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Post by Alex Taylor on Jan 9, 2012 12:36:23 GMT
Indeed :-) I've seen original 2" videotape of similar vintage which didn't look as good as the "Dad's Army" ep!
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Post by Alex Taylor on Jan 2, 2012 11:33:53 GMT
I think - and I'm going on a seven-year-old vague memory here! - it was a close-up on Scrooge as Belle walks past him in the foreground.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 31, 2011 11:39:06 GMT
A brief shot of Scrooge and Belle, IIRC. I didn't keep it.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 29, 2011 15:22:01 GMT
Ok, I've managed to read the disc now, and the C4 showing definitely does not include the song. I didn't record the FilmFour showing, but it doesn't seem likely they'd have had anything different.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 29, 2011 13:03:41 GMT
Hmmm...not easily, it turns out :-( The whole thing came up six years ago when the first widescreen DVD release of the film occurred. The information, IIRC, was posted to the Muppet Central forums, possibly in the form of a letter from Disney in reply to someone asking about the 'cut', but unfortunately I now cannot find the post.
In terms of the UK TV showings...nope, the Five showing doesn't have it - I know, cos I recorded the film in the hope of getting that scene! Interestingly, at the point where the song goes, Five's copy of the film contains a brief shot which is not present in any other copy that I know of.
I recorded C4's showing on Christmas Eve this year, but unfortunately my PVR has just died so I haven't seen the recording and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get anything off it now. That said, the tx slot wasn't really long enough to accommodate the extended film plus adverts.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 23, 2011 9:06:43 GMT
Only the first season of The Muppet Show has cuts - it caused such a backlash that Disney went overboard to ensure that seasons 2 and 3 were uncut. All told, five shows were cut: Joel Grey, Jim Nabors, Paul Williams, Charles Aznavour and Vincent Price.
Of course, all shows lost their original endings, but that's been the case since Henson bought the rights back from ATV in the 80s.
I can't help feeling that Disney are hoist with their own petard. A few years ago HiT Entertainment released the Henson special 'Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas' on DVD. This production is entirely owned by Henson - it wasn't included in the deal which saw The Muppets sold to Disney - but as Kermit makes a couple of brief appearances in it, Disney's permission had to be sought for the release to go ahead. They refused and so the show had to be cut.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 23, 2011 9:01:13 GMT
Correct: the song was added for the first home-video releases of MCC; it was never in the theatrical cut. It's still present in the pan/scan DVD releases, but is missing from the widescreen discs and TV showings as Disney no longer have the film elements. The only widescreen copy of which I'm aware is in the (letterboxed) NTSC laserdisc release from the mid-90s.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 16, 2011 13:18:09 GMT
Pardon my ignorance, but do Kal actually maintain an archive of their own, then? I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that they chiefly acted as an intermediary between people returning material and the rights-holders.
I'd have thought that the primary rights would still be with Henson - Disney only bought the Muppets, Henson still retain control over Fraggle Rock.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 16, 2011 12:53:10 GMT
There were four versions of the show: US, UK, France and Germany. Each one had locally-shot scenes for 'our' world; in the UK the show was set in and under a lighthouse (St Anthony's in Cornwall was used for the exteriors) and originally starred Fulton Mackay as the lighthouse-keeper. Countries which chose not to shoot their own scenes simply took the US show, dubbed where necessary. I don't have any reason to suppose that the UK version was ever seen outside this country. All of the US episodes exist, of course, and are available on DVD; similarly all of the German shows are available to buy. I don't know exactly how many of the French episodes are out there, but 26 were released on DVD by Sony about eight years ago. HiT Entertainment released 12 UK episodes a few years back, and a letter from them at the time stated that despite searches, those were the only episodes which could be located by Henson. All told, Mackay appeared in 48 shows, produced from 1983-84 and shown from 84-87. The surviving 12 are all from this period. After his death, John Gordon-Sinclair played the new keeper for 24 episodes and Simon O'Brien replaced him for the final 24. It is of course possible that the tapes are still in the ex-TVS library, but AIUI the paperwork has gone missing... I do hope that there are more off-airs out there, but most of the episodes were AFAIK only shown once so the odds are not great. Most of the recordings I have came from someone who actually worked on the show. I had noticed that lostshows.com claims that the series 'exists complete' - I'd love to know where they believe the episodes to be, and I'm sure Henson would like this information too :-) They also list four episodes by title as being 'in the archive' (plus one animated episode). This is what I currently know: www.nightshade.org.uk/fraggleuk.htmlWith the exception of 'The Lost Treasure of the Fraggles', I have a copy of everything which has an Archive Status entry. The BFI's public-facing database lists a number of episodes, including 18 which I do not have copies of, but it isn't clear whether this is simply a list of broadcasts or a list of shows they actually have. I have a couple of other leads which I'm following up, but if anyone knows of the existence of any of the missing shows I'd be very grateful if you could get in touch! :-) In terms of getting copies to the relevant people, I'm going to try contacting Henson first. If they decide they're not interested in off-air recordings then Kal will be the next port of call :-)
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 16, 2011 8:37:54 GMT
The official line from Henson is that only 12 of the 96 episodes of the TVS co-production of 'Fraggle Rock' still exist. I've spoken to someone who worked on the show and he believes at least some of the tapes were 'skipped' when TVS closed down.
I have a further 33 on VHS, and I believe there may be more out there, but that still leaves 51 shows unaccounted for :-(
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Uganda
Dec 13, 2011 21:37:17 GMT
Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 13, 2011 21:37:17 GMT
How do you actually go about tracking down the episodes do you email Ugandas archive or phone or what?? Uganda has been personally visited. There are no old BBC programmes there, or in fact any archive television apart from an almost complete run of MASH. Regards, Paul I don't suppose that included a film copy of 'Our Finest Hour', by any chance? IIRC the DVD release used a rather ropey NTSC video copy as Fox no longer have the original.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Dec 5, 2011 23:30:39 GMT
I suppose it's possible that the Cassidy/Glitter change was done for that reason, but I can't imagine what anyone had against 'Rat Trap' or 'Chelsea Girl'!
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Post by Alex Taylor on Nov 29, 2011 15:35:39 GMT
I've checked my off-airs of the '95 repeats of 'Sounds of the 70s', and it appears that the final episode was re-edited a couple of times too. My copy omits the Boomtown Rats but the copies on the net leave out Simple Minds instead.
The Roxy Music and Chic songs turned up on the 'shorts' BBC4 used to run. I don't know about any of the other cuts.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Aug 24, 2011 21:55:01 GMT
Yeesh :-( Yeah, I'd heard rumours Disney were involved somehow. Strange, really - AFAIK Henson were actively looking for the tapes a number of years ago for a DVD release, and of course Disney now own the Muppets (although not Fraggle Rock - that's still Henson's property) so you'd have thought it would be possible to do something.
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Post by Alex Taylor on Aug 24, 2011 18:17:01 GMT
As some of you may be aware, the UK version of Fraggle Rock was a co-production between Henson and TVS. 96 episodes were produced in all, but reportedly only 12 can still be located today. It is not clear what may have happened to the others following TVS' demise, and I understand that Henson regards them as lost.
Those 12 are definitely not the only ones still surviving - I've posted a list here [http://www.nightshade.org.uk/fraggleuk.html] - but there are obviously still a few gaps, at least in my knowledge!
So, does anybody know the answers to any of the following?
- what happened to the TVS archive after they closed down? - did the Fraggle Rock tapes survive? - are there any others known to exist which aren't on my list?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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