Woolery / Early Sajak 'Wheel' episodes

[Blanquepage]

Any speculation that the Woolery episodes / early Sajak episodes are hidden in a vault can be put to rest.
NBC did NOT destroy the Woolery run. The ridiculous notion that Merv himself destroyed Chuck's episodes out of spite is false as well.

The official word, as per a representative of King World, is this: Woolery's version and some of Sajak's early years are gone for the same reason as ABC Password. It was the company policy to use and reuse the tapes, a practice which continued until the 80s.
Simply put, the masters ARE gone because they taped over 'em.

Fin.

--Jamie

[LocalH]

Which I count as destruction - but not malicious destruction, given the high cost of tape stock back then.

Malicious destruction would be what happened to the Du Mont library. NBC (and others), in contrast, were merely shortsighted and financially conscious.

[Ian Wallis]

The official word, as per a representative of King World, is this: Woolery's version and some of Sajak's early years are gone for the same reason as ABC Password. It was the company policy to use and reuse the tapes, a practice which continued until the 80s.
Simply put, the masters ARE gone because they taped over 'em.

Wow...to me that's a bit of a shock that anything from the early '80s is gone, especially with all the talk we heard about 1978 over the years.  I guess you just never know what still might exist and what doesn't.

[Allstar87]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'126569\' date=\'Aug 7 2006, 09:28 PM\']
The official word, as per a representative of King World, is this: Woolery's version and some of Sajak's early years are gone for the same reason as ABC Password. It was the company policy to use and reuse the tapes, a practice which continued until the 80s.
Simply put, the masters ARE gone because they taped over 'em.
[/quote]

Well, shoot. While it's good to put the speculation to rest, it's sad to know they're gone. I'm shocked too; I assumed everything after 1978 was still around.

At least we can be thankful for the few episodes that survived...

[Joe Mello]

Simply put, the masters ARE gone because they taped over 'em.

Lol.  *TPIR Losing Horns*

I know this seems like an incredibly logical end, but I still find it funny.

"Say, whatever happened to that one episode of Wheel of Fortune?"
"Oh, I taped over it."
"Dammit!"

[LocalH]

That's okay. One of these days, if humanity doesn't get blown out of existence, someone will invent a time machine, and then we can take pocket video recorders with 20TB drives and jump through time, recovering all of the old lost programming (in better quality than we ever had before for the really early stuff, given the relatively low quality of kines).

...ok, I'll wake up now, as I'm obviously sleep-posting. Still, that's something nice to imagine happening.

On a tangent, I really would like to see people start trading game shows over the Internet. A single-layer DVD-R is only 4.37GB, and even with the slow upstream connections that most people have, it would probably be faster to trade that way, as opposed to sending physical media. Plus, the more widely you spread the eps you have, the lesser the chance of that particular video being irreparably destroyed.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'LocalH\' post=\'126594\' date=\'Aug 7 2006, 10:59 PM\']
On a tangent, I really would like to see people start trading game shows over the Internet. A single-layer DVD-R is only 4.37GB, and even with the slow upstream connections that most people have, it would probably be faster to trade that way, as opposed to sending physical media.
[/quote]
Uh, yeah.

(This is about one step up the food chain from "have a heart", if you ask me.)

[LocalH]

Well, I'm coming at this from an angle of preservation first. It's my assertion that the best way to preserve this stuff is to distribute it as widely as possible. This same issue comes up in the prototype videogame scene - you have people who "hoard" carts and refuse to dump them, and you have the people that dump and release games in order to further their preservation. Both prototype videogames and game shows have one thing in common that is vital here - if left alone, they will eventually degrade to the point of unusability.

I don't see it as anything close to "have a heart", because I'm not advocating this in order to gain from it myself or for some utopian ideal, although that would be an indirect result (but everyone else would benefit too). The ratio system I mentioned would require someone to share. Hell, the ratio could be set to 1:1, where you have to upload just as much as you download.

Hell, if I actually had a game show collection, I'd be happily willing to seed some torrents and get the eps out there. As it stands, I've only got a few eps of PYL (including a crappy quality copy of the pilot, and two copies of the third Second Chance pilot), so I wouldn't be the best person to try something like this.

But this is off-topic for this thread, so I won't go any further down this discussion here - if it's warranted, I'll start a new thread.

[Ian Wallis]

With NBC, it seems very hit and miss with very little rhyme or reason as to what still exists and what doesn’t.  There have been rumours over the years that the first year or so of Sale of the Century is also gone.  Here’s what we know:

Fun Factory from 1976, still exists
Gong Show from 1976, still exists
Card Sharks from 1978, still exists
Jeopardy from 1978, still exists
Password Plus from 1979, still exists

Wheel of Fortune 75-early ‘80s, gone
Hollywood Squares, most daytime episodes gone
Mindreaders from ’79, probably gone

Still in question:
Battlestars
Hit Man
Just Men
Sale of the Century (first year)

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'126636\' date=\'Aug 8 2006, 02:29 PM\']
Gong Show from 1976, still exists
[/quote]
One reason for GONG still existing--Firestone syndicating three sets of rerun packages (encompassing most if not all of the eps) between 1978 and 1980 (eventually these eps wound up on USA).  Although David Schwartz did tell me years ago (I SWARE!) that GSN only had about half the run (and only 20 eps of those weren't airable because of clearance issues).  GSN only ran about 220 of the 501 daytime episodes over the course of the two years they ran the series, so what Schwartz told me would seem to have some merit.

Doug

[Strikerz04]

First of all, hearing that is just unfortunate, and it leaves the purists and casual watchers alike disappointed.

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'126636\' date=\'Aug 8 2006, 02:29 PM\']
With NBC, it seems very hit and miss with very little rhyme or reason as to what still exists and what doesn’t.  There have been rumours over the years that the first year or so of Sale of the Century is also gone.  Here’s what we know:

[cut ot preserve space and time]

Still in question:
Battlestars
Hit Man
Just Men
Sale of the Century (first year)
[/quote]

For the record, was it mentioned the Scrabble still exists, as per rumors of the first year were gone as well? Or did I completely miss the memo?

[MikeK]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'126636\' date=\'Aug 8 2006, 03:29 PM\']Still in question:
Hit Man[/quote]
This is definitely still around but it can't rerun due to one-time usage rights to images and music.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'126569\' date=\'Aug 7 2006, 08:28 PM\']
The official word, as per a representative of King World, [/quote]

Because a second person other than yourself around here can provide confirmation of this - that you actually spoke to a KW rep?

[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'126569\' date=\'Aug 7 2006, 08:28 PM\']
 is this: Woolery's version and some of Sajak's early years are gone for the same reason as ABC Password. It was the company policy to use and reuse the tapes, a practice which continued until the 80s.
Simply put, the masters ARE gone because they taped over 'em.

[/quote]

Sorry Jamie, you've got a bit long of a track record of not being entirely truthful, and for something this big, well...no.  Admittedly, you haven't given me a great reason not to believe you, but at the same time, you haven't really done anything to suggest that you're being more honest than you were and TO believe you.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Seth Thrasher\' post=\'126649\' date=\'Aug 8 2006, 03:14 PM\']
Sorry Jamie, you've got a bit long of a track record of not being entirely truthful,
[/quote]
He does? First I'd heard.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'126652\' date=\'Aug 8 2006, 05:36 PM\']
He does? First I'd heard.
[/quote]

As short as I can make it
It's really more of a thing gained from the trading side of the game show community.   Consistently and frequently over the last four years, he's claimed to be making tapes owed me, then claims to sends them, then says he hasn't, then says he is, then says he hasn't, then "forgets" for awhile, then repeat.  And from what I've come to understand, I'm not the only one he's done this to. (I tried to keep this off the board in an attempt to keep trading things away, but I figured if I'm gonna level a charge at someone, I'd better defend it) I know Jamie deep down IS a good guy.  But I've just been lied to (or ignored) by the guy one too many times in four years to believe anything without proof.