The Bad News Bears (1979-80) (1 Viewer)

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JMHJVYG/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's what I bought on DVD last weekend, and which my copy has been recently shipped and on its way to me.

There is but one review of this title so far (5 stars!), and the person that submitted the review says VEI did excellent with the way the discs were handled ("no playback problems at all").

For those of you who had already bought this title since being first released this past Halloween, may I ask: are the episodes at the right speed (NTSC)? The reason I ask this is because disc 2 has the entire second season of 14 episodes on it.

~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

The reason I ask this is because disc 2 has the entire second season of 14 episodes on it.

~Ben

Do you think that if and when The Cavanaughs is ever done on DVD, it will be handled in a similar manner to this Bad News Bears release (being that both seasons [1986-87 and 1988-89] were very brief)?

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Do you think that if and when The Cavanaughs is ever done on DVD, it will be handled in a similar manner to this Bad News Bears release (being that both seasons [1986-87 and 1988-89] were very brief)?

I don't know... maybe.

I'd also think the same thing for both Funny Face (1971) and The Sandy Duncan Show (1972), as both also ran for 13 episodes...

~Ben

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

I just got my copy of this now... watching episode 1 of season 2. No time-sped prints (audio is normal pitched)!

The episode lengths for this season vary between 23:21 and 23:50, which also mean no outstanding edits (unlike on most of the 36 episodes of Angie from that DVD set). The opening teasers (which vary in length from 30 seconds to 2 minutes) are also intact on the first seven episodes I've watched so far on this disc.

~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

The opening teasers (which vary in length from 30 seconds to 2 minutes) are also intact on the first seven episodes I've watched so far on this disc.

Why does this Bad News Bears release have the teasers, and the Matthew Star release doesn't?

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Why does this Bad News Bears release have the teasers, and the Matthew Star release doesn't?

Then again, The Magician didn't keep its opening teasers on the DVD (it's especially bad for the one 2-part episode that marked the start of the second half of the series), either... same with many other earlier VEI releases, aside from The Immortal and Petrocelli.

~Ben

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Another bit of trivia: the two production companies credited for producing this show in association with Paramount - that is, Huk, Inc. and Frog Productions - were helmed by the two executive producers and developers of the series, Arthur Silver and Bob Brunner. Silver and Brunner had previously contributed to Happy Days, and would go on to make another (and much shorter-lived) series for Paramount in 1979: Working Stiffs, starring Jim Belushi and Michael Keaton.

~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

Another bit of trivia: the two production companies credited for producing this show in association with Paramount - that is, Huk, Inc. and Frog Productions - were helmed by the two executive producers and developers of the series, Arthur Silver and Bob Brunner. Silver and Brunner had previously contributed to Happy Days, and would go on to make another (and much shorter-lived) series for Paramount in 1979: Working Stiffs, starring Jim Belushi and Michael Keaton.

~Ben

That's a very interesting bit of trivia-- many secondary entities that have worked w/major studios have had names that were difficult to parse as to their origins or the people behind them, but you elucidated the history here very well.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

That's a very interesting bit of trivia-- many secondary entities that have worked w/major studios have had names that were difficult to parse as to their origins or the people behind them, but you elucidated the history here very well.

For example, Miller-Milkis(-Boyett) Productions. Both Thomas L. ("Tom") Miller and Edward K. ("Ed"/"Eddie") Milkis were employees at Paramount Television since the '60s. Milkis initially worked at Desilu as a post-production supervisor for Star Trek, before becoming associate producer (and back to post-production supervisor in 1969) after the renaming to Paramount Television in 1967, while Miller served as head of project development for the company starting in 1969. Robert L. ("Bob") Boyett joined up in 1978 as a producer and writer; his first credit was for Angie, starting on episode 6 (OAD: March 22, 1979).

~Ben

 

[Neil Brock]

Why does this Bad News Bears release have the teasers, and the Matthew Star release doesn't?

Because that's the way they were done on the remastered tapes that CBS provided to VEI.

 

[Neil Brock]

I just got my copy of this now... watching episode 1 of season 2. No time-sped prints (audio is normal pitched)!

The episode lengths for this season vary between 23:21 and 23:50, which also mean no outstanding edits (unlike on most of the 36 episodes of Angie from that DVD set). The opening teasers (which vary in length from 30 seconds to 2 minutes) are also intact on the first seven episodes I've watched so far on this disc.

~Ben

Shows from the era this show ran came in at 25 minutes so these are either sourced from edited or time sped tapes or else from PAL masters. When the show ran on Nickelodeon complete, that was the running time.

 

[bmasters9]

Because that's the way they were done on the remastered tapes that CBS provided to VEI.

Did not know that!

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Shows from the era this show ran came in at 25 minutes so these are either sourced from edited or time sped tapes or else from PAL masters. When the show ran on Nickelodeon complete, that was the running time.

Neil,

But in the case of most of the 36 episodes of Angie, they were using the prints last seen on ABC's daytime schedule in 1985. That explains why most of the episodes that DVD set got were 21-22 minutes long, rather than 24-25 minutes.

The Bad News Bears, besides having been one of Nick at Nite's earliest classic programs, also used to be re-run on Comedy Central in the mid-1990s.

~Ben

 

[Neil Brock]

Neil,

But in the case of most of the 36 episodes of Angie, they were using the prints last seen on ABC's daytime schedule in 1985. That explains why most of the episodes that DVD set got were 21-22 minutes long, rather than 24-25 minutes.

The Bad News Bears, besides having been one of Nick at Nite's earliest classic programs, also used to be re-run on Comedy Central in the mid-1990s.

~Ben

We don't know what elements were provided to VEI by CBS. Maybe they're from a later version that was put to tape and edited for time? Again, VEI, Shout, any of these companies that sublicense, they are at the mercy of whatever elements are given to them.

 

[bmasters9]

For example, Miller-Milkis(-Boyett) Productions. Both Thomas L. ("Tom") Miller and Edward K. ("Ed"/"Eddie") Milkis were employees at Paramount Television since the '60s. Milkis initially worked at Desilu as a post-production supervisor for Star Trek, before becoming associate producer (and back to post-production supervisor in 1969) after the renaming to Paramount Television in 1967, while Miller served as head of project development for the company starting in 1969. Robert L. ("Bob") Boyett joined up in 1978 as a producer and writer; his first credit was for Angie, starting on episode 6 (OAD: March 22, 1979).

~Ben

And semi-OT, but bumping up: Rona II (which worked in tandem with Spelling-Goldberg on Hart to Hart, with both S-G and Rona II working with Columbia Pictures Television from 1982-84 [the last two seasons' worth of that 1979-84 ABC mystery/romance series]) was short for "Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood, second time around" (at least that's how I've read it before).

This is how the Rona II/S-G/CPT arrangement was on the final two seasons' worth of Hart to Hart on ABC from 1982-84 (from one of Shout!'s releases of those last two seasons [those having the bylineless 80s Torch Lady, instead of the Coke Lady of the time]; don't know whether it was the fourth or fifth one I got it from, but here it is just the same):

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

I'm just now finishing up the second disc (on which the whole of season 2 is), and on episode 10 ("Scrambled Eggs") the end title sequence is extended (not unlike certain episodes of MacGyver) to use the entire opening title music! That means that after the whole production credit crawl ends, it ends with the final scene to allow the whole main title music to finish out before the Paramount Television logo appears.

~Ben

 

[bmasters9]

I'm just now finishing up the second disc (on which the whole of season 2 is), and on episode 10 ("Scrambled Eggs") the end title sequence is extended (not unlike certain episodes of MacGyver) to use the entire opening title music! That means that after the whole production credit crawl ends, it ends with the final scene to allow the whole main title music to finish out before the Paramount Television logo appears.

~Ben

Why would shows sometimes do that (use the entire opening title track again at the bottom of the show, and then let it play it out in full before whatever studio logo appears that was there)?

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Why would shows sometimes do that (use the entire opening title track again at the bottom of the show, and then let it play it out in full before whatever studio logo appears that was there)?

Maybe there more people that usual who had to be acknowledged in the end credits, necessitating a longer closing?

That, or maybe the episode under-ran by a little bit, so they padded out the end titles to bring the running time back up?

 

[bmasters9]

Maybe there more people that usual who had to be acknowledged in the end credits, necessitating a longer closing?

That, or maybe the episode under-ran by a little bit, so they padded out the end titles to bring the running time back up?

Both very reasonable possibilities!

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Maybe there more people that usual who had to be acknowledged in the end credits, necessitating a longer closing?

That, or maybe the episode under-ran by a little bit, so they padded out the end titles to bring the running time back up?

Kind of odd for this episode since its opening teaser was still intact!

~Ben