TVLand has shown several rotations of “The Munsters” since they picked up the series last fall.
However, one episode, “Herman’s Peace Offensive” has not been shown (unless it aired on the Munsters Fandemonium weekend last year).
There are so few episodes that it recycles every three months or so–and not once has it been shown.
Any ideas on why???
In a related note, one episode of the “Emergency!” series, “The Firehouse Quintet” ((about a basketball game) was never shown on TVLand because the claimed that their only copy of it was in such poor condition that they (TVLand) it was not of broadcast quality–and to their knowledge there is no broadcast quality copy available.
Getting way O/T but Mr. Blue Sky is correct. “Muzak” is a name of a company and a protected trademark. Aside from the fact that the ep of Barney Miller cast prerecorded background music like that provided by Muzak in a bad light, allowing “Muzak” to be used as a term for “canned music in general” on a nationally broadcast TV program that was going to be repeated countless times would result in genericide (i.e., the use of “Muzak” to describe pre-recorded music would become so common that it could no longer be protected as a trademark). It might have been petty of Muzak to get after Barney Miller for the use of the company’s name and cowardly of ABC to cave in and bleep out “Muzak” on all subsequent repeats but it had to be done or else “Muzak” would’ve suffered the fate of such formerly protected trademarks as nylon, yo-yo, escalator, and corn flakes.
Is that the only episode that they haven’t aired? I seem to recall that when stations “buy” reruns of a show, they seldom buy all of them, and sometimes buy only the well known or popular episodes.
And so far as what stations buy (and *IANATVSP), here’s the way I understand it:
There are several different ways of buying programs. Series that have extraordinary numbers of episodes (over 150 or so) usually end up with abbreviated packages. Programmers seem to think in six-month chunks (approximately 130 episodes), so it’s pointless (to them) to get a package with more since there’s a good chance at the end of six months they might want to swap something else in.
“Mannix,” for example, was on for 8 seasons (about 200 episodes). The normal syndication package does not include seasons 1, 8, and most of season 7.
The normal “My Three Sons” package (out of over 300) are the ones with Uncle Charley (not “Bub”), and without Steve’s love interest (Beverly Garland).
The “Gunsmoke” package (out of a total of something like 600 episodes!) normally shows only the color one-hour episodes.
But series that don’t have significantly more than that 130 magical number usually show the entire run. One notable exception, though, is “Twilight Zone,” which lacks two episodes from its original run.
As for the BARNEY MILLER ep, Ron Glass’s character referred to the “canned music” producer as “The Muzak Man” and “Muzak” was bleeped. Not just in reruns, but when the ep originally aired. In the story, the producer was adding subliminal messages into the music (along the lines of “Don’t shoplift”).
Maybe this is an Urban Legend but I had heard that if you want to show Perry Mason there is one episode that is not available and must be ordered separately. It’s the one and only episode where Perry loses the case.
(Way OT again.) The Muzak company can’t really do that much to prevent individuals from using “muzak” as a general term for pre-recorded music in private conversations (and on message boards) except by maybe dissuading people by way of an ad campaign like Xerox successfully did years ago. (Xerox used to have such a near-monopoly on copy machines that the noun “xerox” was used to describe all copy machines and “to xerox” was used as a verb meaning “to copy.”) The Barney Miller use was different because it was on a popular TV show seen by millions of people. Had the Muzak company let that go by without objection, some competitor in the pre-recorded music field could later use the ep as evidence of how the term “muzak” had lost its distinctiveness as a trademark and was thus not entitled to protection under the law. Any company providing pre-recorded music could then use the term “muzak” thereby costing the Muzak millions in dollars from the lost value of its “Muzak” trademark as a way to identify and distinguish it services from those of its competitors. (Not that I’m sympathetic in any way to the plight of the Muzak company.)
So ends todays lesson in Intellectual Property. Carry on with the original topic.
BTW kingpengvin, NDP does not stand for the party that was known for Ed Broadbent and Bob Rae. It’s an acronym for Nom De Plume.
I don’t know about it being ordered separately, but you’re referring to “The Case of the terrified Typist,” in which Perry’s client is convicted at the beginning of the episode. Apparently, according to this Web site promoting a book about the show, it was a major publicity stunt to start the sixth season (predating the hoopla over “Who Shot J.R.?”) by several decades.
The page also mentions two other instances in which Mason “lost” cases.
OK, since I posted this question, I’ve discovered that TVLand has its own message boards, and this question has come up a lot of times there. Here is someone asking the question, with a response by an administrator.
Well, the mod on that board obviously doesn’t want to go into the reasoning about what’s so inappropriate about “Herman’s Peace Offensive”, but can I ask about it here?
Has anybody actually seen this episode? Can you give me a synopsis? What’s in it “other than just fighting” which would cause TVLand so much heartburn?
pesch: I remember seeing that episode when I was a little kid. Perry keeps on digging and, by the time the credits roll, proves that she was framed. So his record is intact.
There is a different “Barney Miller” episode where some words have been edited out. It involved a Vietnam War protestor (who had gone on to protest something else I believe) who was arrested and kept telling Wojo that the war was fought for “Dow Chemical” and some other company.
The names of the companies were deleted when the episode was aired. I don’t think I’ve seen it in reruns.
