Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 10, 2008 7:23:13 GMT
I just came across a page on Wikipedia about the lost episodes of Dad's Army.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad's_Army_missing_episodes
As with all wikipedia pages I have no idea who wrote the text but it struck me as being full of bull.
Point One
The page states: "series 1 sold very poorly and BBC Enterprises did not express interest in selling series 2 abroad - so no film recordings were made of any episodes for them."
This is total rubbish. Series One did sell well enough, and Series Two was sold abroad. In fact Series Two, according to the BBC's records, sold abroad to:
Australia
Bahrain
Barbados
Finland
Gibraltar
Holland
Hong Kong
Jamaica
Malta
New Zealand
Nigeria
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Sweden
West Nigeria
Yugoslavia
and
Zambia
So there must have been numerous copies made of the second series. There were still second series episodes being screened in Australia and NZ in the 1980's.
Point Two
The wikipedia also claims "The episode Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret was recorded onto 35 mm film instead of videotape"
What?
Is this right? Why would they have made it on film, it was entirely studio bound and looks a lot like a video taped episode to me. the reason an episode existed on film is because it was one of those sold to the Australian and NZ networks and was recovered from Australia in the 1980's by David Croft and returned to the archive (only to be mislaid by the BBC and then turn up again and released!).
Point Three
It states, "PAL 625 line colour videotapes for countries with the same broadcast standards as the United Kingdom, including New Zealand and (from 1975) Australia"
The only things broadcast in colour in NZ prior to 1975 were the Christchurch Commonwealth Games (the reason why BCNZ was forced to set up a coloured network) and a few test programmes to test the network. After the games black and white persisted well into 1975 as a lot of the network set up for the games was hired and was dismantled, and then coloured shows began to come along slowly in some regions well into 1975. So NZ was still broadcasting in black and white and were dong so well into the late 1970's with a smattering of colour.
Point Four
It states "The colour series were also hit badly, with many episodes initially only surviving as black & white copies if at all."
Where does this information come from. I saw this mentioned this week on this forum and it is the first I have ever heard of b&W copies existing of lost coloured episodes. Sure a load of coloured episodes were lost and they were recovered by David Croft, but I have never heard anyone mention that the BBC retained copies of these in black and white. I'm not stating it's wrong, it may not be, but I want to find out is this true or is it a new myth that has wafted out of the bullshit ether that hovers around lost episodes?
Point Five
It states, "It has since been established that the two episodes were film recorded to show to executives at Columbia Pictures during discussions on the structure of the Dad's Army feature film"
That is wrong too. It was in fact copies made by Jimmy Perry who took them to the Boulting Brothers while trying to sell the concept of the series as a film - not Columbia. It was Ealing studio's skips that the reels were rescued from I believe. It was certainly long before Columbia came on to the scene.
....It's obvious from the film that Columbia never bothered to look at episodes of the series to see what it was about.
The page fails to mention the other two lost mini-episodes, which only the audio soundtrack exist from thanks to two off air recordings. It can be forgiven for not catching up with the latest information such as the colour recovery on Room At The Bottom, and the audios being found for A Stripe For Frazer and the 1968 CNWTS episodes. But surely they could have got their research much more accurate if they'd read Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes by Jimmy Perry and David Croft which explains first hand how the episodes were lost, several published interviews with them on the subject or any other material out there by the people who have done the researching and hunting and attempting to find and recover these episodes. It's great they are promoting the episodes in case the material helps locate them, but their research is terrible and their statements misleading to the unsuspecting reader.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad's_Army_missing_episodes
As with all wikipedia pages I have no idea who wrote the text but it struck me as being full of bull.
Point One
The page states: "series 1 sold very poorly and BBC Enterprises did not express interest in selling series 2 abroad - so no film recordings were made of any episodes for them."
This is total rubbish. Series One did sell well enough, and Series Two was sold abroad. In fact Series Two, according to the BBC's records, sold abroad to:
Australia
Bahrain
Barbados
Finland
Gibraltar
Holland
Hong Kong
Jamaica
Malta
New Zealand
Nigeria
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Sweden
West Nigeria
Yugoslavia
and
Zambia
So there must have been numerous copies made of the second series. There were still second series episodes being screened in Australia and NZ in the 1980's.
Point Two
The wikipedia also claims "The episode Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret was recorded onto 35 mm film instead of videotape"
What?
Is this right? Why would they have made it on film, it was entirely studio bound and looks a lot like a video taped episode to me. the reason an episode existed on film is because it was one of those sold to the Australian and NZ networks and was recovered from Australia in the 1980's by David Croft and returned to the archive (only to be mislaid by the BBC and then turn up again and released!).Point Three
It states, "PAL 625 line colour videotapes for countries with the same broadcast standards as the United Kingdom, including New Zealand and (from 1975) Australia"
The only things broadcast in colour in NZ prior to 1975 were the Christchurch Commonwealth Games (the reason why BCNZ was forced to set up a coloured network) and a few test programmes to test the network. After the games black and white persisted well into 1975 as a lot of the network set up for the games was hired and was dismantled, and then coloured shows began to come along slowly in some regions well into 1975. So NZ was still broadcasting in black and white and were dong so well into the late 1970's with a smattering of colour.
Point Four
It states "The colour series were also hit badly, with many episodes initially only surviving as black & white copies if at all."
Where does this information come from. I saw this mentioned this week on this forum and it is the first I have ever heard of b&W copies existing of lost coloured episodes. Sure a load of coloured episodes were lost and they were recovered by David Croft, but I have never heard anyone mention that the BBC retained copies of these in black and white. I'm not stating it's wrong, it may not be, but I want to find out is this true or is it a new myth that has wafted out of the bullshit ether that hovers around lost episodes?
Point Five
It states, "It has since been established that the two episodes were film recorded to show to executives at Columbia Pictures during discussions on the structure of the Dad's Army feature film"
That is wrong too. It was in fact copies made by Jimmy Perry who took them to the Boulting Brothers while trying to sell the concept of the series as a film - not Columbia. It was Ealing studio's skips that the reels were rescued from I believe. It was certainly long before Columbia came on to the scene.
....It's obvious from the film that Columbia never bothered to look at episodes of the series to see what it was about.
The page fails to mention the other two lost mini-episodes, which only the audio soundtrack exist from thanks to two off air recordings. It can be forgiven for not catching up with the latest information such as the colour recovery on Room At The Bottom, and the audios being found for A Stripe For Frazer and the 1968 CNWTS episodes. But surely they could have got their research much more accurate if they'd read Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes by Jimmy Perry and David Croft which explains first hand how the episodes were lost, several published interviews with them on the subject or any other material out there by the people who have done the researching and hunting and attempting to find and recover these episodes. It's great they are promoting the episodes in case the material helps locate them, but their research is terrible and their statements misleading to the unsuspecting reader.
