The Muppet Show (Original ATV masters)

[Deleted]

I was wondering, with S1 of The Muppet Show recently out on UK R2 DVD, I haven't got them, but I do know that these feature the Henson Productions-edited versions, i.e. with the ATV (who originally made the show in association with Jim Henson) idents removed and the ATV endcap substituted by the Henson International Television one. Henson Associates re-edited the masters because they bought the rights of TMS from ITC Entertainment after ATV relaunched as Central (which naturally meant the end of TMS). This might have taken not too long after the franchise renewal (and the heirding of the 1955-81 ATV archive by ITC), since already on the BBC1 repeats of 1986-87, they featured the Henson endcaps.

Now, I ask: What has been of the original ATV tapes of TMS with the ATV zoom and endcap? Have the gone missing? Or were these edited by Henson to credit themselves?

Thanks in advance.

[Lance C]

In keeping with tradition, the British connection with the Muppets will be completely erased and history will say what a fine American programme it was.

[dubs honest]

All the "ATV" versions seemed to have survived on PAL until the first KAL guide in 1996/7.

The Henson copies are maybe from thier own NTSC masters, sans ATV caps?

[James Phillips]

dubs said:

All the "ATV" versions seemed to have survived on PAL until the first KAL guide in 1996/7.

The Henson copies are maybe from thier own NTSC masters, sans ATV caps?

No. The BBC screenings in the mid 80s were definitely ATV-free, and were also from PAL tapes, IIRC.

[john g]

Can someone confirm it was mastered in PAL?. I seem to recall the orginal ITV showings looked very much like
NTSC dubs to me. (no offence to Dubs )

[Michael the first]

I have said box set of muppet Show seris 1.
There are no ATV front or end caps to be seen anywhere.
Most eps at the end have an ITC prod credit,but just as the muppet on the sax gives the final note a credit for the henson orgaisation copywrighted to 2005 appeares at the bottom of the screen.
Some VHS copies I have of these that were taped off New Zealand channel 3 in 1996 have the ITC logo come up with the credits at the end,I think saying "World wide disrtbution" etc,but no ATV endcap.
The shows have been remastered to a very high standard;I do wonder if they were taped in NTSC and converted to PAL or they had an NTSC and PAL recorders working at the same time,a la how ATV recorded b/w PAL Tom Jones shows and a coulor US NTSC version at the same time.
The 1980s BBC Muppet screenings;were they the ITC 70s eps as I thought it was'nt until the BBC bought Thunderbirds in the early 90s that was the first ITV show to defect to BBC.

[dubs again]

The Kal guide lists them all as existing on 2" Quads.

I would have assumed (that Kal do not dip into distribution prints or overseas archives) these are the original PAL Quads - ergo probably with ATV zooms and endcaps.

Certainly it was taped in the UK, so why would ATV solely tape them on NTSC?

The shows as I remeber seeing them (and some re-runs in the early 80's) were undoubtedly UK transmission standard - not NTSC transfers.

[Alex Taylor]

The show was indeed taped solely in 625/50 PAL and converted for the NTSC market. Various conversions have been done over the years; the earliest one I have is nothing more sophisticated than simply repeating every sixth field and dropping a few lines... Later conversions were done as technology improved, although I'm told that none of them are particularly great (motion judder, particularly on the credit-roll, is apparently a regular issue).

The UK Disney DVD release was mastered from PAL tapes (reportedly the restoration was done in PAL and new high-quality conversions done for the NTSC market). Earlier UK releases (CTHE) were also PAL (although the softness of the picture could be misleading), with one sorry exception: Time-Life issued a handful of shows on VHS a few years back which - believe it or not - were converted back from their NTSC masters. Unsurprisingly, they were unwatchable.

The Muppet Show ended - Henson's decision, ATV would have been happy for it to continue - a few months before ATV became Central. I'm not sure exactly when Henson bought the rights to the shows from ATV/Central, but it was some time in the mid-80s (I have a set of 1983 dubs from the broadcast tapes with the ATV logos intact, so probably not before that date).

Each show originally ended with a shot of Zoot playing the final note of the theme music on his sax (exceptions: see below) with either the ATV (UK airings) or ITC (overseas) logo supered over the picture. After Henson bought the rights, the entire shot was excised and replaced with a new shot of Zoot blowing the "hit!" logo out of his sax. This is the version that the BBC aired, and is the same shot that appears - minus the "hit!" logo - on the Disney DVDs and a number of the US Time-Life DVDs from a few years back. Subsequent name-changes to the Henson organisation led to the ending changing a few more times until eventually it was removed entirely and replaced with the then-current "Henson productions" logo against a black background; this is what you'll find on all non-Time-Life DVD releases prior to Disney's.

It's a little unfortunate that the original endings have been removed - not so much because of the loss of the original ATV graphics and copyright, which is understandable - but because a number of the shows did not use the 'standard' shot of Zoot, but featured a specially-recorded shot appropriate to the content of that show. There's one of these in the Season 1 show with Kaye Ballard: originally, after Rowlf has played the theme music solo, the ITC/ATV logos were supered over a mid-shot of Rowlf and Nigel (the conductor) in the orchestra pit. This has long since been dropped in favour of a composite shot showing the Electric Mayhem backstage with Kermit waving from the upper level.

There were two versions of each show prepared, both in 625/50 PAL: one for domestic broadcast and the other for overseas sales (although a number of the domestics seem to have made their way abroad at some point). The differences were slight: the domestic only has a single commercial break, and the end credits scroll up the left of the screen and end with the ATV logo. The overseas edit has additional breaks after the opening titles and before the closing credits; the credits are centered, do not include a credit for the guest star, and end with the ITC logo. These days most copies you're likely to see are the overseas ones (although Season 1 is a roughly 50/50 mix for some reason).


Finally, a note on the Disney DVDs: five of the shows have been cut due to music rights and a couple of sketches are missing due to a cockup, but they are otherwise complete including the original Season 1 opening titles which haven't been seen since the early 80s. It's hard to tell how much (or indeed if) the shows have been restored; I've seen a fair bit of dropout, but as it's mostly in the overscan area it's possible that the restorers either didn't spot it or didn't think it was worth fixing.

[john g]

Thanks Alex, great post that seems to have cleared that up.