The Abridged Ronnies: Considerable amount of cuts on iPlayer - Page 2

SO

Soupnzi 21 December 2020 5:13am

It's interesting that The Two Ronnies Sketchbook still airs as filler but the Smith and Jones Sketchbook did one series and hasn't been shown since.

As Neil says, nothing much that's Smith and Jones related gets repeated now. In recent years all we've had is the Home-made Xmas Video on BBC Four, and a compilation show from 1995 shown when Mel Smith died — even then they didn't repeat the sketchbook. To be fair though, the tribute programme for Mel Smith shown at Christmas 2013 was excellent.

I wonder if there's some contractual reason why it doesn't appear in any form on TV anymore — they did have a large number of writers over the years, giving some people their first breaks in TV comedy. It wasn't hyper topical like Not the Nine O'Clock News was, so repeating or making available full episodes shouldn't be as big of a problem in that regard.

I've just remembered, there is something S&J related that gets repeated every year - the video for Mel Smith & Kim Wilde's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

Of course that video requires its own edit now- check out 1’40

VM

VMPhil 21 December 2020 7:48am

Yes, and since MTV edited it the parts that were video look (i.e. beginning and end) don't have it anymore and look like they haven't even been deinterlaced properly. Hooray.

Although if you watch Danny Baker's Christmas Hits show on Sky Arts, it's still shown unedited.

NJ

Neil Jones Founding member 21 December 2020 9:00am

I swear all the Christmas music videos that get aired across the various networks get worse and worse quality wise every year, with ever increasing zooms, butchers and generally looking more and more like a dog's dinner. It would be really nice if Wham's shiny remastered Last Christmas video actually appeared on a TV music station somewhere (yes it won't be in HD, but it'll look better than the horrible grainy mess version that quite often still appears).

I don't know how many of the Christmas music videos were made on film (I dare say the bulk were done on videotape), but of course the Wham video for whatever reason ended up on film (presumably because it was done on location?) but it seems a shame really it will only ever be seen in a decent quality on YouTube.

VM

VMPhil 21 December 2020 9:54pm

Neil Jones posted:

I swear all the Christmas music videos that get aired across the various networks get worse and worse quality wise every year, with ever increasing zooms, butchers and generally looking more and more like a dog's dinner. It would be really nice if Wham's shiny remastered Last Christmas video actually appeared on a TV music station somewhere (yes it won't be in HD, but it'll look better than the horrible grainy mess version that quite often still appears).

I don't know how many of the Christmas music videos were made on film (I dare say the bulk were done on videotape), but of course the Wham video for whatever reason ended up on film (presumably because it was done on location?) but it seems a shame really it will only ever be seen in a decent quality on YouTube.

Well, you're in luck, as this year I've noticed MTV have replaced their copies of the Wham and Shakin' Stevens videos with the new remasters. Takes a bit of getting used to to be honest, having been used to the old versions for so long.

JA

james-2001 21 December 2020 10:15pm

Yes, I noticed the Wham video was, you can tell the difference even in SD. Though the fact they were showing the old version 4:3 cropped to 16:9 wouldn't have helped the quality anyway seeing as you're losing a quarter of the resolution just from that. I wouldn't say Shakin' Stevens looks massively different, but at least it means we get it in 4:3 as it's from a pillarboxed master.