David Lambert

TVShowsOnDVD *NEVER* said it was a "best of" release. We said it was going to have, and I quote, "fewer than 13 episodes". That was, in fact, true.

That is your response? How about offering an apology for libelously calling us "flat-out WRONG"? You didn't state it as an opinion, or a possibility; you stated it as a fact.

Ravenous

So not only is it fucked up that we get an episodes skipped out on (I bet its the mad bomber one; though they show it on TV); we dont even get a discount but charged what Disney is charging for Ducktales and all those others with 27 eps. Thats just wrong.

Instead of arguing who posted what; use contacts to let BV know their fucking over fans!

David Lambert

I may as well share these with y'all: Overnight I've gotten e-mails from readers who theorize that:

1. It's the one you mention: "The Mad Bomber What Bombs At Midnight", because its episode ("Tick vs. Tick") has been cut before (I didn't know that)
2. That it's Chairface Chippendale because "Chippendale" may be trademarked
3. That it's "Breadmaster" because that's a kitchen appliance name that may be trademarked
4. That it's "Mole-Men" because DC may somehow own that as a trademark because of the old "Superman vs. the Mole-Men" serial film(s)
5. That it's the Mole-Men episode because the character "Mindy Moleford", er, ticks off Cindy Crawford
6. That "Brainchild" (whose brain is in a plastic dome) resembles various comic book villians too much
7. That "El Seed" is WAY too much sounding like "El Cid"

Regarding the cost, it looks like it was always the plan - no matter about the episode count - to charge for this 2-DVD set the same SRP as the three-disc sets you mention. So I can understand and agree with concerns about that.

Regarding letting the contacts know: the person who informed us about it was already unhappy about the situation, and if I am remembering correctly this person had mentioned to me a long time ago about personally being a giant fan of this show. But apparently it is not something that can be quickly or easily resolved, and that they've got to leave it to the lawyers to work out (if possible). IF it's something like the Chippendale or Breadmaster theories where some corporation feels a trademark was violated, then it might not be possible to resolve.

Regarding Breadmaster: I wonder how plausible that theory is. Yes, it's mentioned in the press release by name. But one has to wonder if the person who wrote the press release, already known to be erroneous because it still says "Season One", knew exactly WHICH of the thirteen episodes got deleted. Just because the release mentions Breadmaster I am not betting that this episode is for-sure included. Note that I've informed the studio of these thoughts regarding the press release contents, and they are going to look into it.

VoreLord

$%^& YES !!!!

Gord Lacey

Ravenous,
I let them know when they told me it wasn't going to be the complete season. Disney does a great job with their new dramas, but the releases for their animates series are quite pathetic. It's sad because when I think about Disney I think about their cartoons first. I wish they would either step it up, or license it to a company that could do a better job.

Just to clear a few things up...
Patrick, I never said it was going to be the best episodes, I said it was fewer than the 13 episodes from season 1 (which it is). I don't understand why you felt the need to jump onto a bunch of forums to attack me, and the news I posted, and now that you're wrong, you still feel the need to make it sound like I was wrong by twisting what I said. The whole situation just reflects poorly on you.

Gord

Jeff D

So, I've been stockpiling episodes off the the two channels currently showing the old episodes and I didn't notice that some episodes may be missing. I'll look through my list and see it woud be sad to see anything left out. I'd guess they wouldn't be showing them if there were issues... time to dig out the hard disks full of shows and check. =(


I'm not really sure I'd buy a set at this point. Sure I love the show and everything about it. But NEC isn't going to be getting anything off this (AFAIK) so why support Disney in this? I don't know....

Disney seems to screw us over all the time.

BuddyRevell

Isn't that the Mad Bomber on the package art though? I really hope this episode or the one with The Terror and The Human Ton are included.

Ravenous

Well from Ive seen you guys at TVShows... do a great job so thanks a bunch!

I TRULY hope if one has to be left out its that Brainchild episode. I really hated that one and wont look back if its left off. The others with the bomber, seed, etc. are all great. Besides ToonDisney shows this still and I saw every episode when they first started rerunning this, so if you guys can find out what ep is being skipped, I can at least watch it on TV and record it.

joltman

I recorded all of the episodes off of Toon Disney, and the only episode they don't run anymore is the second episode, with Chairface Chippendale. When they started showing it, they showed that episode once on Toon Disney and once on ABC Family, but, as of a few months ago (I haven't paid attention since), they didn't show it again.

joltman

OK, I just checked The Tick's showings on Zap2It, and they are apparently showing the Chairface episode again, and in fact they are showing all 13 episodes of the first season. So, if there is a rights issue, it must be a home video thing and not a broadcast thing.

slop101

[crossingfingers] Maybe two of the episodes are a two-parter that count as one episode?

Patrick Mirza

Look, the information I got early last week said this was going to be a full season set -- 13 episodes. My BV contact told me that specifically in his email. The trade journals were apparently told the same thing, because they also reported the 13 epsiode thing same as I did.

Whatever happened to make it a 12-episode set must have occurred after the announcement, because my contact is just as dumbstruck at this as we all are.

I didn't make up anything, I just report what I uncover same as the other news sites. This shit happens every once in a while and makes editors look silly.

Hey, it even happened with the CIA and the Bush administration.

Gord Lacey

Thanks for the apology Patrick, I appreciate it. I had information about the 12 episodes being on the set on Tuesday, but I was told to hold off posting anything until Friday. Mistakes are made, but hopefully next time you won't be so quick to bash people in the forums, even when you think they're wrong.

Gord

clckworang

Well, so I guess it's a good news/bad news kinda thing. Good news is that it's not going to be a big best-of collection. Bad news of course being that we're going to miss out on an episode. I guess I hope that it will eventually see the light of day on a future set. If not, whenever we know what ep is missing, we should get the word out so that we can all record it.

ThatGuamGuy

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But, of course, most of those don't make sense, based on actual trademark/copyright law.

My immediate thought, upon reading that one episode wasn't being include, was unfortunate; if anybody out there were a betting person, I'd put my money on 'The Tick Vs. Arthur's Bank Account'. Which is to say, the episode with The Terror.

I know, I know, I don't like it either, but I've got a logical reason ... Ok, when the live-action show was made, there was a whole lot of legal crap to get through, negotiating characters and whatnot, and the basic deal they came up with was: Edlund owns all the characters whose first appearance anywhere was in the first year of the comic book of The Tick, and he was free to bring them to the live-action show. Anybody else who had been featured in the cartoon was off-limits.

Yet, somehow, the live-action show had The Terror. The Terror was not in the first year of the comics. Thus, it would seem that they had to negotiate something to be able to make that episode of the live-action show. (To be fair, they also had a cameo by Fish-boy, Lost Prince of Atlantis, but I imagine that would be easier to work out, plus Edlund may have had the rights to that character.) And I have a bad feeling that now, all these years later, somebody else has the rights to The Terror. Which would really suck, because he's in at *least* one more episode down the line. Also, that episode features "Handy", the wonderful precursor to South Park's "Mr. Hat", so it's worth seeing, so people can think "Hey, 'South Park' ripped off 'The Tick!'" I hope I'm wrong.

... For whatever it's worth, the only episode I've noticed they don't air is The Christmas episode, and they have aired it; they just only air it around Christmas. Anyway, I taped 'em all already (except that one), so I'll just save the tape with the missing ep, until I can burn it.

ThatGuamGuy

One other response to this list ... if any of these are the problems, other than "Mole Men", then we're probably in for later cuts. None of the characters theorized to be the problem appears only once.

- 'The Evil Midnight Bomber' pops up quite a bit, but that theory has nothing to do with a rights issue, so unless that's a smoke screen to hide the fact that they're scared of kids playing with bombs (which, I believe, was the reason they pulled it from airing way back when it was a Saturday morning cartoon), it seems doubtful that would be the problem.
- 'Chairface Chippendale' is a frequent villain; if that's the problem, there will be at least three other episodes missing later ("Alone Together", "Tick Vs. Science", "Dot & Neil's Wedding").
- 'Breadmaster' appears at least twice more over the series ("Tick Vs. Europe", "Dot & Neil's Wedding"), though at least one (if not both) of these appearances, he's not played by Roddy McDowall. If the problem were with McDowall for some reason (and I'm guessing he didn't enjoy it, since he didn't comeback), maybe we'd see the other one(s).
- 'Mindy Moleford' appears elsewhere in the first season, so I'd say it's a good bet it's not because of her (also, how would Cindy Crawford have any power or influence to stop this release? even assuming she was remotely aware of it)
- 'Brainchild' comes back in the second season ("Coach Fussell's Lament"), possibly the third as well.
- 'El Seed' definitely comes back ("Bloomsday"), I think twice ("Dot & Neil's Wedding").

If it's a rights issue with *any* character from the first season, there will be some potential spillover into the other seasons. (Arthur's sister Dot appeared on the live action show -- imagine how many we'd lose if the problem is her character!)

Whozzat

Since it was brought up, yes, that's The Evil Midnight Bomber on the cover. Also pictured (and discussed in this thread): Chairface Chippendale, Brainchild, El Seed, and The Human Ton/Handy.

Not that any of that means anything, of course. I certainly don't assume that the collage in the cover art was put together after it was decided to cut an episode, or even that whoever created it would have been in the loop if it was.

Gord Lacey

And the missing episode is....

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=5764

"Mole Men"

Gord

TheV

And now to speculate why...

I'm guessing that someone sent Disney a letter saying that The Tick took liberties with another Mole Man meets superhero story, but not enough to be a parody.

fiver

I'm really torn about this release. I've been waiting for season sets of 'The Tick (animated)' for years and was overjoyed when it was finally announced. I want complete sets, but DDD has it for $24.20 so it's not too expensive...but I don't want to send the wrong message to the studios.

Should I buy the release and hope that Disney actually manages to include this episode on a future release, and that they don't cut future episodes on seasons 2 and 3?

What to do, what to do?!

Michael

RoboDad

Y'know, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can't let the package hide the pudding! Evil is just plain bad! You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspapaer of justice! Bad dog! Bad dog! And you don't do it for money. No! You do it for love! You know, I've learned something this week... on justice and on friendship, there is no price. But there are established credit limits.

Does that help?

BuddyRevell

Well that's sort of good, The Molemen episode wasn't very good anyways. I'd still love for it to be on, but considering that none of my fav episodes were cut, i'm somewhat relieved.

Paul Arnette

"Due to creative considerations..."? What a bunch of horseshit.

I was very much looking forward to this release, however if they can't see their way clear to doing this set properly then I guess I can save my money. In the end, its really that simple for me.

I sympathize for those of you who it isn't as simple though. I do feel your pain, as the recent Star Wars announcement has provided me with the same consternation.

Sean O'Hara

Come on folks, if there's a rights problem to the episode, it's not Disney's fault. They can either release the twelve episodes without legal entaglements, or hold the whole series indefinitely. Would you really prefer they do the latter?

fender69

I was buying this no matter what it was.
In the end, it's really that simple for me.