My Adam 12 E bay Experience (1 Viewer)

[John*Wells]

About 2 months ago I set out to collect Adam 12 on DVD. I Found all but Season 1 on Amazon and bought the individual shrink-wrap Sets because I refused to pay $300 for all of the seasons at once. I Checked Deep Discount and Season 1 was back ordered. So I Checked E bay and found Season one available for about $17.00 I purchased it and was advised it would arrive by May 15. It hadn't arrived by May 20. The Seller sent me a message stating he had inadvertently shipped season 1 to the wrong person when he was supposed to ship season 2 to another party and season 1 to me. He said the other buyer agreed to send Season 1 back to him so he could send it to me. Well It never arrived so I had pretty much written it off. Then yesterday I get an e mail from the Seller stating that he had been trying to track it through the post office all this time and he believed it had gotten lost. He then issued me a refund. He also said that if he got the set back and I still wanted it he would send it to me without charge . Thats pretty awesome in my book

 

[LouA]

Yes! Some good dealers on EBay. Good show I hope you find season.
Funny thing about some Shout Factory shows like Newhart, Dragnet , and Adam 12.: these shows were picked up with season 2 or even later , so the early seasons may be hard to find.

 

[Museum Pieces]

It's unfortunate that Adam 12 as a complete series isn't more accessible. It's probably the only long running TV drama I can think of that doesn't have a single stinker episode. This is a series that deserves HD treatment if you ask me. It's not perfect, but I can watch any episode, any time, anywhere.

 

[LeoA]

Hopefully you can track it down. While undesirable due to infamous disc read issues, I'm surprised that the original flipper release is even hard to get.

I'm happy I upgraded to the single sided rerelease a couple of years ago. Did so with Emergency! as well, although I cut it close with buying the season 2 rerelease (It's been unavailable on Amazon ever since I bought the last copy in stock a few months back).

There's a couple of Adam-12 episodes that I'm not so crazy about. Discounting a few depressing ones that are fine episodes but which I sometimes skip if I'm not in the mood (Like season 7's episode about the rape of a little girl, called 'Excessive Force'), I don't particularly care for the two-parter that ended the series or the second half of another two-part episode about a juvenile delinquent at summer camp.

I'm straying I know, but Emergency! also did a fine job with a similar lack of duds. They knew the formula worked and stuck with it even closer than Adam-12 did, with the only episode I consider weak being a backdoor pilot called 905-Wild.

 

[MartinP.]

It's unfortunate that Adam 12 as a complete series isn't more accessible. It's probably the only long running TV drama I can think of that doesn't have a single stinker episode. This is a series that deserves HD treatment if you ask me. It's not perfect, but I can watch any episode, any time, anywhere.

For whatever reason, Universal is still manufacturing Season 1 of both Adam-12 and Dragnet and Shout Factory the remaining seasons of both series. Which is why there's no series set release, I would imagine.
___

I bought the whole series in two orders about six months apart, last year. I got S1 from Amazon. It's selling on there right now, in stock for the lowest price I've ever seen it, $16.20:
Adam-12 SSN1 DVD DNSZ. What is DNSZ?

 

[MCCLOUD]

I don’t know what DNSZ means.
Adam-12 was rereleased by Universal in 2018. It was the same Transfer as the Original 2005 release.
The 2018 release while having the same transfer did have single sided discs while the 2005 original release were on double sided “flipper” discs. The 2018 rerelease on single sided discs is the one a person should get! Don’t get the 2005 release on flippers discs!!!

Take Care!!!

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Yeah, when John originally posted about wanting season 1, I was going to offer to sell him my copy of the 2005 set. But after 15 years, I can't guarantee the flippers aren't totally screwed up. In fact, I think they had issues on various players I had way back when, and that's why I picked up a single sided copy.

 

[John*Wells]

Yeah, when John originally posted about wanting season 1, I was going to offer to sell him my copy of the 2005 set. But after 15 years, I can't guarantee the flippers aren't totally screwed up. In fact, I think they had issues on various players I had way back when, and that's why I picked up a single sided copy.

Thank you. I Appreciate that. I was able to find the Season 1 Set on Amazon for the same price I purched it on E bay for. It Came today. It is a Single Side set I am watching the first Episode Now. So far so good No freezes or issues with not playing in my player. I never saw Emergency. However, I will probably purchase it out of Admiration for the late Jack Webb

 

[LeoA]

If you enjoy Adam-12 and Jack Webb's style, I guarantee that Emergency! is a 99.9% safe blind buy for you.

While not as nice as the modern HD transfers getting a Blu-Ray release would be, I believe the complete series set is even getting a rerelease soon as well (Just a reissue of the old DVD releases, most of which relied on 1980's era videotape transfers until the remastering process caught up with the DVD releases in time for the final season and the six post-series tv movies).

I wish they'd put both of these out on Blu-Ray one of these days. I actually considered subscribing to a streaming service recently to see Emergency! in remastered form, only to discover it's not even available on any service. Expensive work just for HD transfers that are sitting idle (Unsure if they're on a channel like Cozi, since I only get Me-TV and they lost most of their Universal shows a few years ago).

 

[Jack P]

The Universal fire was what led to the new remastering that we only saw in S6 and the movies on DVD. Otherwise those would have been the old ratty early 80s transfers that really impacts most of the episodes from the end of S2 through S5. (Season 1 and part of Season 2 had remasterings in the early 90s for the Columbia House Video Club).

 

[LouA]

The Universal fire was what led to the new remastering that we only saw in S6 and the movies on DVD. Otherwise those would have been the old ratty early 80s transfers that really impacts most of the episodes from the end of S2 through S5. (Season 1 and part of Season 2 had remasterings in the early 90s for the Columbia House Video Club).

So, the masters for Adam 12 weren’t lost in the fire? What was lost-production copies?
Does that pertain to other Universal TV shows too, like Fifties Dragnet?
It would be nice if the negatives survived, but Universal has never been forthcoming so we keep hearing that “everything” was lost!

 

[John*Wells]

If you enjoy Adam-12 and Jack Webb's style, I guarantee that Emergency! is a 99.9% safe blind buy for you.

While not as nice as the modern HD transfers getting a Blu-Ray release would be, I believe the complete series set is even getting a rerelease soon as well (Just a reissue of the old DVD releases, most of which relied on 1980's era videotape transfers until the remastering process caught up with the DVD releases in time for the final season and the six post-series tv movies).

I wish they'd put both of these out on Blu-Ray one of these days. I actually considered subscribing to a streaming service recently to see Emergency! in remastered form, only to discover it's not even available on any service. Expensive work just for HD transfers that are sitting idle (Unsure if they're on a channel like Cozi, since I only get Me-TV and they lost most of their Universal shows a few years ago).

I made the purchase of Emergency this afternoon. I read up on it and found out that Martin Milner crossed over as Malloy. That’s good enough for me

 

[Jack P]

So, the masters for Adam 12 weren’t lost in the fire? What was lost-production copies?
Does that pertain to other Universal TV shows too, like Fifties Dragnet?
It would be nice if the negatives survived, but Universal has never been forthcoming so we keep hearing that “everything” was lost!

The video masters from the late 80s-90s for "Adam-12" weren't lost in the fire. Many shows had copies that were circulating outside Universal at the time for cable airings and those backup versions are why most Universal shows still made it to DVD from those old masters. Some shows that weren't being aired on cable at the time were the ones where old masters were completely lost and why they haven't made it to DVD ("Switch", the remaining seasons of "Baretta").

Fifties Dragnet never had any video masters. They would have to be created from the 35mm film elements, and keep in mind the fire didn't impact the 35mm master elements of Universal shows, only the old video transfers. New transfers would have to be made off the 35mm elements as was done for "Emergency!". So no filmed Universal shows were technically lost in the fire. But because it's so expensive to do a new set of transfers that's why a lot of shows that only exist on 35mm will likely never be seen (unless old 16mm prints were used like with all the 50s-60s shows released by Timeless).

The things that we know were lost in the fire for good were obscure shows shot on videotape (the 70s "Sirota's Court" with Michael Constantine would come to mind) and also the expanded "TV cuts" of theatrical films like "Midway", "Two Minute Warning" etc. When the TV cut of the latter was released as a bonus on Blu-Ray it had to come from a 90s TNT airing.

 

[LouA]

The video masters from the late 80s-90s for "Adam-12" weren't lost in the fire. Many shows had copies that were circulating outside Universal at the time for cable airings and those backup versions are why most Universal shows still made it to DVD from those old masters. Some shows that weren't being aired on cable at the time were the ones where old masters were completely lost and why they haven't made it to DVD ("Switch", the remaining seasons of "Baretta").

Fifties Dragnet never had any video masters. They would have to be created from the 35mm film elements, and keep in mind the fire didn't impact the 35mm master elements of Universal shows, only the old video transfers. New transfers would have to be made off the 35mm elements as was done for "Emergency!". So no filmed Universal shows were technically lost in the fire. But because it's so expensive to do a new set of transfers that's why a lot of shows that only exist on 35mm will likely never be seen (unless old 16mm prints were used like with all the 50s-60s shows released by Timeless).

The things that we know were lost in the fire for good were obscure shows shot on videotape (the 70s "Sirota's Court" with Michael Constantine would come to mind) and also the expanded "TV cuts" of theatrical films like "Midway", "Two Minute Warning" etc. When the TV cut of the latter was released as a bonus on Blu-Ray it had to come from a 90s TNT airing.

That explains a lot-thanks!!

 

[LeoA]

While happily it didn't severely harm the television and movie history under this company's umbrella (In some ways, it actually benefited preservation of large swathes of it as discussed here with the post-fire remastering of shows deemed to hold enough syndication value to justify the investment), the music side of what was once Universal's music division didn't fare very well.

Thousands of masters were lost. All the way from huge hits to unreleased music. Many irreplaceable recordings. The official corporate line has always downplayed the damage caused by this vault fire, but the sad reality of what actually went on has slowly became well known despite official attempts to minimize it.