The Man From UNCLE?? (1 Viewer)

[Dan McW]

Here's to a DVD release of UNCLE, especially its classic b/w first season. You can't have enough TV shows out there that use 5/4 time for their themes (well, at least for the first season of UNCLE).


This is slightly OT, but this is as good a place as any to mention it: Are the American Life UNCLE's uncut or close to it? Does that network crunch the end credits of its shows?

A few years ago, when American Life was known as GoodLife, I had a friend in a neighboring county tape a couple of "F Troops" and a color "Honeymooners" off of her cable system. The credits were unaltered, and both shows had run times that were within 1 minute of "uncut"--not bad for this day and age. At that time, with such a high-quality presentation and with the Warner package and other series they were airing, I thought GoodLife was too good to be true. Does American Life still hold to that standard? What's sad is that it seems to be on only about 0.001 percent of cable systems and is not on DirecTV.

 

[Jeff#]

The second and fourth seasons are classic too (particularly the 4th). It's the third season that's a mess, although there were some fun shows from that year too.

I don't even get American Life on my cable system, so I've never seen the channel. No matter...I've seen U.N.C.L.E. butchered on TV enough over the years.

So when exactly is this coming to DVD in the USA??

 

[FrancisP]

I think the movies have been released everywhere except Region 1. Who would control them in the US? All of them were released in the US or overeas as features but most of the footage was from the television show. Would the show fall under Warner's tv division or movie division? The odds of those being released would be better under the television division than it would be under the movie division.

 

[Dan McW]

Seems like when TNT aired U.N.C.L.E. a few years ago, the episodes had run times of at least 47-48 minutes w/o commercials. Not perfect, but not butchered either. The Wild Wild West and Kung Fu aired on TNT at about the same time U.N.C.L.E. was on, and those eps were within 2 minutes of being uncut. As far as I could tell, they were only slightly time-compressed with no scenes missing. No credit crunches either. That's the longest running time I've seen on a national network for old hour shows in recent years, given the 42-43-minute hatchet jobs (with credits crunched or converted to CGI and run alongside promos) on TV Land, Hallmark, A&E, etc.

If American Life still has such a high-quality presentation as they did a few years ago, it's a shame they're not on more systems. However, as networks like GSN and TV Land are added to more systems, their presentation seems to go downhill. Local stations here and there still air uncut old shows with unaltered credits, but they are few and far between.

 

[Sylvia*ST]

American Life episodes of U.N.C.L.E. seem to run about 47-48 minutes w/o commercials and the end credits on all shows (from 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye to The FBI and Maverick are the original ones. Not a single show on ALTV has captions, so I assume their prime time programming is time-compressed, which strips captioning.

 

[Carlos V III]

I've been recording these with my ReplayTV and burning to disc (since it didn't look like these would be coming out anytime soon) and each episode has been clocking in at 47 mins and some odd seconds each. Near as I can tell they seem to be complete and unaltered.

 

[FrancisP]

TNT also used to run The Man from UNCLE between the 4:45AM -6Am timeslot on a fairly regular basis. They ran around 50 minutes apiece. The only unfortunate thing is that they tended to skip around quite a bit.

 

[Jeff#]

Not quite.

TNT went to commercial at the wrong part of one of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. acts, and picked up where they left off when coming out of ONE break. The rest of the Acts were complete.

There were episodes on TNT that aired uncut, however, and those were usually the first season ones.

Hawaii Five-0 was about 48 to 49 minutes and WTXF - Channel 29 in Philadelphia used to air them uncut and with short commercial breaks in the 1990s.

 

[Parker Clack]

I really look forward to Man From U.N.C.L.E. coming out on DVD. I watched the show when it originally aired as a kid and along with The Wonderful World of Disney was one of the few shows that I took the time out to never miss. I had one of the attache cases with a cool gun that shot out plastic red bullets that had a silencer to go with it. I still wish I had it and my Secret Sam case.

 

[Jeff Willis]

TSoD has the long-awaited announcement up this morning.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=5441

Anchor Bay is distributing. Anyone know their track record for un-cut eps, xfr quality, etc?

 

[Randy Korstick]

They've done Hercules, Xena, Threes Company which I have and would give them an A on all of your concerns.

 

[Gord Lacey]

Yes and no; they distributed Hercules and Xena, but they didn't do the work on those sets - Davis/Panzer did those. They also didn't do the work on the Cannell titles (which have had numerous problems). They didn't do the work on Third Rock, or Roseanne either.

There are various licensing deals that can be done, but the ones above were for distribution; the company that owns the show does the work, and Anchor Bay brings it to market. Sometimes deals are done where the company supplies the masters, and AB assembles the set. Of course AB is still at the mercy of the company giving them the masters (see Rhino and "My Favorite Martian"). Often times the companies releasing this stuff are only as good as the masters they've given.

Gord

 

[Charles Ellis]

I'm a bit surprised at the Anchor Bay release. The show was produced through Norman Felton and Arena Productions via MGM-TV, and the masters were part of the 1986 Turner purchase, so naturally one would think that Warner Bros. would've released it on DVD. The only was Anchor could've gotten the rights if Felton's heirs and/or the heirs of Arena kept the actual copyrights. This isn't unsusual. Gilligan's Island was produced through Phil Silvers' production company via United Artists, and it has wound up as first part of the big Turner library in syndication in the 1980s, and now on Warner Home Video DVDs. Silvers' daughters now own the show, and I suppose they assigned the video release to Warners. If Gilligan had stayed with UA, it would be under the Sony banner now. Does anyone know what the story is with the U.N.C.L.E. rights, and how close am I to the truth?

 

[FrancisP]

A second possibility is that the Warner tv and movie divisions have different policies. Warner's movie division does not license but maybe Warner's tv division does.

Deep Discount DVD also has the title listed on that date as well. We can say it is going to happen.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Yes but Anchor Bay has always done distribution only on TV shows to my knowledge. Have they owned and done the masters to any TV shows? Uncle was owned by MGM who did masters of the show for VHS and Laserdisc awhile back. So it sounds like Sony maybe licensing this to Anchor Bay for distribution.

 

[Charles Ellis]

It's not Sony- I already explained that the show was part of the Turner/Warner library!

 

[Steve Phillips]

I am so happy this is coming; it is truly a great series.

 

[Gord Lacey]

They've had a couple. Sledge Hammer is one they licensed and released; Masters of Horror, Game Over, Reboot (TV movies/season 4), Trippin' the Rift are all owned by them (or IDT, their parent company). I'm not sure what the story is with Crime Story either. Fox licensed them a few shows (Profit...hmm...and something else) though I don't know the specifics of the deal. There are probably a few others, but those are all I remember for now.

Gord

 

[MattHR]

Assuming the announcement is accurate, the set will feature DVD-18s -- since it states only four discs. The SRP of only $50 is a great deal, though. Anchor Bay could really cut costs by packaging the four discs in two double-thin cases in a cardboard sleeve -- which is probably what they'll do to keep the SRP low.

 

[Jeff#]

Anchor Bay did an excellent job with Sledge Hammer. The prints were as sharp as they've always been. Some of the episodes when originally on ABC in 1986-88 were broadcast in stereo and the audio tracks of those same episodes are also in stereo on the Sledge Hammer releases.

The packaging of SH had each single-side disc in a plastic flip page. There were also plenty of extras plus interviews with the original cast and some commentaries and intros by creator / Exec. Producer Alan Spencer.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. tapes sold on the MGM / UA / Turner label in the 1990s looked great. Anchor Bay is the right company to put out U.N.C.L.E. on DVD in this century.