Questions Shout! Factory Answers On Facebook About Stalled Holy Grail Shows (8 Viewers)

[Mr. Handley]

The weird thing about the Room 222 releases is that there were a small handful of episodes that looked like they were remastered or at least were in MUCH better shape than the majority of the episodes, which looked horrible (but the content was still worth it).

 

[Mr. Handley]

To my mind, and most people who liked the show, the original 78 half hours were the true classic SCTV episodes.

While I love those early half hour episodes, I think the Network 90 episodes are even better. The longer format gave them time to stretch out a bit, especially with the movie parodies. I only saw the Cinemax episodes a couple of times and they seemed to be running out of steam by then.

 

[Neil Brock]

While I love those early half hour episodes, I think the Network 90 episodes are even better. The longer format gave them time to stretch out a bit, especially with the movie parodies. I only saw the Cinemax episodes a couple of times and they seemed to be running out of steam by then.

Was Harold Ramis even still with the show on NBC? To my mind, he was the best of all of the great performers on the show.

 

[Neil Brock]

Considering the car crash that One Day at a Time turned into with Mackenzie Phillips's heroin addiction, it shouldn't be surprising at all that this show is getting deep sixed. Even Valerie Bertanelli's boobs can't save it!

The show was mediocre at best to begin with and is one of those series that through a quirk in the world of TV scheduling, managed to have a far longer lifespan than its quality warranted. Similar to other series such as Bonanza, Alice, etc. ODAT always followed Top 10 shows, starting with MASH. Had it been elsewhere on the schedule where it would have had to survive on its own merits, it would have been gone in a flash.

 

[Neil Brock]

A music-restored Odd Couple set is at the top of my Holy Grail list, along with The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (probably never gonna happen.)

Ghost and Mrs. Muir has been out for a couple of years already.

 

[MaxMorrow]

There were 78 syndicated half hours before the NBC run, of which Shout released 15. There were 18 Cinemax episodes following the NBC run, of which none have been released. Shout's releases are completely incomplete.

Which I understand (as I hoped to express in my previous post, but perhaps I didn't do a good enough job?)

To my mind, and most people who liked the show, the original 78 half hours were the true classic SCTV episodes.

That perspective [EDIT: As well as mine, of course] might be a regional or generational thing. I (and many people I know and/or grew up with) first became a fan of the show through its NBC run. But we didn't have the pleasure of seeing any of the syndicated episodes at that time. Didn't even know they existed until years later. But we were all pre-teens then (though NOT part of the "Pre-Teen World" cast, unfortunately), and perhaps not as worldly as some of the more distinguished members of this fine forum.

 

[Jack P]

Ghost and Mrs. Muir has been out for a couple of years already.

Not in R1. For a lot of people like myself that still makes a difference.

 

[Neil Brock]

Come to think of it, where was Norman Lear in the early 1980s when he wasn't at PFAW meetings or buying out Avco Embassy? He certainly wasn't giving any of his shows his personal touch anymore; others took over the job of "production supervisor." Where One Day is concerned, declining quality in the later years* of this and other Lear shows didn't keep any of the others off DVD.



I don't know, you tell me, just like you are fond of telling everyone "poor sales" "poor sales" "poor sales" without citing numbers, and especially considering this show is owned by Fox, who has been known to lie about the subject. Historically, first seasons sell the best anyway even if they're not the best season. If Rhoda didn't sell well-enough to justify a release of its little-seen—and not even shown in its entirety by CBS—last season, it's at least partly because they cut so many corners on the first season set that my guess can only be that it left a bad taste in people's mouths about the rest. It certainly left one in mine. But I would gladly have bought this and Father Knows Best had they not been released with outdated, edited masters from the get-go. They should have pulled those sets from stores, not just meekly promising "we'll do better on the next seasons." Even though they fulfilled those promises, those first season sets are still defective sets, and so is any set that's mostly edited episodes. In short: they didn't remaster the first season when they remastered the others.

That's probably also why Room 222 didn't sell: because the transfers were just too hideous to be suitable for DVD. Just because a TV show was made in the 1970s doesn't mean the transfer has to be, too.

*T.A.T. moved head writers Linda Marsh and Margie Peters over to Facts of Life in a last-ditch effort to save it from cancellation…that worked! They had nothing to do with the Over Our Heads years, but Shout! still released them nonetheless.

You know its real easy to talk when your company isn't putting up the money, nor having to deal with nitwits, like I would imagine it must be like talking to Fox. Sub-licensees do not have a great deal of say regarding elements and what masters are provided to them. It is often a case of you get what you get. The alternative, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to remaster shows which the owners never thought was worth doing, is taking a huge financial risk with little chance of reaping a reward. Just because a handful of diehards here on this board with their 100 inch high def. TVs can't enjoy anything short of perfect does not mean that the majority of the public feels the same way. Look at the garbage that passes for broadcast television these days - 1/3 of a time slot are commercials. Network bug on screen at all times. Promos put on the bottom of the screen throughout. Squeezed credits. Shows on channels such as Cozi that are cut by 25% of the content. I would like all DVD releases to be perfect too but we live in an imperfect world where 90% of people in all walks of life are incompetent at their jobs. Sometimes you just have to let it go and look at the glass as half full.

 

[MatthewA]

The show was mediocre at best to begin with and is one of those series that through a quirk in the world of TV scheduling, managed to have a far longer lifespan than its quality warranted. Similar to other series such as Bonanza, Alice, etc. ODAT always followed Top 10 shows, starting with MASH. Had it been elsewhere on the schedule where it would have had to survive on its own merits, it would have been gone in a flash.

There's also the issue of whether that remake is ever going to happen.


Original time slots don't make any difference once a show hits syndication or DVD; CBS moved The Jeffersons to 16 time slots in 11 seasons, and NBC moved Gimme A Break! to 10 time slots in 6 seasons. We still got both those shows on DVD in their entirety.

If M*A*S*H were a new show, separate groups would protest it off the air both for the way Hawkeye and Trapper treat Margaret Houlihan and for the way they treated Frank Burns.


Bonanza thrived on cable reruns for years; many is the time I remember walking into the room on a Saturday afternoon and finding my Mom watching it.

The alternative, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to remaster shows which the owners never thought was worth doing, is taking a huge financial risk with little chance of reaping a reward.

Not every studio is like Fox. Some of them actually bother to inspect their elements before releasing them to the public. But their worst masters were so bad, you wouldn't have needed a large TV to see what was wrong with them. Faded color, dirt, scratches, even focus problems!


Sony treats their filmed shows with a bit more respect; even some short-lived shows like Starman got new transfers before they became MODs. CBS chops every note of music on DVD, but you have to admit they sure know how to make the picture quality of what their editors leave behind look good. Universal's new owners seem to be working on replenishing as many masters as they can, and you can see the results on Netflix where they have Columbo, The Rockford Files and Murder She Wrote in HD; as far as I know, only Columbo has a Blu-ray set in Japan. I can't tell you about the quality too many other shows they released, but MGM's remasters of Green Acres looked great, which is why it shocks me that they're playing "take-the-ball-and-go-home" with it. Disney's library is smaller, they've gotten increasingly picky about what they release and when, and the last time they did a major push to remaster their TV library was in the 1990s right before HD went mainstream, but the small selection of live-action stuff they have remastered in HD looks good. It is Fox, and Fox alone, that has an "if it was good enough for UHF stations in 1983, it's good enough for digital platforms in 2015" attitude for anything that isn't a sci-fi show. Still, I'm honestly glad Warner Bros. won the rights to the 1960s Batman.

 

[Mr. Handley]

Was Harold Ramis even still with the show on NBC?

No. Ramis was long gone before the show moved to NBC as Network 90.

 

[Ron Lee Green]

Considering the car crash that One Day at a Time turned into with Mackenzie Phillips's heroin addiction, it shouldn't be surprising at all that this show is getting deep sixed. Even Valerie Bertanelli's boobs can't save it!

I recorded almost every single episode of One Day at a Time from Antenna TV on my DVR even though I was sure that Shout would probably release it after I finished. Now with this news, I'm glad I did. Guess I better get the episodes I missed now that their on their "second-run".

Of course, I would rather have uncut episodes instead of syndicated ones, but I guess it's better than nothing. I did like the addition of Nanette Fabray and her niece, Shelly Fabares, to the cast, though.

 

[Frank Soyke]

The show was mediocre at best to begin with and is one of those series that through a quirk in the world of TV scheduling, managed to have a far longer lifespan than its quality warranted. Similar to other series such as Bonanza, Alice, etc. ODAT always followed Top 10 shows, starting with MASH. Had it been elsewhere on the schedule where it would have had to survive on its own merits, it would have been gone in a flash.

The fact of the matter is that even though I love some of these shows from a nostaglic perspective, most of the 70's and 80's sitcoms just weren't very good and didn't really hold up to well looking back, particularly the Lear shows because of their outdated topicality. The Lear shows were better written than some of their contemporaries but some of the acting just very wooden and frankly not very good (Bill Macy, Sally Struthers, Isabel Sanford, etc). A lot of the other non-Lear popular sitcoms of the 70's and 80's weren't only poorly acted, but didn't have decent writing either. Don't believe me, try watching an episode of Different Strokes or Growing Pains sometime, it's downright painful (and don't get me started on something like Family Matters, Full House, or Webster). Terrible acting, poor scripts, etc.

There were exceptions. There were some Popular sitcoms of the era that were well acted/and/or well written like Bob Newhart, MASH, Benson, MTM, WKRP, Happy Days (Caveat - Early Happy Days), Barney Miller, etc IMO. But many other popular sitcoms of those years were in the same boat at ODAAT for not being an all around good show but "made it" anyway.

 

[bmasters9]

There were exceptions. There were some Popular sitcoms of the era that were well acted/and/or well written like Bob Newhart, MASH, Benson, MTM, WKRP, Happy Days (Caveat - Early Happy Days), Barney Miller, etc IMO.

I very much agree with you on The Bob Newhart Show and Barney Miller. My purchases of those were some of the best money I ever spent as far as television series are concerned.

 

[dvdclon]

No. Ramis was long gone before the show moved to NBC as Network 90.

My Volume 1 box lists Harold Ramis in the cast. I seem to remember him and Robin Duke occasionally appearing (perhaps uncredited.)

 

[Mr. Handley]

My Volume 1 box lists Harold Ramis in the cast. I seem to remember him and Robin Duke occasionally appearing (perhaps uncredited.)

Ramis was gone after Season 2, along with John Candy and Catherine O'Hara. They were replaced for Season 3 by Tony Rosato, Robin Duke and Rick Moranis. For the 4th season (first of Network 90), Candy and O'Hara returned, replacing Rosato and Duke. I believe that the first couple of Network 90 shows may have included some clips from previous seasons, so maybe that's how some of the old cast members slipped in there. Rosato and Duke went on to join SNL for the 1981-82 season.

 

[MatthewA]

IIRC, Benson is another show Shout! said "no way, no how" to completing. It got a reprieve from Sony's MOD program, but then nothing after the one botched season 2 release that accidentally had season 3 episodes, which is when the show hits its stride anyway.

If that show fails to sell, it won't be because of me.

 

[TV_Fan]

IIRC, Benson is another show Shout! said "no way, no how" to completing. It got a reprieve from Sony's MOD program, but then nothing after the one botched season 2 release that accidentally had season 3 episodes, which is when the show hits its stride anyway.

If that show fails to sell, it won't be because of me.

I don't recall Shout! ever saying they didn't want Benson. IIRC they said they were looking into it but since Sony was releasing it on MOD it was doubted they wanted to license it out. But who knows since then.


Oh and another Shout! stalled Sony show-My Two Dads.

 

[LeoA]

Yes, It is always possible they could revisit it. However, it would take a "Fugitive" like mindset to admit they messed up and redo seasons 1 and 2, and I just don't think MTS has the same "Fugitive" type clout in the right places within CBS. Never say never, I guess, but I'm not holding out any hope. I'm fortunate enough in that there are only a handful of TV series that are unlikely to be released, fixed, or un-stalled on my short list of titles.

I really wouldn't expect them to restart this by revisiting these.


Perhaps as a season 1/2 combination pack rereleased to stores like Wal-Mart widely carried for Petticoat Junction after season 3 appeared, or fixed as a complete series release for the B&W seasons. But not by admitting that they were wrong and starting from square 1 with season one again.


I'm more so talking about starting with season 3 and going forward.

Not in R1. For a lot of people like myself that still makes a difference.

I'm not very optimistic with FOX. They've given zero reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.


That said, since this one has appeared elsewhere, it gives me some hope that this one might escape by being licensed out for release in the US and Canada.

 

[kingfish]

hopefully we will see a studio finish black sheep squadron.

 

[Corey3rd]

My Volume 1 box lists Harold Ramis in the cast. I seem to remember him and Robin Duke occasionally appearing (perhaps uncredited.)

The first few episodes of SCTV90 were greatest hits packages thus Ramis popped up in a few sketches.