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Post by bravo on Jul 11, 2003 22:37:39 GMT
The Undertaker's sketch. Shot in studio on video
On every copy I've seen, (early VHS releases, TV transmissions, DVD etc) the picture quality of this sketch noticably changes. As if to NTSC.
It happens from the exact start of the sketch to the end of the show. Approx 5 mins.
Any idea why?
(This sketch appears at the end of an episode - where the audience run down from the seats and invade the set. You see a shot of the studio as the camera moves in towards the caption roller.) Thanks!
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Post by Mike S on Jul 12, 2003 8:45:10 GMT
Cut for the first repeat; footage not retained, so later reinstated from American videotape.
That's how I've always understood it anyway.
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Post by Laurence Piper on Jul 12, 2003 8:47:32 GMT
The undertakers sketch caused much controversy within the BBC at the time due to it's so called bad taste. Therefore it was removed from the master tape and another item from a different edition substituted on subsequent repeats.
Fortunately a copy had been circulated abroad (Canada, I believe) and so a 525 line NTSC master was recovered in the mid/late '80s. This was then re-edited into the show as a conversion. The sketches' first modern day repeat in the UK was during a Python repeat run in the late '80s/early'90s (can't recall exact date off-hand).
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Post by Pete on Jul 14, 2003 7:21:14 GMT
>This was then re-edited into the show as a conversion.
My only gripe with this edit has nothing to do with the obvious change in quality. It's with the edit itself which seems shoddy, as if half the bell-ringing has been cut, or a dissolve has been edited. Would be nice to be able to compare it with the corresponding bit in the 525-line copy.
Pete
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Post by Martin OGorman on Jul 15, 2003 16:55:52 GMT
The Undertakers Sketch made it back into show 13 in time for the fourth BBC Video in November 1985. The same wobbly NTSC conversion was shown on BBC1 on 5 September 1987. If you really want to know. I knew that writing all this stuff down would come in useful one day...
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Post by j bravo on Jul 16, 2003 13:55:54 GMT
Thanks for info.
Very true about the dodgy edit.
I wonder if the region 1 dvd disc of this show has been sourced from the uncut master.
Sad to think in the UK we only get a compilation DVD of Flying Circus shows (with a box set "best of" coming to DVD soon - that was released on VHS a few years ago!)
In the USA every episode is available on DVD.
Nice packages too.
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Post by David Savage on Jul 21, 2003 19:03:42 GMT
"Cut for the first repeat; footage not retained, so later reinstated from American videotape."
Not quite, because this particular episode wasn't repeated. Until towards the mid-Eighties, anyway.
It was only removed from *some* BBC copies (and not replaced with another item.) And this episode hadn't been sold abroad by 1981, as Robert Hewison revealed after checking the Python's official files for his book: MONTY PYTHON, THE CASE AGAINST.
After their mid-70s court case win, the BBC had to deliver Python copies of all their shows after the final agreement was signed, circa 1979, so this sketch was apparently never missing at all and certainly shouldn't have been replaced with a foreign copy (that officially didn't exist.)
So - the mystery deepens!
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Post by David Brunt on Jul 21, 2003 20:34:54 GMT
Word has it that there are some upcoming 'complete' boxsets to mark the 35th anniversary next year....
With all the surviving non-series material, there could be some nice extras. The SAFTA awards from 1971 would be nice...
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Post by David Savage on Jul 21, 2003 20:53:05 GMT
I'd love to see the Late Night Line-Up broadcast on BBC2, the night of the Undertaker sketch, as a DVD extra - the team repeated the undertaker sketch (not sure if it was just rebroadcast, or performed live, but it was chosen by Late Night Line-Up) and all the Pythons were interviewed together on the show. The Pythons hold a copy of this - I think Terry Jones had it taped off-air.
I couldn't imagine a better extra.
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Post by Laurence Piper on Jul 22, 2003 9:47:29 GMT
Hadn't heard about the Line-up interview existing before (you mean an audio or video? Surely the former but would be great if it was the latter!) I understood the show went out live and was not - officially at least - recorded.
I believe it was just a taped repeat of the sketch rather than a re-enactment.
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Post by David Savage on Jul 22, 2003 10:26:00 GMT
Apparently, the Python office holds a video of the programme, taped off-air. (No, the BBC wouldn't have recorded it.)
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Post by Laurence Piper on Jul 22, 2003 14:34:56 GMT
Wow! Good news indeed! Is the "Python office" something they themselves set up to deal with affairs of the show?
I would LOVE to see this. I thought it was lost for good. Presumably (being 1970) a similar b/w format to the Steptoes etc? That was far-sighted of someone, given that Terry Jones never managed to save much of Complete & Utter History Of Britain (only 18 months before) and other of his work.
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Post by Steve Burstein on Aug 4, 2005 21:23:03 GMT
After their mid-70s court case win, the BBC had to deliver Python copies of all their shows after the final agreement was signed, circa 1979, so this sketch was apparently never missing at all and certainly shouldn't have been replaced with a foreign copy (that officially didn't exist.)
So - the mystery deepens![/quote] The undertakers Sketch WAS DEFINITLY shown on US public stations from '74 to '79. THEN the public stations got new, better looking conversions and that's when the sketch disappeared from American television. I think the older transfers for America were from tapes that had been in the Time-Life offices for some time and may have pre-dated the cuts. But I distinctly remember seeing the undertakers sketch on public TV in the '70s.
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