16mm Film

Posts Tagged ‘pilot’

A compilation of alternate and trimmed footage from “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. Unlike “The Cage”, this second pilot still remains unreleased in its original form. The main differences with the broadcast version include a different opening narration by Captain Kirk and Quinn Martin-style captions at the beginning of each act. This reconstruction combines shots from the final cut and mixes them with the unaired sequences taken from a poor quality source. Gene Roddenberry often brought along a copy of this Second Pilot with him, whenever attending Science Fiction conventions in the late ’60s. A 16mm print of it still exists within the archives of the Smithsonian Institution and occasionally gets shown at Star Trek cons today. The purpose of this video is to highlight differences between versions. There were no changes in story structure, just presentation style. An interesting curio for the fans.

One of the earliest surviving “live” sitcoms of the 1950′s is Wally Cox’s “Mister Peepers”. The show aired on NBC from 1952 to 1955. Unlike “I Love Lucy” which was shot on film, “Mister Peepers” was aired live and exists today because it was saved via the kinescope process (basically, putting a 16mm camera in front of a TV monitor and filming the screen). Due to the nature of the show and the way it was saved, the picture quality is not that amazing. (But, its historical value as one of the earliest TV series still available to see today makes up for this!) What we have here (in four parts) is the original unaired pilot for the series (circa early 1952). (Look for a young Walter Matthau as the coach!) Unlike the aired episodes, there is no audience, so the scenes seem rather quiet. This series is very low-key and probably will seem quaint and rather boring to those folks used to what passes for entertainment today. But, as the series progresses, you tend to find yourself rooting for Robinson Peepers, as he genuinely is a nice guy! (BTW, if you like the show, you really should buy the two volumes of episodes out on DVD. About half the series has been released so far, and more support might get the rest of it released!)

One of the earliest surviving “live” sitcoms of the 1950′s is Wally Cox’s “Mister Peepers”. The show aired on NBC from 1952 to 1955. Unlike “I Love Lucy” which was shot on film, “Mister Peepers” was aired live and exists today because it was saved via the kinescope process (basically, putting a 16mm camera in front of a TV monitor and filming the screen). Due to the nature of the show and the way it was saved, the picture quality is not that amazing. (But, its historical value as one of the earliest TV series still available to see today makes up for this!) What we have here (in four parts) is the original unaired pilot for the series (circa early 1952). (Look for a young Walter Matthau as the coach!) Unlike the aired episodes, there is no audience, so the scenes seem rather quiet. This series is very low-key and probably will seem quaint and rather boring to those folks used to what passes for entertainment today. But, as the series progresses, you tend to find yourself rooting for Robinson Peepers, as he genuinely is a nice guy! (BTW, if you like the show, you really should buy the two volumes of episodes out on DVD. About half the series has been released so far, and more support might get the rest of it released!)