Mary Tyler Moore Show: Season 2 coming in July (CONSOLIDATED DISCUSSION) (1 Viewer)

[geallen]

I purchased the Mary Tyler Moore show teaser DVD set. It did not have any kind of $10 coupon in it to purchase the set. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Scott_J]

No, I think I can tell the difference between a single disc containing 4 episodes and a 4-disc set containing 24 episodes. FOX has been doing this for a couple months, hoping people will end up buying subsequent seasons of shows if they can get season 1 for cheap. A couple months ago, e-tailers were playing Hot Potato, so to speak, with FOX S1 sets - Amazon had them cheap, then BeetBuy.con, then BN.com etc. The Wal-Mart I was at had 5 or 6 FOX S1s for $14.44 each (see my post in this week's Weekly Roundup thread in the Bargains forum for the list.) There was a special display near the entrance to the electronics section, near the new release display.

I had a nice chuckle when I opened up the set last night and, on my lap, fell out not 1 but 2 cards advertising the S2 release of MTM, "coming March 2003."

 

[Marty M]

I, too, was upset to see and hear that White Christmas had been deleted from that episode, but I am such a huge MTM Show fan that I just had to have Season 1.

 

[Eric Paddon]

Okay, just how much of the song is missing from the episode? Because you can still hear Mary singing "May your days be merry and bright..." on the DVD so was a whole chorus originally there that got edited down? And if this were a music rights issue, then how could a line get left in?

 

[David Von Pein]

In addition to this obvious difference in packaging, if Wal*Mart was charging $14.44 for the Starter Disc, they'd be ripping people off big-time -- because that's about $5 more than the MSRP of $9.98.

The Starter Disc goes for around $6 to $7 (after the usual mark-down).

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Anthony D:


I've been here so long, through so many software changes and upgrades, that I either forgot there was such a limit or it didn't exist when I joined the forum (there was only one back then) and dinosaurs ruled the Earth. (I don't have a "member since" date because it was lost in an upgrade five or six years ago. )

Regards,

Joe

 

[David Von Pein]

It is a bit of on odd edit -- the uncut version still doesn't include the words (title) "White Christmas". Not that that matters I suppose, but as Eric points out, it seems odd that the "Merry and bright" line can be left in, but the following "and may all your Christmases be white" had to be chopped off.

We also (on the DVD) lose Mary's next line of dialogue too. So it isn't technically ONLY the little bit of the musical number that's being edited out.

Mary's line -- "Now for my next number, I think I'm going to cry" (or something very close to that) -- is also not included on the S.1 DVD. :frowning:

I, like George K., was not thrilled at all with this Christmas Show edit. But, IMO, this 10- to 15-second edit is not a big enough issue to warrant NOT purchasing a classic show like MTM-1. Mileage, of course, will vary per individual.

But, I must say, I admire George's convictions. He's stickin' to his decision, even though he obviously likes TMTMS quite a bit. (Let's just hope there are no edits to keep him from getting MTM-2. )

BTW -- George mentioned previously enjoying his "uncut" Dick Van Dyke DVDs. However, to be perfectly technical, I think there is at least one minor edit on the Van Dyke DVD sets.

In TDVDS Episode #80 (Season 3) -- "The Life And Love Of Joe Coogan" -- there are two words uttered by Rob Petrie that have been edited off of the DVD soundtrack (for what reason, I cannot fathom at all). .... When Rob is arguing with Laura on the phone about Laura's having invited Coogan to dinner, Rob's line of "You're gonna hear a dial tone in a minute, because I'm gonna hang up on you!" -- the last two words, "On you", are missing from the DVD soundtrack. Very odd, IMO. (It's not a case of audience laughter blocking out the words from being audible either; it's definitely been cut out for some reason. Haven't figured out why.)

Perhaps George Kaplan can check his copy of this episode and see if that edit matches what I just relayed above.

 

[EricSchulz]

Regarding the "White Christmas" issue: IIRC, there is a loophole in the copyright law that allows up to five seconds to be played without compensation; more than that and you gotta get it cleared. I seem to recall some movie/TV show where a character kept skirting around the law by only singing a song for less than five seconds ans then mocking the rights holder...

 

[David Von Pein]

Thanks, Eric S.
That'd certainly explain the odd edit in the MTM-1 set.

Also -- Without Mary getting misty-eyed while watching the WHOLE "White Christmas" clip on the office TV, I think that the Fox DVD people probably felt that editing out Mary's following line (about wanting to cry) probably was the best thing to do, for continuity of the scene. That, to me, does make sense. (I'd still like the whole uncut scene, though -- obviously. But what are ya gonna do? Short of shelling out the no-doubt unGodly sum of greenbacks to acquire those 10 seconds of the famous Yuletide ditty, I guess we'll just have to live with
an edit. )

 

[Malcolm R]

And it begins anew....

 

[David Von Pein]

I think it's a pretty safe guess that if MTM-2 doesn't register good sales (at just a $21 take-home price approx., which is excellent IMO), then we're certainly not likely at all to see FOX continue to put out future MTM sets.

Let's just hope the sales surpass FOX's "We're Go For Season 3!" curve. Seems to me they will (or should), just by that very nice price point alone (plus the fact it's an excellent TV series of course).

 

[Eric Paddon]

At the very least, even if we don't get another season past this one, I'll at least have a season of the standard opening theme music on DVD! I can only take so much of just hearing the first season theme music over and over again.

 

[george kaplan]

Regarding Joe Coogan,

I see the missing words, but it does appear to coincide with a laugh. Now, I know that the show was filmed in front of a studio audience, but I also know that sometimes the laughter was modified in the editing room (e.g., shortened considerably during the pivotal scene in That's My Boy), and since you can still see his mouth saying the rest of the line, but only hear laughter, it doesn't look like it's cut, just edited that way. I've noticed other times when the words don't sync up exactly, and it's clear that ADR was being done in those situations. I have no proof, but would suspect that the editing of this line in Joe Coogan was done that way back when the show aired.

In any case, this is clearly not a case of the dvd maker purposely doing this either for censorship reasons or to save a buck.

In the case of MTM, it's clear that they purposely cut the line just because they were too cheap to pay for the rights.

That Xmas episode was by far my favorite of the first season (it's up there as one of my favorites of the whole show), and to have my favorite episode needlessly and purposely cut was just too much, even if it was only 10 seconds.

 

[David Von Pein]

[/b]
I agree with this sentiment 100%. In fact, I think the Christmas ep. (along with another fave, "1040 Or Fight") should have been included on the FOX "Starter Set" that came out in March. But neither of those was included.

 

[David Von Pein]

Sorry, but I can't go along with you on this. The S.1 theme is the best of the seven seasons, IMHO.

Which season's opening had the horrible piece of sloppy editing, when an obvious (and abrupt) cut/splice can easily be detected? It was a latter MTM season, I believe (maybe S.5 or S.6).

They did that to obviously trim the previous opening down without having to re-shoot the whole intro piece again; but it's a jarring (and rather bad) splicing together of the theme music, in my opinion.

 

[Eric Paddon]

One of the commentaries mentions that another reason why they had to do a new open for Season 2 was because in the Season 1 montage, Mary is wearing a fur coat and suddenly between Season 1 and 2 she went on an anti-fur kick and wouldn't let that shot be used any more.

I always hated the fact that the last episode had the truncated, non-signing opening. Just didn't seem right.

 

[george kaplan]

Just to be clear, I don't think the laugh drowns out his words, I just think that when it was edited, either for a reason (e.g., maybe someone in the audience started hacking), or by accident, it was edited in such a way that those two words got lost, and probably no one noticed in time to get Dick to overdub it.

 

[David Von Pein]

It appears that MTM-2 has been pushed back 2 weeks -- to July 26th (instead of the originally-announced release date of July 12th). ........

http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=FXD028669

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd

(And, for some reason, Amazon has hiked the take-home price by $6. :frowning: Glad I ordered earlier, when it was just $20.99. I'm wondering, though, if this higher price is just temporary; I've seen the good folks at Amazon-land do this before -- raise a price, then lower it back down again. I guess it's just a pure spite kind of customer-toying tactic to keep us guessing and riddled with utter price-matching fear and tension.

They're gonna rue the day..... )

 

[JohnMor]

They're toying with us!! Aarrrrggghhh!

Ah, well thank goodness I'll have the first seasons of Bewitched and The Doris Day Show coming in June to help me pass the extra 2 weeks.

 

[Erik_H]

Speaking of "MTM" and music rights---IMHO, one of the highlights of the entire series is the scene in which Mary tries to persuade Lou that she can sing by performing "One for My Baby and One More for the Road" to sidesplitting effect. Here's hoping that this scene (which I think appears in an episode from the final season and also includes Georgette singing "Steam Heat") makes it to DVD intact.