Sanford and Son DVDs vs. Columbia House VHS tapes (1 Viewer)

[MatthewA]

I looked at the running times on the edited Sanford and Son episodes on DVD:

—"Blood is Thicker than Junk" (S2) is edited on both. The episode starts (on tape) with Fred walking in singing "St. Louis Blues." I will check the DVD.
—"This Little TV Went to Market" (S3) is edited on both. The episode on tape starts with the TV repairaman saying "Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news." I don't own the S3 DVDs yet.
—"A Matter of Silence" (S6) is edited on the DVD but runs 24:46 on the VHS tape.

Now who at Sony will listen?

 

[Robert Cruz]

Thanks for posting the running time on "A Matter of Silence". It was obvious that it wasn't a "short episode", but rather an edited one on the season 6 DVD. Sony always finds a way to screw it up...

 

[Stephen Wight]

This leads me to wonder what other Sony shows,on dvd,are edited.The only Sony product I own is Charlie's Angels season 2.I haven't watched any episodes,yet.Does anybody happen to know if any of those episodes are edited,or not?

 

[Robert Cruz]

The only Sony DVDs I own are Diff'rent Strokes season 1, Married...With Children seasons 1-3, and Sanford and Son seasons 1-6. Married...With Children has no cuts; just the theme music change on season 3, and 1 song change on season 1. And Diff'rent Strokes has the 2 1-hour long episodes split as two half-hour episodes (and syndicated versions were used for those episodes).

 

[DaveK]

Hey Stephen....
I am sorry to say that the first four episodes of Season 2 are edited. I think when these episodes initially aired on ABC back in 1977, they were actually two 2-hour episodes. They broke it up in syndication and as a result you have the end product which are missing some scenes.

I'll try to find out exactly what's missing.

 

[MattHR]

Besides the previously-mentioned 2-hour episodes that were edited into the 2-part syndicated versions, the Hawaii episode is missing a scene where guest-star Don Ho performs a song. Probably another music-rights issue.

 

[MatthewA]

However, they don't seem to have a problem paying for Don Ho's performances on "Sanford & Son" in the Hawaii episode.

 

[Carlos Garcia]

Contracts are tricky issues. Maybe it was standard practice back then to sign a contract that would allow them to run and re-run the episodes with the person's appearance, and stating this would be true of whatever new format was to be invented in the future. However, for individual singing performances, the individual would retain all the rights to that performance exclusively. This could be why so many shows seem to be affected by individual songs, rather than by the special appearances by the guests.

 

[Eric_Bee]

A question for those who own the Sanford and Son Season 6 DVD - tonight TV Land ran the "Sanford and Gong" episode from Season 6, featuring Fred singing nearly full versions of the jazz standards, "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and "Exactly Like You." I'm wondering if these songs survived intact on the DVD.

 

[Robert Cruz]

The episode is uncut on the DVD, and the songs mentioned are indeed intact.