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Dragnet on "COZI" TV and The Monkees on IFC. I like both shows. Especially The Monkees. I remember watching it when I was in grade school and when I saw it was on now I decided to give it a shot but thought that seeing it now I'd find it lame and dated. It's actually a great show, with some really funny stuff. Crazy stuff like a lot of breaking of the 4th wall and these wild chase scenes. In one the Monkees are being chased by two bad guys and they run into an alley and the bad guys run in after them. Then a few seconds later the Monkees come out of the alley riding unicycles and the bad guys following riding some kind of crazy thing. That made me LOL. Another was when they fought off a two headed orge by jumping up and down 3 times, rolling a cabbage, and giggling. Now who comes up with that stuff and knows it's going to be funny? Which it was
But I digress. The networks don't show the entire show. I know because I've watched them on the internet where I've seen the cut part. The worst was when they showed that Dragnet show where Burt Mustin played a cat burgler ("I ain't no bookkeeper") and they actually cut out one of the funniest scenes in Dragnet ever. The one where they offer him a cup of coffee and he turns it into a full meal.
I found the videos of the episodes I talked about in the OP. The first is the one with the unicycles. The second one is the one with the two headed orge. And the third is Burt Mustin turning a cup of coffee into a full meal. He was 83 years old at the time.
Notice that the times on the youtube videos are 25 minutes.. The standard running time of a current sitcom in the US is about 21 minutes. In syndication, it's often a minute or two less.. So, especially with shows from the 60's, cuts have to be made.. The ads pay the bills, not the shows.
I think TBS or someone actually ran episodes at a marginally faster speed in order to toss more commercials in.
MeTV runs shows faster, I believe it's called "time-squeeze". It's slightly sped up but the audio is pitched down to it's normal frequency so it doesn't sound like Alvin & the Chipmunks. I've noticed it with Batman (TV show). When ever music is played the tempo varies.
Also on VH1 Classic, the SNL episodes have some kind of time-squeeze going on. It's noticeable during Weekend Update, when they speak it's too fast.
I've noticed some cable networks experimenting with airing sitcom reruns with running times past the traditional half-hour slot. For instance, Logo aired Soap reruns with thirty-five or thirty-seven minute slots (2:34 to 3:09, or similar), and aired several episodes in a row, leading to a two or three-hour block of episodes (yay!!). At first I thought "At last! They're airing the complete episodes!" Alas, this didn't seem to be the case. They just placed longer commercial breaks between the same cut-for-syndication episodes and pushed out the air-times because they could not cut any more out of the episodes.
I understand their POV. To them, the programming is just filler between their all-important commercials. Still, if you're going to ignore the rules about starting on the hour or half-hour, why not just go whole-hog: contact the production companies and ask to air the complete episodes rather than the cut-for-syndication versions. The cuts were only made so the networks could honor that whole "start on the hour" thing anyway.
Notice that the times on the youtube videos are 25 minutes.. The standard running time of a current sitcom in the US is about 21 minutes. In syndication, it's often a minute or two less.. So, especially with shows from the 60's, cuts have to be made.. The ads pay the bills, not the shows.
I think TBS or someone actually ran episodes at a marginally faster speed in order to toss more commercials in.
The ads might pay the bills but that's not what they're doing. I'm sure they're not struggling and absolutely need those few minutes or else they'll go bankrupt. They could easily afford to run the entire show and still make a nice profit. Or they could at least be honest about it and say this show has had scenes cut so we can get more money
MeTV runs shows faster, I believe it's called "time-squeeze". It's slightly sped up but the audio is pitched down to it's normal frequency so it doesn't sound like Alvin & the Chipmunks. I've noticed it with Batman (TV show). When ever music is played the tempo varies.
Also on VH1 Classic, the SNL episodes have some kind of time-squeeze going on. It's noticeable during Weekend Update, when they speak it's too fast.
The time squeeze I've heard of but don't notice it so that I don't mind
So they have more time to sell advertising which is what tv is all about.
No, it's not. And I'm willing to bet you couldn't find a single network that will say publicly that they are only in it to sell advertising. They'd give you some BS about the viewer and how the viewer is so important to them blah blah blah. Also the advertisers aren't the only ones paying. I pay a cable bill every month
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