I did notice that what I saw of S7 looked excellent, almost as good as the DVD releases of prior seasons. S6 was a little soft on a few episodes at least. Even those looked better than the ones that have been syndicated on tape for the last 35 or so years. I certainly hope there will be more on the way. Although I prefer to own a physical copy, I would settle for buying digital copies, I guess. A streaming service reminds me too much of local TV where that they can yank it at any point and never see it again.
At least with those episodes you can get them unedited, albeit on the Columbia House VHS tapes. The picture quality isn't terrible and they do run at SP speed. As a fan of older country, most of Roy's material is so old that (I think) it's in the public domain except for "The Great Pretender." I think the one with The Peppermint Trolley Company was produced exclusively for the show, so I don't know what you're looking at there exactly. They managed to clear all of the Flatt and Scruggs performances plus the one Pat Boone song. The only thing I know that didn't clear was the snippet of "Pretty Woman" in S4. I know CBS has been known to pinch pennies, but if they got all of the other music cleared and not that, I'd say it's whoever is handling the licensing of Roy Orbison's songs since he did write it along with Bill Dees.
That is correct, fellas! Funny thing is that is my "go to" episode when I start decorating for Christmas. I started that a few years ago; it had been the Hooterville Christmas episode before that. I'm happier than a pig in a mud waller right now!
I haven't seen S5's "The Christmas Present" before, Ray (I have seen, and enjoyed, both S1's "Home for Christmas" and S2's "Christmas with the Clampetts"). I look forward to giving the S5 one a spin later this December.
I'm already decorated. If they took an x-ray of my head it would show a Christmas tree where my brain should be! I'm going to consider having these available to watch as my Christmas and birthday both. A fun fact: I share the same birthday as Max Baer, Jr., December 4th! It's also the birthday of Victor French who appeared in one of the S6 Griffith Park episodes. Unassociated with The Beverly Hillbillies, Wink Martindale also was born on that day.
I'll be summoning up some Christmas cheer come late November.
I collect 16mm prints of The Beverly Hillbillies, along with many other shows. I have eleven episodes so far, nine in color. Nearly every print has Viacom's "V" logo, but three have Viacom's "Pinball" logo. All of my prints are uncut. I'm aiming to purchase a film scanner by the end of this year so I can get these prints scanned in high quality, 2K resolution at least.
I'm currently watching a S06 episode on Pluto TV (S06 E14, "Jethro in the Reserves"), and I can confirm that these are the same prints from Viacom that have been airing for nearly 30 years, though the Pluto TV prints have the Filmways and Viacom logos removed. These are the same prints that MeTV currently airs, and I assume FETV will also air these same prints once they get around to it. I do wonder if they'll air the restored prints of S05 or if they'll also air the same Viacom prints that MeTV currently airs.
