Author Topic: Jeopardy! Starring Art Fleming (Read 5638 times)

Don Howard · « **on:** December 10, 2009, 02:43:50 PM »

I was just over on the Jeopardy! message board and hoped the following would be of interest to you:
http://boards.sonypictures.com/boards/showthread.php?t=43954
Perhaps one or more of you could help this fellow get these five episodes from 1968 and the one from 1969 available to us.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #1 on:** December 10, 2009, 03:21:21 PM »

On the surface, it sounds sort of interesting, but the more I thought about it, the less excited I became. The complete episodes all appear to be audio only, and while that's still pretty cool, we're almost certainly looking at forty-year-old cassettes of somebody holding a microphone to a TV speaker, so I would question the quality. The video appears to be two four-minute chunks of silent 8mm movies likewise pointed at the TV.

I won't look a gift horse in the mouth if these become available, but I also don't think I want to be the person who's going to digitize this stuff either.

TwoInchQuad · « **Reply #2 on:** December 10, 2009, 03:55:38 PM »

Well, I've worked on worse material... or at least, it **seemed** worse!

I've registered over there, and offered to help out-- we'll see if I hear anything.

-Kevin

DjohnsonCB · « **Reply #3 on:** December 10, 2009, 09:20:29 PM »

There's a place I've gone to repeatedly in Omaha that can sync film video and audio--though I'm not positive as to whether or not the audio has to be on open reel, audio cassette or VHS. I usually have them put 16mm sound film on VHS, but a couple of times I've had them sync picture and sound reels together, and they only put those on DVD.

TwoInchQuad · « **Reply #4 on:** January 31, 2010, 07:52:42 AM »

[quote name=\'TwoInchQuad\' post=\'232052\' date=\'Dec 10 2009, 01:55 PM\']Well, I've worked on worse material... or at least, it **seemed** worse!

I've registered over there, and offered to help out-- we'll see if I hear anything.

-Kevin[/quote]

Well, not to quote myself-- but I heard something!

And now you can see the results here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/livefeedvideo

A slide show of the soundtrack to Game 5 of Dr. Burt Sherman's attempt to become an undefeated champion (in three parts, to comply with YouTube's time restrictions), PLUS-- **nine** short reconstructed video fragments from the broadcast. They're crude, but sorta fun...!

There will be more from the other games, but this is the one that had the most material available, so I tackled it first.

Hope you enjoy it... This is **definitely** a labor of love! :^)

-Kevin

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 31, 2010, 09:11:29 AM »

[quote name=\'TwoInchQuad\' post=\'235237\' date=\'Jan 31 2010, 07:52 AM\']Hope you enjoy it... This is **definitely** a labor of love! :^)[/quote]
Love it. Always nice to see some classic Jeopardy!.

Did they fully video record the episode, or were the samples the only thing salvageable? Definitely not expecting a full restoration (over/under some jerk demands it is March 12).

Still weird for my young ears to hear the classic Think cue all the way back then - and the fact it was still in use until 1997.

WarioBarker · « **Reply #6 on:** January 31, 2010, 03:07:22 PM »

Quote from: TwoInchQuad on January 31, 2010, 07:52:42 AM

A slide show of the soundtrack to Game 5 of Dr. Burt Sherman's attempt to become an undefeated champion (in three parts, to comply with YouTube's time restrictions), PLUS-- **nine** short reconstructed video fragments from the broadcast. They're crude, but sorta fun...!
[...]
Hope you enjoy it... This is **definitely** a labor of love!

...Wow. Just...wow. Classic Fleming all the way to Win.

Quote from: tpirfan28 on January 31, 2010, 09:11:29 AM

Did they fully video record the episode, or were the samples the only thing salvageable?

Steve Sherman told me he had "two 4-minute home movies". I can't answer for the whole "sample salvaging" thing.

TwoInchQuad · « **Reply #7 on:** January 31, 2010, 03:41:51 PM »

[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'235239\' date=\'Jan 31 2010, 07:11 AM\']Did they fully video record the episode, or were the samples the only thing salvageable? Definitely not expecting a full restoration (over/under some jerk demands it is March 12).[/quote]

Just the pieces-- they only had two rolls of 8mm film to document all five games, so the clip choice is (not surprisingly) somewhat sparse and a little hit and miss. And since each clip had to be speed-corrected to different "frames-per-second" rate (pretty sure it was a wind-up camera), I couldn't incorporate them into the slide show, or even effectively join them into one big clip. So we're left with fragments...

-Kevin

mmb5 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 31, 2010, 06:40:06 PM »

[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'235239\' date=\'Jan 31 2010, 09:11 AM\'](over/under some jerk demands it is March 12).[/quote]
I'll take the under.

Great work Kevin.

--Mike

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #9 on:** January 31, 2010, 07:03:05 PM »

That was nice. Great job. I got a Super 8mm camera in 1975 andI tried to film off the TV screen but I could never get the focus right, and the ever-present scan lines made my attempts unwatchable, plus the film cartridges were pretty expensive for 4 minutes of filming. Audio-only was much more affordable.

WarioBarker · « **Reply #10 on:** February 01, 2010, 04:03:05 PM »

Jimmy, you wouldn't happen to still have that footage, would you?

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #11 on:** February 03, 2010, 05:52:38 PM »

[quote name=\'Dan88\' post=\'235284\' date=\'Feb 1 2010, 04:03 PM\']Jimmy, you wouldn't happen to still have that footage, would you?[/quote]
Yes, but it's probably not anything anyone would want to see. A few seconds of "Edge of Night," "Happy Days" and "Family Feud" and there might be some other stuff. I'll have to check

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #12 on:** February 03, 2010, 06:10:08 PM »

Terrific job, Kevin. Thanks for doing all that work.

Timsterino · « **Reply #13 on:** February 03, 2010, 08:07:04 PM »

Kevin, that is really outstanding! GREAT JOB!

Author Topic: Jeopardy! Starring Art Fleming (Read 5638 times)

Timsterino