Idea: Has anyone done an edit of JOURNEY BACK TO OZ: Extended TV Version?

If you are an animation or Bill Cosby fan, this may interest you. As you know, the 1964/1972 animated Filmation feature “Journey Back To Oz” has been released on DVD, but only the original theatrical version is represented. There was a network television version with live-action interstitials by Bill Cosby that aired beginning in 1976 on ABC, and repeated in subsequent years on the old SFM Holiday Network. The interstitials are on the new DVD, but as a separate feature.

Has anyone attempted to do a fan-made restoration of the network TV version using a good-quality VHS copy as a reference? Is this possible? This thread is open to suggestion.

Here it is, many months after my original post, and no one has either responded or cares about this project (well, just about every other post I've made to this forum does not get a response anyway).  Now I have an even more reason to revive it...I just rented the DVD of the BCI "special edition", and I quickly went to the supplements that has the Bill Cosby segments.  Sadly, not all of the Cosby segments are represented on this disc, which leads me to believe that most of the broadcast master is lost.  If there is anyone here that has a good-quality copy of the TV version (even from its syndicated showings on the SFM Holiday Network), please come forward.  This is a project I would love to get underway very soon.

This would be an interesting project  I never even knew a TV cut existed, lol I tought I was the GURU on Tv cuts....

I like this project idea. To be honest I have never knew anyone to have this.

?Just how much footge is missing? What scenes are not on the disc? Please details?

From IMDB.om

Mitch said:

This would be an interesting project  I never even knew a TV cut existed, lol I tought I was the GURU on Tv cuts....

 

I like this project idea. To be honest I have never knew anyone to have this.

?Just how much footge is missing? What scenes are not on the disc? Please details?

From IMDB.om

 

There was no Wizard in the theatrical release...but in the network TV version there was! He was played in live-action sequences by Bill Cosby, and the sub-plot was to get the children back to Kansas to join Dorothy for Christmas. The TV version runs 96 minutes.

The supplementary section of the current DVD has the Bill Cosby interstitials from the first half of the network version, the very last segment being the scene where the Wizard and the Munchkin children secretly begin their plan to help Dorothy.  The segments last around six minutes.  Incidentally, some of the segments end with a few seconds of the animation that is joined in progress in the TV cut.

To my recollection, here's some of the Cosby segments that I saw in the TV version that are missing from the DVD...the Wizard handing Pumpkinhead a book, the Wizard and the children crying over Pumpkinhead's "death", the superimposing of the live action segments over the final animation scene, and Cosby wishing the viewers a Merry Christmas.

Again, I'm going from memory here since the VHS I have of the TV cut is back in Northern California (I'm in SoCal right now), and I recorded this on Extended Play pre-hi-fi, so the sound isn't really up to speed with today's DVD technology (to you it would sound like AM radio).  And I personally chopped it up a bit to try and fit another movie (again, this was EP).  But most of the "missing" Cosby segments are on my VHS, and obviously I cannot just fly up to get it.

All the animation in the TV cut is intact in the theatrical version included on the DVD.  The other major change is the theatrical version opens with the opening Kansas segment up until Dorothy is knocked unconcious, then segues into the main titles.  The TV version starts off with the first Cosby segment (with the Wizard discovering Kansas--this serves as its prologue) before the main titles, then the second Cosby segment (where the children are introduced), followed by the film where it would have started theatrically.

Note in passing: the last known airing of the TV version was in 1983 on the old SFM Holiday Network on syndication.

Hope this helps

If you can get your tape form Sacremento I will take on this project of restoring this myself ;-)

but I need that tape for reference - I will do what I can with the taped footage - I will try and clean that footage the best I can. This shouldn't be a difficult project. This is a project I want to accomplish as a side project.

So get that tape..lol!!

 To make it easy on you I live in San Diego (neighbor)- No need to mail, Heck! I'll pick it up, lol

The problem is, I live in S.D. ...at least for the time being, which is why I'm trying to turn to others to track down a high quality copy of the TV version.  Just thought you'd like to know.

This will be a tough task but I will search my sources ;-)

Mitch said:

This will be a tough task but I will search my sources ;-)

Thanks, finally, for someone for getting some kind of start to this project.  I urge all of you with some kind of acceptable quality copy of the full network version of "Journey" from either ABC or SFM to come forward.