Bad News For Fandom Land

[teddog]

I'm connected well enough to the TVOntario fandom to hear what goes down. Here's some depressing news from the group trying to get Today's Special on DVD:

"Thank you for writing to TVOntario.

Unfortunately for most programs that we aired in the 70s, 80s & 90s, our
broadcast rights have expired. As such, these programs have been erased
from our files. To find a copy of these programs, you might want to try
searching the Internet or visiting amazon.ca.

Regards,

Member & Audience Relations
TVOntario
It's All About Learning!"

TVONTARIO FREAKING WIPED THE MASTERS OF ALMOST EVERYTHING?! This is a massive kick to the nuts. I know it shouldn't be bugging me as much as it is, but that sucks. I think the fox mood icon sums it up.

And yes, odds are that PoG was on the hit list as they lost rights to it soon after the series ended. They were given/sold to a multimedia company.

Comments

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

They didn't even leave things for archival puroposes? What kind of screwed up thinking is this?

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

It's cheap government thinking!

I'm rather confused by this myself. They had an archive at one point, as at least one missing episode of Doctor Who was recovered through them. You'd think that they would have learned from that. XP

There's still a very big chance that there's secondary copies of some TVOntario masters. The fandom this message came from, Today's Special (a pretty silly kid's TV show from the 1980s that didn't date as badly as some of the others), was getting shown on other stations up until about 4 years ago. Right now I think they're chasing those.

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

That's pretty horrible news. I'm really hoping that's not the fate of PoG, but I dunno. Man...

Von

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to believe that some of the PoG tapes at the Merril Collection are Masters or direct copies.

Storytime: Years ago, back in high school, one of my best friends was obsessed with locating a TVO show from her childhood. After some research, we discovered that my public school board had copies of the show and I managed to get the teachers to borrow a copy of the first tape in the series. Because, childhood cheese is the best cheese.

The reason I'm relating this story is because the tape I got from the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board was packaged exactly the same has the copy of Robots and AI that I watched at the Merril. They were both in a heavy black plastic case and had the same TVOntario labels with the series and episodes typed on with what appeared to be a typewritter. Futhermore, they opened the same way: Test pattern, a couple seconds of black, title card and then the program. The only difference is the RAAI card looked like a piece of paper taped to the wall and the PoG card was done on a computer and looked a bit like Nance's screen in season two. Both tapes probably came from the same source: TVOntario.

As to why they all aren't Masters/Master copies, I have no idea. From what I heard, a lot of the PoG stuff was split up between the staff. Each person has a different piece of the opening art, etc, but I heard that Rick Green kept all of the Reality One model and put it in his basement.

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...colour me intrigued. I think your right 'bout your conclusions, too, but it'd be interesting if there was a way to verify it. Is there a secret stash of PoG (and others) out there somewhere? I'd love to know! :)

And interesting about the Ty Templeton art and Reality One model. I'm a wee touch jealous that was never made widely available. Sigh!

Von