SilverWook said:

I didn't realize you meant a leica of the Boba cartoon existed. Was this on the official site? And did someone preserve it?

It was indeed on the official site in its entirety, as part of the 30th anniversary tribute week back in 2008. Unfortunately, it has all been swept away as part of the new site revamp...but many of us were wise enough to save a copy (since this isn't the first time old archives on that site have disappeared), so you'll be able to see it one way or another.

As it was part of the HS, I would presume CBS got it on tape. There is no reason they would have had to telecine it themselves.

Hard to say. CBS did all the videotaping and editing themselves, and Nelvana would have supplied the cartoon to them in whatever the usual format was. I believe the cartoon arrived at the 11th hour, as well...just a few days before broadcast! Since CBS ultimately put it all together, they would have had to edit the cartoon into the video they already had shot. So either they telecined it themselves and then edited it together, or they had an already-telecined videotape copy from Nelvana that they edited in.

The R&R DVD didn't mention the specific loss of anything else. Studios don't seem to like to talk about such things in detail, if the Universal backlot fire a couple years back is any example.

All the more reason to get this kind of stuff on digital as quickly as possible. A solitary copy left in a studio's hands, eventually someone will screw it up.

--SKot