I’ve observed this dozens of times: Episodes of shows that are in syndication have scenes that were shown during their original network run edited out.
Tonights observation: King of the Hill. Hank catches a guy trying to hotwire his truck. Hank places him under citizens arrest. When the perp says he can’t do that hank says he has the right to. Then the scene cuts to a court room.
In the original network version Hank says “I also have a right to kick your ass, which your father obviously forgot to do!” (or something close to that).
I’ve observed many shows that have good scenes like that edited in syndication.
Oh, and you think it’s bad with recent shows. At least the time difference between the original and the sydicated is pretty close (and, afaik, the cuts were done by the original production company preparing the show for syndication). Older shows had fewer commercials during their original run, so have had even more of the material cut to fit current time slots, and it’s been done in multiple steps. First by the production company when it went into syndication, then by the networks / tv stations that are airing the show (and they don’t spend a heck of a lot of time worrying about "artistic integrity :)).
I’ve seen episodes of MASH where the whole secondary storyline (they have a name for that but I can’t recall what it is - the B storyline?) is totally gone, except for some line or two at the end which now makes no sense because they’re talking about things the viewers didn’t even see happen. :rolleyes:
The practice is a minor nuisance, but sometimes it creates a pleasant effect. For example, I know most Simpsons episodes fairly well from their syndicated versions. When I buy these episodes on DVD, I often get treated to quick throw-away lines that I haven’t already heard before. These lines are never central to the plot, main or sub, but they’re usually pretty funny.
Thankfully, most DVDs feature the shows uncut, so we can see all the great stuff that was cut to make room for commercials. However, some studios, such as Carsey-Werner (The Cosby Show, Roseanne, etc.) use the syndicated versions on the DVDs.
The second season DVD set of Roseanne made a big deal about using the full, original network cuts; they got a lot of crap for putting out the edited versions on the first season set, and must have taken notice.
