The Goodies Caught In The Act
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Post by The Goodies Caught In The Act on Nov 22, 2005 15:02:01 GMT
If the video currently circulating on the Internet (as a torrent) comes anywhere close to representing the best-quality version of the episode that the BBC has, then I can understand why this episode was not aired when UK Gold ran reruns of "The Goodies" in the 1990's. The film quality is quite terrible; it looks comparable to a grade-Z quality VHS tape that's been stored in the back of a closet for 30 years.
It also looks like it's a copy of the 16mm film itself, rather than the other "Goodies" episodes floating around the internet, most of which are off-air copies. In the beginning, there's a countdown, similar to what you would see on a film leader, and the words BBC F&V T.L. (presumably BBC Film And Videotape Library) are superimposed on the video for the entire length of the video. It's almost painful to watch, but it does complete my collection of season one episodes.
While almost all the episodes from the first two seasons could stand to be cleaned up a bit, the rest are quite watchable. The other two black and white episodes, "Sporting Goodies" and "Wicked Waltzing" are also of acceptable quality; with the latter the contrast is a bit out of whack but better than I expected for what had been described as "a poor quality B&W telerecording."
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Post by Grumbledook on Nov 22, 2005 15:04:15 GMT
Sorry; I inverted the name and subject by accident.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2005 20:46:30 GMT
Presumably "Wicked Waltzing" is an alternative name for "Come Dancing" - in which case, a colour version of this is included on the second DVD - At last...a second helping".
By the way, for future reference, UK programmes are done in Series - NOT Seasons (that's American progs).
Small point, but it really grates with me.
Peter
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Post by Matthew K Sharp on Nov 25, 2005 0:53:15 GMT
The copies of "Caught In The Act" floating around are from the BBC held 16mm film; as the last time it was transmitted was 1974, an off-air copy is unlikely. As a result, though, it means that copies of this episode are more likely to come from multi-generation VHS dubs. The copy I've seen didn't look too bad, considering.
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Post by Grumbledook on Nov 25, 2005 4:24:51 GMT
Presumably "Wicked Waltzing" is an alternative name for "Come Dancing" - in which case, a colour version of this is included on the second DVD - At last...a second helping". By the way, for future reference, UK programmes are done in Series - NOT Seasons (that's American progs). Small point, but it really grates with me. Peter I wonder, does this mean we can be looking forward to a color version of "Sporting Goodies" as well? |
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Post by Matthew K Sharp on Nov 25, 2005 7:03:50 GMT
I wonder, does this mean we can be looking forward to a color version of "Sporting Goodies" as well? No. The only reason 'Wicked Waltzing' was able to be restored into something approaching colour (it's not perfect, but better than nothing) was because by fluke a videotape was found at the BBC. As it was a low band quad tape, in theory it should only have given a b/w signal, but there was enough residual colour information to enable the colour signal to be partially restored. If 'Sporting Goodies' ever hits DVD, the best we can hope for it that someone is able to get the censored scenes from the Australian Archives and reinstate them (assuming, of course, they still exist). |
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Post by Grumbledook on Nov 26, 2005 4:53:33 GMT
I wonder, does this mean we can be looking forward to a color version of "Sporting Goodies" as well? No. The only reason 'Wicked Waltzing' was able to be restored into something approaching colour (it's not perfect, but better than nothing) was because by fluke a videotape was found at the BBC. As it was a low band quad tape, in theory it should only have given a b/w signal, but there was enough residual colour information to enable the colour signal to be partially restored. If 'Sporting Goodies' ever hits DVD, the best we can hope for it that someone is able to get the censored scenes from the Australian Archives and reinstate them (assuming, of course, they still exist). OK, so the unofficial rule at the BBC seems to be "[w]e won't do a Ted Turner-style colorization on these 16mm telerecordings because it's too expensive, but if we can reconstruct it from a videotape with color information, we'll consider it." [That's the rationale they apparently used to justify not re-colorizing episode 3 of Doctor Who's "Planet Of The Daleks", yet they did re-colorize "The Daemons" because Ian Levine lent them an off-air videotape copy which enabled them to recover the color information.] As for the possibility of finding the censored material from "Sporting Goodies", I wonder if when they found the Doctor Who censor clips back in the 1990's, they bothered to check if there were clips from any other shows. It seems unlikely that the clips would have been destroyed outright, but whether they still exist after almost 35 years is another question entirely. |
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Post by fdsafd on Nov 28, 2005 3:36:34 GMT
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Post by andrew martin on Nov 28, 2005 12:09:44 GMT
If the video currently circulating on the Internet (as a torrent) comes anywhere close to representing the best-quality version of the episode that the BBC has, then I can understand why this episode was not aired when UK Gold ran reruns of "The Goodies" in the 1990's. The film quality is quite terrible; it looks comparable to a grade-Z quality VHS tape that's been stored in the back of a closet for 30 years. It also looks like it's a copy of the 16mm film itself, rather than the other "Goodies" episodes floating around the internet, most of which are off-air copies. In the beginning, there's a countdown, similar to what you would see on a film leader, and the words BBC F&V T.L. (presumably BBC Film And Videotape Library) are superimposed on the video for the entire length of the video. It's almost painful to watch, but it does complete my collection of season one episodes. While almost all the episodes from the first two seasons could stand to be cleaned up a bit, the rest are quite watchable. The other two black and white episodes, "Sporting Goodies" and "Wicked Waltzing" are also of acceptable quality; with the latter the contrast is a bit out of whack but better than I expected for what had been described as "a poor quality B&W telerecording." Your description of the captions superimposed on the screen clearly marks this out to be a copy from a BBC archive viewing cassette - which is far from the best possible quality... Those captions are specifically included so that if the material was pirated it would be obvious where it came from! Copies like that (and it's probably a generation or so down from the original cassette are never very good quality, due to the nature of the machines used to make them - they're just meant as reference copies for the content, and shouldn't be taken as any indication of the quality of the master material. |
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Post by andrew martin on Nov 28, 2005 12:14:11 GMT
No. The only reason 'Wicked Waltzing' was able to be restored into something approaching colour (it's not perfect, but better than nothing) was because by fluke a videotape was found at the BBC. As it was a low band quad tape, in theory it should only have given a b/w signal, but there was enough residual colour information to enable the colour signal to be partially restored. If 'Sporting Goodies' ever hits DVD, the best we can hope for it that someone is able to get the censored scenes from the Australian Archives and reinstate them (assuming, of course, they still exist). OK, so the unofficial rule at the BBC seems to be "[w]e won't do a Ted Turner-style colorization on these 16mm telerecordings because it's too expensive, but if we can reconstruct it from a videotape with color information, we'll consider it." [That's the rationale they apparently used to justify not re-colorizing episode 3 of Doctor Who's "Planet Of The Daleks", yet they did re-colorize "The Daemons" because Ian Levine lent them an off-air videotape copy which enabled them to recover the color information.] As for the possibility of finding the censored material from "Sporting Goodies", I wonder if when they found the Doctor Who censor clips back in the 1990's, they bothered to check if there were clips from any other shows. It seems unlikely that the clips would have been destroyed outright, but whether they still exist after almost 35 years is another question entirely. Re colourisation - yes, doing colourisation from scratch is expensive - in both the cases of "The Goodies" and "The Daemons" it was a case of restoring real colour information, in the latter case by mixing two versions of the programme together - not just painting the colours in manually using the colour copy as a guide. |
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Post by andrew martin on Nov 28, 2005 12:15:55 GMT
Oh and re the censored clips - there were other clips found, but to date these have not been returned to the BBC: I can't recall off-hand whether these included anything from "The Goodies", but I think not.
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Post by Grumbledook on Nov 28, 2005 15:07:58 GMT
Oh and re the censored clips - there were other clips found, but to date these have not been returned to the BBC: I can't recall off-hand whether these included anything from "The Goodies", but I think not. What exactly is missing of "The Goodies" as a result of the Australian censors? Of the episodes recovered from Australia, all that I can think of is the part in "Commonwealth Games" when they're talking about the "sex test" and there's an obvious edit; the original footage has presumably been lost to the ages. |
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Post by Andrew Pixley on Nov 28, 2005 17:35:18 GMT
Oh and re the censored clips - there were other clips found, but to date these have not been returned to the BBC: I can't recall off-hand whether these included anything from "The Goodies", but I think not. What exactly is missing of "The Goodies" as a result of the Australian censors? Of the episodes recovered from Australia, all that I can think of is the part in "Commonwealth Games" when they're talking about the "sex test" and there's an obvious edit; the original footage has presumably been lost to the ages. If anyone's interested, here's a short piece I did a few years ago about the cuts to this sequence: CUT #1 This comes after the Minister turns at the office door and says "The Sex Test". (The Minister opens the door to reveal - on CSO - a bedroom.) MINISTER: Ah yes, this will do. (Indicates door.) Gentlemen, will you file in there one at a time please? (The old MPs get up and move towards the room. The Minister crosses back to the front door and opens it.) MINISTER: Miss Foster? (Miss Foster comes in wearing a revealing shortie nightie, followed by two workmen. She goes to the bedroom door.) MISS FOSTER: First one please. (Fade to black - Music Link - Fade up with Caption: "A Little While Later" - The two workmen emerge from the bedroom carrying one of the MPs between them. They add him to the heap of other MPs in the corner. They are followed by Miss Foster, straightening her hair. She moves over to the waiting Minister and hands him a report.) MINISTER: Thank you Miss Foster. The scene cuts back in at this point as the Minister says "Failed?" as he reads. "Yes, sir - all of them," says Miss Foster. CUT #2 MINISTER: But, I mean didn't any of them try to...I mean...didn't they even...I mean...none of them? (The Secretary whispers to him.) MINISTER: No no, that doesn't count. MISS FOSTER: Then I'm afraid none of them.... The scene cuts back in at this point as Miss Foster's line ends "have passed, sir." The scene then proceeds uncut with the Minister persuading the Goodies to be the new team up to the point where Miss Foster whispers to the Minister about the Goodies and the Sex Test. We see shots of Graeme and Bill, and then Tim, reacting. CUT #3 MINISTER: What, all three of them? MISS FOSTER: Yes, sir. MINISTER: You didn't, did you? This morning? Well - I didn't even get a cup of tea. All right, gentlemen... The scene cuts back in as the Minister continues: "... that's settled then." Don't know if that's of interest. All the best Andrew |
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Post by Matthew K Sharp on Nov 28, 2005 23:36:41 GMT
Well, I'm glad the kiddies were protected from that...
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Post by Grumbledook on Nov 29, 2005 0:51:28 GMT
What a room. Not only does it store a year's supply of food, but it can be used for the sex test [assuming it's the room that I think it is].
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