DARK SHADOWS FORUMS

General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '09 II => Topic started by: Philippe Cordier on July 21, 2009, 04:58:59 AM

Title: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Philippe Cordier on July 21, 2009, 04:58:59 AM

It seems that those who decided to preserve the master videotapes for Dark Shadows back in the late 1960s and early 1970s had more foresight than NASA.

According to news reports I've seen, NASA has been searching for the past few years for the original video footage that was broadcast on live TV of the first Apollo moon walk 40 years ago (does anyone here remember watching that?  [ghost_shocked] )

NASA has concluded that the original tapes of the historic Neil Armstrong moonwalk were ... TAPED OVER.

The only reason we're able to watch footage on the 40th anniversary now is that a lot of money has been poured into restoring copies taped from the original broadcast (I'm not completely clear on this last point), but the original videos are gone forever.

I believe it's Dan Curtis who deserves the credit for deciding to keep the DS episodes (with the exception of the one missing episode, and the Kinescopes) at a time when it may have seemed there was little reason to do so.

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on July 21, 2009, 05:07:53 AM

Quote from: Philippe Cordier on July 21, 2009, 04:58:59 AM

I believe it's Dan Curtis who deserves the credit for deciding to keep the DS episodes (with the exception of the one missing episode, and the Kinescopes) at a time when it may have seemed there was little reason to do so.

[scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm]

(I'm sorry - I just had to get that out of my system. And most of you know why.)

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Philippe Cordier on July 21, 2009, 05:24:28 AM

Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on July 21, 2009, 05:07:53 AM

Quote from: Philippe Cordier on July 21, 2009, 04:58:59 AM

I believe it's Dan Curtis who deserves the credit for deciding to keep the DS episodes (with the exception of the one missing episode, and the Kinescopes) at a time when it may have seemed there was little reason to do so.

[scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm]

(I'm sorry - I just had to get that out of my system. And most of you know why.)

I'd appreciate being clued in!  [ghost_grin]
I thought that was what I had read at one point.

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Midnite on July 21, 2009, 06:48:33 AM

Quote from: Philippe Cordier on July 21, 2009, 05:24:28 AM

I'd appreciate being clued in!  [ghost_grin]

Hopefully you won't mind being directed to a recent post that directs you to yet another topic:

Quote from: Midnite on April 10, 2009, 05:18:46 PM

I'll just quote one of MB's posts:  (yes, he's intentionally yelling)

Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on April 16, 2008, 01:11:53 AM

DC DID NOT PRESERVE THE DS MASTER TAPES - ABC DID

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Philippe Cordier on July 22, 2009, 08:36:25 AM

Aha! I didn't know that. And I wonder why ABC wanted to preserve the master tapes?

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Darren Gross on July 24, 2009, 05:39:00 AM

They had set up a syndication deal that would have had them in re-runs very shortly after the series ended.... For a number of reasons, this didn't happen for a few years, but that's your primary reason...

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Nancy on July 24, 2009, 08:39:30 AM

You can be an ornery critter at times. [ghost_rolleyes]

Nancy

Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on July 21, 2009, 05:07:53 AM

[scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm] AaaahhhH!!!! [scrm]

(I'm sorry - I just had to get that out of my system. And most of you know why.)

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on July 24, 2009, 07:00:18 PM

Quote from: Nancy on July 24, 2009, 08:39:30 AM

You can be an ornery critter at times. [ghost_rolleyes]

 [ghost_tongue2]  But seriously - how many topics on the forum have discussed the subject already? I strongly suspect that a search would show they're well into the double digits.  [ghost_wink]

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: MirandaD on July 24, 2009, 10:08:04 PM

The original moon landing is embedded into my brain forever - it's left an indelible impression.  I was 12 years old at the time and I thought it was the most exciting real life event EVER.  It's shocking and unbelievable to me that no master tape of this historic event was ever made!  [ghost_shocked]

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Nancy on July 24, 2009, 11:18:17 PM

Darren, I always learn something new from your posts. [ghost_smiley]

nancy

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Charles_Ellis on July 25, 2009, 12:00:33 AM

Well, I've always held that it was Dan Curtis himself who made the initial decision to preserve the tapes, and now I have scholarly proof: in his new book on DC, Jeff Thompson clearly states it was Curtis' idea, owing to Curtis' career background in syndication sales before he became a producer.  He foresaw the viability of DS in possible future syndication- a market he knew all about.  So there.  Besides, he wasn't the only TV visionary who was smart enough to demand that their work be preserved by the network:  Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Sid Caesar each demanded that kinescopes be made of everything they did, and as the Gleason example famously shows with the Honeymooners 'lost episodes' , it proved to be most profitable.  Let's face it: Curtis was determined to get a profit out of DS, and he did!

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on July 25, 2009, 12:07:30 AM

No offense to Jeff Thompson, but Curtis never owned the DS master tapes. ABC did and they were always in ABC's or Worldvision's (ABC's syndication wing) possession. Curtis tried to sue ABC to prove he owned them and to get possession of them, but he lost. That whole suit is what led to DS not being syndicated until 1975. Anyone need look no further than back issues of Variety from the '70s to read all the details.

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Gerard on July 25, 2009, 12:57:29 AM

Hey, maybe NASA took all those original videotapes of the moonlanding and gave them to ABC just to clean house and ABC ended up taping DS over them!

Anyway, it was shocking, especially to me as a "trained" historian, to discover NASA was so cavalier in dealing with the original tapes, but then again, as a trained historian, I see this as nothing new.  To this day it is incredible to see how historical preservation of "stuff" has been considered so unimportant.  Not to offend anyone here who is more in the math-and-science field, but it just grates me that emphasis has always been placed on those topics and keeping records for all posterity is viewed as nothing.  That's how NASA saw it back then.  What was valuable was getting the men to the moon; keeping the documentation was only a space-waster.  Forty years now it realizes its mistake.  But it still goes on.  When I lived in other communities across the country I worked as an archivist, creating archives and cataloguing material.  Back now in my home town, there are two major national businesses here, one creating and constructing a certain thing I have a huge interest in.  One of the part-time workers there told me how all the documents, designs, etc., have just been shoved into acidic boxes and dumped in little utilized corridors, rooms and so-forth.  I approached that business with my resume and pressing the need for preservation (emphasizing how important this would be for the company's own research) and all the big-wigs could do was look at me with baffled, glazed-over eyes and say:  "Huh?"  One of the major CEO's had no concept of what I was talking about and said all that "junk" would just end up in the dump; he saw no need to preserve any of it.  


Thank goodness ABC had the sense to preserve DS (more sense than NASA).  It's a shame, to this day, so few have that same forsight.

Gerard

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Nancy on July 25, 2009, 01:01:01 AM

Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on July 25, 2009, 12:07:30 AM

No offense to Jeff Thompson, but Curtis never owned the DS master tapes. ABC did and they were always in ABC's or Worldvision's (ABC's syndication wing) possession. Curtis tried to sue ABC to prove he owned them and to get possession of them, but he lost. That whole suit is what led to DS not being syndicated until 1975. Anyone need look no further than back issues of Variety from the '70s to read all the details.

Now that you mention that, I do remember seeing articles in someone's scrapbook about all that.  I don't remember whose scrapbook it was.

nancy

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: joe integlia on July 25, 2009, 03:17:17 AM

I always thought DC owned the master tapes too and also remember reading that he owned the show and was the 1 to keep it preserved. i think i read it in famous monsters magazine. anyway if abc owned it why didnt the episodes say at the end of each episode, "AN ABC TV PRODUCTION"? the episodes always said "A DAN CURTIS PRODUCTION"

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on July 25, 2009, 03:30:21 AM

Quote from: joe integlia on July 25, 2009, 03:17:17 AM

I always thought DC owned the master tapes too and also remember reading that he owned the show and was the 1 to keep it preserved. i think i read it in famous monsters magazine.

I've no doubt that you've read it. I've read it many times myself. But sadly there's a great deal of misinformation circulated about DS. [ghost_sad]  Even sadder, look how much misinformation is in the PomPress books - one would expect them to be far more accurate than they are...

Quote

anyway if abc owned it why didnt the episodes say at the end of each episode, "AN ABC TV PRODUCTION"? the episodes always said "A DAN CURTIS PRODUCTION"

Probably because DCP produced it.  [ghost_wink]

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Midnite on July 25, 2009, 05:21:42 AM

Quote from: Charles_Ellis on July 25, 2009, 12:00:33 AM

I have scholarly proof: in his new book on DC, Jeff Thompson clearly states it was Curtis' idea, owing to Curtis' career background in syndication sales before he became a producer.  He foresaw the viability of DS in possible future syndication- a market he knew all about.

Well, there's no citation for that one sentence about saving the episodes, and the author states in the book's preface that some of his information came from his fellow DS fans.

He also claims, in the intro, that ShadowGram scooped Variety with news of the Depp/DS project by a day (p. 10), and yes, ShadowGram's email update arrived in fans' mailboxes hours before they could get their hands on a print edition, but comparing electronic info to news in print is like apples and oranges, and the fact is that Variety had the information on the wires and the announcement was already appearing on the internet on the evening before ShadowGram sent it out.

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: Nancy on July 25, 2009, 08:26:28 AM

Quote from: Midnite on July 25, 2009, 05:21:42 AM

the fact is that Variety had the information on the wires and the announcement was already appearing on the internet on the evening before ShadowGram sent it out.

Variety is online and updated constantly.  I saw the announcement on Variety Digital but not until a day or two after the announcement was made but it was before the ShadowGram announcement was sent out.  Depp and company are going to release their news to the trade papers first, not a fan newsletter.   ShadowGram gets its information from the trades (considered official news) and from DCP. [ghost_wink]

nancy

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: The Doctor and K9 on July 26, 2009, 07:38:06 PM

I don't think that all hope is lost that the missing moon footage might be found.  Broadcast history is full of cases in which missing items have turned up, even after extensive searches.  The first Trek pilot was once thought to have been destroyed by NBC.  It turned up, misfiled.  Many of the Doctor Who eps were found, after extensive searches were abandoned, in various nooks and crannies at the BBC.  Some day, someone might open an archive and find the tape mis-filed.  It's a long shot, but I think it's stil possible.

Title: Re: 1969 Moon Walk vs. Dark Shadows - Historical Significance
Post by: joe integlia on July 27, 2009, 08:00:49 AM

its hard to believe that if abc owned the tapes that no mention of abc is ever listed on the credits. primetime shows from the same time period like THE INVADERS would say "in association with the abc television network" on the credits. a sharp contrast from today when even if a show is produced by abc and shown on another network, like ghost whisperer, the abc logo appears at the end of each show.