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Post by Martin Dunne on Aug 20, 2018 1:21:02 GMT
The story goes; he saw Kitten Kong in the listings but when he recorded it, it was a strange B&W version. A few weeks later they listed Kitten Kong again, this time he recorded the colour version. While playing the two versions of the same story in such rapid succession seems odd, the run did play out ~90 episodes when ABC's available pool (One to Five, minus three specials) only comprised a potential 47 episodes. And several of them were only played the once.
They played Commonwealth Games and Come Dancing quite deliberately, the really odd thing about Kitten Kong would be playing both versions so close together.
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Post by rmackenziefehr on Aug 20, 2018 9:51:27 GMT
I think that was It Ain't Half Hot Mum. That's probably the one. The problem was, by the time they were identified, all that was left was the off airs... The masters that they came from had been destroyed. Right? It must have been more or less by accident that it was shown as late as 1980 (assuming that the story is true). In terms of It Ain't Half Hot Mum, the extant off-airs were actually recorded in 1988, and their status as being otherwise lost not realized until the mid-1990s. This thread discusses this somewhat, including comments by one of the people responsible for finding the tapesOn the one hand, the facts behind this story make it more plausible that ABC might have had a copy of the original Kitten Kong into the 1980s- at the same time, however, it also means that, by this point, chances of finding a copy are between slim and nil.
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Post by alexbriggs on Sept 20, 2018 15:59:50 GMT
Film editor Martyn Day, who worked on both versions of 'Kitten Kong' as well as several classic Doctor Who serials, is a neighbour of mine. When queried recently about his involvement with The Goodies his brief response was that Bill Oddie could be quite hard to work with, but if I get the chance I'll ask him if he has more detailed memories about working on these specific shows, particularly whether the Montreux version involved replacing certain scenes in the original or if it was redone from scratch. There are actually two editors credited on the Montreux edition, which suggests that it does re-use footage from the original, with one editor being responsible for the old scenes and the other for the new.
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Post by Martin Dunne on Sept 24, 2018 11:50:23 GMT
That's be awesome.
Andrew Pixley wrote up the differences and the first two film sequences (collecting the animals and exercising in the park) were reused, where the third with them fighting the cat was re-shot. The studio recording was new and (mostly) followed the script for the first half,diverting in the second. The ads were Robinson's Paper (the strong one), reused in Montreux '72, and Universal Chocolate, the jingle of which survives and is on the Cricklewood Tapes in the new box set.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Sept 25, 2018 0:04:21 GMT
I saw Kitten Kong in B/W on ABC tv. No way I can confirm the edits but certainly it would have been 79-80 ish. I'd seen the Kitten in colour in the credits and didn't understand why it was in B/W. There was more than one episode broadcast in B/W IIRC. This is the first I've heard of this. Wow.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Sept 25, 2018 0:27:47 GMT
Does anyone know in which year ch7 played out the LWT runs in Australia? Is it possible the BW BBC versions were played here rather than in the ABC tv run of BBC episodes?
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Post by Martin Dunne on Sept 25, 2018 1:44:52 GMT
Thanks Marty; literally the second person to confirm this. My own memory only extends to Commonwealth Games.
And for those counting; the five B&Ws:
Caught in the Act 1.4 The Greenies 1.5 * Commonwealth Games 2.2 * Kitten Kong 2.7 Come Dancing 2.8 *
I have a listings history, mainly focusing on the 1979-81 runs on ABC, the program advice for the show was rotten, as I noted when I did the first lot of Who research in 2003. The ones starred (*) are explicitly spelled out. The ABC played out each episode twice in the 6.00pm slot in 1979 and 1980, followed by Dr Who, also playing out all the episodes they had. ABC was so hungry for content they had the Dep't of Customs reclassify Who from 'A' to 'G' for this run, a similar reclassification appears to have occurred with The Goodies. Near the end of these repeats they then played the B&W prints named and some regions got a fourth one. This could be either Caught in the Act or Kitten Kong, however there's no sign Caught was reassessed down to 'G'.
Seven had two runs; LWT in 1983, played regionally and never repeated (seven episodes -- six regular, one special).
The 1986 Seven run was the BBC series; no episode titles unfortunately, but likely the whole series minus ... the five B&Ws, the two longer specials (The Goodies and the Beanstalk, and Goodies Rule ... OK?), and the puzzling Hype Pressure; 60 episodes out of a pool of 60 potential.
The effervescent Matthew K Sharp had the recovery happening after this; ABC had sent all their Goodies material to Seven and when Seven was returning the tapes for ABC's 1987 run a fan realised they had B&W film prints not offered by the BBC. He taped and returned them. Here is one of the surprises; it was only the starred titles above according to Matthew. Caught was also recovered from Australia (the same censor cuts John Williams recovered in 2009). Best guess is Kitten Kong was discarded at this point, that annoying and confusing reuse of the title finally catching up with it. The Greenies was still held in colour by the BBC, a colour copy of Come Dancing was found in 2009.
And that's what you'll get on the box set; B&W Commonwealth Games with John's censor cuts restored, B&W Caught in the Act, also with John's censor cuts restored. The lost mock ad for Universal Chocolate is still held as Bill's jingle, available on The Cricklewood Tapes CDs.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Sept 25, 2018 4:29:28 GMT
Great info Martin! Cheers! Just walked into my front yard to discover the Goodies box set waiting for me on the verandah!!!! And it's not locked to Region 2...
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Post by Sue Butcher on Sept 26, 2018 6:19:01 GMT
Same here. I won't say that Binge of Goodies saved my life, but it did help blow the blues away.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,854
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Post by RWels on Sept 26, 2018 18:27:03 GMT
Half-related, I just wanted to say if anyone has audio recordings of The Goodies on Engelbert with the Young Generation, that is also something to watch out for. They exist ONLY in a German dub.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Sept 27, 2018 0:04:37 GMT
1. Are we sure that ch7 (or an affiliated REGIONAL station) didn't re-broadcast these? 2. I'm confident that more than one was broadcast in BW. (Commonwealth games looking at you) - would the broadcast of this be realated in any way to the actual 1982 broadcast of the Brisbane Commonwealth games? Were ch7 and the ABC joint broadcasters?
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Post by Martin Dunne on Sept 27, 2018 11:32:32 GMT
1. Are we sure that ch7 (or an affiliated REGIONAL station) didn't re-broadcast these? 2. I'm confident that more than one was broadcast in BW. (Commonwealth games looking at you) - would the broadcast of this be realated in any way to the actual 1982 broadcast of the Brisbane Commonwealth games? Were ch7 and the ABC joint broadcasters? There were regional broadcasts; it was on HSV-7 from 3 February 1986 to 2 May, ADS-7 from 20 May to 11 August. After this some odd dates ... on NBN-3. What I have not found is any on ATN-7. Which is what I thought would be the most likey culprit. Anyway, zero programme advice for B&W in any of those. I believe Foxtel did play B&Ws (Matthew said so, as well as Seven regarding them as unbroadcastable), but Foxtel program listings are ephemeral; there is only one good run of the guide at the NLA, and newspapers/magazines are not complete. If so, they would have been the usual suspects; Caught in the Act, Commonwealth Games, and Come Dancing, The Greenies being available in colour and Kitten Kong not held. I clearly recall Commonwealth Games in B&W (and remember Joan Sims in Come Dancing, less well), to the point where I suspect I saw it twice. I don't think it had anything to do with the 1982 Commonwealth Games, which were blot of No Doctor Who for two weeks, following a similar two week blot for the soccer. And then they repeated the Games in their blotness entirety in 1983. Plus there was No Who in 1981 and No Goodies in 1982. Possibly not so bad sounding to those who didn't enjoy year round repeats, but dammit -- I wanted my Who. ABC's joint broadcaster was Nine.
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Post by Sue Butcher on Sept 28, 2018 1:55:04 GMT
Was the ABC's first broadcast of Kitten Kong in 1973(?)the original or the remake? I wasn't aware that there were two versions, but know I saw that one.
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Post by Martin Dunne on Sept 28, 2018 3:03:06 GMT
Yes, Sue, thanks for asking; it looks as if it was Montreux '72 all the way up to the 1979 repeats.
Montereux '72 first played on 26 January 1974 in NSW. Broadly speaking, series one and two in 1973/4, series three in 1974/5, the first repeat series (still in B&W) later that year plus The Goodies and the Beanstalk, and the premiere of four in colour in January 1976. These were all over the schedule, mostly 'A' rated and after 7.30pm, and regional, if it wasn't complicated enough. From 2 August 1976 they had series five and repeats in colour at 5.30pm, where still offered by the BBC and assessed by customs as 'G' or 'G' with cuts. This appears to have been a big event for ABC, with the repeats running on to December and The Goodies Rule ... OK? They had a short run in mid-1977 with the show wandering around the schedule again and no episodes in 1978. Meanwhile, Dr Who started its 6.30pm weekday runs, paired with My Favorite Martian at 6.00pm but ... Tuesday to Friday. After reassessment by Customs frees up more Goodies and Who, 19 February 1979 sees it where it belongs at last at 6.00pm Monday to Thursday followed by Dr Who, the premiere of series six, then repeats in broadcast order. Initially nationally, some pre-emptions have it wander out of synch by March. And then B&Ws.
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Post by Archive on Sept 29, 2018 13:55:29 GMT
The goodies aired in the early 90's on regional tv station BCV8 Bendigo (part of the southern cross television network prior to aggregation)as part of the local after school childrens show "Surprise Surprise".
The copies may have been sourced from 2" quad, as both the goodies and also episodes of The Muppet Show would at times show 2" type tape damage. Weirdly,some of the muppet show copies were also color kinescopes.
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