At Last The 1948 Show/Do Not Adjust Your Set

[John Stewart Miller]

P.S. as everyone may realise by 'Mrs White', I meant Mrs Black (who does turn into Mrs White in the VT edition surviving from Thames!)

As far as I know that VT edition was only found in the last decade or so at the Bradford Museum of film and photography collection.

Wonder if theres any other material held similarly outside Thames? The one that springs to mind is the 'Captain Fantastic' segments, which were obviously film inserts.

[John Stewart Milner]

Just to say that the above posting is not by me, but rather by somebody with a similar name. Maybe I should use another variation on my name from here on?

[Deleted]

I heard one of these DVDs is in NTSC (despite being R2). Is this true? Which one?

[David Boothroyd]

cosmo said:

I heard one of these DVDs is in NTSC (despite being R2). Is this true? Which one?

The 1948 show DVD I have certainly looks like it's NTSC.

[RWels]

Mine certainly aren't R2.

What bothers me more is the way the makers completely ignored an awful lot of material. By releasing only the compilation they've spoiled any other future edition.

[Robbie]

I'm slightly confused by some of the postings for the 48 show.According to Dick Fiddy's Missing Believed Wiped,3 original episodes exist,plus the swedish compilations.Now people are saying that there's another 6 episodes in existence which aren't even included on the DVD.Where did they come from?Also,the DVD states that it's 'recently rediscovered episodes',but if they've only used the swedish compilations,they're not recent,they were discovered years ago.

[Laurence Piper]

There are six original editions surviving now (plus the five compilations, which contain a certain amount of repetition from the other six). A few more came came to light slowly and the most recent recovery was mainly pieced together again from the compilations (plus one sketch recovered from elsewhere). The DVD is a poor effort as it just ignores the 6 originals and gives the impression that the compilations are recent recoveries and are all there are! The Do Not Adjust Your Set release, in contrast, is an excellent purchase, featuring as it does, all 9 surviving Rediffusion editions (even though the two Thames ones are left off).

[RWels]

And thus the chances of another release are ruined, because the remaining episodes extant will be partly the same as the compilations. It should have been more reconstructive.

[Robbie]

Also,will they bother with another DNAYS release if there's only 2 editions surviving from the Thames series.They should have put them on this one,although there's probably some tedious rights issue preventing them as it's Thames instead of A-R.

[RWels]

Anyway both DVD sets had still plenty of empty space left on the discs.

Plus, speaking as a non-native speaker, a few subtitles would have been nice. It's probably primarily for the U.S. market or the U.K., but thanks to monty python these shows are bound to attract a more international audience.

Why is it that there are hardly any satisfactory releases of famous comedy on DVD?

[Matthew K Sharp]

Robbie said:

I'm slightly confused by some of the postings for the 48 show.According to Dick Fiddy's Missing Believed Wiped,3 original episodes exist,plus the swedish compilations.Now people are saying that there's another 6 episodes in existence which aren't even included on the DVD.Where did they come from?

OK, the 6 complete episodes are:
Series 1, Show 4 (recovered c.1994)
Series 1, Show 5 (recovered 2003)
Series 1, Show 6 (always held by Paradine Productions & the BFI)

Series 2, Show 2 (reconstructed from one of the Swedish compilations with the addition of a sketch found at ABC Australia)
Series 2, Show 3 (recovered c.1994)
Series 2, Show 5 (recovered 2003)

The rest of the material in the Swedish shows contains large chunks of shows 2/1 and 2/4, with smatterings from 1/2, 1/3, 2/6 and 2/7.
There's also at least a couple of tantalising clips from Show 1/1 that don't come from any of the above listed sources.

Also,the DVD states that it's 'recently rediscovered episodes',but if they've only used the swedish compilations,they're not recent,they were discovered years ago.

Don't believe everything you read on DVD covers... anyway, isn't 1991 recent? Comparatively?

[Robbie]

Thanks for that.I didn't realise that complete episodes had been found as recently as 2003.I thought they'd reconstructed stuff using the swedish compilations and some odds and sods they'd found in Australia.So the holdings for this series are almost respectable now,shame they didn't put it all on the DVD,a bit of a botch job really.

[Milky Bar]

Does anyone have a list of the bits that are known to be "soft" eg "We're all chartered accountants", like where the audio cuts out, and then does anyone have a list of known off-air audio recordings?

[Laurence Piper]

Audios of excellent quality for the whole run exist. These have been used as a basis for reconstructing some of the episodes (they're clearer than the film prints). This will all probably be mentioned in detail on a previous thread somewhere here though and in Dick Fiddy's "Missing Believed Wiped" book.

[ronmallett]

Does anyone know if the Bookshop skit that was broadcast on the 1st of March 1967 (according to my copy of The Golden Skits of Wing Commander Muriel Volestrangler FRHS and Bar) is among the surviving marterial?

I know Monty Python did a version of it (it's on The Final Rip Off... I'm not sure which album originally) but it would be great to see/hear the original.

Persumably the audio at least exists.