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Post by brianfretwell on Sept 29, 2018 16:21:09 GMT
There are 16mm prints of The Muppet Show around they have been advertised second hand for years. It was suspected that they were airline prints from before they went to Super 8 film for that.
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Post by Vince Steele on Jun 18, 2020 15:59:02 GMT
Hey folks, I'm the one Martin mentions who had the original and the Montreux version of Kitten Kong recorded onto separate video tapes during the 79, 80 or 81 run of the show on ABN2 in Sydney. My big brother had used his Grace Brother's card to get himself a Sony Betacord video recorder in 78 or 79, one of the first available for the home market in Australia. Instead of buttons, it had protruding switches which had to be pressed down in order to use the thing. To record you had to press the record and play switches down together, much like the old audio cassette recorders.
Anyways, I decided to use it to record every episode of The Goodies I could. I think the first week of recording included clown virus, but after a week or so, the broadcasts reverted back to Tower of London. The TV guide, which I'm pretty sure was from a supplement in The Liverpool Champion, a free local newspaper, was good for giving out the episode names, so once I saw the series was beginning again, I ditched what I'd already recorded and started again by recording over the tapes I'd already used, thinking I'd be able to get the entire series in order starting with the first episode. So, I was very disappointed when the series finished on Superstar that year and then didn't come back on for the rest of the year. I think I ended up with about 20 odd episodes all up. The following year it was back on and I managed to get another 30 odd episodes for the collection. Or was Superstar the final broadcast for the 2nd years' worth? Too long ago to remember exactly, but for one of the years it did finish on Superstar and I thought, what a pathetic episode to finish on.
Now, don't ask me which year it was, because it was too long ago to remember exactly, but for either the first recording session or the second one the following year, a handful of the episodes were broadcast in black and white. It was during my high-school years though, so it was somewhere between 1978 and 1981. At school there were always great discussions and reenactments of the previous day's Goodies episodes in the morning before classes started. I'll get back to this later when I change the subject a little and start rabbiting on about the year the ABC changed the broadcast time from 6:00pm to 6:25pm.
Getting back to the black and white episodes, I had no idea about missing episodes and just assumed in my teenage naivety that the ABC was having technical difficulties and that they were broadcasting in black and white because of it. Which, now I think of it, means they probably didn't mention in the TV guide I was looking at that they were black and white broadcasts, because I wouldn't have thought it was something that had gone wrong on the day if I'd had advance warning about it. I certainly wasn't expecting Kitten Kong to be in black and white when it was broadcast. I remember the disappointment thinking that of all the days for the ABC's equipment to play up it was on the day they played Kitten Kong and now I was stuck with a black and white copy in my collection.
We then ended up with school holidays so a lot of episodes were recorded without the banter at school the next day. I think it was about 3 weeks after I'd recorded Kitten Kong when the TV guide said it was going to be on again. I presumed it was a typo and was very surprised to find that it was Kitten Kong again, but this time in colour, and with some changes made. I'd already filled a tape with episodes by this time and was in the process of filling a second or third tape, which meant I had the black and white copy on one tape and the colour copy on a different tape. This meant I could watch the episodes scene by scene by swapping the tapes over and over from one scene to the next to study what all the differences were, and there were quite a few.
The main difference was the musical number. In the original black and white copy, Bill sang a brief duet with a sheep before Graeme interrupted to make them stop. In the colour remake, two dogs sang a duet instead. Other changes included a scene where the large brown dog was revealed as being gay, removed from the remake; Some of the footage during the animal exercise sequence was removed from the remake; A scene with a depressed budgie and a broken rattle snake got replaced with a depressed but vicious mongoose in a basket; The lads riding their trandem run into a brick wall and get flattened into paper thin cutouts, which got removed from the remake; An upturned milk float with a scared milkman got removed, as did a scene with an empty fish shop; The quick change scene where the Goodies all enter the change room and exit in their mice outfits changed a little to include Graeme walking into the room separately, carrying a large syringe; A scene where they sit in a giant bowl of milk as live bait was removed, as was the scene where Graeme gets eaten off camera and then spat out by the kitten because he was covered in pepper; Michael Aspel makes an appearance which wasn't in the original; The scene where the syringe is dropped from a great height onto the giant kitten is replaced with a scene where the kitten's giant paw grabs the floating trandem, allowing them to swab the kitten's arm before administering the syringe directly to it; A scene is added where they puncture their hot air balloon with the syringe, which wasn't possible in the original as they'd dropped the syringe in that version; In the original they rode the trandem down to the ground, but in the remake they got swept away by the nose of a Concorde; The scene at the end which used footage of real mice via green-screen to make them look like giant mice was replaced by a scene where giant fake mouse heads crashed through the walls instead. Also, the utterance of the word Bloody was changed to Ruddy for both instances. I know this was supposed to be edited out, but I'm pretty sure they got to say Bloody in the black and white broadcast. ABN2 in Sydney managed to show a few episodes with some of the cuts reinstated some times, especially when the series was moved from the 6:00pm time slot to the 6:25pm time slot. The fake adverts between parts 1 and 2 were changed as well. The original had an advert for a chocolate bar made with fresh meat with the jingle "So full of cow, it almost moos" The audio for that bit survives via The Cricklewood Tapes set of audio CDs.
For the year when The Goodies was first broadcast at 6:25pm instead of the usual 6:00pm time slot there were a number of censor cut bits that were reinstated, the most memorable one for a gang of teenage schoolboys was when Tower of London was broadcast with the shot of the topless woman included during Bill's sherbet induced mind trip. There was quite a bit of hormone infused teenage boy discussions about it all at school the next day, pretty sexist discussions at that.
As mentioned, the second broadcast of Kitten Kong happened during the school holidays. When school resumed and I brought the topic up at school on the first day back, the other lads just shrugged their shoulders and said "yeah, that was weird", and it was never mentioned again.
What happened to the recordings I made of the Goodies from those days? One day I decided that I didn't actually need to keep them because I assumed that they'd be repeated on the ABC forever, the same way that shows like Dad's Army, Benny Hill, Love They Neighbour, On the Buses, etc, were always being repeated on whichever channel owned the broadcast rights for them at the time. I even remember thinking to myself, "It's not as if I have the only copies in existence and the world is relying on me keeping them." So I recorded over them. No idea what went over the top of it all. Possibly some movie broadcasts. James Bond films perhaps? Carl Sagan's Cosmos? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Not really important now. Eventually the tapes would have most likely been put to landfill with the regular rubbish collection one day after we'd changed over to VHS a few years later and no longer had any way of watching the Beta tapes after the Betacord VCRs eventually stopped working from old age and overuse. My brother had upgraded to a newer model Betacord with buttons instead of lever type switches, but eventually both models died in their own time and by then VHS was taking over the planet, so we said goodbye to our Beta tapes as well.
And that's the story of how I came to have both versions of Kitten Kong in my possession and how I ended up not keeping either version. If only I'd known. Fat lot of good hindsight is.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,861
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Post by RWels on Jun 20, 2020 12:55:48 GMT
Can I just say: Waaaaaaaa!
It reminds me how a couple of years later at least two tapes of Half Hot Mum were saved that were already assumed missing.
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 20, 2020 19:25:18 GMT
Didn’t Mr Morris hint that he might have found a black & white copy of Kitten Kong (the original version) in a batch of Goodies 16mm tele-recordings he recovered? No confirmation yet I suppose?
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 20, 2020 19:25:56 GMT
Can I just say: Waaaaaaaa! It reminds me how a couple of years later at least two tapes of Half Hot Mum were saved that were already assumed missing. Waaaaaaaa! Indeed
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Post by Martin Dunne on Jun 23, 2020 15:09:51 GMT
Didn’t Mr Morris hint that he might have found a black & white copy of Kitten Kong (the original version) in a batch of Goodies 16mm tele-recordings he recovered? No confirmation yet I suppose? Not quite; he said to us -- myself and Vince when we first announced this in 2018 -- that he had a B&W print but didn't know which version. This was quoted out of context on Twitter and sent back to us. Fruits of the hunt are a semi-complete transmission history for Australia and best wishes from Tim and Bill. Independent of us the Universe Chocolate jingle was returned by Adrian Bishop-Laggett in 2010 and released on The Cricklewood Tapes in September 2018. In January 2019 Jim Exley noticed more of Tim and Twinkle in Engelbert with the Young Generation: Pets, a genuine clip out of version one not reused in version two. Matthew K Sharp would have been our best bet to verify the fate of the print; a huge opportunity missed.
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 23, 2020 17:16:26 GMT
Didn’t Mr Morris hint that he might have found a black & white copy of Kitten Kong (the original version) in a batch of Goodies 16mm tele-recordings he recovered? No confirmation yet I suppose? Not quite; he said to us -- myself and Vince when we first announced this in 2018 -- that he had a B&W print but didn't know which version. This was quoted out of context on Twitter and sent back to us. Fruits of the hunt are a semi-complete transmission history for Australia and best wishes from Tim and Bill. Independent of us the Universe Chocolate jingle was returned by Adrian Bishop-Laggett in 2010 and released on The Cricklewood Tapes in September 2018. In January 2019 Jim Exley noticed more of Tim and Twinkle in Engelbert with the Young Generation: Pets, a genuine clip out of version one not reused in version two. Matthew K Sharp would have been our best bet to verify the fate of the print; a huge opportunity missed. Ah well, so we are waiting for Mr Morris to let us know either way then?
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Post by Martin Dunne on Jun 24, 2020 1:32:04 GMT
Not really; that was two years ago. He'd probably have said by now.
Here's the sad and weepy part. I called in a lot of favours to get the broadcast logs from 1979-80, and they show ... ABC used an internal code rather than titles or production numbers. It's still obscure! I'm asking for ABC Archives to help, they said they had a couple of ideas.
After six months I talked to Matthew's friend Lou. He assured me neither Matthew nor his Channel Seven friend would have let Kitten Kong slip through their fingers. No possibility of finding the guy. Looks like this pushes the destruction back to Seven receiving the prints in 1986 rather than returning them in 1987, at latest. Without his help it's all speculation.
Brian Labza has been a great help too, with his diaries from the era giving Melbourne screening dates. Intriguingly he says his copy of Caught in the Act 1.4 goes back to this time frame suggesting this was another B&W recovered by this route, just not explicitly described by Matthew.
One other interesting point; when Tim gave us his best wishes he also said "They've been looking for that for years!". If this route has already been travelled, we'd want to know.
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 24, 2020 8:13:11 GMT
Not really; that was two years ago. He'd probably have said by now. Here's the sad and weepy part. I called in a lot of favours to get the broadcast logs from 1979-80, and they show ... ABC used an internal code rather than titles or production numbers. It's still obscure! I'm asking for ABC Archives to help, they said they had a couple of ideas. After six months I talked to Matthew's friend Lou. He assured me neither Matthew nor his Channel Seven friend would have let Kitten Kong slip through their fingers. No possibility of finding the guy. Looks like this pushes the destruction back to Seven receiving the prints in 1986 rather than returning them in 1987, at latest. Without his help it's all speculation. Brian Labza has been a great help too, with his diaries from the era giving Melbourne screening dates. Intriguingly he says his copy of Caught in the Act 1.4 goes back to this time frame suggesting this was another B&W recovered by this route, just not explicitly described by Matthew. One other interesting point; when Tim gave us his best wishes he also said "They've been looking for that for years!". If this route has already been travelled, we'd want to know. Probably is the key word here. You would hope so.
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Post by Vince Steele on Jun 27, 2020 16:58:27 GMT
Brian Labza has been a great help too, with his diaries from the era giving Melbourne screening dates. Intriguingly he says his copy of Caught in the Act 1.4 goes back to this time frame suggesting this was another B&W recovered by this route, just not explicitly described by Matthew. On a side note, while a lot of people assume Caught in the Act was deemed too risky to be shown in Australia, it was in fact the very first episode ever broadcast on Australian TV, way back in October 1973, for Sydney viewers at least, followed a week later by Women's Lib. Further episodes wouldn't be shown on ABN 2 until a couple of months later during the Christmas break. In fact, Caught in the Act was repeated on a couple of occasions during The Goodies' sporadic runs in various adult time slots before it found it's more permanent home in the children's afternoon time slots, which is when the knives came out and the Australian censors went all Mary Whitehouse on us. There was also a brief 2pm Sunday run one year and a couple of 6:30pm broadcasts for a Christmas break treat before the regular afternoon runs became permanent, so the chopping may have started sooner than people realise.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,861
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Post by RWels on Jun 27, 2020 21:38:27 GMT
A couple of years ago I spoke to someone AU/NZ who had a Gnomes of Dulwhich episode on audio cassette. More or less the same ending. It had gone missing at some point.
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 28, 2020 9:05:41 GMT
A couple of years ago I spoke to someone AU/NZ who had a Gnomes of Dulwhich episode on audio cassette. More or less the same ending. It had gone missing at some point. Arrrrrgh!!!!!
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Post by Richard Marple on Jun 28, 2020 9:31:44 GMT
It nearly happened with one of the Dr Who audio tapers, who nearly through out his tape reels when moving house.
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Post by Martin Dunne on Jun 28, 2020 13:19:01 GMT
Audio recorded off television is notable in that 1. Everyone did it, domestic video was fairly late in the piece in Australia, and 2. No one's interested in it.
I've just done a round of talking to the various government authorities about audio; confirming they are not in the slightest bit interested, disbelieving that it's even a medium of recovery and as an afterthought asking if I have any missing episodes on tape.
And since they asked, no, but I do have a variety of clips recorded from February 1979 (presumably when I got an audio cassette machine) to May 1986 (first VHS machine), of no particular quality.
Frustratingly, this would mean I could have recorded Kitten Kong version one for myself, on audio (if it played in Adelaide, jury's still out), plus any number of odd Australian ephemera.
What I've actually got is: clips out of The Goodies (series one/two theme, Run, Taking You Back), Doctor Who themes from series seven/unknown and Delaware (off Carnival of Monsters), big swathes of Silent Running, Yogi's Galaxy Goof-Ups, The Krofft Supershow, David Nixon's Magic Show, In Search of, Catweazle, Blake's Seven, Shirl's Neighbourhood, Fat Albert, The Glumps, Flash Gordon (serial), The Night Stalker plus top tens and popular music off Countdown and Videodisc. Most of this I can date to the day.
And the one thing I have a complete high quality copy of ... the 18 March 1985 simulcast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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Post by richardwoods on Jun 28, 2020 16:27:26 GMT
It nearly happened with one of the Dr Who audio tapers, who nearly through out his tape reels when moving house. It’s an easy mistake to make even if you try & do the right thing. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, because I had no knowledge of other archives who might have been interested, I let my large collection of BBC Home Service (Radio) Children’s Stories from the mid to late 60’s on reel to reel tapes go to a collector at the National Vintage Audio Fair 15 plus years ago. The majority were missing from the BBC Archive but when I offered to return them, I was told by the BBC Treasure Hunt that they were of no interest as they would never be rebroadcast and were of no commercial value. These were lead recordings off FM & were excellent quality. Worryingly, as he was leaving he said that he would listen to them & if he didn’t like them he would tape over them! Needless to say I seriously regret letting them go.
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