I was watching the Christmas episode included within Season One of the Mary Tyler Moore Shoe and noticed that this episode was edited.

Originally in this episode, when Mary is left alone in the newsroom and is watching TV, she begins to sing along with the Christmas television program. Then she begins to slightly cry because she is all alone. She then gets up and dances to the Nutcracker music.

Howver, on the DVD, she is singing alone when suddenly it cuts to her beginning to dance to the Nutcracker music.

Has anyone else noticed that this has been edited? Are all of these episodes on Season One slightly edited?

I hear the entire Season 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 were edited as well for dvd.

I read somewhere that at least one song was cut out because they didn't want to pay for the music rights for just the few seconds she was singing that song. I guess this was the scene.

If that's the case, then I bet the rest is just fine. I'm not sure what Vegasbaby means, though...are those seasons even out on DVD yet? I've never seen them!

not to be painfully obtuse, but that's the point : (
due to 'disappointing sales', odds are S1 is all we'll get.
so yes, the dvd releases for S2-S7 are extremely edited ; ) the good news is, they're also cheap.

Music rights, esp for older shows, really throw a monkey wrench into TV on DVD releases.

Thanks for the input.

This was my first post on this site and it proves this is the place to get quick answers to DVD-related questions!

And some smartaleck answers at no additional charge ; )

Welcome aboard!

I actually didn't notice the cut, but I don't know if I ever saw that episode in syndication, and I know I didn't see it on original release.
That kind of cut, while certainly removing something from the show, is at least better and more understandable than 'content cuts' which I don't support at all.

You know they should have just done what the Criterion collection does in these cases.

If they didn't want to pay for the music, they should have just thrown a disclaimer at the begining of the ep and said something like "you'll notice a brief period without sound at (time). This is due to..."

Then they could play the scene without sound at that part and maybe the subtitles or the comentary could let you know this is the part that doesn't have sound intentionally so doen't be alarmed.

That way you still get the whole show and they don't need to pay for the song.

No edits that I have noticed (other than the Christmas show you mentioned, due to music rights no doubt. Although, I found it odd that evidently VHS prints of this same episode DO feature the song that's edited on the DVD version. Curious.)

But, they had to delete the "White Christmas" number that Mary sings along to on the DVD version of the Christmas ("Hard Luck Kid") episode, plus the "segue" line of Mary's: "And now, for my next number, I think I'm going to cry" (which, as edited for the DVD release, would not have made much sense minus the White Christmas song which preceded it).

Too bad too...but hardly worth NOT buying this entire fantastic 24-episode Season 1 Boxed Set (WITH CRYSTAL CLEAR PQ)!

Some foolish people are actually REFUSING to purchase this excellent set just because of that ONE deleted portion (of about 30 seconds total run time -- if that).

I just hope that not TOO MANY fans utilized this ultra-strange buying policy....because I'd hate to think that one of the main reasons that we're not likely to see an MTM-2 is due to this ridiculous "boycott Season 1 because it's edited!" foolishness. (Although I'm quite sure that's NOT a "Main" reason for sluggish sales for the S.1 set; it was more-than-likely due to its higher-than-desirable asking price.)

There's still hope for Season 2, though, I've heard told.....

When an HTF Forum member asked FOX exec Peter Staddon about MTM-2.......

Mr. Staddon replied: "We're looking at ways of bringing that out, so there is hope. We finished it, and there's just a question of can we make it work better than the first season worked."

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...=&pagenumber=1

Excellent idea, and I'm not saying so just because I have had the same one

BTW, which Criterion releases have this??