You Ever Notice...and What's the Deal...

[charlietheowl]

I think that the companies who put out the books know that there are a chunk of people who are big enough fans of whatever show or franchise that they will plop down the bucks regardless of the size of the book, plus a lot of those same fans will want a thorough book. If a 700 page Henson/Muppets guide went on pre-sale tomorrow, there would probably be a good number of people on here (including myself) and on ToughPigs and any other Muppet fan assembling who would pre-order it instantly. There's probably fairly cheap to make, provided fees for pictures and copyrights are taken care of, and the devoted fan base will make sure it won't lose money.

 

[D'Snowth]

Come to think of it, you ever notice whenever there's a road comedy movie, that there's virtually no traffic on the roads? In some cases, it's even unusual to see maybe one or even two other cars on the road in these movies... what's the deal with that? I mean, yeah, I'm guessing production-wise, the film crew have these roads closed off for filming, but it kind of breaks the reality a bit, don't you think?

 

[D'Snowth]

What's the deal with trailers and promos now using the executive producers to entice you to watch it?

Y'know, when they say, "From director So N. So", or "From producer This Person", or even, "From the people who brought you", yeah, okay, I can see that, that makes sense, but saying, "From executive producer"... it's clear it's only a gimmick to use a familiar name to get people to watch, because, let's face it, half the time, whoever the "executive producer" is doesn't even actually work on the show or the movie, they just got the special credit because they may have added input to the concept, or forked over a buttload of money to finance it. Like take some of these crappy repo/towing reality series, a number of them have this gimmick in their promos: "From executive producer Jennifer Lopez!" Just saying JLo's name is the only way you can get a SANE person to watch that kind of crap, otherwise... WHY is JLo actually wasting her money to finance this kind of crap?

 

[minor muppetz]

It seems like for shows to enter syndication, they tend to require 100 episodes, while children's shows tend to require 65. Why must children's shows have a shorter episode minimum for syndication? And why do so many syndication packages for children's shows have less episodes?

In fact, thinking of the 65-episode limit (for childrens shows), I read in the book Growing Up Brady that The Braady Kids only had two seasons because they wanted enough episodes for syndication... and the show only had 22 episodes. In fact I've noticed that many saturday morning shows have 13 episodes in their first seasons, and then the number of episodes per season gets shorter. Why is it apparently more acceptable for kids to get more repeats than adults? The average prime time show only gets broadcast twice before the next season.

And there was an episode of I Love Lucy that's left out of the syndication package, due to it being a Christmas episode and a clip show. But many syndication packages for other shows include Christmas episodes and clip shows, so what's the big deal there? It also seems that local stations will often air holiday episodes when it's not the appropriate time of year (cable channels seem to skip them until the holidays come).

 

[D'Snowth]

1. I hadn't heard about the 100 episode rule, but most live action/primetime sitcoms apparently have to have a minimum of five seasons to enter syndication, and syndication ensures those involved in the series will keep getting residual checks, which is why once most shows reach Season Five, they go ahead and end it afterwards (though for some reason, the crapsack that is Big Bang Theory was the exception to the rule, and got a syndication deal well before they even reached a fifth season, now it's on, like, three or four different channels).
2. The 65 episode rule for weekly cartoon series apparently has something to do with spreading the reruns out evenly in a Monday through Friday cycle (like newspaper comics); depending on the distributor of the series, they may or may not purchase every episode in the series to syndicate it, but they have to purchase a minimum of 65. For example, shows like Alvin and The Chipmunks only had their first 65 episodes purchased by the distributors for syndication, even though they had more, the distributors simply didn't want to pay extra for them since they already met the 65-episode minimum. In other cases, like Rocky and Bullwinkle, there are two different syndication packages: one in under "The Bullwinkle Show" titles, and contains Seasons One, Two, and Five, while the other package under the "Rocky and His Friends" titles contain Seasons Three and Four, for whatever reasons.
3. Most cable networks that rerun older shows tend to exclude holiday episodes, except for special airings around the respective holiday season; TV Land used to do this with all of it's shows, you never saw the Christmas episodes, or other holidays episodes, except for special marathons in December. I think the only exception is if the episode itself isn't strictly about the holidays, for example, there's episodes of Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond where the holidays are simply used as backdrops for the story, rather than actually being part of the plot, which is why you still see those episodes any time throughout the year.

 

[minor muppetz]

2. The 65 episode rule for weekly cartoon series apparently has something to do with spreading the reruns out evenly in a Monday through Friday cycle (like newspaper comics); depending on the distributor of the series, they may or may not purchase every episode in the series to syndicate it, but they have to purchase a minimum of 65. For example, shows like Alvin and The Chipmunks only had their first 65 episodes purchased by the distributors for syndication, even though they had more, the distributors simply didn't want to pay extra for them since they already met the 65-episode minimum. [/LIST]

It's a shame the syndicates apparrently have to be so stingy when it comes to children's shows. I wonder if maybe kids prefer watching the same episodes as much as possible (or if the networks think that way), therefore thinking it unneccessary to get more episodes (especially if the later episodes are bad). I know when I was a kid I liked to rewatch many of my favorite episodes a lot (though several episodes that I liked and wanted to watch again I didn't see rebroadcast enough).

3. Most cable networks that rerun older shows tend to exclude holiday episodes, except for special airings around the respective holiday season; TV Land used to do this with all of it's shows, you never saw the Christmas episodes, or other holidays episodes, except for special marathons in December.

It still doesn't explain why the Christmas episode of I Love Lucy has rarely been rerun since its original broadcast, while other Christmas episodes have. Nick at Nite never aired it during its Christmas marathons (and didn't even include that episode in the I Love Lucy episode guide in the book Nick at Nite's Classic TV Companion).

 

[minor muppetz]

What's the deal with ownership of the various Dr. Seuss specials? I used to think that Warner Bros. currently owns all of them, but then found out that Universal owns the rights to all the DePatie-Freling specials (the Turner networks used to air those specials frequently, though now I remember that Turner USED to own the DePatie-Freling Productions and then for some reason lost the rights). But then after a few years of knowing (or thinking I knew?) this, they started putting out DVDs mixing Dr. Seuss specials owned by both Warner and Universal (I can't remember off-hand which company released the current releases). There's a DVD with all of the Grinch specials (Warner-owned "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and Universal-owned "Halloween is Grinch Night" and "The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat"), I believe that the current release of The Lorax includes the Warner-owned Butter Battle Book as a bonus feature, and I think I read that the current Cat in the Hat DVD has one of the Warner-owned Dr. Seuss specials as a bonus.

 

[D'Snowth]

Alls I know is Dr. Seuss seems to have been victimized by Christmas.

Think about it, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of, if not THE, most successful specials of his... anymore, it seems like Christmas is the only time you see any other Seuss specials, including Cat in the Hat and Lorax... I know for the last few years or so, ABC Family has included them as part of their annual 25 Days of Christmas programming, even though the other specials have nothing to do with Christmas.

It's almost kind of like how any given Peanuts score, particularly "Linus and Lucy" is heard on the radio every December, yet, that's pretty much the unofficial theme for almost all of the Peanuts specials.

 

[D'Snowth]

Actually, I just found out what the whole 100 episode rule thing is all about...

Apparently, back in the day when syndication wasn't quite as big a deal as it is now, shows weren't allowed to enter syndication until they ceased production and wrapped up altogether, however, by the 70s, networks were becoming a little more relaxed, and began allowing shows that were still in production to enter syndication, but only after they produced at least 100 episodes.

 

[minor muppetz]

Alls I know is Dr. Seuss seems to have been victimized by Christmas.

Think about it, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of, if not THE, most successful specials of his... anymore, it seems like Christmas is the only time you see any other Seuss specials, including Cat in the Hat and Lorax... I know for the last few years or so, ABC Family has included them as part of their annual 25 Days of Christmas programming, even though the other specials have nothing to do with Christmas.

Makes me wonder if Halloween is Grinch Night airs in october, november-december, or at all each year. Well, for the last several years I've been watching ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas each year, and hadn't noticed that special airing (doesn't mean that I haven't missed the advertising).

Another thing: How come ABC Family never airs any Muppet programming during the 25 Days of Christmas? The Muppet Christmas Carol, Letters to Santa, and especially A Muppet Family Christmas would be great to air that time of year. Ditto with A Christmas Together and It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, if the channel can get the broadcast rights. Since The Muppets came out thanksgiving 2011 I thought the channel should have had a special "Muppet Week" to promote the movie and lead off the 25 Days of Christmas.

On the subject of shows with limited episodes in syndication, I wonder if Warner Bros. would have had multiple TV packages for its shorts if WB hadn't sold the rights to the earlier cartoons. All the black and white shorts were sold first (and Warner reobtained the rights in the 1960s), then WB sold the rest of its pre-1948 library (only to get it back in 1997), and yet it seems Warner is the only one of these companies to have split the broadcast rights to the shorts it owned. I think Warner had always owned the rights to more shorts than the other companies, especially after getting back the rights to most of the black and white shorts, and 1948-1969 is more years than 1931-1948 (none of the 4-6 shorts from 1930 were included in the pre-1948 package that was at various times owned by A.A.P., MGM, Turner, and others), though I've read that many of the post-1964 shorts weren't broadcast until Nickelodeon started airing the shorts in the 1988 (I've read that the Road Runner shorts were almost immediately broadcast while the Daffy and Speedy shorts waited until the late-1970s to air).

And what's the deal with video games having "episodes"? It's not like a game is a regular series. There aren't too many games I know of that have "episodes", the only example I know of being Sonic the Hedgehog 4, which had a long gap between episodes I and II. I also wonder what the deal is with various YouTube channels/series referring arranging their videos by "seasons". They don't have to have a regular schedule, though some seemingly do.