Monty Python's Flying Circus- Collector's Edition (1 Viewer)

[BrianJau]

I know this new boxset, which came out November 18th, has some additional extras that weren't in the previous A&E boxset (i.e. the Personal Best DVDs, and some new documentaries). What I'm curious about is whether they have fixed some of the faults with the previous set.

Specifically, is the word "masturbation" still censored in the "Summarizing Proust" sketch? Is the "Dad's Pooves" sketch still missing from the end of Series 3, Episode 12? Is there still a glitch in the middle of the "Biggles Dictates a Letter" sketch in Series 3, Episode 7?

I know there are some anomalies within the individual episodes which can never really be fixed (i.e. the overdubbing of "gangrene" over the word "cancer" in the Prince and His Black Spot cartoon, the replacement of "Girl From Impanema" in the Penguin on the TV sketch). These edits were made years ago, before home video release, and the episodes in their original form as they originally aired are probably no longer available anywhere.

However, I know there are versions of the Summarizing Proust sketch out there that are uncensored. I've seen the sketch in its uncensored form on Comedy Central and PBS. Leaving "Dad's Pooves" off the end of that episode was clearly a mistake on A&E's part; again, that post-credits sketch appears in every TV airing of the episode. The "Biggles" glitch is a video mastering error that really should never have been allowed to go through unnoticed.

I know it's probably asking a lot for A&E to go back and fix these errors, but it would be nice to have a set that didn't have these edits in them. Recently, there was a second "Young Ones" DVD release that reinstated some of the stuff that was cut out of the first release. I was kind of hoping they might have taken the trouble to do the same with this release. I'm not shelling out 75 bucks to find out- but if they did in fact fix these errors, I might consider selling my old set and buying the new one.

As a addendum to my post, it sounds like they have added the "Choreographed Party Political Broadcast" sketch (which has been missing from the beginning of Series 3, Episode 12 for many years and was just recently rediscovered) as an extra, "bonus sketch' on the set. Of course, ideally they should have reinstated it in its proper place within the episode, but again that would probably be impossible. It's nice that they went to the trouble to include it at all though.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The main discs are the same from 1999, so nothing's fixed.

 

[BrianJau]

Ok, that's what I thought, but thanks for verifying it anyway.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Even if A&E had gone to the trouble of re-sourcing the correct masters for the other edited episodes, I highly doubt they'd have stitched this back onto the proper episode. Why? From what I seem to remember, this sketch was found on an off-air (i.e. VHS/Beta) tape that had a station ID and/or "pledge break" phone numbers on-screen during the middle of the sketch. Therefore, the vast difference in picture quality, and the fact that the intrusive on-screen text can't be deleted, would mean it wouldn't look quite right spliced back onto the episode.

 

[Lord Dalek]

^There isn't much to go on for "correct masters" in terms of Python since all that censorship was done by the BBC itself in the 70's to its original 625 line PAL masters and the original uncensored elements are either junked or subpar. Hence you have issues like the poor quality version of the undertaker's sketch in the uncut "Royal Episode 13" which they had to splice in from a NTSC double conversion.

 

[BrianJau]

Yeah, stuff like that I know about, but the 3 examples I listed were human error in transferring the episodes to DVD. Someone didn't realize the "Dad's Pooves" sketch was part of that episode (since it appears after the final BBC logo as a post-credits sketch) and they just left it off the DVD set.
The "masturbation" thing makes even less sense. Why would you include a censored version of a sketch on a DVD set? Every video release of the series has included the uncensored version.

Basically I'm just asking for the episodes to be the same versions as the ones that air on TV.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Because someone at BBC Worldwide pulled the wrong master from the shelves and no-one at A&E knew any better? Wouldn't be the first time this has happened (where a later censored repeat version is pulled, presumably by mistake. Happened recently on the BBC's own release of the Steptoe and Son Christmas Specials, where an "edited to fit timeslot" version of one of the specials was mistakenly used.

 

[texboil]

What's most aggravating is the printed episode guide that comes along with the new set includes the missing Dad's Pooves, Dad's Army, and Party Political Broadcast sketches listed with the third series show in question.

No doubt A&E could have and should have corrected these mistakes from the initial releases.

But hey, they sold me on the new set, so I guess they win.