I think we might finally have a way to piece together the film as it originally aired. Saturday VH1 here in the US aired the “TV” version of Titanic with the alternative version of the drawing scene. The transfer was beautiful though, and in the correct aspect ratio. The only logo/bug on the screen was a tiny VH1 logo that sat in the black bar space at the bottom of the screen. It didn’t show on any part of the movie itself. I missed the first half of the film, but they are scheduled to re-air it two more times. I’ve set both to record just to be safe. I didn’t detect any censorship other than the drawing scene but I plan to watch it all the way through when it re-airs to make sure.
If it is complete as I believe it would be very easy to edit the drawing scene from the 2012 version into this TV version of the pre-2012 version to make it complete as it originally was.
That’s great to hear! Keep us posted.