Help Save British Fraggle Rock Episodes

MuppetDanny

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One of the episodes will be the Preachification of Convincing John. I'll have details on the other soon.
Thanks for the update, An episode that is not from the 12 shows that were released on DVD:excited: Any info on the other episode?

Fingers crossed these will be the UK versions and if it is the UK version, we will have an upgrade copy "Preachification of Convincing John".
 

johnpeters999

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Thanks for the update, An episode that is not from the 12 shows that were released on DVD:excited: Any info on the other episode?

Fingers crossed these will be the UK versions and if it is the UK version, we will have an upgrade copy "Preachification of Convincing John".
There more than just 12 master copies, BFI hold 11 more master beyound those 12 dvd.

It wont be, I wish it was but the chances are so slim, we would have heard about a missing episode turning up :frown:

It does seem it will be from the USA, why could there not have used Capture the Moon.
 

anathema

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The BFI actually have 17 episodes which haven't been released on DVD. 'Preachification' isn't one of them, sadly, although it does still exist on VHS.
 

johnpeters999

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I hope your search will lead to ALL the tapes being found, saying that everyone will have to keep digging

Has anyone ever asked Scottish television? I know this is a long shot, but when nigel pickard went to work for Scottish ( well he never moved to Glasgow, STV just opened an office in Maidstone) I believe in 1995 when ever thing was moved up to Glasgow there must have taken the tapes with them of all the series there were making at the time, how 2, Art attack, etc Its was all EX TVS kids programmes. It possible the tapes could have went Glasgow for archive, of course STV never had any real reason to look in there warehouse have there?
 

anathema

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So far as we know, the ex-TVS tapes either remained in Maidstone or were sent to Leeds for storage. From there they appear to have been transferred to Disney in 2011, although I don't know whether they are physically still in the UK or were sent to the US.

It is possible that all 96 episodes still survive on broadcast-quality tapes, but it's by no means certain. I have an eye-witness account of tapes being thrown into skips when TVS closed down in the early 90s. We don't know whether these were the only copies or just duplicates, of course.

The bottom line is that unless the originals are still in the ex-TVS archive, and short of someone at Disney actually going through all the tapes we may never know, the best hope for recovering anything will be off-air recordings. As the majority of the episodes were only shown once, the chances of this are slim; nonetheless we do know of several dozen recordings, many of which are of episodes for which no broadcast tapes have been located.
 

johnpeters999

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Maybe someone at the BFI should ask Disney if the BFI could rack throw the tapes. Im sure of it the tape are still in the UK held at a warehouse in Ashford, under the lock and key of Disney.
 

anathema

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Do you actually have any reason to believe that, or is it just wishful thinking?
 

johnpeters999

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I do have reason to believe that the Disney tapes are in Warehouse in Ashford or somewhere in kent. I was on another forum, where there are also doing ALOT Of digging for another ITV company, Strangly TVS is not the only ITV station to see Archive go walkies , Anyways there was some talk about TVS etc and said the tapes are in Warehouse in Ashford. Kept asking where did stuff get moved from when there were doing up Maidstone studio... AS you said its all in the hands of Disney but the tapes are still in the UK, and Disney office in London VIA USA office.


It get WORSE in 2008 ( 5 years after takeover and IFE not seen the light of day) this was the official word from Disney, about another TVS show:

Please be advised that International Family Entertainment ("IFE") owns the episodes of "Catchphrase" (the "Series") that were broadcast on TVS. However, IFE will not be able to license to Challenge TV the right to exhibit.

I have no idea what that actually means, disney were still claiming to wash there hands of TVS, back a few years ago IFE was brought over in 2001 by disney and become part of ABC family channel as part of Disney, The takeover of the content was a different kettle of fish IE MTM was kept by Fox while everything else was just sold off.

This is what causing the utter gridlock, Disney at the top of the Tree, TVS archive is not, and comes under a sub group of another subgroup, of Disney.....

But those tapes are in kent I would not put a bet on as the odds would be so poor :stick_out_tongue: and if the BFI could get a good look around it might be able to found some gems!

what I still dont understand is that Disney in bed with Jim henson company etc via the connection with Muppets etc and it would be them if the UK clips turned up.

If you want I coudl give the email address for the Executive CounselThe WaltDisneyCompany and , I sure that man still works of them,...
 
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