Edited episodes

[JCostaThePro]

BTW, regarding 1336:

I originally didn't want to spill the beans about this until Tim found and covered the episode, but since that won't be until about a year so from now (since he's doing episodes chronologically from now on), i think i may have have to say this here and now. You guys all know about my fascination with John Costa and the outro music of MRN, right? I've been recording and collecting many of the different variations of the jazzy outro music he played at the end of each episode (unfortunately, as i've said before, i'm missing about 76 of the ones from the modern era i.e., the "When Parents Go To Work" outros from 1989). I just happen to have 1336 in my collection and i've had that outro for over a year. No, it definately wasn't the Tomorrow song he played, it was Good Feeling.

How did you get access to 1336?  Did you get the full episode or just the outro?  If the full episode, then you can check for certain which song it has?  If it has Good Feeling, as you seem to think, is there any evidence that it may have been reshot?

Just the outro. I've never seen the actual episode before (nor have i alot of pre-79 weeks, sadly), but a friend of mine had an audio clip of what John Costa's jazzy piano outro on that one was and it seems to indicate that it was Good Feeling for the end of the episode. I don't have the same access to pre-79s as Tim does. If i have several pre-79 outros in my collection (i've mentioned 1326 being one), they're only from some friends of mine who had those episodes or just the outro music. Some of them, though (such as 1447) actually came from my own tapes, what few episodes i recorded.

On the other hand, i do have the original version of the closing to 1703 on tape. I should still have it somewhere, i haven't played it in a while. I don't see why 1336 would've been reshot, since 1261-1335 all end with Good Feeling. 1703 itself wasn't so much reshot, as much as just closing credits, due to the goof-up with the neighbors list.

[JCostaThePro]

Also, since the UP lists Tomorrow at the end, but not Good Feeling on any part of the song list, that should indicate that 1244 was definately the last episode that Tomorrow was performed on, not 1336. And again, i doubt it was edited, because it makes no sense for an episode to be edited when none of the other Tomorrow episodes were edited and since all of 1261-1335 (and maybe all of 1245-1260 for that matter; i know for sure Snow People & Warm Pussycat/1245, 1250, 1256 and 1259 do) ended with Good Feeling. If all the Tomorrow episodes were edited to end with Good Feeling, then Rogers shouldn't have mentioned or sung it in 1459 when explaining to children that next week the closing song will be completely different.

Though interestingly, as i mentioned before, they were correct about 1703, contary to what many people may think, since i have the original version on an old tape and it clearly lists the wrong neighbors. The only flaw is, they didn't mention the mistake was fixed. They're also correct about the Eiffel Tower model's mysterious absense in 1504-1760, the Platypus Mound model's absense in 1651 and 1758 having a goof-up with Rogers revealing what the NOM story will be without referring to it in previous episodes (somebody mentioned this on another thread). Considering those are all modern episodes but 1336 is a pre-79, naturally you can't expect them to make a ton of mistakes on those specific episodes.

[mitsguy2001]

If your friend has the outro, then I assume he also has the entire episode?  Or does he only keep outros?

The only reason why I am suggesting that maybe 1336 was edited was because someone else specifically remembers 1336 having the Tomorrow song, and being surprised to hear it in a blue walled episode.  I wonder if perhaps that person could be confusing 1336 with another episode.  Maybe there is another blue walled episode, other than 1336, that maybe has the Tomorrow song, but is incorrectly listed as Good Feeling.

I agree it makes little sense to edit 1336, since it last aired in 1988, but Tomorrow episodes allegedly last aired in 1991.  Did your friend get 1336 from FCI or did he tape it when it last aired in 1988?  Maybe they had expected to air 1336 in 1992, and didn't want to use the Tomorrow song, but later decided not to air it that year.

In any case, 1244 was not the last time Tomorrow was used.  It was definitely used in 1459, in addition to Good Feeling.  Also, the University of Pittsburgh files are very unreliable when it comes to closing songs.  I wouldn't be surprised if 1244 has Good Feeling, or if some other post-1244 episodes have Tomorrow.  Again, this is likely due to episodes that were shot out of order and/or were reshot or edited.

I thought that I had read somewhere that when 1636 first aired, it had a flashback to a 1970 episode (1120, I think) that had raccoons dancing to the Tomorrow song, and that in later reruns, the Tomorrow song was removed.  But I mentioned that on the Yahoo board, and nobody seemed to think that was correct.  That would make sense, since 1636 first aired in 1991, just after the last pre-79s with the Tomorrow song.  Interestingly, 1636-1640 was the first post-75 week other than Conflict to stop airing, and it stopped airing several years before any others, so arguably, that's another "banned" week.  It's interesting how there are so many mysterious xx36-xx40 weeks.

[JCostaThePro]

If your friend has the outro, then I assume he also has the entire episode?  Or does he only keep outros?

Nope, just the outro. But that's alright for me, because i'm interested in the outro music to any MRN episodes. In any case, it was just a short audio recording, probably back when it last aired in 1988.

[JCostaThePro]

Or does he only keep outros?

Sadly, you're wrong yet again. Apparently, i'm the only-known neighbor who does the outro music-collecting around here. There are a lot of people who collect episodes themselves thankfully, but i have as yet to come across anyone else besides myself who has a collection of MRN outros. If there is such person, the only digital (or semi-digital) episodes he/she has access to are the 26 available to watch for free on PBS Kids' website. Every other episode in the series has to either be paid for (not that the prices are all that ridiculous, but still...) or traded with another person's copy. Not just pre-79s, but even the modern era.

I was lucky to have come across several awesome MRN outros of varying quality from various neighbors, as well as at least a few from my own tapes. I've been trying to find someone who has a collection of said MRN segment too, but no luck. I'd love to hear more pre-79 outros, especially if anyone has any of the ones Tim has heard (i.e., 1111, 1350, ect.) as well as at least any of 76 modern episode outros i'm missing (i.e., 1615, 1625, ect.), but again, i'm thankful for what i have as of now. John Costa was just awesome.

BTW, what do you think about what i said about 1703?

[mitsguy2001]

Or does he only keep outros?

Sadly, you're wrong yet again. Apparently, i'm the only-known neighbor who does the outro music-collecting around here.

You contradicted yourself.  In Reply #18,  you said that your friend has only the outro.

BTW, what do you think about what i said about 1703?

I honestly don't have any comments on it.

[JCostaThePro]

Oops, you're right! I didn't mean to do that. It's just that 1336 was one of the few he had of just the outro music rather than the whole episode. But i don't think he's as big a collector of the outro music as i am because he had 1077-1079 and 1456-1458, but they didn't end with the outro music (though that couldn't be helped; nearly no one had any idea those episodes were gonna last-air).

[JCostaThePro]

I remember reading that some early color episodes had new footage dubbed in - namely, on reruns of one 1969 episode demonstrating ear protectors at an airport, you see a United Airlines logo that wasn't introduced until 1973.   (EDIT: I think the episode in question is actually 1121 from 1970.)

Of course, since Tim has the edited version replete with Trolley closing ID at the end, we can't really tell for sure what was removed. To be honest, while i don't doubt this episode was edited (since it has an airport clip with the 1973 United Airlines logo), what i do doubt is that whatever was removed was offensive. Remember, they edited alot of pre-79 episodes for when 1456-1460 premiered/the "pre-79" run ended, which means that not everything they "removed" was offensive. I'm guessing whatever was removed was either an extended clip or was just outdated (since this was reran 6 years later, 3 years after UA started using that logo).

1326, 1409 and 1434 all feature films of children playing while Rogers is singing (or John Costa is playing) a certain song, but since they're identified in the closing credits, they obviously weren't absent when they premiered. If the films were editions, they wouldn't have mentioned them in the credits. If anything was modified for those episodes, it was probably just the addition of the trolley ID at the end (remember, those served a purpose: they showed viewers the episode number and the additional sponsors that were there at the time they were reran i.e., CPB on 1969-1970 episodes; if it was 1456-1460 or anything from the 1975 season, there was no sponsors at all).

[mitsguy2001]

I remember reading that some early color episodes had new footage dubbed in - namely, on reruns of one 1969 episode demonstrating ear protectors at an airport, you see a United Airlines logo that wasn't introduced until 1973.   (EDIT: I think the episode in question is actually 1121 from 1970.)

Of course, since Tim has the edited version replete with Trolley closing ID at the end, we can't really tell for sure what was removed. To be honest, while i don't doubt this episode was edited (since it has an airport clip with the 1973 United Airlines logo), what i do doubt is that whatever was removed was offensive. Remember, they edited alot of pre-79 episodes for when 1456-1460 premiered/the "pre-79" run ended, which means that not everything they "removed" was offensive. I'm guessing whatever was removed was either an extended clip or was just outdated (since this was reran 6 years later, 3 years after UA started using that logo).

Based on the credits, obviously something involving Bob Trow was removed, and something involving Mr. McFeely was added.  It's also possible that the Mabel Mercer clip was added.

I agree that whatever was removed was probably not offensive, and was probably just outdated.  Or, another crazy theory: since we now know that Bob Trow was a smoker, maybe he was shown smoking in the original episode, and they wanted to delete that?

[MIKEBENNIDICT]

I remember reading that some early color episodes had new footage dubbed in - namely, on reruns of one 1969 episode demonstrating ear protectors at an airport, you see a United Airlines logo that wasn't introduced until 1973.   (EDIT: I think the episode in question is actually 1121 from 1970.)

I wonder why Rogers would feel a need to replace the film that showed the modern day UA logo as opposed to the one that was used at the time the episode was made?


It's not like the audience would have any clue.

[mitsguy2001]

I remember reading that some early color episodes had new footage dubbed in - namely, on reruns of one 1969 episode demonstrating ear protectors at an airport, you see a United Airlines logo that wasn't introduced until 1973.   (EDIT: I think the episode in question is actually 1121 from 1970.)

I wonder why Rogers would feel a need to replace the film that showed the modern day UA logo as opposed to the one that was used at the time the episode was made?


It's not like the audience would have any clue.

I'm thinking that the editting of that episode has nothing to do with the UA logo.  Remember, Mabel Mercer (a singer that Betty Aberlin was friends with) and David Newell appear in the episdoe but were not credited, while Bob Trow was credited in the episode but did not appear in the version that Tim saw.  That implies that there were likely several other edits too.  A crazy theory that I have is, since we know that Bob Trow was a smoker, and smoking wasn't as big a deal in 1970 as it is now, maybe there was a clip with Bob Trow that maybe showed him smoking, or maybe showed an ash tray or a pack of cigarettes in the background.  Remember, according to Tim, Episode 1014 (last aired Dec. 22, 1983) showed a construction working smoking.  Maybe the version of 1014 that Tim saw wasn't the version that aired in 1983, or maybe 1121 was edited some time after 1983, for either its 1986 or 1989 airing.

I often wondered if maybe 1036-1040, 1051-1055, 1056-1060, or 1071-1075 could have been banned due to characters smoking that would have been impossible to edit, since they were in scenes that were too integral to the plot.  But probably not, since when Tim reviewed those episodes, he mentioned nothing about smoking, and I suspect he would have mentioned it if he noticed it.

[MIKEBENNIDICT]

I think you're totally off.

Since Mr. Rogers never smoked I highly doubt he would ever want anyone who smoked off set to do so on the show.

That just doesn't make sense.

Plus even in the late 60's early 70's they were beginning to say it was unhealthy.

[mitsguy2001]

I think you're totally off.

Since Mr. Rogers never smoked I highly doubt he would ever want anyone who smoked off set to do so on the show.

That just doesn't make sense.

Plus even in the late 60's early 70's they were beginning to say it was unhealthy.

Even if my smoking theory is wrong, it was clear that a scene involving Bob Trow was removed, and replaced by the video with the UA logo.

In any case, I was thinking that maybe it had a candid photo of Bob Trow working, and even if he wasn't actually smoking, maybe an ash tray was shown on his desk.  You are wrong if you say that Fred never showed anybody smoking, since Tim said that 1014 showed a construction worker smoking, and he has a picture to prove it.  Keep in mind that even though during the 60s and early 70s they knew smoking was bad for you, most people during that era smoked anyway.  I'm sure that Betty Aberlin, Bob Trow, and Johnny Costa weren't the only smokers on the MRN cast.  During that era, smoking was probably seen as no different from how ice cream eating is viewed today.  Just because Fred didn't smoke doesn't mean that he wasn't going to show people smoking.

This reminds me of a thread from many years ago on the Yahoo board where I mentioned that I was surprised that when Fred hired Betty that he hired a smoker, especially for a role that would require a lot of singing.  But then somebody pointed out that it was probably hard to find a non-smoker back then.  Similarly, if MRN was being casted today, whoever was cast in Betty's role probably would not be a smoker, but would probably eat ice cream.

[MIKEBENNIDICT]

But that was a film on Picture-Picture.

Plus people still smoke now and even well known singers were known to smoke.

I don't know if anyone on his  staff made the films or he hired a company to make them but perhaps he wouldn't gone out of his way to edit out such stuff especially if it was a company he and his staff hired to make the films.


As for the neighbors who smoked do you honestly expect Fred to hire people who didn't smoke or drink?

I'm sure he figured not everyone you meet in life is gonna follow your values and live the life you do so to hire people on such a basis is ridiculous and he probably would of agreed with me.



Now if someone was a full blown alcoholic and drug user he probably wouldn't of hired them to begin with if he knew about their problem or if they developed such a problem later on he might of convinced them to get help and fire them if they wouldn't.

He probably wouldn't of wanted people on his show addicted to that stuff knowing it might of caused his show problems if somebody on his show was arrested for something involving substances like that.

Also while I read about the Laser pointer being edited out and while I'll have to read though more of these posts, I can't see how they would of been able to do a whole lot of editing on the show.


It's not like Sesame Street where you can easily do so since it's a show that has so many segments unlike MRN which was generally in the TV house with the exceptions of trips to Make Believe and trips to his neighbors homes or businesses and let's just say Joe Negri or Betty have some performer at their places  and they keep asking for royalties for that appearance?

If whatever exists in that episode get taken out what are they gonna replace it with?

[mitsguy2001]

I think that you might be misunderstanding what I am trying to say.  In 1121, there was obviously a scene involving Bob Trow that was removed for whatever reason.  Maybe it was a Picture Picture film.  I don't know.  I just offered speculation that maybe Bob Trow was smoking in the scene that was cut.  Just speculation.  But there was obviously some reason to remove it.  Smoking was more common in 1970 and was more acceptable in 1970 than it is now.

Yes, I am aware that people still smoke.  But not as many as in 1968.  And yes, I am aware that well known singers smoke.  My opinion of smoking isn't relevant here.  Betty said that Fred expected her to act in character even off camera, and expected her to get rid of her cigarette if a kid saw her.  If that was going to be that big a deal to Fred, I'm surprised he didn't seek out a non-smoker.  But, as we agreed, it was probably harder to find a non-smoker in 1968.  Today, if Fred was that concerned about smoking, he would have hired a non-smoker.

In an interview, Betty Aberlin admitted that she used drugs.  I have no idea whether or not Fred was aware of that or not.  But it seems that her drug use wasn't really causing any problems.

As for Episode 1696, when they had to remove the laser pointer scene, they completely reshot the scenes in Fred's television house.  I have been told that the music was clearly Michael Moricz's music rather than Johnny Costa's music, since it was re-shot after Johnny Costa had died (but he was alive when 1696 was originally shot).

It would be much more difficult to re-shoot an older episode, since then Fred and the other cast members would have been more noticeably aged.  The only way would have been to either replace it with a picture picture video (such as the one with the newer UA logo) or replace it with a flashback to an old scene, such as the Mabel Mercer clip.