Dad's Army - Put That Light Out

[robkeeley]

Interesting! So did they get fresh masters from the BBC for the later repeat? (I'm wondering why otherwise they would have lost those two episodes as well!)

Going back on topic, does anyone have a copy of the Dad's Army script book that came out in the 2000s? I couldn't afford it at the time on a student budget, but saw it in bookshops and I remember it had the scripts as originally written, rather than as broadcast, with some quite noticeable dialogue changes. While not conclusive, that might offer a clue as to how Put That Light Out! originally ended. If the scene was cut in Australia then the closing caption could have gone with it.

(If a whole scene from Battle of the Giants! can lie forgotten for 40-odd years then anything's possible!)

[RWels]

May 1, 2023 16:22:14 GMT robkeeley said:

Interesting! So did they get fresh masters from the BBC for the later repeat? (I'm wondering why otherwise they would have lost those two episodes as well!)

Yes fresh horses every time. What others told me, is that copies would always be sent back as soon as the run was over; and that was the way it had always been, since forever.
BBC drama and comedy was being shown in most of North West Europe (and beyond) since the 1960s... But whenever I harass the archives of these stations, they always reply in the negative. Even Spanish or German audio dubs were not kept.
Also, even though I don't know the specifics, I imagine that tape formats evolved. So in 2000, new copies would have been perhaps on D-3?


One very little known fact is that there was a kind of distribution centre on the mainland, to be precise, on the premises of Schiphol Airport (near Amsterdam), so that programs that were for sale could be sent quicker on their way.

[G D Peck]

May 1, 2023 14:16:53 GMT RWels said:

Apr 30, 2023 7:33:31 GMT robkeeley said:

So, you know what I'm going to ask - has anyone contacted the Netherlands station about those episodes?

The one in between is 'The Jungle Patrol' which was released on video soon afterwards in Feb 1991 and I still have that tape!  

I'm more interested if anyone has asked different branches of the BBC. The Dutch station is quite unlikely to have kept tapes from 1990 especially because they later repeated the series but with the two afflicted episodes missing.
(Besides, yes I DID ask them and the answer is probably no, although you can never be certain if nothing uncatalogued isn't lying around or in a corner.)

Here in Australia IAHHM was shown on three free to air stations, ABC originally, repeated on Channel 7 in the late 80’s, where the two domestic recording come from. Finally Channel 10 in the early 90’s. Be nice if one of them still had the broadcast tapes of those two episodes, but after all this time it’s unlikely.