mythmaker18

Don't know whether it's sped-up or not, but I have found OTHER minor (but annoying) mistakes with this set:

1. On three or four of the episodes on disc one, the WRONG credits sequence is used! These are 1972 episodes, but about half of the episodes on disc one use the 1980s "syndication" credit sequences, from when the series was re-packaged. Cosby is quite visibly older. Even the closing credits on these episodes is the syndication version (though they do properly credit Robert Chenault as the live-action director, more about that in point 2 below).

2. For the remaining episodes on the set, they do have the proper "vintage" of opening/closing titles, but they are not the original 1972 title, but are from 1976 (as evidenced by the copyright date at the end of the episodes). While the animation, music, etc. is all the same, one important (potentially litigous) difference is that the production personnel were not entirely the same in 1976 as in 1972. Arthur Nadel, for instance, is credited as the live-action director, when Filmation buffs know that Robert Chenault was the head of live-action at Filmation until 1975, when he quit the company and was replaced by Nadel that year.

I'm sure the reason for this is UrbanWorks, if they even did any clean-up, decided to clean up only "one" set of '70s titles and just decided to strip them into all the '70s episodes, regardless of production year. This doesn't account for the four "syndication" versions on disc 1, though. Either they stripped in the wrong one, or the tapes that Entertainment Rights sent them had the syndicated titles on them, so that's what they used, not knowing any better.

These are really stupid mistakes, but they're not enough to make me return the set to Amazon. I halfway understand using one set of '70s titles (though artists like Chenault might not take too kindly to it), but the screw-up with the '80s re-made titles was really idiotic.

I think, for the next set, they should use the correct ending titles for each episode, if for no other reason, that the episodes will properly credit the individuals who worked on them.

Rogue588

Send 'em an email.

SWR 1

defintely send them an email. I think that it can be troublesome for them because they are crediting someone who did not even work those episodes, and not crediting the person who was involved. I am in the music business and know that crediting the wrong person on a song or not crediting someone who should be credited would need to be addressed.

darkside

Does it seem like the episodes are intact other than the credits? I ask because sometimes they cut stuff out of shows when it goes into sydication. BTW I had no idea this series started in 1972 the year I was born. I fondly remember watching it in the late seventies and early eighties as a child.

Scott27

I bought this as a blind buy at Target yesterday because it was pretty cheap ($12.99 I think). I watched the pilot, which run just 19:50, about 2-3minutes shorter than what 1/2 hour shows run today. Is that tne complete episode?

mythmaker18

A lot of the shows I see today run more like 21-22 minutes, not 22-23 as you say.

Anyway, there are a couple of possible explanations for that runtime. One is that the episode might be suffering from "PAL-speedup" (meainging the source used for the video master was PAL format rather than NTSC format and was "converted" to NTSC, resulting in an episode where the picutre/sound are sped-up by about 4 percent).

Another explanation is that this is the actual length. Saturday morning programming might've been shorter to allow for more cereal commercials. I know that in the case of another live-action Filmation show, Shazam, the first season shows were shorter on their initial runs than on the reruns, due to Jackson Bostwick having the idea of inserting a moral message with Captain Marvel at the end. CBS didn't like losing the additional 30 seconds of commercial time, but the morals stayed (and carried over into Isis).

To the person who suggested I send E.R. an e-mail: I have done so and got a reply back stating that they didn't see how the credits could be wrong, claming they closely examined the videotapes (no mention of 16mm film) and original scripts sent over by Hallmark. They asked me if I could put Chenault and/or Nadel into contact with them and claimed that if I could actually "prove" that some people were mistakenly credited (or uncredited), the episodes could be corrected in a future print run.

I happen know Robert Chenault (the head of live-action at Filmation until late 1974 or early 1975, and the man I'm almost 100% sure directed all of the 1972 live-action inserts) so I have e-mailed him also to get his input.

Rogue588

Good stuff. Keep us updated.