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Help: looking for... William Dozier's Batman/Green Hornet

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 (Edited)

There was a thread for this already, but it’s in the “fan edits” section for some reason, so I thought I’d paste it over here. Sort of a half request, half just trying to get some discussion going on this topic. I think it’s very strange that out of all of the preservation projects going on, and all of the sharing that we do, the majority of people are perfectly okay with shelling out big bucks for Batman bootlegs (especially when they make themselves even more illegal by including bootlegs of The Movie, Bat-Mania, and Return to the Batcave!).

Anyway, here’s the paste, with some additions at the end:

Wondering if anyone can help me find the Canadian TV Land caps, or I’d even settle for the Masters.

I found torrents, but the first 50 episodes of season 2 are from US TV Land (only worse; even more cuts for some reason, and way lower quality than the torrent at MySpleen). I found another set of torrents, but they were all in Italian.

…and for the time being, it looks like two of these are stuck, so I’m also missing episodes 320, 321, 322, 323, and 326 =/ (update: slowly working them up a few percentages, but still no 100% in sight. 88.8% on one and rising, 95.5% I think on the other. UPDATE #2: All torrents 100%! Seeding like crazy!)

I found another torrent, with “FOX” watermarks in the upper-right corner. I can’t remember if these were the Italian ones or not. I think they were, either that or they were edited. I just remember checking them real quick and ditching them.

Found a really great torrent with The Green Hornet in it (~180 MB AVIs), looks like they’re captured from Laserdisc. There’s a moderate amount of interlacing going on, and the typical rainbowing, but other than that, the quality’s pretty darn good. Too bad Batman never made it to LD (though I wonder if they even would’ve managed every single episode).

In the interest of turning this into a serious thread, I suppose I could post some screen grabs or something, if there’s any interest.

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The Green Hornet episodes that are online were actually capped from the Encore Action channel, back when they were airing the show. The Action logo pops up only once or twice for like 15 seconds, and again during the end credits, but for the most part, it's a logo-free presentation. Also, for the most part, the episodes are unedited, except for the first episode (missing epilogue...syndicated cuts have it intact for some reason) and the Part 1 recaps on all Part 2 episodes.

As for Batman, I have the "Network Masters" bootleg that is circulating around the market. I have the one that's on 30 discs, with 4 episodes to a disc, so less compression. The quality is basically high quality VHS transfers. They're decent, but you can only get so much out of VHS. I'm still more than satisfied with them, though. What's cool about those is that most of the episodes start with "ABC Color Presentation" intro, followed by the "Batman In Color" logo. The 2nd parts of most episodes have a quick promo for "next week's villain" before the end credits. Some of the season 2 episodes have an "Insert Commercial Here" logo between scene breaks. On the bootleg, someone slipped up and one of the episodes isn't from the "Network Masters", but rather, it's from TV Land Canada. The episode is uncut at least, but still, I would've rather had consistency.

One thing I ended up doing with the Batman episodes is put together the original narration by William Dozier for the first episode "Hi Diddle Riddle" (which can be found on YouTube) with the audio for the episode itself, matching quality and everything, and synced it to the "Network Master" version. Turned out pretty good.

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I didn't know that the TV Land rips had time cuts... :( shame, they were fairly good quality.

The Hub aired the series in full, with your average "cut the credits for an advertisement" thing that everyone does now.  They have an HD channel but I do not get that so I didn't cap them.  Did anyone?  That might be the best plausible source, assuming someone could just splice the credits in from a lower quality version.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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nocomments87 said:

The Green Hornet episodes that are online were actually capped from the Encore Action channel, back when they were airing the show. The Action logo pops up only once or twice for like 15 seconds, and again during the end credits, but for the most part, it's a logo-free presentation. Also, for the most part, the episodes are unedited, except for the first episode (missing epilogue...syndicated cuts have it intact for some reason) and the Part 1 recaps on all Part 2 episodes.

I don't know, I'll have to check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have any watermark during the credits, and they did have the recaps and the epilogues. And I checked, and the show was released on LD, so it would make sense...but I'll double check, just to be sure.

bkev said:

I didn't know that the TV Land rips had time cuts... :( shame, they were fairly good quality.

The US TV Land eps are cut, yeah. They run around 20-22 minute per episode, instead of around 25 minutes per episode. The Canadian TV Land episodes are just as good quality, if not better (mine are AVIs, so not an ideal comparison). Most of them don't have the "In Color" bumper, or "next week's villain", but that's more of a novelty than anything. I watched all of the villain bumpers on YouTube, rather underwhelming.

So I've managed to get the rest of the episodes from season 3 downloaded, still need those 50 from season 2. Maybe we should throw these up on MySpleen.

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Just checked, there's the "Action" watermark.

Wonder if anyone's tried preserving the LDs...

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Batman has aired on ITV4 weekdays about 3 to 4ish with credits a static ITV4 logo in the upper left corner but no next villain/etc title cards not bad quality too.

ITV4 is a uk channel so some other uk members be could cap it

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Would be PAL though.

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bkev said:

I didn't know that the TV Land rips had time cuts... :( shame, they were fairly good quality.

The Hub aired the series in full, with your average "cut the credits for an advertisement" thing that everyone does now.  They have an HD channel but I do not get that so I didn't cap them.  Did anyone?  That might be the best plausible source, assuming someone could just splice the credits in from a lower quality version.

While The Hub HD airings would provide the best quality, they're cut (but not as bad as typical 22 minute syndicated cuts...they seem to run longer) and they're badly time compressed. Also, I would imagine the HD airings are cropped to fill the screen (the SD airings don't have any cropping, but suffer from the same cuts and time compression).

As it stands, the best source for episodes of Batman are the "Network Masters" bootleg (no network bugs at all, but VHS quality) or the TV Land Canada airings (higher quality than the "Network Masters", but TV Land logo on bottom right corner throughout the episode). Both provide the uncut, 25 minute episodes as originally aired.

I do wonder if there are any other sources for The Green Hornet episodes, though.

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 (Edited)

I have the entire run of Batman and Green Hornet TV series completely uncut and include the "in "color" bumper as well as the place commercial here spot. The Green Hornet has the bumper as well. I bought these as dvd sets from a now defunct website. The person I bought these from claimed the source from these was a telecine of the actual reels that local tv stations received. The set is not perfect though as film has dirt etc. and defianately needs some color correction. At least these are unaltered though. I recently converted all of the Batman episoes to mkv for easy streaming. I tried fixing the Green Hornet but all I have is TMGEnc and the results were not good. I do not have the correct software or experience to remaster/preserve these. If a preservation was to be attempted, these are definately the full length episodes you want.

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bkev said:

The Hub aired the series in full...

Not quite.  They never aired one pair of episodes - "An Egg Grows In Gotham/The Yegg Foes In Gotham".  No official explanation why but the theory is that the episode featured "stereotypical" portrayals of Native Americans and Hub didn't want to risk any kind of backlash over it.  The eps are part of the TV Land rips though.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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PolyMeR said:

I recently converted all of the Batman episoes to mkv for easy streaming.

 Any chance you could send me a couple?

I doubt I could clean them up (or would even want to), but I'm just curious how the quality compares. I saw some (dead) links to some of these, and I suspect they're from those VHS tapes.

Ziz said:

No official explanation why but the theory is that the episode featured "stereotypical" portrayals of Native Americans and Hub didn't want to risk any kind of backlash over it.

I just assumed it had something to do with Vincent Price...I thought I read somewhere before that one of the networks didn't air any of his episodes due to rights issues...

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I can't see any evidence that these are VHS sourced. From what I was told these are direct transfer from the films that TV station used. I can't see any of the typical VHS artifacts ie edge curl etc. I would be happy to send you a couple of the episodes I sqwoze down to MKV.

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Is it possible you could post some screencaps for us to see as well?  I'm curious as to the quality myself.  I've seen one bootleg set before, and the bitrate on that one was pretty atrocious.  Then again, my friend picked that up at Comic-con...

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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These do appear to be tape sourced

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These caps appear to be the same "Network Masters" bootleg floating around...I have this same one. Quality is good for what it is.

The one I'm curious about, which you mentioned, is The Green Hornet. I've been looking for a bootleg similar to the Batman "Network Masters", but to no avail. I do have the Encore Action caps downloaded, in AVI format.

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The Green Hornet "network master" do not look quite as good as the action channel caps which I also have. They do include the "buzzing in color" bumper though. They need color correction. I'll do a couple of screen caps.

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I'm currently putting together a few supplements to the Batman "Network Masters" set, which I'll be sharing here when I'm finished. So far, I got the following:

Alternate audio for "Hi Diddle Riddle" (with William Dozier narration)

Alternate audio for "Smack in the Middle" (without William Dozier narration for the Part 1 recap; music-only recap)

Missing dialogue from "The Penguin's A Jinx" (During the scene with The Penguin and his goons listening in on Batman and Robin, The Penguin says "I know Batman's fertile mind. He'll come up with another.")

 

The audio is synced to the "Network Masters", and I'm burning it on a dual layer DVD, so I won't have to reduce the quality of the episodes.

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I too have found Batman complete season 1 and season 3 Canadian TV Land, but have yet to find season 2 (except S2 eps 51-60).  Have looked everywhere but no luck.  If anybody has anything please share.  I will do the same if I ever can find it.

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Crud, how did I miss this thread? I've got the capped TV Land S1-3 as avi/mpeg and as far as I know all mine are uncut. How do I check this for those missing 50 S2 episodes-by the runtime? I've only watched through S1 so far.

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The uncut Canadian episodes have a slightly different watermark (colorful spinning for a second when it first shows up), and the "TV-PG" or whatever rating logo has a maple leaf on it. They also don't have the "what you're about to start watching" bumper at the beginning.

They should run about 25 minutes each.

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Yep, mine are the same edited episodes for Season 2 with reduced quality from the Canadian ones. No.51 goes back to the Canadian source.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
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