Twelve O'Clock High (1 Viewer)

[younger1968]

I would love to see Twelve O'Clock High released to dvd. I have the original movie, but would love to own the TV series.

 

[Harry-N]

I felt the same way a couple of years ago - and then MeTV came into my life. They've been running five or six episodes of 12 O'CLOCK HIGH per week since then, usually at 2 or 4 in the morning, but they ARE running them.

Starting in September, it'll be cut back to once per week.

It took me about a year to amass the entire series on homemade DVDs with the commercials edited out. Still, I'd buy a professionally released version in a heartbeat. Excellent series.

Many feel that the Frank Savage/Robert Lansing season is far and away the best. I can't argue with that, but find the latter season and a half with Paul Burke to be worthwhile too. Many fine guest stars did turns on the series, and the personal dramas were always top-notch.

Harry

 

[Jeff Willis]

I would love to see Twelve O'Clock High released to dvd. I have the original movie, but would love to own the TV series.

Count me in on this one as well. I have the "History Channel" captures, thanks to a good friend here. They're good Q but edited. The edits aren't too intrusive to me but I'd get a pro set if available.

Unless it's licensed out, the odds aren't good for that happening (Fox studios).

I wonder how the ME-TV Q's match up with the History Channel versions.

Thanks for the info, Harry on the airings.

 

[Harry-N]

There's a bootlegger out there who hawks the series on all sorts of websites. I won't provide any links, but his "samples" of episode teasers on YouTube look they were sourced from either Encore or History. There are cases where the episodes on MeTV look better to me - sometimes with even more footage.

My experience with the MeTV broadcasts are that they're unedited, full episodes, but time-sped to cram 52 minutes of programming into about 46 minutes. With one of my DVD players that has a speed control, I can slow these episodes down to something approaching normal.

Harry

 

[Jeff Willis]

Harry,

After a memory jog, I think that the History Channel set is also time-compressed and after thinking about it, the edits are infrequent. I haven't viewed any of these in a while.

All in all, ok for me without much chance of any studio release unless Fox surprises us with some kind of license deal for distribution.

 

[stuartfanning]

Here is an unedited open to 12 O'clock High, as it was originally broadcast. Apart from the ABC animation at the very start.

 

[Neil Brock]

My experience with the MeTV broadcasts are that they're unedited, full episodes, but time-sped to cram 52 minutes of programming into about 46 minutes. With one of my DVD players that has a speed control, I can slow these episodes down to something approaching normal.

Harry

Wow, didn't know there was such a thing. Details please.

As for the ME-TV airings, when they first went national, the shows were running as is with no speed-up and coming in at around 51 minutes. Don't know if they made it through the full run or not but the first couple of months at least they were complete and normal running time.

 

[Harry-N]

Wow, didn't know there was such a thing. Details please.

My older Sony DVD player, a DV-NS50P model, has a slow and fast playbck button on the remote. Click the slow once and the playback slows to "0.9", which I suppose is about a 1% slowdown. Click it twice, it's "0.8" - and it goes down to "0.6".

On the fast side you can get it up to "1.4". It's great when you get a scene of someone driving up to a house, getting out of a car, and walking up to a door. You can speed up the proceedings a little bit.

The sound remains in these slow/fast modes, but it has an odd effect in stereo. Sometimes the sound seems to "wiggle" between left and right rather rapidly.

I have one other cheap Sony DVD player with similar functionality, except it changes speed in increments of .2 instead of .1.

Harry

 

[Neil Brock]

The show was being investigated for a release but word on the street is some major issues came up and for the foreseeable future, any licensing deal is off the table. Don't know any other details other than that.

 

[Harry-N]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's a music issue with the "Fanfare" that sounds like it was lifted from STAR TREK.

Harry

 

[mannix]

that makes two of us

 

[David_B_K]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's a music issue with the "Fanfare" that sounds like it was lifted from STAR TREK. Harry

Are you referring to the music from 12 O'Clock High? It was on a couple of years before Star Trek.

 

[Harry-N]

Are you referring to the music from 12 O'Clock High? It was on a couple of years before Star Trek.

Yeah - it's not a matter of which was first, just that someone might be suing someone else. Just a thought - the similarity is quite remarkable.

Alexander Courage did his first STAR TREK recordings in January of 1965. 12 O'CLOCK HIGH premiered the prior fall of 1964. I'm not sure where that fanfare first occurs.

Harry

 

[Randy Korstick]

I recently watched the entire 12 o' clock high series on METV and never noticed any similarity to Star Trek in the music so if there is one its very slight. I'm not sure which fanfare is being referred to. If there was any issue of one show copying the others music it would have been dealt with in court back when the shows were on and would not have been cleared for reruns if there was an issue. Since Star Trek premiered in the fall of 66 when 12 o'clock high was in its 3rd season any lifting of music from star trek would be extremely unlikely if not impossible as music written for a show not yet aired would not be available. If that was the case it would have been Star Trek doing the lifting. I wouldn't be surprised if music rights are the issue but not from this. Most likely just paying all involved with the music and clearing movie themes that may have been re-used in the series, which is the same problem WA experiences in clearing their TV westerns and Detective shows.

 

[David_B_K]

I recently watched the entire 12 o' clock high series on METV and never noticed any similarity to Star Trek in the music so if there is one its very slight. I'm not sure which fanfare is being referred to.

There is a tiny little fanfare that plays before Dominic Frontiere's sweeping main theme on 12 O'Clock High. I suppose one could say it has a similar vibe to the fanfare that begins the Star Trek music; but I don't think a case could be made that either copies the other. I need to listen to it on an episode to compare it. Most of my 12 O'Clock High episodes were taped off a channel with "Nostalgia" in its name. I used to get the channel back when I had C-band dish in the late 90's.

 

[Harry-N]

OK, I thought it was common knowledge about the "fanfare" to which I'm referring sounding like STAR TREK's fanfare. Here's a brief sample. Volume is low, so turn it up. It repeats at least twice, right at the start.



The Dom Frontiere version heard here has a couple of extra notes attached at the end, where the Alexander Courage version is simpler, more straightforward. If you cannot hear the similarity in that example, then move on - you've got a tin ear!

I only made the suggestion half-heartedly that this was the hold-up. I realize that 12 O'CLOCK HIGH pre-dated STAR TREK - but really only by a few months. As I said above, Alexander Courage was scoring and recording the STAR TREK first pilot (in which this fanfare appears) in January of 1965, just four-five months after 12 O'CLOCK HIGH began airing on ABC-TV.

Harry

 

[MartinP.]

Thanks to a poster (ScottRE) on another thread, I just discovered 12 O'Clock High has recently been added to Amazon Prime!
All three seasons!

 

[Matt Hough]

I've been enjoying watching them. I had only seen some of season one (all of seasons two and three once Paul Burke took over), and I was astonished to see that Paul Burke and his character were introduced in the very first episode. I had NO idea!

 

[Harry-N]

Happy to see this show turn up somewhere other than a subchannel.

 

[Harry-N]

Quickly checking, these seem to be the same prints that have been circulating for years. Some of the black & white episodes have a greenish tint to them, the title screen fades too soon to cut out the "brought to you by" announcement, Act breaks are up-cut a little bit, etc.