Concerning NZ's 'Lion' and 'the well has run dry'

[eric lawton]

Dave Homewood wrote
Sadly VCR's didn't really come onto the scene here till well after the UK, Europe and the USA. If you had one in the 1970's you'd probably have been mega rich. I'd never even heard of the concept till the early 1980's and when Dad bought a VCR in 1984 our family were one of the first in town I think. There were certainly no video stores, and only one other guy i knew at school had one at home which his family had brought from the UK.

We were similar Dave, we bought ours in 1983. All the neighbours came in to look at it !!
There was 1 video shop in St Helens, we used to rent films £1 per night.
I remember in 1972, my school bought a Video Camera with sound, it was the size of a TV set and someone had to go with you as you filmed and carry the battery / backpack.
Also, I have a copy of the TV Times here, and blank 2 hour tapes ( VHS or BETAMAX ) were £7.50 EACH !!!!!
A Guy came in work one day with a box full that had "fallen off a lorry". He sold them for £5 each and they went like hot cakes.
We can only dream of the TOTP shows, Dr Who's, Match of the Day shows etc, that would be knocking about had the Video Age happened 10 years earlier.

[Alan Jeffries]

My first video machine was bought in 1980, just in time to catch the repeats of Destiny of the Daleks. It cost £450 and it was a demonstration model. Big clunky top loader. As for tapes, the most expensive one I bought was £11.50 from Dixons!
But going back to topic.
It is a shame that so much has gone and it's down - mostly - to ordinary people to do the chasing. I just don't think that there's the will/and or resources to do the search in archives around the world from most broadcasters. I guess with someone like the BBC although proud - now - of it's archive, but still needs to balance the value for money equation. With more and more people complaining about paying the license as 'it's all rubbish', I thinking how vocal they'd be if the BBC were diverting money looking for old shows?
Personally, I think you guys do a great job of recovering things. Sometimes the threads go in a highly annoying circular motion, but that's the way it is.
I'm looking at ways of bringing together all the rumours old and new into one document, either confirming the hoax or ongoing investigation. Also, where we know for certain that places have been checked, list all of those too.
It could act as a kind of one-stop-reference guide to stop some threads re-igniting every 6 months.
It may take a while though.........................

Alan

[Dave Homewood]

I think it was at least two years before a small video rental store opened in town, but by then quite a few others had gotten onto buying VCR's. In between there was a van that went round house to house to everyone in town who had a VCR every thursday evening (I think you signed on through a shop in town that sold VCR's). They'd rent you a couple of tapes for the week and pick up the ones you'd watched. Often we'd just say "Not this week thanks" after they'd come all that way. No fuel crisis then...

Then one of the petrol stations got rental videos. So that was Cambridge's first video store. And evebtually a deicated shop opened.

Dad used to borrow an old video camera from his work that had a battery bigger than the camera. He used is a couple of times to make home videos, but never recorded from TV with it.

What annoys me is when we got the VCR we used to record Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and I know some of the lost ones screened in NZ in 1984/85 as I saw them. Sgt Wilson's Little Secret was one, and the two lost IAHHM's. But we never kept them and reused the tapes because an E180 was $18.99 then. Big heavy things they were too, too heavy for my modern VCR. It doesn't like them. Luckily Sgt Wilson's Little Secret was found again, and I managed to find almost complete copies of the two IAHHM's which the BBC has now released on DVD. But I wonder what other stuff we had and wiped that hasn't been found.

No lost Doctor Who I can guarantee that. I never saw the early ones till much later. I wouldn't have taped them anyway.

[Dave Homewood]

Jul 16, 2008 11:31:02 GMT Alan Jeffries said:

With more and more people complaining about paying the license as 'it's all rubbish',

New Zealand had a licence fee for decades and many people were growing unhappy with paying it as the state of quality TV was rapidly declining.

Our esteemed Government decided to drop the licence fee as a vote grabber, which everyone rejoiced over as we thought TV had gotten terrible.

Some funding would now come from the central government pool but the state broadcasters (including Radio NZ) now had to become profitable and find ways to make money to, support themselves. So good quality documentaries have been pushed aside by cheap mindless reality pap. The news broadcasters have taken a downward spiral into gutter press muck raking territory and seem to think that drunk so-called celebrities is newsworthy - because it's cheaper to report stories someone else has researched overseas than pay someone to research and report proper news here I guess. Sadly they think Amy Winehouse's and Britney Spears' latest moves must be told to the people of NZ lie we flipping care.

And the level of advertising seems to have risen significantly.

Then worse, the Gotv created the TVNZ Charter which stated they had to produce much more 'local content' stuff to reflect New Zealand culture. But what this boiled down to is TV funding grants from government can only be gotten if the programme is about some sort of minority group like Maoris, lesbians, etc. I've talked to many people with great ideas they cannot get funded.

The TV is in a worse state now than when we paid a fee.

So don't complain about finding your television networks through a licence fee. It could be much worse. Learn from our mistakes.

[Greg H]

Jul 16, 2008 9:40:12 GMT Dave Homewood said:

Perhaps a few people are, I'm not sure. But TVNZ and the Film and Television Archive doesn't seem to actively seek out the return of items as far as I'm aware. The only campoaign I've ever heard of here in NZ was the Film Archive asking for old home movies of events and social things, which pulled in lots of interesting stiff.

Sadly VCR's didn't really come onto the scene here till well after the UK, Europe and the USA. If you had one in the 1970's you'd probably have been mega rich. I'd never even heard of the concept till the early 1980's and when Dad bought a VCR in 1984 our family were one of the first in town I think. There were certainly no video stores, and only one other guy i knew at school had one at home which his family had brought from the UK.

So the 1960's-1970's stuff made in NZ is probably very unlikely to ever turn up as very little of it would have been sold abroad. I think they archived all the news stuff, but they wiped things like dramas, variety shows, etc I'm told. I'd like to find a list of the important lost stuff missing from the NZ archives to find out what needs to be found - or what we'll never see again.

Well, theres probably other interested people out there, so now would be as good a time as any to start a website about it and maybe start compiling a list of missing material to promote the cause. You never know, stranger things have happened than a film reel or two turning up.

It is a great shame though that people just didnt realise the cultural importance of television back in the day.......

[Daniel O'Brien]

Jul 16, 2008 11:32:30 GMT Dave Homewood said:

Sgt Wilson's Little Secret was found again

I'm no 'Dad's Army' expert, but I don't think this episode was ever missing. For a long time, it was the only surviving episode from series 2, until film recordings of 'Operation Kilt' and 'The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage' were found.

[Adrian Gregg]

Yeah I don't think the missing Dad's army's were shown ANYWHERE as late at 83/84. Please oh please correct me if i'm worng. as i'm shure the ents copy's were long gone by that point.
anyone got acsess to any TV guides from NZ at that point to clarify issues. look if they were shown someone May have taped em and dosent know thier worth.. I live in hope..
I'm also Playing pike on stage at the moment and would love to see some of ian's eairler work!!!

[Stuart Huggett]

Ade42 - A quick Google search will bring up a lot of recent British press about various aspects of the Dad's Army 40th Anniversary celebrations, if you're interested.

[JOHN SMITH]

Jul 16, 2008 11:31:02 GMT Alan Jeffries said:

I'm looking at ways of bringing together all the rumours old and new into one document, either confirming the hoax or ongoing investigation. Also, where we know for certain that places have been checked, list all of those too.
It could act as a kind of one-stop-reference guide to stop some threads re-igniting every 6 months.
It may take a while though.........................

Alan

Such a list would certainly seem to be called for. Apart from the obvious 2, (DMP4, and at a push Tenth PLanet 4), does anyone know which other rumours have ANY realistic basis to be believed ??

[Steven Sigel]

Jul 16, 2008 17:59:29 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

Jul 16, 2008 11:31:02 GMT Alan Jeffries said:

I'm looking at ways of bringing together all the rumours old and new into one document, either confirming the hoax or ongoing investigation. Also, where we know for certain that places have been checked, list all of those too.
It could act as a kind of one-stop-reference guide to stop some threads re-igniting every 6 months.
It may take a while though.........................

Alan

Such a list would certainly seem to be called for. Apart from the obvious 2, (DMP4, and at a push Tenth PLanet 4), does anyone know which other rumours have ANY realistic basis to be believed ??

Ash Stewart has an article about this : unlimitedricepudding.com/Mythmakers2004.html

[Greg H]

Very nice article that. Thanks to the wombat

[JOHN SMITH]

Jul 16, 2008 18:20:00 GMT Steven Sigel said:

Jul 16, 2008 17:59:29 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

Such a list would certainly seem to be called for. Apart from the obvious 2, (DMP4, and at a push Tenth PLanet 4), does anyone know which other rumours have ANY realistic basis to be believed ??

Ash Stewart has an article about this : unlimitedricepudding.com/Mythmakers2004.html

Hmm, I have read this article before, but forgot all about it.

However there are some interesting points upon re-reading it.

Reign of Terror: On looking at this one, it seems VERY strange that the same collector would give back 2 episodes of the same story, but at different times.
This COULD bear further investigation depending on how the following scenarios pan out:

Does anyone know the dates (approximate) when each of these private eps came back?? And at what date (approx) the BBC got back 1-3 from Cyprus?

If you see what I'm trying to get at, it may (depending on the answers to the above) turn out to be that ep 6 was returned privately first, then 1-3 from Cyprus, and then 3 privately.If that IS indeed the case, then why did the person hold onto ep 3, until after ep 3 was returned from Cyprus. Surely if a person was going to return 1 'lost' episode they would return 'both' of them together. And I just won't buy into speculation that the private holder acquired them on different dates, given that these are the only 2 known prints to exist other than the ones from Cyprus.
Or even if 1-3 came back from Cyprus before the private person returned either of their prints, why bother holding onto part 3 for however long a time difference it was, because they couldn't have presumably known the quality of the print that the bbc had acquired unless prints of 1-3 went out of the back door to be copied and distributed amongst fandom (which I doubt).

Time Meddler: From reading another forum, it seems that the author 'Fatso the Wombat' knows their stuff. Now why would he/she write in this article (and NOT change the wording or point out the mistake (if indeed it is a mistake)) that

"Further to this, Mr Levine has gone on the record to precisely his position with regard to these episodes; “Everyone that mattered at the BBC knew I had these three episodes. At that time there were severe rumours of episodes around which people would only part with for another missing episode, and therefore it seemed right that I should TEMPORARILY hold back a few episodes just in case."

THREE episodes ? THREE ?? In an earlier posting you yourself (Steven S) said that you now had eps 1, 3 but that's only 2. So what about the extra one ??

Saving from junking: Now unless the guy mentioned here in the article;

"How many people took episodes in this manner is not known, but there was at least one (and realistically, he's probably the only one; is he the same person as above?). Those hoping that he may still have episodes will be disappointed. On the Restoration Team message board, Steve Roberts stated that "I personally know this guy and I know that every Episode he had eventually made its way back to the BBC…"

is Mr Watson, then that would seem to contradict earlier postings on this thread about people NOT saving eps from being junked.

As for the other 'possibles' in the article, at least it gives a little hope that there may still be some eps out there.

[Steven Sigel]

I'm not sure what the exact story is with Time Meddler -- I've heard both three and two episodes, but based on the fact that the copy of episode 2 that Ian had was a dupe (as was episode 4) , rather than an original (1&3 are originals) I assume that the correct # should be 2 (and didn't want to get into the complexity of the story when I posted before) ... Ian would know for sure ....

[Paul Smith]

According to DWM at the time, the collector who had Reign 6 took much persuading that he wouldn't get into trouble before he would return it (in May 1982). One can presume he might not have wanted to admit to having other episodes if he was worried.

It would seem he was persuaded to allow a copy of his episode 3 print to be taken some time after the Cyprus discovery (October 1984). A DWM interview with Archive Selector Steve Bryant in 1987 says he was "currently negotiating to receive a better quality print of one of the Reign of Terror episodes". Presumably those who knew that the collector had this were in a position to know it was better than the Cyprus ep3. (If it was the same person and if this was the episode Bryant was after.)

Ian Levine apparently had eps 1, 2 and 3 of Time Meddler by way of Roger Stevens (see missingepisodes.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=who&action=display&thread=3554&page=2#32960), but in a lot of discussion only 1 and 3 are mentioned as these were the episodes that were edited when recovered from Nigeria.

P

[Dave Homewood]

Jul 16, 2008 13:43:16 GMT Daniel O'Brien said:

I'm no 'Dad's Army' expert, but I don't think this episode was ever missing. For a long time, it was the only surviving episode from series 2, until film recordings of 'Operation Kilt' and 'The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage' were found.

Yeah I don't think the missing Dad's army's were shown ANYWHERE as late at 83/84. Please oh please correct me if i'm worng.

Sgt Wilson's Little Secret was missing, as was Room At The Bottom, Mum's Army, The Big Parade and a few others. Half a dozen shows were only recovered in the 1980's when David Croft was in Australia and turned the TV on in his hotel room to see an episode screening which he knew was classed as lost by the BBC. He went to the broadcaster and retrieved the film reels. However when they got back to the UK for some time they only screened the coloured ones. Eventually SWLS and RATB were brought out of the archive again.

I have researched very deeply into this. I have also examined the only reliable television shedule magazine from the time, the New Zealand Listener, but unfortunately they never listed episodes, just a general overview that says something llike "The misadventures of the Home Guard platoon at Walmington-on-Sea". Only a few broadcasts for the 1984-85 reruns have an episode title listed.

In my research I came across people who swore blind they too - like myself - had watched Sgt Wilson's Little Secret. I also found a very reliable chap who had taped The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage and described scenes perfectly. He'd never heard the radio version, in fact never knew there was a radio version. But he had his facts straight. Sadly his parents had recorded over it while he was living away from home. So it could have been an exciting recovery. He thought he might have had others too. He was not pleased with his parents.

I've also had one guy swear he saw Under Fire. Same sort of case where he could tell you the plot in detail, so he had to have seen it.

There is no reason to think NZ didn't screen the lost episodes of the series. If Aussie had half a dozen lost ones in their archives why not NZ? They would have been print copies that they had several repeat rights too and so were kept for whenever the need arose to screen them. The BBC had probably forgotten we had them down here.

However by the time I began to look into it the film prints no longer seemed to be with TVNZ, at least that's what they reckon. I don't know ifanyone really bothered to check. Their public relations department was very slack then, they probably just fobbed me off. However David Croft also had the BBC contact them officially and nothing was forthcming. Perhaps they're in a rubbish dump in Auckland.

By the way, the only reason Room At The Bottom only remains in b&w is because it was recovered in the film reel from Australia, and had been there since the days when they only broadcast in monochrome.