But apart from whatever it brought from 40's radio, there's almost nothing offensive in it--We even see other mainstream professional black policemen, judges, secretaries, etc. in the stories; like Ralph & Ed, it's only our heroes that aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
I know the origins of the program and its history. I grew up in a small town in the south and heard language and speach inflections just like that used on A&A (even the radio program) on a regular basis from both white and black folk. That's why I've never understood the uproar over "stereotypes". Based on the people I knew growing up there were no "stereotypes" on that show other than the typical non-racial comedy stereotypes which were being used on many shows of that era. IMHO A&A is the most unoffensive "offensive" show that's ever aired on American TV. It *needs* a quality DVD release.
 

Gary OS

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Well, I'm happy to report that my Dr Kildare set came yesterday and I promptly plugged in the disc containing one of the greatest Christmas episodes of all time, "Season to be Jolly", and it looked fabulous!!! All the music was preserved and it certainly appeared uncut to me. What a great day! Now I can chunk my old Turner South alt print of this episode. Oh, and the discs were indeed pressed.


Gary "I'm looking forward to watching this entire first season" O.
 

Jeff Willis

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Gary OS said:
Well, I'm happy to report that my Dr Kildare set came yesterday and I promptly plugged in the disc containing one of the greatest Christmas episodes of all time, "Season to be Jolly", and it looked fabulous!!! All the music was preserved and it certainly appeared uncut to me. What a great day! Now I can chunk my old Turner South alt print of this episode. Oh, and the discs were indeed pressed.


Gary "I'm looking forward to watching this entire first season" O.
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