Why The Fox Situation Is Such a Tragedy (1 Viewer)

[Frank Soyke]

Sure WA still has some things we all want (The Detective Shows, Mr Novak, Chico, Colt 45, Thin Man, etc) and CBS has some we would like to see finished (Hillbillies, Love Boat, Petticoat Junction, the westerns, etc) or started (Ben Casey, Our Miss Brooks, etc) but the real tragedy of this hobby currently is the fact that out of all the classics yet unreleased, probably more than half of them are not out there due to Fox's unwillingness to make their vintage product available to us. I made a semi comprehensive list of unreleased stuff owned by Fox to prove the point. They have far more classic releases unreleased than probably all other studios put together. What a damn shame. After reading through the list, imagine what we could have available to use if they had a (real) program similar to WA.

Fox owned unreleased/stalled shows:

Adventures In Paradise
AfterMash
Anna and The King
Black Saddle
Bracken's World
Bus Stop
Burke's Law
Cade's County
David NIven Show
The Detectives
Ensign 'O" Toole
Felony Sqaud
Follow The Sun
Ghost and Mrs. Muir (available overseas)
Green Hornet
Hong Kong
James at 15
Jessica Novak
Johnny Ringo
Judd For The Defense
Julia
Karen
Ladies Man
Long Hot Summer
Nanny and The Professor
Peyton Place
The Rogues
Richard Diamond
Saints/Sinners
Tammy Grimes SHow
Trapper John MD
12 'O' Clock High
W.E.B.

I didn't even include the rest of the 4 Star stuff like DIck Powell but there are some others as well as some other one season shows...
What a shame though...some great shows here.
Anybody see anything on this list somebody else might license and release? I personally think its a travesty that at bare minimum someone can't at least finish Burke's Law and Peyton Place and put out decent sets of Green Hornet and Twelve 'O' Clock High.

 

[Neil Brock]

Look on the bright side. At least their arrangement to handle the MGM shows expired or else we never would have gotten all of the Ziv shows that MGM licensed out to Timeless and TGG.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Besides Fox, I know there's some Universal stuff unreleased that I'd like to get my mitts on...

 

[Ed Lachmann]

Among those are my most wanted. I'd kill for an official Adventures in Paradise, which I understand is held up only by a blessing from the Michener heirs. The Shulman heirs capitulated with Dobie Gillis, so maybe I can keep that hope alive. Would so love to see the rest of Burke's Law, The Rogues and Richard Diamond, as well.

 

[Jack P]

At this point just give me "Burke's Law" and I'll be happy for life. That's one title that should have been finished long ago.

 

[MatthewA]

The MTM and Metromedia holdings are with Shout! for the foreseeable future. If only they could actually get out.

 

[AndrewCrossett]

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Nanny and the Professor are the ones from that list I'd most like to see. I imagine Green Hornet, Trapper John MD and Richard Diamond would do OK. Especially Green Hornet, because of the Bruce Lee connection... it's only one season, so it's not like they'd lose their shirts if it didn't sell well. Same with Johnny Ringo.

 

[Charles Ellis]

A shame that Fox remains ignorant of what's in their vaults in regards to vintage TV series unlike other studios. There definitely needs to be changes made at the executive level with people who will exploit the potential commercial value of releasing those shows on home video.

 

[Tony Bensley]

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Nanny and the Professor are the ones from that list I'd most like to see. I imagine Green Hornet, Trapper John MD and Richard Diamond would do OK. Especially Green Hornet, because of the Bruce Lee connection... it's only one season, so it's not like they'd lose their shirts if it didn't sell well. Same with Johnny Ringo.

Regarding THE GREEN HORNET, I'm thinking it might also be complicated rights issues, ala BATMAN '66 (And everyone knows how long it took for a legitimate release of that series!), that have heretofore, prevented its legitimate release.

Regarding NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR, while I've never really seen a full episode, I am aware of its status as TV's #1 show the year before ALL IN THE FAMILY (Which I'm much more familiar with!) soared to that spot and held on for 4 years! I do know enough about the former that there appeared to be decades between these two shows!

CHEERS!

 

[MartinP.]

Am I misunderstanding your post Tony? Marcus Welby was the #1 show the year before All in the Family prevailed.

Burke's Law and Twelve O'Clock High are the ones I'm frustrated over.

In the meantime, some of these shows on the list are being aired on the Get-TV retro channel:

Ensign 'O" Toole
Felony Sqaud
Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Nanny and The Professor

(And they are supposedly showing them in their entirety as they are blocked into 40 minute segments.)

 

[phenri]

As I said in another post, Felony Squad is now my favorite police drama and my new #1 on my want list. Because Fox owns it, I can't even consider the possibility that it will ever be released.

It was even remastered and looks great on GET-TV.

 

[Richard V]

There are a bunch on that list I lust over: Black Saddle, The Detectives, Bus Stop, Hong Kong, Johnny Ringo, Richard Diamond, 12 O'Clock High, The Long Hot Summer, Judd for the Defense, Green Hornet, Follow the Sun, Felony Squad, and Ensign O'Toole

 

[Neil Brock]

I still would like to see the final two seasons of Police Woman released onto DVD, whether Shout does it or someone else decides to do so.

Decades just ran a marathon and I picked up 18 3rd season episodes. Cut to under 46 minutes unfortunately but since the sales for season 2 weren't good, off-air for the last 2 seasons is likely all you'll ever get.

 

[Brian Himes]

I agree. The Fox situation is very sad indeed. At this point I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Lou Grant may very well be the last 70s TV show added to my collection. I've all but given up hope for Rhoda getting finished. Room 222 was dead on arrival. Nanny and The Professor is mostly likely never going to happen. Ditto Trapper John, M.D.

It's just about as deplorable a situation as some of the Sony titles that will never get finished. The Rookies, Police Woman, Police Story, or One Day At A Time. Or some that probably won't even get considered, like my #1 most wanted show. The Hot L Baltimore.

The Universal situation is understandable due to the fire but I'd love to get Baretta finished and get Heck Ramsey (the last of the NBC Mystery Movie shows that I really, really want). The Magician is coming but at the moment we don't know when other than sometime in 2017.

As for CBS/Paramount, since season 3 of Love Boat has been announced, I might consider getting those three seasons and stop there. It would give me the 70s run of the show and that's pretty much all I would want.

Warner Brothers, well I'd love Chico and the Man but have just about given up hope. The same with finishing Alice.

I don't even know which studio has Marcus Welby, M.D., but I've given up hope for that one getting finished.

On the bright side, with the above stuff not happening this has freed me up to backtrack and get some shows that I was on the fence about. While I'm not an 80s TV fan, I did like Magnum, P.I. and Simon and Simon. So, I picked those up. Magnum was a great deal, Simon and Simon a bit on the pricey side but I did manage to get a couple of good deals on a couple of the season sets.

And there are one or two 70s shows that are complete that I haven't picked up as yet. The Waltons and Taxi are on my list, but the butchering of Taxi keeps me from taking the plunge on that one.

 

[bmasters9]

I don't even know which studio has Marcus Welby, M.D., but I've given up hope for that one getting finished.

That one was a Universal series released through Shout!, and I thought for sure that Shout! would carry it through.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Am I misunderstanding your post Tony? Marcus Welby was the #1 show the year before All in the Family prevailed.

I'm sure that I once read somewhere that NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR was number one, but I do recall the same regarding MARCUS WELBY, M.D., now that you mention it! Most likely, the one that cited "Nanny" as #1 was wrong!

MARCUS WELBY and ALL IN THE FAMILY also seemed like they could have been from different decades, in some respects (And the '70s was the biggest chunk of my childhood, so I don't state this lightly!), although I believe the former was also fairly progressive for its time.

CHEERS!

 

[bmasters9]

As for CBS/Paramount, since season 3 of Love Boat has been announced, I might consider getting those three seasons and stop there. It would give me the 70s run of the show and that's pretty much all I would want.

Why do you want only the first three seasons' worth (1977-80)?

 

[AndrewCrossett]

If classic TV DVD's are tailing off, I don't know why these shows aren't at least made available for purchase by download or even streaming. Other than shows with rights issues, the expense would be minimal. There's really no reason every existing TV episode ever made (that doesn't have rights issues tying it up) shouldn't be available in some format.

While physical media is definitely preferred, if that's not possible digital ownership is the next best thing. Or streaming for shows I really just want to watch once.

 

[Alf S]

Why do you want only the first three seasons' worth (1977-80)?

I used to love watching that show as a kid, but didn't it start getting long in the tooth by the 4th+ seasons and they ended up getting more B grade actors to pop on as guests?

 

[bmasters9]

I used to love watching that show as a kid, but didn't it start getting long in the tooth by the 4th+ seasons and they ended up getting more B grade actors to pop on as guests?

As good a reason as any! I think I stopped with the eighth season's worth (1975-76) of original-recipe Hawaii Five-O on DVD, because I had heard that that CBS crime series was similarly getting long in the tooth, and that the last four seasons' worth (1976-80) were a major downgrade due to many factors, such as cast members leaving (Kam Fong in 1978, James MacArthur in 1979), although I did get that twelfth and final season's worth (1979-80) just to see for myself how bad it was said it was by then.