The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Pyramid20000 on December 24, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
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Why were the original tapes of these shows destroyed?
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Very simple answer----the 2" reels of tape those shows were recorded on were crazy expensive, and ABC [sadly] didn't think the game shows recorded on them were worth saving. So they reused the tapes. And they weren't alone; any game show that has been destroyed, on any network, was most likely destroyed for the same reason.
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But who was the worst at keeping tapes? ABC or NBC?
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But who was the worst at keeping tapes? ABC or NBC?
Probably ABC. IIRC NBC erased most of their stuff from 1978 and back. By comparison, ABC was still reusing Better Sex master tapes to record Dawson Family Feud.
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But who was the worst at keeping tapes? ABC or NBC?
Probably ABC. IIRC NBC erased most of their stuff from 1978 and back. By comparison, ABC was still reusing Better Sex master tapes to record Dawson Family Feud.
True, but wasn't NBC still into erasing into the 80s? I don't believe a lot of Wheel exists from before 1983, I'm pretty sure Las Vegas Gambit has a lot of its episodes missing, and even Sale had a few, no?
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But who was the worst at keeping tapes? ABC or NBC?
Probably ABC. IIRC NBC erased most of their stuff from 1978 and back. By comparison, ABC was still reusing Better Sex master tapes to record Dawson Family Feud.
True, but wasn't NBC still into erasing into the 80s? I don't believe a lot of Wheel exists from before 1983, I'm pretty sure Las Vegas Gambit has a lot of its episodes missing, and even Sale had a few, no?
All I know is that "Dream House" is gone, but that was due to flood/fire [don't remember which] at the storage vault. [I'll need to go through TVPMM's Twitter to find out]
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Very simple answer----the 2" reels of tape those shows were recorded on were crazy expensive, and ABC [sadly] didn't think the game shows recorded on them were worth saving. So they reused the tapes. And they weren't alone; any game show that has been destroyed, on any network, was most likely destroyed for the same reason.
This is incorrect. The respective production companies owned the tapes of their shows. They were charged for the tape stock at the time the shows were recorded. Each show was double recorded, i.e. 2 reels per show. In case of a problem with one of the recordings they had a backup copy, and it did happen on occasion. The production companies were also charged for the engineering labor and the use of videotape facilities to record the shows. They were also charged for facilities for any editing, as well as an engineer and an A.D. to supervise the editing.
If a production company wanted to keep its tapes after the initial network airing, they had to pay for their storage. Goodson kept everything and the tapes were stored at the Bekins warehouse at Santa Monica Blvd and Highland in Hollywood. If a producer didn't want to pay for storage, they could then authorize the network to erase the recording and dispose of the tape. Producers were paying for new tape stock so they didn't reuse the tapes to record new shows.
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This is incorrect. The respective production companies owned the tapes of their shows. They were charged for the tape stock at the time the shows were recorded. Each show was double recorded, i.e. 2 reels per show. In case of a problem with one of the recordings they had a backup copy, and it did happen on occasion. The production companies were also charged for the engineering labor and the use of videotape facilities to record the shows. They were also charged for facilities for any editing, as well as an engineer and an A.D. to supervise the editing.
If a production company wanted to keep its tapes after the initial network airing, they had to pay for their storage. Goodson kept everything and the tapes were stored at the Bekins warehouse at Santa Monica Blvd and Highland in Hollywood. If a producer didn't want to pay for storage, they could then authorize the network to erase the recording and dispose of the tape. Producers were paying for new tape stock so they didn't reuse the tapes to record new shows.
If anyone could hit the nail on the head, it'd be you......I'm not afraid to own up to being wrong [unlike certain parties!].
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Keeping Chris's info in mind, is there any rhyme or reason as to how the syndicated Hollywood Squares episodes still exist, while the network version is more or less gone? Does it boil down to the amount of available space, and the syndie version being weekly as opposed to daily?
I'm sure the reasoning is very simple, but if Heatter-Quigley would've owned the shows, I'm a bit baffled as to how one exists over the other. Obviously, both versions taped at NBC, no?
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All I can think of is that they had to hustle the synd tapes off the NBC lot and get them to a dub house where they could be duplicated and bicycled around to the stations, so they had to pay for storage somewhere. The synd tapes, unlike the NBC tapes, didn't have to be stored at NBC between the tape date and the network air date, during which time an NBC A.D. would time them and NBC Broadcast Standards would listen for dirty words that had to be blooped. Then they would air on NBC and maybe HQ didn't feel it necessary to pay to store them. At that time, cable was in its infancy and no one thought these shows would ever be rerun in any venue. This was even reflected in the talent releases which didn't cover cable.
When HS left NBC for good, the lot was all abuzz because NBC wanted way too much money for the HS set which HQ wanted to buy from them. HQ said "screw you" and had a new set built from scratch. Apparently that was cheaper than what NBC was asking for the old set.
NBC was desperate for money in those days. At one point in 1979 or 1980 the fee packages went from 6 fee plugs at 7 seconds each to 7 fee plugs at 6 seconds each, and the announcers had to read 7 seconds of copy in 6 seconds. On Mindreaders I remember Ira Skutch checking with Johnny Olson to make sure he was OK with this, which of course he was. NBC was stooping over to pick up pennies off the floor.
Goodson always kept copies of all of his shows. He wasn't a visionary who could possibly have foreseen cable TV or any rerun value for his shows. Maybe he took a cue from Desi Arnaz and kept them anyway.
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But who was the worst at keeping tapes? ABC or NBC?
Probably ABC. IIRC NBC erased most of their stuff from 1978 and back. By comparison, ABC was still reusing Better Sex master tapes to record Dawson Family Feud.
True, but wasn't NBC still into erasing into the 80s? I don't believe a lot of Wheel exists from before 1983, I'm pretty sure Las Vegas Gambit has a lot of its episodes missing, and even Sale had a few, no?
All I know is that "Dream House" is gone, but that was due to flood/fire [don't remember which] at the storage vault. [I'll need to go through TVPMM's Twitter to find out]
I seem to remember "flood" being the reason, but I could be wrong.
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Nope, you remember correctly, but I thought it was just the reels with music on it, the second theme song included.
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Nope, you remember correctly, but I thought it was just the reels with music on it, the second theme song included.
Was the episodes too.
Just confirmed that all 395 episodes from 1983/84 Dream House videotape masters were destroyed in a flood with production materials/music.
https://twitter.com/tvpmm/status/361071540529414145
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Goodson always kept copies of all of his shows. He wasn't a visionary who could possibly have foreseen cable TV or any rerun value for his shows. Maybe he took a cue from Desi Arnaz and kept them anyway.
The password is 'ego'...*ding*
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Goodson always kept copies of all of his shows. He wasn't a visionary who could possibly have foreseen cable TV or any rerun value for his shows. Maybe he took a cue from Desi Arnaz and kept them anyway.
ABC "Password" and syndicated "Concentration" don't seem to exist, except for the few episodes floating around.
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Goodson always kept copies of all of his shows. He wasn't a visionary who could possibly have foreseen cable TV or any rerun value for his shows. Maybe he took a cue from Desi Arnaz and kept them anyway.
ABC "Password" and syndicated "Concentration" don't seem to exist, except for the few episodes floating around.
We don't know that about Concentration. Whatever does exist is owned by NBC/Universal/Comcast and so wouldn't be included in any tally of Goodson shows.
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There are some odd inconsistencies with what survives of the G-T library. A portion of the CBS daytime TTTT episodes has survived, but apparently not the first syndicated season. IGAS 72 was kept, but only the first (pilot) episode of IGAS 76 has surfaced. One thread from 2008 mentions a chunk of missing Double Dare episodes. (http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,14755.30.html)
Even short-run programs like Number Please, Missing Links, Get the Message and Call My Bluff are represented by around 1-3 episodes each, while no video whatsoever is known for Snap Judgment.
Its not that Im especially surprised by these gaps or losses; G-T must have used an extraordinary amount of tape during the course of a year, and it's hard to keep tabs on every single reel. Still, it would be edifying to learn why some material ended up missing, whether Goodson was aware of what was missing (or approved getting rid of some things), et al.
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There are some odd inconsistencies with what survives of the G-T library. A portion of the CBS daytime TTTT episodes has survived, but apparently not the first syndicated season. IGAS 72 was kept, but only the first (pilot) episode of IGAS 76 has surfaced. One thread from 2008 mentions a chunk of missing Double Dare episodes. (http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,14755.30.html)
I must have had a good reason for saying that about Double Dare, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.
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I must have had a good reason for saying that about Double Dare, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.
When Double Dare aired on GSN 8 years ago, they skipped roughly 30 episodes, going from around episode 60 to the last few weeks of the series.
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Has the possibility been considered that some of the shows still do exist, but no one particularly wants to pay to convert them to something that can be aired now? (Do we need to have every episode of Trebek's Double Dare? Or any of Mindreaders?)
The only show I would expect to have been made available, given its popularity, quality, and clear G-T ownership, is the ABC version of Password. Maybe those are in the same vault that Gleason kept his pre-1955 Honeymooners tapes.
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Goodson always kept copies of all of his shows. He wasn't a visionary who could possibly have foreseen cable TV or any rerun value for his shows. Maybe he took a cue from Desi Arnaz and kept them anyway.
ABC "Password" and syndicated "Concentration" don't seem to exist, except for the few episodes floating around.
Also, while a considerable number of NBC nighttime (and one daytime) episodes of Cullen TPIR (kinescopes, right?) exist, only three or four ABC ones do, for whatever reason.
On the other hand, do any 1960s daytime CBS Passwords exist, other than the last season that had cuts made so they could be syndicated? How about CBS daytime To Tell The Truth, other than the last episode? Then again, both of those could have suffered a different problem; color video tapes from that era tend to degrade much more quickly than later ones.
Has the possibility been considered that some of the shows still do exist, but no one particularly wants to pay to convert them to something that can be aired now? (Do we need to have every episode of Trebek's Double Dare? Or any of Mindreaders?)
Given that most CBS Double Dare episodes have aired, I assume the tapes didn't need converting.
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How about CBS daytime To Tell The Truth, other than the last episode? Then again, both of those could have suffered a different problem; color video tapes from that era tend to degrade much more quickly than later ones.
A big chunk of daytime CBS TTTT exists and has aired on GSN. More black and white episodes than color ones, but some color ones aired too.
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ABC Dating Game had enough shows to be syndicated, and Monty Hall had as a condition for LMaD moving to ABC, ownership of the tapes, according to his book. I wish there were more Big Showdowns and Money Mazes out there. I'd buy a box set of those.
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ABC Dating Game had enough shows to be syndicated, and Monty Hall had as a condition for LMaD moving to ABC, ownership of the tapes, according to his book. I wish there were more Big Showdowns and Money Mazes out there. I'd buy a box set of those.
That is correct. In fact, ABC had over 500 kinescopes of LMAD and were going to give them to UCLA, but Hatos-Hall got wind of it and told ABC to give them over. Now Fremantle owns them which is also how we saw the 1969 ABC primetime premiere during Buzzr's Lost and Found Week.