TMS Air Dates on Muppet Wiki

[David French]

Last year I began adding the US and UK airdates for almost every TMS episode (I got halfway through Season Four). These dates have now been taken down with the main reason being along the lines that because TMS was a syndicated show the dates were "confusing" and probably didn't need to be included.

However, I disagree with this; I think it's ludicrous if Muppet Wiki excludes the airdates for arguably *the* most important Muppet series of all, but has them for every other Muppet series. I got the US and UK airdates from two different sources, the best one being Alex Taylor's guide - http://epguides.com/muppetshow/grid.txt . As I've explained in the TMS entry on Muppet Wiki, there was no complete networking of the independent stations in the UK when TMS first aired. The Midlands region was the first to air the series (this was ATV's own network) and it was these airings that I based the UK dates on. As for the US dates, most guides go for the New York dates and that is what I used.

I've posted this here on Muppet Central as I would like to get the opinions of other users - do you agree with me that the airdates for each TMS episode should be listed on Muppet Wiki or not? Why or why not?

 

[frogboy4]

I'm completely behind you on the matter. Who makes this sort of choice for the Wiki? I'll lend whatever kind of support if it helps. I would never doubt your expertise in such a matter.

UK and US airdates are important for TMS seeing that it was primarily an American program shot it Britain. The syndication aspect gets tricky, but first airdate works for me in that situation.

 

[Boober_Gorg]

When I first saw the airdates provided for the Don Knotts episode on the Wiki, it said the episode aired in February 1977 and the production date was May 1977, which confused me. I started that discussion on the episode's talk page by asking for clarification on this, but I didn't look at the grid until after the other admins made the decision to remove the airdates. According to the grid, the Wiki should have said February 1978 instead of '77.

The moral: It helps to pay attention to typos.

 

[Beauregard]

Hmm...I would certainly say that it is important to have the original air dates as well as the production dates on there. I've looked them up many times to find out when certain characters first premièred upon the silver-screen. Anything I can do to help get the dates back on Wiki?

 

[Boober_Gorg]

Any edits made in the past can be restored by accessing each Wiki page's history.

 

[Aleal]

As an admin at Muppet Wiki, I don't think it's ludicrous to exclude dates for a syndicated series (but my opinion isn't why the change was made anyway, another user took the initiative to edit the affected pages). That's commonly done (the only reason it crops up for "Muppet Show" is it's the only major Muppet/Henson series to debut in syndication, whereas the network shows have specific airdates that applied to all or nearly all markets and can be traced in a clear and easy manner). Noting the dates somewhere in the article with specific info about the specific region, now that makes sense, but it's not precisely fair to prioritize New York or LA or anything since that is arbitrary and not representative or factual if the date is in the box in a way as to imply it aired everywhere in the US on that day. As far as ATV goes, that's a separate issue, so if you have more knowledge or data on that, those could probably go back in (in cases like that, going with the parent network/channel's dates certainly makes sense). But really David, these are arguments you should be making on Muppet Wiki. That's what the talk pages are for.

I can understand feeling annoyed and frustrated, but if you look at the discussion, it's also clear why others were baffled and confused by a practice which was both inconsistent across pages, never fully explained in edit summaries or talk pages and so on (nothing indicated that you were going by New York dates, for example), and where it was difficult to see what your source was. For syndicated series, it's typical to omit dates entirely (as reference books on the Disney syndicated cartoon packages and Hanna-Barbera do, or any other syndicated series, unless there was a clear syndication order which is confirmed to have been adhered to in all or at least most markets), since there's seldom any master date and it's hard to track down. So it's nothing personal, David, and nobody's trying to attack you or your work, but if you want to change something on Muppet Wiki, discuss it on Muppet Wiki (I only stumbled on this because I have Google send me alerts related to the Wiki), and see what the consensus is. Thanks!