Other CBS Shows VEI could release (1 Viewer)

[Neil Brock]

Some half-season shows do get DVD releases every now and then. I know VEI did release the 1981 version of Nero Wolfe (only 14 episodes, plus the 1979 pilot) and The Immortal (15 episodes, plus the 1969 pilot) on DVD in 2017.

~Ben

True but there has to be a reason for it. Popular genre (The Immortal - SciFi elements) or cult show (Coronet Blue). Most of the shows you mention, you are just going to have to be content to live with your off air recordings most likely. I would say, maybe Day by Day or Dear John might be possibilities but I doubt any of the others you mentioned have a chance.

 

[Flashgear]

I'm thinking about shows which have existing usable tape elements, which means they wouldn't have to pay for film transfers:

Paper Moon
The Smith Family
Funny Face
Ben Casey (old Worldvision timesped versions, but still)
One Step Beyond (see above)
Breaking Point
New Breed
Serpico
The Associates
The New People

I dream of a licensed or CBS release of Ben Casey, and agree that be so even if, by necessity, it must be presented in the old time sped WorldVision tape transfers. I wish S1 to S4 of Combat! looked a little better, but they have always been perfectly watchable in their WorldVision time sped sources.

Guest star Tuesday Weld with Vince Edwards, publicity photo for When You See an Evil Man (Season one, May 28, 1962), Ben Casey won multiple Emmys as an acclaimed tv drama...a prestige show that represented some of the best TV drama from the early '60s...Vince Edwards sure had hairy arms, ha, ha...

With Susan Oliver in a publicity photo for Pas de Deux (Season 4, Jan. 18, 1965)

About QM's The New Breed (1961-62, 36 1 hour episodes), I (think) I know that it was never rerun in the States for the obvious reason of not having enough episodes for 'strip' syndication or wasn't bundled with another similar one season show to enable strip syndication in the '60s... at least to syndicate in small market affiliates or UHF stations that might have been interested, so I wonder when the show was transferred from 35 mm film?

Long before I discovered that The New Breed had originally aired in 1961-62, I thought it was a new mid sixties show, as that was when I first discovered it in Canada. I know for a fact it was syndicated in Canada about 1965-66, as that was when I first saw it. I can't tell you if it was bundled with another show to enable strip programming in foreign markets as I simply don't remember if it was. Canada was probably a prime market for The New Breed as it featured Canadian star Leslie Nielsen, who indeed had family in my hometown. I have about a third of the run from 16 mm sources. Based upon those, I would rank it as one of Quinn Martin's best series.

Leslie Nielsen and John Beradino foreground, Greg Roman and John Clarke were the regulars...smog bound LA City Hall in the background....

 

[Bert Greene]

"The New Breed" was actually made available in rerun syndication. I have some TV Guides showing it being aired in 1966-67 in some big city markets, usually on an independent channel, as one would expect. But obviously, it didn't show up very much or for very long. I certainly don't know of it ever airing anywhere in the 1970s or beyond. Anyway, the series is really at the top of my list in terms of 1960s hour-shows I'd like to see on dvd. I have a couple of episodes around here on vhs, and I've long wanted to see more.

 

[Flashgear]

"The New Breed" was actually made available in rerun syndication. I have some TV Guides showing it being aired in 1966-67 in some big city markets, usually on an independent channel, as one would expect. But obviously, it didn't show up very much or for very long. I certainly don't know of it ever airing anywhere in the 1970s or beyond. Anyway, the series is really at the top of my list in terms of 1960s hour-shows I'd like to see on dvd. I have a couple of episodes around here on vhs, and I've long wanted to see more.

Thanks for that very interesting info, Bert! That confirms The New Breed was syndicated in some fashion in the States. That was completely unknown to me. I have 12 episodes derived from 16 mm film in my collection. Viewing those, I can safely say it is definitely one of QM's best shows. Telly Savalas, William Windom and Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack (when he was still acting) together in one episode. Charles Bronson, Keenan Wynn and Mike Kellin in another with a terrific shoot out in a back woods cabin. Robert Redford as a strangler with Anne Francis in danger. Peter Falk, Victor Buono, Joan Hackett, Gloria Grahame, Tina Louise, Vic Morrow, Sherry Jackson, Ed Begley, Barry Morse, Nehemiah Persoff, Jack Klugman, Ed Nelson, Andrew Prine, Peter Fonda, Joanne Linville, Edward Andrews, Yvonne Craig, Robert Blake, Eddie Albert, Bea Benaderet, Larraine Day, Cloris Leachman, Arthur O'Connell, William Schallert, Ronny Howard, Dina Merril and Laura Devon in others. A lot of guest stars who would show up in QM's next show The Fugitive!

Leslie Nielsen, Jean Engstrom and Richard Arlen in a press photo for To Sell Another Human Being (Jan. 16, 1962)...

 

[Sky King]

Flashgear,

A Ben Casey DVD release is LONG OVERDUE !!!
Such a popular and well written show should have been released years ago.
As much as I'd like a new transfer from 35mm, I'd take the Worldvision tape over nothing.
They didn't look too bad when aired on CBN in the 1980's.

 

[Neil Brock]

Has VEI licensed any black and white shows from CBS? I don't think they have. Or have they even released any black and white shows at all? There's your answer.
My suggestion is to write them with ideas but please, if people are going to do that, all credibility is lost if some of the shows mentioned in this thread are suggested. No offense intended, but they aren't going to release some show that lasted a few episodes and was abysmal on top of it. If people send them a long list and most of the shows on there wouldn't sell 10 copies, they aren't going to pay any attention. Nor are they going to pay CBS to pull out 35mm prints of Archer or Kate McShane or some of the other scarcely known shows.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

If I had to limit my request list for VEI to a few shows, those ones might be:
1. Funny Face (1971)/The Sandy Duncan Show (1972) - both incarnations only had 13 episodes (26 total)
2. Here's Boomer (1980-1982)
3. Madame's Place (1982-1983) (again, exact number of episodes aired unknown; Broadcasting Magazine says 93 episodes were produced at the time it was canceled in 1983)
4. Bronx Zoo (1987-1988)
5. Duet (1987-1989)/Open House (1989-1990)
6. Day by Day (1988-1989)
7. Dear John (1988-1992)

~Ben

 

[Ian K McLachlan]

I too would welcome a Ben Casey DVD release.

 

[JamesSmith]

I dream of a licensed or CBS release of Ben Casey, and agree that be so even if, by necessity, it must be presented in the old time sped WorldVision tape transfers. I wish S1 to S4 of Combat! looked a little better, but they have always been perfectly watchable in their WorldVision time sped sources.

Guest star Tuesday Weld with Vince Edwards, publicity photo for When You See an Evil Man (Season one, May 28, 1962), Ben Casey won multiple Emmys as an acclaimed tv drama...a prestige show that represented some of the best TV drama from the early '60s...Vince Edwards sure had hairy arms, ha, ha...

Sigh! Tuesday Weld is so beautiful. I don't see that kind of loveliness these days.

James

 

[bmasters9]

4. Bronx Zoo (1987-1988)

And with, as VEI has had the track record for having, the Paramount logos of the time on each of the two seasons' worth (Blue Mtn. [standard, w/1982 music, IINM] on first shortened go, and CGI Mtn. on the other).

 

[Neil Brock]

And with, as VEI has had the track record for having, the Paramount logos of the time on each of the two seasons' worth (Blue Mtn. [standard, w/1982 music, IINM] on first shortened go, and CGI Mtn. on the other).

Who cares? Really, I can't think of anything less important.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

And with, as VEI has had the track record for having, the Paramount logos of the time on each of the two seasons' worth (Blue Mtn. [standard, w/1982 music, IINM] on first shortened go, and CGI Mtn. on the other).

And the same applies to Duet, though in the shorter 1st season there were also two versions of the 1981 music on the earliest episodes (the one with chimes [like you hear on the first three seasons of Family Ties, as well as on Police Squad!] on the first of the two 1-hour specials, and the same w/o chimes [like you hear on The Art of Being Nick] on the next four episodes).

~Ben

 

[Neil Brock]

Unfortunately, CBS/Viacom was not one of the studios that did tape transfers on their library at any point. The good thing about MGM, Worldvision and TNT was that at some point they decided to make one-inch tape copies of all of their TV series. Universal, Fox, Sony, Warner and CBS did not.

 

[MatthewA]

Seeing new logos on an old show instead of the original one feels tacky and anachronistic. They spend all the money they spend on restoring shows, they should be completely complete. Put the new logo after the old one. Sony figured that out; why can't CBS/Paramount?

Unfortunately, CBS/Viacom was not one of the studios that did tape transfers on their library at any point. The good thing about MGM, Worldvision and TNT was that at some point they decided to make one-inch tape copies of all of their TV series. Universal, Fox, Sony, Warner and CBS did not.

And most of the prints those tapes replaced ended up with collectors before eBay pushed the bottom out from under the 16mm film collectors' market. I managed to get as many individual episodes of shows I liked as I could afford and fit in my house. It was a crap shoot to whether they were uncut or not; in some cases, not being faded or riddled with vinegar syndrome was good enough.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Seeing new logos on an old show instead of the original one feels tacky and anachronistic. They spend all the money they spend on restoring shows, they should be completely complete. Put the new logo after the old one. Sony figured that out; why can't CBS/Paramount?



And most of the prints those tapes replaced ended up with collectors before eBay pushed the bottom out from under the 16mm film collectors' market. I managed to get as many individual episodes of shows I liked as I could afford and fit in my house. It was a crap shoot to whether they were uncut or not; in some cases, not being faded or riddled with vinegar syndrome was good enough.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PARAMOUNT-...879115?hash=item442d8b494b:g:FnsAAOSw7P5bO~S~

Here's a 16mm film reel of the Stephen J. Cannell and Paramount Television logos (circa 1983), as some of you might have seen on non-North American broadcasts of The Greatest American Hero, Hardcastle & McCormick and Riptide.

~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PARAMOUNT-...879115?hash=item442d8b494b:g:FnsAAOSw7P5bO~S~

Here's a 16mm film reel of the Stephen J. Cannell and Paramount Television logos (circa 1983), as some of you might have seen on non-North American broadcasts of The Greatest American Hero, Hardcastle & McCormick and Riptide.

~Ben

Kind of like a similar reel of CPT's 80s Coke Lady of the time-- which leads me to wonder, how are these logo reels available to be bid on or purchased? Are they removed from actual reels of episodes that had these logos?

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Kind of like a similar reel of CPT's 80s Coke Lady of the time-- which leads me to wonder, how are these logo reels available to be bid on or purchased? Are they removed from actual reels of episodes that had these logos?

This one would be a real tough one to fathom, since as I said before Paramount only distributed the Stephen Cannell library outside North America.

~Ben

 

[howard1908]

Out of all the shows Neil listed, the only one I see vei releasing is serpico, due to its connection to the Al Pacino film. The fact that this company has been around for 5+ years and has yet to release a b&w series makes me doubtful that any release of the new breed, Ben casey or one step beyond is forthcoming. Has anybody ever asked them if they have any interest in doing b&w shows, or are they just sticking exclusively with late 60s to mid 80s fare.

 

[Flashgear]

Out of all the shows Neil listed, the only one I see vei releasing is serpico, due to its connection to the Al Pacino film. The fact that this company has been around for 5+ years and has yet to release a b&w series makes me doubtful that any release of the new breed, Ben casey or one step beyond is forthcoming. Has anybody ever asked them if they have any interest in doing b&w shows, or are they just sticking exclusively with late 60s to mid 80s fare.

I agree, someone should ask them if they would ever consider a B+W show, but like most here, I assume the answer is no, based on their history of licensed releases. In my post above in this thread I said "I dream of a licensed or CBS release of Ben Casey", I never cited VEI as a possible source for that kind of release. I would never expect them to be interested in touching a show of that vintage. I was thinking more of the confounding, inscrutable and slow as molasses in January CBS MOD program. I wouldn't imagine that Shout Factory would be interested either. The Kino-Lorber insider has said about any further vintage TV releases, "We have to be very careful"...in doing their cost/benefit analysis, presumably. For me, my most desired era in TV collecting is circa 1955-1965. I might be interested in Serpico, if that short run series featured a wealth of period NYC location filming (?)... I barely remember that show, as I don't remember watching it with any consistency during my high school years. Ben Casey, The New Breed and One Step Beyond are verging on fantasy now as the lights dim in the twilight years of DVD. I wish it was different. We have to hope that the resiliency and economics of the boutique physical media on disc market holds up for (hopefully) another decade if any of these B+W shows have any chance at all. Or a revolution in streaming and download availability, which is not likely. Whatever platform, we have to put our money where our mouths are.

Still, with what we have coming...Dan August, Outer Limits S2 on Blu, High Chaparral S2, and Gunsmoke S14 in February... isn't bad at all!

 

[howard1908]

I agree, someone should ask them if they would ever consider a B+W show, but like most here, I assume the answer is no, based on their history of licensed releases. In my post above in this thread I said "I dream of a licensed or CBS release of Ben Casey", I never cited VEI as a possible source for that kind of release. I would never expect them to be interested in touching a show of that vintage. I was thinking more of the confounding, inscrutable and slow as molasses in January CBS MOD program. I wouldn't imagine that Shout Factory would be interested either. The Kino-Lorber insider has said about any further vintage TV releases, "We have to be very careful"...in doing their cost/benefit analysis, presumably. For me, my most desired era in TV collecting is circa 1955-1965. I might be interested in Serpico, if that short run series featured a wealth of period NYC filming (?)... I barely remember that show, as I don't remember watching it with any consistency during my high school years. Ben Casey, The New Breed and One Step Beyond are verging on fantasy now as the lights dim in the twilight years of DVD. I wish it was different.

Still, with what we have coming...Dan August, Outer Limits S2 on Blu, High Chaparral S2, and Gunsmoke S14 in February... isn't bad at all!

I definitely agree with you that if any release of any of those three shows is going to happen that it will be through CBS's MOD program. Sad to hear about kino-lorber, but that is to be expected; it is much easier to restore an 85 minute movie and sell it for 20 bucks and see profit, than it is to restore an 30 episode series and sell it for 30 dollars and see profit. I never thought they were going to play big role in classic tv business, but it would of been nice to see what other short lived gems that could have restored.