Shows and movies show from 16mm prints

[WKRPinOklahomaCity]

I can even remember even in the late 1980's..TV stations still used 16mm prints for on air. As a kid that made me nuts watching an old movie and seeing it as "green" or "red" knowing that my TV had more colors than that. HAHA! You would think with tape technology at that time that they would have gotten away from the old faded, scratchy prints of tv shows and movies if they were taken care of. Eventually they did, but I don't understand how film, today is so expensive, was so mainstream and inexpensive back then, makes me wonder....

 

[KYLEBOOK]

By the late 80s, most of the studios that sold syndicated movies and reruns to independent stations were distributing their film stock either on videotape or by satellite. There were a few hold outs, such as Paramount, who was still distributing shows like "Mission Impossible" & "the Untouchables" on 16 mm prints, and Universal, which still sent a lot of movie prints out on 16 mm.

Dubbing 16 mm film stock to videotape at that time at a local station was also a dicey proposition. The results tended to increase color saturation on skin tones, giving them an orangy glow, as well as create a slightly grainier picture. The money & effort to invest in cleaning & digitizing away these sorts of problems that the studios didn't exist at local staions.

I can even remember even in the late 1980's..TV stations still used 16mm prints for on air. As a kid that made me nuts watching an old movie and seeing it as "green" or "red" knowing that my TV had more colors than that. HAHA! You would think with tape technology at that time that they would have gotten away from the old faded, scratchy prints of tv shows and movies if they were taken care of. Eventually they did, but I don't understand how film, today is so expensive, was so mainstream and inexpensive back then, makes me wonder....

 

[Markieo]

Ah, there's nothing like watching old, washed out 16MM films on TV, complete with lines, scratches, splices, and those wonderful cue marks before the commercials! (circle) Remember those? (circle)

 

[oldiesfan6479]

And many of those crummy reduction prints would, after use, be sent
to Bonded TV Film Service in El Lay for (I assume) checking, cleaning
and redistribution to the next sucker user in the syndication chain.

Some went back to the syndicator, others would be shipped directly
to another station.

Let's see...should you leave the foil sensing tape on the leader prior
to each segment, or remove it, before sending it onward? ???

Funny thing, but running cleaning fluid across the entire film print
never did much--it still looked (and sounded) marginal on air. And
did engineering maintenance ever clean the lenses and mirrors on
the projectors, multiplexer and the film chain camera? Dust city.

 

[kirkiefan]

If I remember correcly...most (if not all) kinescoped programs in the 1950s and 60s were recorded on 16mm film....with all of its dark picture and muddy audio ....as a youth I found this especially annoying since kinnies were all black and white if the show was originally produced in color.

I still remember The Little Rascals as a little kid watching Uncle Orrie on WHIO-TV in Dayton...and later moved over to WKEF's "Clubhouse 22"...which were first distributed for TV by Interstate Televsion Corporation before King World gained the distribution rights sometime in the 1970s.

Was always annoyed that the closing credit was "A King World Production" when you know darn well it was Hal Roach Studios that produced it....much less the opening credits were also deleted. Fortunately, King World finally redeemed themselves when they restored the series to its original 1930s look..complete with the MGM lion at the beginning. Saw this back around 2000 on AMC's "The Little Rascals Version 2.0" hosted by teen actor Frankie Muniz.

 

[KYLEBOOK]

And
did engineering maintenance ever clean the lenses and mirrors on
the projectors, multiplexer and the film chain camera? Dust city.

Not when you have an air hose or a can of compressed air to blow into the optical gate to get rid of those pesky hairs that would show up on air! How far we have come since...

 

[NoWayNoCC]

I remember a Cincinnati station showing 'Tom & Jerry' cartoons, one of which always ended with very warped music and 2 holes right next to each other that kept moving up and down the screen. I don't know if that was a 16mm problem or not.

 

[TexasTom]

There's a pretty healthy trade that seems to exist for those old 16 mm syndication prints from the eighties and earlier. Just go over to eBay and search for 16 mm film, and you'll see plenty of people are still selling these prints.

 

[mleach]

somewhat related to this...

the tapes and films of old TV shows, how often are the original commercials remain intact with the actual show?

I was watching The Hollywood Palace ( ABC's version of Ed Sullivan ) on archive.org. Both their 1968 and 1969 episodes featured ads for Raleigh & Belair cigarettes. So with that being said, was that Raleigh/Belair ad really part of the original Hollywood Palace broadcast or did someone find that spot elsewhere and inserted it themselves into the show assuming that the commerical "could have aired" during those shows in 1968 and 1969?

The 50's I can see since back then a lot of the cast would often appear in the commercial too, but 1969?

 

[WKRPinOklahomaCity]

In reference to the Tom & Jerry post probably a 16mm print they ran over and over, since Tom & Jerry was the cartoon that ran everywhere, every morning on TV for kids. I have to say, MGM restored all the classics perfectly on DVD. When we first got cable back in the late 1980's, cause we lived in an area that couldn't get it, then they finally got the line hooked up, but my friend two houses down from me had it. ??? They used to have KXTX TV 39 out of Dallas on our OKC lineup which was a great station, it was like a second KAUT 43 here, an independent...I remember watching a Pink Panther cartoon, and the shutter speed was off, let's say as a kid that was a trip to see on TV, I guess the engineer finally woke up and realized he needed to fix it after the introduction, hey it's 7:30am wake up!!! Also they had really bad prints of the Brady Bunch, and when TBS finally started airing them, I was like wow, what a change, Ted Turner knew how to remaster some old shows.

The last time I saw anything on TV that was shown directly off 16mm, was the Madonna movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, they used to just randomly show it twice a year on KWTV 9, I don't know why they did, who knows, and one time I was watching it, the print was faded green, and it was all scratched up, as a kid, in my mind, it didnt look like that on HBO...did the pay TV channels back then, like when HBO frist came on air, did they show movies off 35mm or 16 mm prints or were they a bit more advanced..I do like seeing the old HBO intros before movies, one shows a guy turning to HBO on a huge cable box on youtube, that says this movie is Rated R, it's not for children, and it will only been shown at night.

It's funny how we now today complain of how much we need to upgrade to HD, and get the best picture, when back then, no one cared, as long as it enteratined you for at least 30min to an hour, you were just fine.

 

[rwells2265]

somewhat related to this...

the tapes and films of old TV shows, how often are the original commercials remain intact with the actual show?

I was watching The Hollywood Palace ( ABC's version of Ed Sullivan ) on archive.org. Both their 1968 and 1969 episodes featured ads for Raleigh & Belair cigarettes. So with that being said, was that Raleigh/Belair ad really part of the original Hollywood Palace broadcast or did someone find that spot elsewhere and inserted it themselves into the show assuming that the commerical "could have aired" during those shows in 1968 and 1969?

The 50's I can see since back then a lot of the cast would often appear in the commercial too, but 1969?

Most (if not all) of the time the commercials were inserted during post into any filmed or VTR'ed programs and this 'master' was then aired over the network. Kines, of course, would also have 'em on the same print. I have a number of Hollywood Palace and Ed Sullivan eps originating from videotape, and all contain the commercials within.

Well into the '60s, a number of programs had the final commercial done by the cast. Andy Griffith for Post cereal, the cast of My Three Sons for Hunt's Ketchup (oops, I mean "catsup" - pron. CAT-sup) and The Monkees' spots for Kellogg's come quickly to mind.

--Russell

 

[azumanga]

Also they had really bad prints of the Brady Bunch, and when TBS finally started airing them, I was like wow, what a change, Ted Turner knew how to remaster some old shows.

I felt the same way about "The Flintstones" -- when we got cable in the 1980s, "The Flintstones" on TBS looked much better than the one on our local station.

 

[WKRPinOklahomaCity]

Into the 1990's TBS, turned out to be the independent station to watch, I remember coming home and watching the Munsters, Happy Days, Three's Company and Sanford & Son..sort like what TV Land used to be.

I heard that TBS did the schedule 5 minutes cause of scheduling with movies, or something strange like that. It had the oooh factor when looking in the TV guide, oooh they are five minutes laters, how daring!!

Sort of like when your cable system would put the locals on another channel, ooooh Channel 5 is on Channel 8...ooooh

Did anyone ever have a double picture problem on their cable back in the day, for instance, if you had a channel 4, and it was on cable channel 4, you would see like tv lines and like another picture coming from the station, sort of a ghostly looking picture...if someone understands what i am talking about.

 

[azumanga]

Sort of like when your cable system would put the locals on another channel, ooooh Channel 5 is on Channel 8...ooooh

Did anyone ever have a double picture problem on their cable back in the day, for instance, if you had a channel 4, and it was on cable channel 4, you would see like tv lines and like another picture coming from the station, sort of a ghostly looking picture...if someone understands what i am talking about.

Which was the reason why "Channel 5 is on Channel 8", with a throwaway channel, such as local access or a news ticker, on the channel with the interference.

 

[cowboybud]

I heard that TBS did the schedule 5 minutes cause of scheduling with movies, or something strange like that. It had the oooh factor when looking in the TV guide, oooh they are five minutes laters, how daring!!

That's exactly why Turner did that, so TBS shows would have their own line in the old TV Guide.

 

[onairb]

I heard that TBS did the schedule 5 minutes cause of scheduling with movies, or something strange like that. It had the oooh factor when looking in the TV guide, oooh they are five minutes laters, how daring!!

That's exactly why Turner did that, so TBS shows would have their own line in the old TV Guide.

Turner figured he'd get viewers who'd decided to switch channels five minutes into another show...and he wanted those viewers to be able to see the start of another program, instead of missing those first five minutes.
(Remember when people actually waited 5 minutes before giving up on bad shows? )

 

[NoWayNoCC]

Did anyone ever have a double picture problem on their cable back in the day, for instance, if you had a channel 4, and it was on cable channel 4, you would see like tv lines and like another picture coming from the station, sort of a ghostly looking picture...if someone understands what i am talking about.

On Storer Cable in northern Kentucky, half the channels did this regardless of whether there were any over-the-air stations on those channels.

 

[biggguy]

Sort of like when your cable system would put the locals on another channel, ooooh Channel 5 is on Channel 8...ooooh

Did anyone ever have a double picture problem on their cable back in the day, for instance, if you had a channel 4, and it was on cable channel 4, you would see like tv lines and like another picture coming from the station, sort of a ghostly looking picture...if someone understands what i am talking about.

Which was the reason why "Channel 5 is on Channel 8", with a throwaway channel, such as local access or a news ticker, on the channel with the interference.

I remember, when I was younger in Rochester, NY, that sort of thing would happen on all three local channels on cable- 8, 10, & 13, which was where they should have been....cable company explained it as an signal overload condition. Found a way to get rid of it though. Back in the day where your VCR was run though the coaxial input of the TV, I turned the VCR on....and putting the additional item in the signal chain and the resulting loss cleaned up things nicely. Kinda killed whatever was on channel 3, though