What's new

Mannix is Coming! (All things Mannix w/spoilers) (2 Viewers)

Hank Dearborn

Supporting Actor
Joined
May 30, 2007
Messages
715
Real Name
Hank
DeWilson said:
While I'm eager to see a DVD release of Season One of MANNIX, I'm also eager to see the episodes from late season 7 and all of season 8 that wern't widely syndicated.
Actually they weren't syndicated at all. When they made up the Mannix package it was only 130 shows from season 2 thru some of season 7. The final 2/3 of season 7 and all of season 8 have never re-aired, at least in the U.S. And even though the show did well enough on CBS to last 8 years, it has always been a terrible performer in syndication. How that will translate to DVD sales, I don't know. I'm just happy to be getting the first, and IMO, best season. After that, I have the next 130 on tape from when TV Land ran them complete and uncut so I'm not too worried over how far Paramount goes with the series. I hope I'm wrong but I really can't envision us getting 8 years worth. Least of all if they do split sets, in which case we'd have to get 16 sets.
 

Steve...O

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2003
Messages
4,376
Real Name
Steve
The one thing that concerns me about CBS/Paramount is that they've launched so many new releases recently that appeal to the same demographic that I wonder if they're going to be able to see them all to conclusion. Before, they had a smaller number of releases (Lucy, Andy, etc.) but releases came fairly quickly and almost all were completed. Now we've got split seasons or full seasons of PERRY MASON, MI, FUGITIVE, HAWAII 5-0, STREETS SAN FRANCISCO, DIAGNOSIS MURDER, GUNSMOKE, and now MANNIX. That's an awful lot of product competing with each other.
 

jdee28

Screenwriter
Joined
Oct 14, 2006
Messages
1,098
Real Name
John
CBS/Paramount is great when it comes to its transfers and the variety of titles they release. On the other hand, they've given no indication they will complete all the titles they release, and their release schedule is a bit glacial; one season a year for a 8 or 9 year program isn't too great. They also do split seasons where it's not really justified; they seems more of a ploy to get as much from the consumer as possible. CBS/Paramount used to release shows through Columbia House, and they were notorious for trying to squeeze every last penny from consumers who were interested. They used to charge $25 for a VHS tape with 2 episodes on it! Split seasons is partly a legacy of that mentality. With what they used to charge, no doubt they rued the day that saw the advent of full season releases at relatively low prices.
 

cardinalmark

Agent
Joined
Feb 16, 2007
Messages
32
Real Name
Mark Collins
Great to hear this series is being released!! Just for the record, after the series was cancelled, ABC showed it on late night. They showed some of the first season episodes. When I lived in Kansas City in the 80's, they showed Mannix in the afternoon hours, They showed the eight season, which was rare. Look forward to this release!!
 

MatthewA

BANNED
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2000
Messages
9,727
Location
Salinas, CA
Real Name
Matthew
Hank Dearborn said:
Paramount - far and away the best studio, trying to mine their vast television vault and maximize use of it. #1 by miles.
Sony - unpredictable. they are the only ones thus far that have been willing to put out short-run, failed older series like Tabitha, Blue Thunder and Walking Tall. But their schedules have no rhyme or reason. Sometimes they do it quickly, within a few months then other times they wait years, like Mad About You. And they are most prone to sloppiness, throwing in cut episodes on Gidget, Partridge Family and others and using syndicated, although complete, episodes on Here Come the Brides. Give them a B for effort but a C- for execution.
Universal - kings of the one and done. their new strategy, since they are so bad themselves, is to license out shows. But there's a catch. Since their in-house transfer costs are so ridiculously high, whoever licenses from them either gets the shows on previously transferred tapes (Shout Factory with McHale's Navy and Ironside, HartSharp with Banacek) or they have to find the prints themselves (Timeless with Checkmate, Riverboat and many others). Otherwise, it won't happen. No one is going to pay $100,000 plus, before licensing fees, for one season of a 40-50 year old series.
Warners - worse than Universal. They have even higher transfer costs, something like $7000 an episode and they won't license anything out. The good news is that unlike Universal, they actually have remastered to tape a large percentage of their catalog, mainly from when they sold many of the old series to GoodLife TV. So at least many of their programs are on an accessible format. The bad news is they won't license them out to anyone and they have no inclination of doing anything with any of them themselves.
Fox - my favorite...For ripping the shit out of. Great if you are interested in shows they produced in the last decade. Great if you are interested in their 20th repackaging of Buffy or Angel. Otherwise words cannot describe how badly they suck. And, you can't even blame them for having high transfer costs for the problem. Their own older shows they have no interest in whatsoever. Same goes for the Four Star library that they own. No interest, save for the one color series, Big Valley and that seems to have dried up. They had some interest in living off their MTM catalog but that seems done as well. They like their Irwin Allen shows but those releases should be finished soon also. Then what? They could always go back and actually re-do Lost in Space properly, unlike what they already released from decades old tape transfers. The only positive note about Fox is thankfully they really have the fewest "classics" in their library that they are sitting on. It would be more of a shame if they owned more great shows, but luckily they don't.
MGM - Do they even exist anymore? Are they owned by Sony, partners with Sony? Who knows. They are distributed now on DVD by the great Fox, certainly the company of choice for the fine work they do with their own shows. Luckily, except for the Ziv catalog which many of us would love to see, they really don't have many exceptional shows they are sitting on. Would love to see the rest of Flipper, Mr. Ed and Green Acres. Patty Duke, even Hey Landlord would be nice to get as well but with them tied up with Fox (and Sony), two companies that don't even know how to handle their own properties, I'm not holding my breath.
I'm just wondering why studios don't just outsource the telecine and (if necessary) restoration work? Do in-house colorists and telecine operators have that much clout?
I agree on this, and if Paramount didn't cut every last note of pre-existing music and the original logos they would be perfect.
Warner's tape remasters appear to have been done in the early 1990s. The Waltons is all over the place in terms of picture quality.
 

DeWilson

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Messages
2,517
Real Name
Denny
Bob Hug said:
....The other two "Mannix" episodes currently available on DVD are on the recent Mill Creek "Best of TV Detectives - 150 episodes." ,,,,.
Doesn't Mill Creek put their 'logo' on their releases?
 

Hank Dearborn

Supporting Actor
Joined
May 30, 2007
Messages
715
Real Name
Hank
MatthewA said:
I agree on this, and if Paramount didn't cut every last note of pre-existing music and the original logos they would be perfect.
What notes of music were cut from Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, Untouchables, Streets of San Francisco, etc?
 

MatthewA

BANNED
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2000
Messages
9,727
Location
Salinas, CA
Real Name
Matthew
Hank Dearborn said:
What notes of music were cut from Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, Untouchables, Streets of San Francisco, etc?
I don't know, there may not have been any, but the following sets did have confirmed music cuts/replacements:
Gomer Pyle USMC season 2
Happy Days season 2 (the biggest offender)
Laverne & Shirley season 2
Family Ties season 1
And a replaced theme on both seasons of Bosom Buddies.
If the show did not have any pre-existing songs on it to begin with, it is probably safe.
 

Bob Hug

Screenwriter
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
1,760
DeWilson said:
Doesn't Mill Creek put their 'logo' on their releases?
On some of their releases they have, but on the "Best of TV Detectives - 150 episodes" they did not include the logo on the episodes. That said, the two "Mannix" episodes included are unrestored.
 

Corey3rd

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
1,728
Real Name
Joe Corey
It is ironic that as TVLand goes downhill in their programming, that Paramount/CBS's home video arm is going into overdrive on releasing shows. And they don't seem to use TVLand as a place to launch these DVD titles. The only time I've caught such action is when they did a weekend marathon for That Girl - which was put out by Shout Factory. You'd imagine that point of having a media empire is to get freebie ad action for your products. But this doesn't seem to be the case (look at how Time-Warner doesn't use Boomerang to push their Hanna-Barbara DVD releases). Although Time-Warner does pimp their movie boxsets on TCM. So it is possible.
 

Bob Hug

Screenwriter
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
1,760
There was a marathon of "Daniel Boone" episodes on TVLand when seasons 1 & 2 were launched by the independent Liberation Entertainment and Goldhil. But I haven't seen any "Daniel Boone" eps. since then.
 

MatthewA

BANNED
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2000
Messages
9,727
Location
Salinas, CA
Real Name
Matthew
Corey3rd said:
It is ironic that as TVLand goes downhill in their programming, that Paramount/CBS's home video arm is going into overdrive on releasing shows. And they don't seem to use TVLand as a place to launch these DVD titles. The only time I've caught such action is when they did a weekend marathon for That Girl - which was put out by Shout Factory. You'd imagine that point of having a media empire is to get freebie ad action for your products. But this doesn't seem to be the case (look at how Time-Warner doesn't use Boomerang to push their Hanna-Barbara DVD releases). Although Time-Warner does pimp their movie boxsets on TCM. So it is possible.
They should be using it, theoretically, but now that CBS Corporation owns the back catalog of TV shows but Viacom owns TV Land (and MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, etc.) it may not exactly be a freebie anymore. But I agree on how many synergy opportunities have been piddled away by them.
The only reason TCM pimps WB movie boxsets is because they're run by people who actually appear to give a hoot about the stuff they show. Can't say that about TV Land.
On an unrelated note, has Viacom ever not run a Cable TV network they own into the ground?
 

Dan McW

Supporting Actor
Joined
Aug 12, 2004
Messages
633
Real Name
Dan
Hank Dearborn said:
In a related note, and speaking of stations going downhill, Fox is apparently using TCM instead of its own Fox Movie Channel to promote the Ford at Fox DVD set in December. I wouldn't promote a Mannix DVD or anything else on TV Land now. You'd get a butchered episode and TV Land bugs all over the screen, and that great Lalo Schifrin closing theme would be obliterated by a promo.
 

Hank Dearborn

Supporting Actor
Joined
May 30, 2007
Messages
715
Real Name
Hank
MatthewA said:
On an unrelated note, has Viacom ever not run a Cable TV network they own into the ground?
Yes. HA!, but that was only because it lasted for about 6 months before they merged it with Comedy Channel and then it was owned by HBO who ran it into the ground.
 

Dave Scarpa

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 8, 1999
Messages
5,765
Real Name
David Scarpa
Dan McW said:
I have some Mannix eps from TV Land, from late in their run of Mannix, and they're about 43-44 minutes long. This was before TV Land's credit crunches, but my copies are bound to be time-compressed with a cut here and there. Did yours come from an earlier run? I didn't have TV Land from its launch.
In a related note, and speaking of stations going downhill, Fox is apparently using TCM instead of its own Fox Movie Channel to promote the Ford at Fox DVD set in December. I wouldn't promote a Mannix DVD or anything else on TV Land now. You'd get a butchered episode and TV Land bugs all over the screen, and that great Lalo Schifrin closing theme would be obliterated by a promo.
It's amazing how in the Past a Great Opening, think Hawaii Five O or Star Trek set the tone for the series, with great visuals and music, that's almost all gone know as tv execs screen as much commercial time. It makes a difference, thank god Pay cable still allow for great openings, look at Showtime's Dexter, that show is set with an excellent theme and opening, it's a virtue almost gone from Network Television today
 

Corey3rd

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
1,728
Real Name
Joe Corey
Dan McW said:
I have some Mannix eps from TV Land, from late in their run of Mannix, and they're about 43-44 minutes long. This was before TV Land's credit crunches, but my copies are bound to be time-compressed with a cut here and there. Did yours come from an earlier run? I didn't have TV Land from its launch.
In a related note, and speaking of stations going downhill, Fox is apparently using TCM instead of its own Fox Movie Channel to promote the Ford at Fox DVD set in December. I wouldn't promote a Mannix DVD or anything else on TV Land now. You'd get a butchered episode and TV Land bugs all over the screen, and that great Lalo Schifrin closing theme would be obliterated by a promo.
actually it would be a good thing to run them with all the crud and cuts on TVLand because then you can let folks know they can enjoy it better if they bought the DVDs. Otherwise people would dupe 'em off the channel.
Fox Movie Channel went downhill when they yanked all the Charlie Chans.
 

Corey3rd

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
1,728
Real Name
Joe Corey
Well I found my answer as to why Paramount isn't running these shows on TVLand - they're over at Retro TV Network. My local station is using their programming to fill up their bonus digital channel. They even have Cannon. Although not Mannix yet. perhaps when the show has been digital transfered, they'll end up on RTN
 

Corey3rd

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
1,728
Real Name
Joe Corey
Dave Scarpa said:
What is Retro TV Land an offshoot of TV Land?
It appears to have nothing to do with TVLand. Equity Media Holdings licensed a bunch of Paramount's and Universal shows. Seems to be to service their dozen owned stations. But non-Equity owned channels are picking it up the 15 hours of programming in order to fill up their spar digital stations.
look up retro television network on wikipedia to see if they're in your market. I stumbled across the station since the sister channel did zero promotion for their digital channel action.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,710
Messages
5,121,087
Members
144,145
Latest member
treed99
Recent bookmarks
0
Top