The BIONIC DVD drought may be OVER soon!

[VintageMike]

Me too Brian! Me too! I have the whole series that I taped on high grade tapes back in the mid 90's and just finsihed transferring all 80-something tapes to DVD! Now it seems my hard work will be a waste of time if this happens!

Not at all. Most DVD releases have some issues seperate it from the original airings. Cut scenes, changed musics some DVD releases even include syndicated version of series episodes. The only DVD releases that don;t seem to get tampered with are cartoons.

[LOU]

Really Mike? I'd always assumed that DVD releases of T.V. series would be uncut. That's surprising to hear. I never would have thought that was the case.

[palitoy]

No, Mike has a point especially with music rights. Two shows that really suffer from DVD releases are WKRP and Hilarious House of Frightenstein for me, both have had songs removed and changed. Blerg.

[LOU]

Well I know both Bionic series had about 4 1/2 minutes cut from every episode in syndication on Sci-Fi Channel in 1995. Let's hope the DVDs don't cut anything. The overseas releases don't so that's a good sign!

[Mikey]

I heard on the Married With Children DVD releases they actually cut out the Love and Marrage theme and replaced it with generic muzak.

[LOU]

WHAT?! What's the point of that? I didn't even watch Married With Children and even I know the show's famous classic theme song! There's just certain things you can't change about classic T.V. shows...the main theme being a BIG one!

[Orion]

Didn't Quantum Leap suffer from music changes when it was released on DVD as well - not the theme song but some of the music played within the episodes? I also recall reading that other than Season One, the Happy Days dvd's changed some of the classic 50s music that was included because they didn't want to pay to use them again in DVD format.

[Mikey]

Music rights changes goes back a long time

I remember when Bosom Buddies went into syndication back in the early 80's they hacked out the Billy Joel "My Life" theme song.

[AAAAA]

I'm the opposite.

I don't mind the occassional documentary, but I can't stand commentaries because they always trail off and talk about something completely different and uninteresting.

Usual commentary for a movie .....

I remember that scene ....
It was directed by Joe Blow
You know, it was Joe Blow who first introduced me to Jane Doe
I think I worked with her back in the 80's
I forgot the movie ...
Once I met her cousin...
I think his name was ........
........................
.......................
.........................
........................
What movie are we watching ?

The zucker Brothers are famous for that
and Roger moore

For awesome commentary see Eastwoods ," man with no name" trilogy

[bizzaro megomauler]

Not at all. Most DVD releases have some issues seperate it from the original airings. Cut scenes, changed musics some DVD releases even include syndicated version of series episodes. The only DVD releases that don;t seem to get tampered with are cartoons.

One cartoon set that really got me ticked off was the Ren and Stimpy season 1 and 2 Uncut boxed set...Guess what? THEY ARE CUT!!!!!
In my favorite episode no less, my favorite part is cut out...The Bloody Head Fairy.

[bizzaro megomauler]

Not at all. Most DVD releases have some issues seperate it from the original airings. Cut scenes, changed musics some DVD releases even include syndicated version of series episodes. The only DVD releases that don;t seem to get tampered with are cartoons.

the biggest crime is the altering of WKRP, the music is so integral to the show...they were a RADIO STATION!!! worst part is, they lost big $$$ on these releases, and it makes the show, well almost forgotten.

[mego73]

Really Mike? I'd always assumed that DVD releases of T.V. series would be uncut. That's surprising to hear. I never would have thought that was the case.

Oh, it does happen. Never assume that the shows on TV sets are uncut or unaltered.

One of the big culprits are music rights issues. On the Odd Couple Felix would often break into some sort of (copyrighted) song. So, for the DVD release, if they couldn't clear the song, they'd have to cut it or alter it for DVD.

When these shows were made, home marketing was not built into the agreements. So, a piece of music could be cleared for air and syndication but nothing was ever said for home video (or there was no provision for possible future formats).

This even happened early on in Star Trek, in City On The Edge Of Forever. "Good Night Sweetheart" figures prominently in that episode. Early video releases had it intact, but the rights holders asserted that they had to get paid more for it on video.

So, for a time, VHS releases of City had "Good Night Sweetheart" and any of the background music that had it's melody was replaced.

I think even some of the early DVD's had the changed music.

Now, for the season sets and blu ray, they fortunately reached some agreement because it's now back on there.

There was a lot of angry chatter on the web because some releases of My Three Sons and The Fugitive had the background music entirely redone because of possible rights issues.

So, music rights are a big culprit. Another big culprit is just plain laziness.

In other words they use the syndication masters (which have editing) instead of making sure they go back and get uncut versions from the vault.

I heard Alf and Rossanne have these problems. And some episodes of Father Knows Best on DVD are the edited versions and some are not (with old shows it's less likely that it's laziness, more like the uncut versions were lost).

Before DVD, Columbia came out with these low priced 2 episode VHS's of All In The Family. Those came from edited syndication masters.

Fortunately, the DVD's are completely (as far as I know) uncut.

BTW, from what I hear about the UK Bionic Shows (and I actually have a few of the UK ones) they are full length (albeit a tad faster running due to the PAL speed up)

[cjefferys]

Music rights can be a pain in the butt and hold up a lot of releases. For example, thats why it took years for the Heavy Metal animated film to finally show up on video, music rights had to be sorted out and it was a long time before Columbia/Sony hammered out a deal with a price they were willing to pay.

[LOU]

Wow! You learn something new every day! I remember those Columbia House VHS sets! Ironically, the commercials for some of them are some of the commercials on my Sci-Fi Bionic series collection! They showed the ads for Laurel and Hardy, Star Trek:TNG, among others. Back in 1995, where all these tapes are recorded from, the Columbia House T.V. Series thing was relatively new. Glad to hear the bionic shows are uncut but I guess it is good I have my syndicated ones on DVD now as back-up. Never knew those CH T.V. VHS's were from syndication masters either.

[Thor]

I hope this really comes true. I'm pondering buying bootleg sets of TSMDM and the bionic woman.