It was a lonesome Christmas for me, as usual. Zero human interaction. The turkey was scrawnier than in the past. I had only enough white meat for two dinners. It was the only bird that I could acquire for a price comparable to what I used to pay. And now I have to purchase groceries or a December 27 dinner that used to be provided with turkey left-overs from Christmas Day.
On Christmas Day, I watched some of my usual selections these past several years. The Six Million Dollar Man- "The Deadly Replay". Indiana Jones and the Last Cusade. And a Webcast with Jerry Beck and George Feltenstein discussing the cartoons chosen to populate LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2. Here is that Webcast.
51 CARTOONS IN HD! LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2
Some observations and no criticisms (I promise, no criticisms). Mr. Feltenstein says that "Hyde and Hare" is a favourite of his, and Mr. Beck then offers a comment about the cartoon directors watching over one another's work and offering input, with a suggestion that Chuck Jones might have contributed to some of the character designs of the cartoon. Perhaps the look of the knuckle-dragging Hyde Bugs, as that is the image being shown whilst Messrs. Beck and Feltenstein are addresssing "Hyde and Hare". Earlier, with "A Bird in a Guilty Cage"'s mention, Mr. Beck acknowledges the popularity of Tweety-and-Sylvester in the 1950s, and lauds the cartoon series for its consistent high quality. Which gives to me hope that maybe, maybe, Sylvester-and-Tweety cartoons will, in COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 3, receive extensive representation, to clear the backlog of 1950s Tweetys as yet unreleased on digital videodisc in North America. And the comments on the inclusion of "Wise Quackers" with its, to some people, objectionable content, suggests that there is some hope of seeing one or two of the less than politically correct Bugs Bunnies released on digital home video media at last. I am hoping at least for "Horse Hare".
By my reckoning, there are only eleven cartoons from The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour- Season 1, yet to be released restored on either DVD or Blu-Ray. They are:
"Trick or Tweet"
"Tweet Dreams"
"The Slick Chick"
"Trip For Tat"
"Tweet and Sour"
"Horse Hare"
"Rushing Roulette"
"Apes of Wrath"
"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner"
"Tired and Feathered"
"Cats and Bruises"
It is my hope that VOLUME 3 will have on its first Blu-Ray platter every one of these. Yes, every one of them. "Horse Hare" included. Hope, I can do, as long as I am not lamenting or grousing or stingingly criticising if the hope is not met with reality in the cartoon selections for next COLLECTOR'S VAULT volume. I can also put forth a wish list, while emphasising that I am now (or will soon be) satisfied with what I have. I have the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour reconstructions, however poor the video quality may be for portions of them. I have every Looney Tunes DVD and Blu-Ray with cartoons unique to them. And I will have in High Definition, with COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2, the three cartoons most significant in my formative years. The completist in me will always crave more, however. I will indulge my cravings, but to a rigidly self-policed limit. No more agitating. No more editorialising against the choices made, or complaining about the degree and the speed of progress in bringing the cartoon catalogue to physical media.
Ad so, here is my wish list for VOLUME 3.
"Aqua Duck"
"A Bird in a Bonnet"
"Cats and Bruises"
"Dog Tales"
"Don't Axe Me"
"Fast Buck Duck"
"Feather Bluster"
"Horse Hare"
"Joe Glow, the Firefly"
"Mexican Cat Dance"
"Nothing But the Tooth"
"Pappy's Puppy"
"Rushing Roulette"
"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner"
"Saps in Chaps"
"The Shell-Shocked Egg"
"The Slick Chick"
"Sport Chumpions"
"Three's a Crowd"
"Tired and Feathered"
"Trick or Tweet"
"Trip For Tat"
"Tweet and Sour"
"Tweet Dreams"
"What's My Lion?
"Design For Leaving" (bonus)
"The Iceman Ducketh" (bonus)
Second Blu-Ray disc:
"Apes of Wrath"
"Bacall to Arms"
"Bad Ol' Putty Tat"
"Big House Bunny"
"Bunker Hill Bunny"
"Bushy Hare"
"The Ducksters"
"The Film Fan"
"Foxy By Proxy"
"Hare We Go"
"Have You Got Any Castles?"
"The Hole Idea"
"Kit For Cat"
"Lighthouse Mouse"
"Lumber Jerks"
"Mutiny On the Bunny"
"The Prize Pest"
"Putty Tat Trouble"
"Scrambled Aches"
"There They Go-Go-Go!"
"Tick Tock Tuckered"
"Tweety's S.O.S."
"Two Scent's Worth"
"Weasel While You Work"
"Dime to Retire" (bonus)
"Daffy's Inn Trouble (bonus)
I also hope that eventually the remaining Tweety cartoons since the early 2000s only on DVD via the the Japanese I LOVE TWEETY range of DVDs, will be on Blu-Ray in North America. So that those DVDs can be made obsolete. I would like to relieve myself of those DVDs. Those, and the Bugs and Daffy ones, HARE EXTRAORDINAIRE and FRUSTRATED FOWL, with the cropped-for-widescreen cartoons.
All for today, the twenty-seventh day of December of 2025.
Proceeding I do with still another incarnation of my Weblog. Previous incarnations of Kevin McCorry's Weblog are April 16, 2007-to-September 19, 2015, October 4, 2015-to-May 4, 2018, May 5, 2018-to-June 19, 2020, June 20, 2020-to-October 19, 2022, October 21, 2022-to-January 30, 2024, and February 3, 2024-to-November 13, 2025.
Today is Saturday, November 22, 2025.
In 1986, November 22 was a Saturday. I remember seeing "Tree Cornered Tweety" on The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show before going out on my delivery route for The Sunday Herald and encountering my friend, Joey, and my antagonist, Andrew, in his company near the foot of Lilac Crescent. There was a slushy mix of frozen and liquid water on the street as I continued doing my deliveries less than pleased at having seen Andrew with Joey. I was looking forward to seeing and videotaping the Patrick Troughton Doctor Who story, "The Seeds of Death", that evening by way of MPBN. And it aired flawlessly, with my videotape recording free of any blemish.
It has been quite a week this week for Blu-Ray acquisition. It has felt like an old-fashioned McCorry Christmas, when I would be served with an abundance of home video material, or some other vehicle for provided works of imagination for which I yearned to have ownership, to savour over many hours and days. BLAKE'S 7- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 2 arrived at my door on Monday afternoon. I had only delved into about one-third of its contents when, on Tuesday, The New Avengers was delivered when I was at work, at around 2 P.M.. And on Thursday, my replacement Planet of the Apes Blu-Ray was awaiting my return to home after work.
I will not be watching the last of these until I am finished viewing everything on the Blu-Ray discs for the first two, and The New Avengers is receiving higher priority than Blake's 7, as my interest in it is of an older vintage (and a vintage including the final year of second life era of most lofty esteem in which second season Space: 1999 was coming my way for the first time), and as the Blu-Ray discs for it are among the most magnificent of all of the digital videodiscs ever to come into my possession. Every episode is a revelation. A joy to behold. I have never before seen The New Avengers in so crisp, colourful, and detailed a state. As is known to probably every aficionado of the exploits of Steed, Gambit, and Purdey, the picture quality of the 1970s often fantastical espionage television series on DVD, using film-to-analogue-video sources from the 1990s with faults from videotape dropout (some of it screen-spanning), strange moire patterns, excesses of video noise, and what looked like a veil of haziness, was not of a desirable standard. Broadcasts of The New Avengers on Bravo! in Canada in the late 1990s were from those same sources in most cases, and in some from spliced-to-perdition, shorn of scenes, faded 16-millimetre film prints first used way back in 1977 and 1978 by CTV. While the filmed seasons of the 1960s Avengers have long revealed, through the 2000s, 2010s, and first half of 2020s, their gorgeous look by way of digital video transfers from 35-millimetre film, The New Avengers has long been relegated to rehash after rehash after rehash of those deficient 1990s analogue video renderings. For upwards of ten years, I tolerated A & E's DVDs of The New Avengers, which, in addition to the already above mentioned demerits, also suffered from image blurring on movement and shimmery aliasing due to PAL-to-NTSC conversion. A German DVD set offered a better quality, using film-to-analogue-video transfers of a newer variety. But with episode titles in German grafted onto all twenty-six entries of the television series. Since 2018, I have had the German DVD set. Which sometimes switches language from English to German in the middle of the episode, "Sleeper".
The New Avengers never looked impressive on DVD. To say the least. And the leap in quality for it from DVD to Blu-Ray could not be more pronounced than it so stunningly is. Nothing short of dazzling, is the look of the episodes. The detail, the depth of colour, the stability of image, the inky blacks, the pristine main titles and end credits. First episode that I watched in the Blu-Ray set, the television series' opener, "The Eagle's Nest", "blew me away" in first glimpses of the settings in its prologue. The grains of rock in the stone structure. The variations in the wood of a door. The grasses of a field. As the episode progressed, my eyes popped at the colours of the cars. And I marvelled at the minute indentations and droplets of water so clearly visible now on Purdey's wet suit, every individual hair on Joanna Lumley, every pore, every wrinkle, on Peter Cushing's face, and the text on the truck used to abduct Dr. Von Claus (Cushing) that had hitherto always been blurry. The stark reds and shiny greys and deep blacks on the Nazi uniform of Father Trasker (Derek Farr). Purdey's luscious ocean green jumpsuit, with Ferrari red boots, as she is doing ballet moves whilst felling the "bad guys" with kicks and punches. The gold paint on the crashed German aeroplane beneath green leafy camouflage. It is a magnificent triumph in making a near fifty-year-old work of television look as striking as could possibly be imagined. And in so enormous a surpassing over a DVD that, by DVD standards, was woefully sub-par.
Similar experiences were to be had on all other episodes that I have since watched. Comprising most of Season 1 and some of Season 2. The golds and reds in "The Midas Touch". The detail in the intensity in Vladek Sheybal's eyes as his Zacardi character is talking to Purdey in "Cat Amongst the Pigeons". All of the surrealistic statuary and instances of scribbled graffiti in the "shooting gallery" in "Target" and the bright pink of Purdey's clothing as she is moving about in said "shooting gallery". Even "Gnaws", with its dimly lit grey tunnels, is a rewarding viewing experience, the sewers-based action much more vivid, much easier to follow, than before. And the atmosphere of terror in those austerely grey environments unhampered by old problems in determining what is what. The greys are most impressive when juxtaposed with the Russian agent (Jeremy Young)'s red garment on which there is not a trace of colour imperfection of the sort that was normal for reds on analogue NTSC video. Second Season's "Obsession" and "Trap" which looked poorly saturated on the German DVDs, and the latter very blurry and grainy, are perfect on Blu-Ray. Flawless.
And it is not only the episodes that bring delight. Bonus features are plentiful. Commentaries. Episode introductions. Even documentaries of substantial length on the cultural impact of The New Avengers, the restoration of the twenty-six episodes, and especially of the main title sequences on them, and Joanna Lumley (whose involvement in the Blu-Ray set is extensive) and her work on characterisation of Purdey. There is an hour-long archival interview with director Ray Austin, which is of great interest to me not only because he contributed to The New Avengers and its Steed-and-females predecessor of the 1960s, but also due to him having been among the directing talent on Space: 1999. Alas, Space: 1999 does not receive mention. Though Martin Landau does. Mr. Austin doubled for him on Hitchcock's North By Northwest, as Mr. Austin states in the interview. Caroline Munro provides an introduction and audio commentary for "Angels of Death" in which she guest-starred, and is among the numerous persons interviewed for the aforementioned documentary on cultural impact. She is best known for having been a Bond girl (a "baddie" one) in The Spy Who Loved Me, and for leading the acting cast in Roger Corman's Starcrash, as the heroic Stella Star. She says that she had returned to England after filming Starcrash in Italy, prior to her doing "Angels of Death". She also had an appearance in Space: 1999 in a still photograph being looked upon by Tony and Alan in Command Centre in episode "The Seance Spectre". Both Ms. Lumley and Ms. Munro have withstood the ravages of time very, very well. I watched "Gnaws", with a video commentary involving Jonathan Wood and Nicholas Briggs, the video commentary in a box at top right of screen, and enjoyed it. Numerous astute observations on the choices made in the production, and many an interesting anecdote. And I found the documentary on restoration, hosted by Mr. Wood, very informative, very gratifying. It pleases me enormously to finally see The New Avengers receiving loving attention by curators of British archive television, and to note that there was some painstaking work undertaken to bring it to High Definition looking as fetching as possible with all of the twenty-first-century technology at the disposal of said curators. And I did not know that early computer-based live-action-and-drawings "morphing" techniques were employed in the creation of the lion coat of arms main opening. I hugely appreciate that enlightenment conveyed unto me.
I shall be spending this weekend completing my watching of the New Avengers Blu-Ray box set, and bringing my viewing of BLAKE’S 7- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 2 nearer to completion. I must note that I have found the previously mentioned glitch in the new Blake's 7 visual effects, is visible on my Blu-Ray player. It is in episode "Hostage". The screen expands from 4:3 to 16:9 for several video frames. I sigh. It is doubtful that the BBC will address this fault in the Blu-Ray release of its second most popular science fiction/fantasy opus.
There is no good news to share as regard to fortunes for this Website. It continues to wallow in its lowest numbers ever for longer-than-thirty-seconds visits.
All for today.
Monday, November 24, 2025.
In 1977, the twenty-fourth of November was a Thursday. There had been an overnight snow. No more than five centimetres of "the white stuff". My parents that morning spoke of the new friend, David B., I had gained the afternoon before, asking me if I expected that he would "hang out" with me in the school yard. I was unwilling to entertain any hopes for that, and right I was. I was as alone that morning as I awaited entry to Park Street School, as I had been in the 1977 September, October, November school days previous. David and I did "meet up" after school for awhile. And I certainly remember being with him on the Saturday thereafter, as we were passing the hours in wait of the 6 P.M. telecast of Space: 1999's "End of Eternity" episode, which we would watch in our respective houses after dinner.
November 24, 1973 was a Saturday, and the one on which the episode of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour with cartoons "Pre-Hysterical Hare", "Tweet and Sour", "Whoa, Be-Gone!", "Hot Cross Bunny", "Muzzle Tough", "Bugs' Bonnets", and "Out and Out Rout", went out on the television airwaves in Canada on CBC Television, and the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, where I lived, deprived of it because our CBC affiliate, CKCD, had a non-operational transmitter tower at Upsalquitch. I was not to see that episode until the twenty-fifth of the following May.
Yesterday, the cartoon reviewer who this July gave a high rating to "Hyde and Hare", examined and evaluated the 1956 Tweety and Sylvester cartoon, "Tweet and Sour", one of my favourite cartoons of the Tweety-and-Sylvester oeuvre. It garnered a rather favourable standing from same reviewer and one of his colleagues. Here is that review.
Tweet and Sour (1956) Review: Sylvester and The Violin Factory Threat!
All together, now. "Listen, cat. Hands off of this bird. Do you want me to be made into violin strings?"
I love how Sylvester says that, and the timing of the iron-in-the-face gag that follows. Perfection.
It would be nice if "Tweet and Sour" were to receive a Blu-Ray release on LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2, following this quite positive review. It has not been on home video since the days of VHS videotape. One would think that it ought to be due for some presence in the field of the digital videodisc. Nothing new on the subject of LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2, by the way.
I completed my tour in High Definition of the world of The New Avengers this weekend. I finished my watching of first season with a string of episodes on Friday evening, and then committed my Saturday and Sunday to finishing Season 2, and the latter of these two undertakings, was not exactly a complete pleasure. I did not expect that it would be.
First season of The New Avengers had imaginative flair. It dabbled unapologetically in elements of the fantastical. Hitler in suspended animation in a monastery on a remote British isle. A drug that can simulate death. A double agent disabled and mutilated after being ambushed by Steed, Gambit, and Purdey, being turned into a robot man in his thirst for revenge. A scientist with a gold fetish seeking to sell to highest bidder for 24-Karat his creation of a man infected with, but asymptomatic of, every known deadly disease, and whose touch is lethal. A man who can direct birds to attack people. A radioactively mutated giant rat in the London sewer system. A near-instantaneous sleeping gas used by a band of robbers. A device that can transmit thoughts and even consciousness from a person's brain to another. Yes, first season had all of this. And its more realistic episodes had some inventive cinematography and creative witty banter to carry the viewer through them.
I do not know what happened behind the scenes with The New Avengers between its seasons. There was a definite shifting away in Season 2's first half-dozen episodes, from elements of the fantastical, and a steering of the writers more toward non-quirky, mundane espionage. Foreign agents scheming to "frame" Steed in some intrigue, to destabilise the British intelligence network. Or an attempt at "covering up" embezzlement on the part of a corrupt high official, by casting suspicion onto Steed. A narcotics smuggling network needing to be neutralised. Purdey's ex-lover intending to assassinate a Middle Eastern diplomat. The last of these is a highlight episode all the same, exploring the personal life of Purdey, flawlessly and affectingly executed by everyone in front of and behind the camera. And guest-stars Martin Shaw, an actor of gravitas who would later play Captain Scott in The Last Place On Earth. There is no doubt that first season of The New Avengers is the better half of the television show, certainly with regard to maintaining the Avengers flair of fanciful (i.e. less grounded in reality) concepts. And the three characters of Steed, Purdey, and Gambit shine so much better within stories with such concepts. Their banter is so much more amusing there, so much more fun. Maybe because actors and actress were themselves enjoying having fun with the quirkiness of the concepts.
Money became scarcer and scarcer as second season continued, and eventually, production had to move out of the U.K. to other countries, with financial backing by those countries, and using those other countries' resources. Those other countries being France and my native Canada.
The mid-to-late second season two-parter, "K is For Kill", is, in my estimation, the poorest of the New Avengers television series entries. Languid, padded pacing. Many protracted conversation scenes filmed and edited in a pedestrian manner; the French film crew clearly lacked the panache of their British counterparts. Humourless. The Steed, Purdey, and Gambit chemistry scarcely in evidence. Tiresome scenes of Russian soldiers firing machine guns at uninteresting or inconsequential characters. Music lacking the usual New Avengers pizzazz. And even the colour palette is dull. Russians in green or brown uniforms set against the green, yellow, and brown French countryside. No interesting guest stars. No one from Space: 1999 or other British productions of my keen acquaintance. Just French nobodies. Oh, we do have an appearance of Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) early in the first part, yes. By way of old footage from the 1960s Avengers. And someone doing a passable job of imitating her voice on the telephone. But it is just for purposes of padding. It does nothing to advance the leaden story plot. It is a gratuity for fans of Steed-and-Peel. Nothing more. And once our three heroes are in France, bored themselves and playing I-spy-with-my-little-eye to pass the time, the engagement of this viewer with the story becomes strained, and I would rather not continue.
The concept of Russian soldiers in suspended animation is Avengers-worthy, to be sure, but there is not enough story to be extracted from it to fill one hour of compelling television, let alone two. And just how many "old friends" does Steed have, anyway? And why must they always be introduced to be "killed off"? I am not a fan of the other produced-in-France episode, "The Lion and the Unicorn", either, even though it is written by Space: 1999 alumnus John Goldsmith, and features a long, rather exciting car chase in its prologue. It, too, becomes a bore and a chore to sit through, as soon as the scenes set in France begin. The final four New Avengers episodes, filmed and set in Canada, are more enjoyable. Avengers humour makes a comeback, the chemistry in the Steed, Purdey, Gambit trio returns, thankfully, and music and colours are back to being stimulating. There are numerous faces familiar to me as a Canadian, in the guest casts (and in "Complex!" there is Cec Linder from Goldfinger), and filmmaking style and pacing are back to what one had come to expect for The New Avengers. "Complex!" and "Forward Base" can compete with some of the best made-in-Britain episodes. "Emily" is rather an uninspired runaround, and taxes the patience for what seems like an eternity, but it has action (some) and humour in quantity sufficient to surpass the stultifying made-in-France yawners.
The Caroline Munro commentary on "Angels of Death" is beset with audio problems. The other commentaries, some of them audio, some of them video, are technically faultless. All are very enjoyable and informative. "Rounding out" the set are French and German main title sequences, some promotional films, and a documentary on stunt work in the television series. Very nearly an A-plus rating from me, for this box set. "Letting the side down" are cuts to "The Gladiators" (as aforementioned being during a fight scene) and "Faces" (Steed saying that his impostor is enjoying the wine cellar). And some flashes of unwanted colour over the shadows in the car in which Malov has brought the Cybernaut to abduct Professor Mason, in the second act of "The Last of the Cybernauts...??". And one or two scenes of excessive grain in "Three Handed Game". But this is definitely the best of the Blu-Rays of interest to me released this autumn.
I watched Frankenstein in the Dan Curtis Blu-Ray set with the audio commentaries activated, and discovered the audio commentary by Rodney F. Hill to be at least a second out of synchronisation with the video. Audio "mis-synchronisation" (whether or not that is a word, I am using it) is something that again and again plagues the Blu-Ray platters of Kino Lorber, and it just "smacks" to me of sheer carelessness every time that it is manifest (as on The Night Strangler and on the Ant and Aardvark cartoon, "Technology, Phooey"). But Kino Lorber can rest easy, for now, that it does not provide the most egregious example of out-of-synchronisation audio and video. That dubious distinction goes to the commentary on the pilot movie of The Incredible Hulk in Universal's Blu-Ray set of the complete television series of Bill Bixby's Banner and Lou Ferrigno's Hulk. And never is there a mea culpa and a Blu-Ray disc replacement programme.
These are my Website's visitor statistics for November.
And there it is. Twelve thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-five visits for thirty seconds or less. Amounting to 97.1 percent of my Website's traffic for the whole month. Web page visits by which people actually read what I have to say, and/or have a thorough perusal of the images, tally to not even 1 percent for each of the other durations. The highest number among those is for stays of at most fifteen minutes, and as little as five. This covers all Web pages, mind. And is usually a "hit" to only one Web page per visit. A visit to just one of my many Web pages. The Televised Looney Tunes Web pages. Including that for Bugs Bunny and Tweety (which receives the most traffic, most months). The articles on Tweety and Sylvester, "Hyde and Hare", and "Deconstructing" Bugs. The Littlest Hobo. Spiderman, whose titular character is a property of mainstream popular Marvel Comics. The Pink Panther. My tributes to Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob McKimson. The forlorn Space: 1999. Dallas. This Weblog. All of its incarnations. The seven eras in my life's story. All of that, and more. My university essay on The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is inexplicably more frequently visited than most of my other, more zealous efforts. Sustained time for reading and full image perusal only garnering a paltry 2.9 percent of all visits for usually just one "hit" for just one Web page. And let us remember that several of these "hits" are by me. These numbers are inflated somewhat by that.
And if the trend continues, I expect December to be even worse.
Okay. I will grant that my Website is ancient where Websites go. It is almost thirty years-old. It was mostly crafted, largely written nearly three decades ago, in the twentieth century. It hails from a time when Bugs Bunny and company had compilations of their cartoons on U.S. network television and on many an over-the-air local broadcaster. From a time when there was not as yet a Spider-Man theatrical movie "franchise" and people thought more of the 1960s Spiderman when the super-heroic web-swinger came into consideration. From a time when The Littlest Hobo was being run weekdays on both Showcase and CTV in Canada. From a time when the year, 1999, had not yet happened and Space: 1999 was not as yet completely "out of date", and when, for a day, September 13, 1999 was upon us as a reality. And when there were more people living of the older generations, for whom discourse on vintage entertainment and memory of life in the 1970s and 1980s, had value. And it was before "social media" became the dominant destination on the Internet for the vast majority of people. Times are different now. I grant all of this. But I have worked to keep my Website refreshed. I have been adding occasionally to my existing Web pages, and writing a Weblog entry once a week, on average. And people like the reviewer of the Warner Brothers cartoons to whom I have been Hyperlinking, far exceed, in just one day, the traffic that just one of my Web pages can hope to see in any given month. And considering the population of the planet, these Website visits can only be seen to be abysmally on the low side.
The ton of work that, in recent years, I put into, for example, the broadcast histories for Space: 1999. Hours and hours and hours of work. Does any of that meet with an uptick in my Website's traffic? No. I did same for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour and The Littlest Hobo. Did that lead to a boost in my Website's visits? No. It is true that I have pulled myself away from writing long Weblog spiels bemoaning the attitudes of Space: 1999 fans. I am not being particularly controversial lately on that subject or with regard to the selections of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Blu-Ray or DVD release. This much is certain. Maybe this is what is causing the diminishing of my Website readership. Maybe people want me going on rants on a regular basis. I am afraid that I cannot be obliging there. I am now close to turning sixty and would rather not be spending my hours of my increasingly valuable time on harsh, and futile, tangents. Life really is too short, and it is more abundantly clear to me than ever before, that I am hopelessly surrounded by people who fit the Non-Player-Character description. There is no "getting through" to those people. Nor is there any hope of growing an audience outside of the legions of those Non-Player-Characters. For even beyond that circle, the tendency is to disregard any alternative point of view. To bow to the opinion of the expressive majority that can never, ever be wrong (heaven forbid), and maintain that anyone thinking diffrently should either be "gaslit" into going along with the stream, or marginalised, ostracised. After decades of tiltling at windmills, I am exhausted. I am channelling my energies into pursuits like the broadcast histories and the acquiring and sharing of images of yesteryear. And I, frustratingly, am not succesing in growing my Website's profile from those. Nor from doing reviews on this Weblog, of recent Blu-Ray releases.
And this is where I am at in this, the most depressing time of year. Darkness. Cold. And nothing but bad news on the direction of my country and voter intentions therein. Friends on Facebook are not commnunicating. Thank goodness I did have some new Blu-Rays, however flawed in many cases, to watch in the past couple of months. But there is now nothing to expect in the parcel deliveries. No announcements as yet of anything definitely coming in early 2026. I am feeling the desolation of this time of year and the dire straits of life in my country, to the maximum. I wish that this Website could offer some solace. No. Just the opposite.
My replacement Blu-Ray of Planet of the Apes freezes in the exact same place. What are the odds of that? Is that where the layer change is (why there?)? Such could explain two Blu-Rays of the same title rotting in the same way. If that is the part of the Blu-Ray most likely to corrupt? Or to exhibit early signs of corrupting. Or maybe the encode of the Blu-Ray is particularly tricky for some Blu-Ray players? If it is, then it ought to be experienced by others- and look as I do, I can find no comments by anyone to this effect.
All for today, 1 December, 2025.
Saturday, December 6, 2025.
Fifty years ago today, on 6 December, 1975, Bugs Bunny had his final transmission on the airwaves of the CBC Television network, as half-hour Bugs Bunny Show airings, a thing on Saturdays since the previous September's premiere of Welcome Back, Kotter had heralded the end of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour on the CBC, were about to be superseded by Laurel and Hardy, and, not long thereafter, by The Lost Islands, with Space: 1999 several months away from its commencement as an attraction on full-network CBC Television.
And Bugs and company are now, today, potentially facing a termination no less devastating. News is that Warner Brothers, all of its divisions, its entire catalogue of entertainment properties, is in the process of being acquired by Netflix. I do not intend this to mean that Netflix is only gaining the distribution rights to Warner Brothers productions. No. Netflix will own outright everything under the Warner Brothers banner, to do with as it pleases. Rather like Disney's acquisition of everything FOX several years ago. And we have seen what that meant for FOX movies and television on physical media. With some notable exceptions like Star Wars, FOX productions ceased to have presence on Blu-Ray and DVD. As I have recently mentioned, the Planet of the Apes movies are no longer in print. And this is the norm across what was the FOX library.
There is much discussion now as to the implications of the "buy-out" of Warner Brothers by Netflix. Nobody knows for sure. Yet. But the very name of the Netflix company implies availability of "flicks", slang for motion pictures, on the Internet, which has for many years now been a Web "streaming" phenomenon. Netflix began as a distributor of movies on DVD to people on a rental basis (why anyone would pay to rent a DVD when he or she could quite affordably own it- and resell it if he or she saw fit to do so, was confounding to me at the time; still is) through the mail. And once broadband Internet had become proliferate and standard, the service model of Netflix was entirely Web "streaming". The head of Netflix is reportedly not supportive of physical media. At all. And the trend over the past ten years has been toward subscription to temporary provisions of Web "streamed" content, as various studios favour not allowing the public to personally possess indefinitely, permanently, any movie or television programme. Rather, have to pay per each viewing and be happy owning nothing. I feel sure that the jowled German octogenarian at Davos who lacks self-awareness to recognise that he looks and talks like a Bond villain, is blushing at this.
But I digress. What do I think Netflix gaining ownership of everything Warner Brothers means for the future for collectors of the cartoons of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies gang? The probability, by my reckoning, is that what has happened with the FOX library under Disney, will happen with the Warner Brothers vaults under Netflix. And we collectors had best brace ourselves for bad news. For not only will new releases of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies under COLLECTOR'S VAULT come to an end, and not only will the work on bringing The Bugs Bunny Show to Blu-Ray be dead in the water, but everything currently available will go out of print. If this is going to the case, then there is no longer any time for Messrs. Beck and Feltenstein to lose. The sale of Warner Brothers to Netflix will not be finalised until it receives government approval a year or two from now. The releases of the Warner Brothers cartoons onto Blu-Ray must be put back on the front burner now. This is a Red Alert, people. Put the subsequent volumes of COLLECTOR'S VAULT into commission now. While there is still time. All politically acceptable and releasable Bugs Bunnies remaining to be released. Release them in the next volume. Same for Daffy, Sylvester, Tweety (yes, all of those, including those only now available on DVD in Japan), Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Elmer Fudd. Put the full filmographies of all major characters onto digital videodisc post-haste. Concentrate on complete, or near complete (if there are concerns about political correctness), representation of all of the major characters on the latest two home video formats (Blu-Ray and DVD). And what is left of the minor characters or the "one-shots". Those, too. As a secondary consideration. Then, as a tertiary, everything else. Press the accelerator on The Bugs Bunny Show. And aim for a multitude of releases in 2026 before Netflix "puts" a forevermore "kibosh" on the home video collector.
It follows that I will be most displeased if the listed cartoons for COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 will consist largely of obscure 1930s material. And if plans for 2026 are again to focus mostly on Hanna-Barbera to the detriment of Bugs and company. First priority has to be the fullest possible release of the filmographies of the major characters. Bugs and the others. Let us have a complete, or as complete as possible, set of those. Collectors want complete sets, right? Is not such what collecting is all about?
While I still have money with value for purchasing power, I will buy the COLLECTOR'S VAULT volumes, and The Bugs Bunny Show. And multiple copies for "back-ups" in the event of defective Blu-Ray discs. We all must do this if the Blu-Rays will fall to out-of-print status, as they probably will, once Netflix has control of the Warner Brothers catalogue. Unless one fancies paying huge sums of money on eBay to "scalpers" for out-of-print material.
In other news, the BBC has announced that the next DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION box set, will be of Season 21. Peter Davison's last season. Containing his swan song, "The Caves of Androzani", his penultimate, "Planet of Fire", his only Dalek story, "Resurrection of the Daleks", his widely "panned" Silurian and Sea Devil story, "Warriors of the Deep" (which I have always liked, the maverick that I usually am), and his rather highly acclaimed "The Awakening" and "Frontios". Plus Colin Baker's first story, the much disappreciated (and rightly so) "The Twin Dilemma". Coming early next year. In March, some people are prognosticating. This box set will consist of a whopping ten Blu-Ray discs. Two for "Warriors of the Deep", two for "Resurrection of the Daleks" (I think), and a bonus Blu-Ray disc.
All for today.
It is now the fifteenth day of the snowy and cold December of 2025. Since Arctic air descended over most of North America early this month, and as it is persisting in Atlantic Canada with no end in sight, hope that winter of 2025-6 might be a mild one, is without much foundation. There are snowfalls every other day, and no melting in between. People wishing for a white Christmas are happy, for sure. I am not one of those people. I like going out for a Christmas Day walk on bare pavement, with greens and browns on either side of me. Walking briskly with no fear of slipping on any patches of ice.
Website updates. I have added writer Pat Silver to the In Memoriam section of The Space: 1999 Page. Pat Silver and her husband, the late Jesse Lasky Jr., wrote the screenplay for Space: 1999's first season episode, "The Full Circle". Now, the entire team of writers for first season Space: 1999 is deceased. Keith Miles, John Goldsmith, and Michael Winder of Season 2's writing talent (and I use that word, talent, unironically, by the way; they were talented) are still with us. As far as I know. I have added some text to The Space: 1999 Page to include mention of Jeffrey Morris' documentary, and I have expanded, in my Era 3 memoirs, my recall of the 1977 Remembrance Day weekend with my best friend, Michael, and our seeing Space: 1999- "Dragon's Domain", and improved upon an image of The New Avengers title card in my Era 2 memoirs.
I have not stopped looking into Space: 1999's showings on U.S. television back in its heyday. By way of newspaper television listings. Fifty years ago this month, viewers of television in North America were seeing the first repeats of Space: 1999 episodes. "Dragon's Domain" and "Death's Other Dominion" being the episodes most often having a December repeat. After three, four months on the television airwaves, Space: 1999 had established for itself a presence in the living rooms and dens of homes in most of North America. Alas, not the McCorry Douglastown house, as yet. But in the television markets wherein people were seeing Cellini fighting the one-eyed, tentacled people-eater, balding, bulbous-headed aliens declaring man to be "a plague of fear", Ian McShane as Anton Zoref freezing people at a touch, Cabot Rowland rapidly ageing into a steaming skeletal mass, and Julian Glover as Jarak in his Greco-Roman silver tights, Space: 1999 was the talk, as I understand it, of many a kitchen dinner table and school playground. But something happened. ITC executives were unsatisfied with the numbers on their spread sheets. Sir Lew Grade sometime in November informed Gerry Anderson and his newly hired American script editor, Fred Freiberger, that Space: 1999 would not go back into production. Anderson and Freiberger had to "come up" with a new angle, or twenty-four would be the final tally of Space: 1999 episodes filmed.
Here is a broadcast history for Space: 1999 in Miami, Florida on CBS-affilated WTVJ. After a series of dependable Wednesday evening broadcasts through autumn and early winter, the spectacular space television series was shifted to Friday nights, and with the provision of first-run episodes almost ended (with "Space Brain" being the outlier), Space: 1999 was subject to frequent preemptions before fading into oblivion in late summer. Second season would not be offered. One wonders why WTVJ pulled the proverbial plug on Space: 1999's reliable Wednesday time slot when it did. At a guess, dropping ratings. An attempt to address that with a move to Friday. Then, with new episodes not airing, ratings dropping again, WTVJ opting to air other programming on numerous occasions and then declining to renew its arrangement with ITC for another year. It would appear to me, from this case and numerous others, that network-affiliated U.S. broadcasters who acquired Space: 1999 in September of 1975, were not satisfied with the ratings numbers following some weeks of "heavy curiosity viewing" (to quote Starlog's Science Fiction Aliens), decided that the promise of the television series had not "panned out", and chose not to renew it for second season. So, how could second season have been the sole reason for Space: 1999's demise in the United States? When it had not aired even once on television stations like WTVJ, and Maine's WAGM and WABI, and Boston's WCVB? When television stations such as these had already lost confidence in Space: 1999 and chose not to exercise an option for a further year. It would appear that Space: 1999 was, in the U.S., mainly an independent television channel phenomenon for second season, on broadcsters like WLVI- Cambridge, WPIX- New York, KHJ- Los Angeles, WUAB- Lorain-Cleveland, WGN- Chicago, et cetera.
And I would be inclined to believe that the decisions by numerous network-affiliated television channels not to renew contract for a second year of Space: 1999, were to some significant extent a factor in the cancelling of Space: 1999 by Sir Lew Grade, Abe Mandell, and others, in October of 1976. It was not public reaction to "talking trees" or "bug-eyed" monsters with rubbery skin, or Stuart Wilson's costume as Vindrus that caused Space: 1999 to recieve "the axe" when it did, by "the suits" of the ITC offices. Those episodes had not aired yet.
Still, there was some consideration of a truncated third season accompanied by a "spin off" with Maya. So, there had to have been some recognition, however abortive, that Space: 1999 might yet be faring well enough in the run of second season, for a stay of its termination, for further episodes to go into production. Money was allocated for that potentiality. But the ITC brass judged that the money was better spent elsewhere, on properties that might garner better returns, on Return of the Saint, Raise the Titanic, or whatever. Was negative public reaction to second season involved there? I do not know, one way or the other. But there is no denying that first season did not fare as it had been hoped to do. It was not the unqualified success that its pundits like to all too obnoxiously proclaim.
But what does it matter what I say? The vaunted cosensus is that Fred Freiberger and "Year 2" killed Space: 1999, and this is all that matters, right?
Anyway, without further preamble, here is that WTVJ broadcast history.
WTVJ- Miami, Florida Broadcasts (1975-6) Wednesdays Select Station 4- WTVJ- Miami, Florida Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 10, 1975 4 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 17, 1975 4 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Sept. 24, 1975 4 "Death's Other Dominion" 7 P.M. Oct. 1, 1975 4 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Oct. 8, 1975 4 "Force in Life" 7 P.M. Oct. 15, 1975 4 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Oct. 22, 1975 4 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Oct. 29, 1975 4 "War Games" 7 P.M. Nov. 5, 1975 4 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M. Nov. 12, 1975 4 "Black Sun" 7 P.M. Nov. 19, 1975 4 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M. Nov. 26, 1975 4 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M. Dec. 3, 1975 4 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Dec. 10, 1975 4 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M. Dec. 17, 1975 4 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 24, 1975 4 "Ring Around the Moon 7 P.M. Dec. 31, 1975 4 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Jan. 7, 1976 4 "Earthbound" 7 P.M. Jan. 14, 1976 4 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M. WTVJ- Miami, Florida Broadcasts (1975-6) Fridays Select Station 4- WTVJ- Miami, Florida Date Channel Episode Airtime Jan. 23, 1976 4 "Breakaway" (R) 8 P.M. Jan. 30, 1976 4 "The Infernal Machine" 8 P.M. Feb. 6, 1976 4 "Missing Link" 8 P.M. Feb. 13, 1976 4 "The Last Sunset" 8 P.M. Feb. 20, 1976 4 "The Troubled Spirit" 8 P.M. Feb. 27, 1976 Preemption Mar. 6, 1976 4 "The Testament of Arkadia" 8 P.M. Mar. 13, 1976 4 "The Last Enemy" 8 P.M. Mar. 20, 1976 Preemption Mar. 27, 1976 4 "Force of Life" (R) 8 P.M. Apr. 3, 1976 4 "Alpha Child" (R) 8 P.M. Apr. 10, 1976 Preemption Apr. 17, 1976 Preemption Apr. 24, 1976 4 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 8 P.M. May 1, 1976 4 "Black Sun" (R) 8 P.M. May 8, 1976 4 "End of Eternity" (R) 8 P.M. May 15, 1976 Preemption May 22, 1976 4 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 8 P.M. May 29, 1976 Preemption Jun. 4, 1976 4 "Ring Around the Moon (R) 8 P.M. Jun. 11, 1976 4 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 8 P.M. Jun. 18, 1976 4 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 8 P.M. Jun. 25, 1976 Preemption Jul. 2, 1976 Preemption Jul. 9, 1976 Preemption Jul. 16, 1976 4 "The Last Enemy" (R) 8 P.M. Jul. 23, 1976 4 "Missing Link" (R) 8 P.M Jul. 30, 1976 4 "The Last Sunset" (R) 8 P.M. Aug. 6, 1976 Preemption Aug. 13, 1976 4 "Space Brain" 8 P.M. Aug. 20, 1976 4 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M.The cartoon curators at Warner Archive are continuing to give prominence to characters and cartoons of Warner Brothers' rival cartoon studios of olden times, and sidelining Bugs and company. There is still no announcement of a second volume for LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT. Walter Lantz and Universal's Woody Woodpecker is the latest cartoon star outside of the Warner Brothers cartoon history, to be graced with a comprehensive Blu-Ray release. At Warner Archive, if is not MGM's Tom and Jerry, if it is not Popeye, it is Hanna-Barbera's television characters from Huck Hound to Wally Gator to Fred and Barney. I seem to be the only dissenting voice as regards this shunting aside of what had been stated commitment to bring most of what is not yet released on digital videodisc media, of the native Warner Brothers cartoon catalogue, to Blu-Ray, and to supersede the existing DVD iterations of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons with new and better-looking Blu-Ray renderings. The clock is ticking away on what is left of the life of Warner Brothers as its own entity, before absorption into Netflix, or, perhaps, Paramount, with uncertain future for physical media. Am I the only person who sees the urgency here? Am I the only person who thinks it unjust for Tom and Jerry to receive numerous comprehensive releases of their hundred-plus cartoons while Tweety and Sylvester's forty-two cartoon shorts together have yet to see complete representation even once on either DVD or Blu-Ray? I could proclaim similarly about Sylvester solo, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, and Bugs Bunny, too. But the injustice is especially felt with regard to Tweety and Sylvester.
There have been no developments on a righting of any of the wrongs in this autumn's Blu-Ray releases. With the known state of Warner Brothers' finances, I would not expect a corrected Peanuts Blu-Ray disc for You're in Love, Charlie Brown. And it looks like the BBC intends to do nothing about the fault in its BLAKE'S 7- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 2's new visual effects. And the complaints over the look of A.I.-adjusted Doctor Who in the Season 13 set are evidently not going to receive a prompt remedy- or maybe no remedy at all.
All for today.
Sunday, 21 December, 2025.
Here is a delightful little gem, from someone who has hitherto eluded my Facebook blocking option.
Such a nice, considerate person. Really helps to put me in the Christmas spirit. Peace and good will to all men, eh? Bull's excrement!!! I needed every ounce of restraint in me not to typewrite the more vulgar wordage. To hell with Christmas.
Oh, but Nick Tate agrees with her. So, that's one feather in her cap. Two, if we do opt to include (I do not) the decline that she oh, so lucidly chronicles of the Space: 1999 Annual. Decline because the people of Britain are so damned parochial that a little bit of Americanisation makes something excrement-like in their narrow minds. Because U.K. broadcasters were so unwilling to give to Season 2 Space: 1999 the steadfast and consistent airtime that the CBC here in my native Canada did. Or maybe, just maybe, the decline came about because the Annuals were not much to write home about in themselves. I have seen them. Dull, uninspiring original stories using photographs of actual episodes. Activities for children that are not much beyond what the Space: 1999 colouring and activity books were on my side of the Atlantic. Quizzes. Board games. Spot the differences in pictures. Humourous, or attempts at being humourous, captioning. Compared to the novels written for both seasons by Messrs. Tubb, Rankine, Ball, and Buterworth, and Tim Heald's The Making of Space: 1999, and the black-and-white Charlton Comics magazines, the Annuals were a trifle. Nice artwork on the covers. That is all that I will say. And that might be overly generous. Maybe they were not selling because they were expensive, hard-covered fluff.
There. Stick that in your foul pipe and smoke it. Space: 1999- "Year 1" was dead after Lew Grade declared it cancelled in November of 1975. It was cancelled because it did not maintain consistent ratings and confidence of many broadcasters in the U.S.. And by all accounts, it was not victorious over its competition on U.K. television. Doctor Who trounced it. Every week bar maybe the first one. Viewers who had not been imprinted by first season, liked what they were seeing with Season 2. They were not going into it with preconceived notions of what it ought to be. Much as I weary of the 2020s pronouncement that has become as widespread in its use as "going forward" was last decade, it is what it is. Or it was what it was. A boldly imaginative, colourful "space opera" with dynamic music, and some of the top acting talent of the U.S. and British sides of the Atlantic. Visually, aesthetically, light-years ahead of its fellow 1976 productions of television science fiction/fantasy. One that captured imaginations such as mine. And I react with the profoundest offence at the statement of this person. She deserves all of the counter-invective that I can "dish out". How dare she defecate on the best year of my childhood, and on my aesthetic sensibilities in my adulthood! And on what ought to be a happy time of the year, even for one such as me whose parents are dead, whose family had for him no siblings, and some of whose friends who enjoyed Space: 1999 with him are also dead!
This may be my last normal Christmas, if predictions for Canada are true, and this despicible lout has spoiled it. A very un-Merry Christmas to her, too.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025.
Looks like the Christmas of 2025 in Fredericton will not be a white one, after all. A couple of days of rain, high wind, and warm temperatures have eliminated all but the snow along the street curbs and edges of driveways, and it is not expected to snow again before Thursday. So, I have been granted one wish. A green Christmas on which I can walk and not fear falling on ice. I wish that the Thursday temperatures could be less cold than they are forecast to be, but as long as there is no wind, they should be manageable.
I am going to comment further on the Facebook posting that "got my dander up" on Sunday. Doubtless, my going back to doing rants is providing some amusement again to people who think my angry statements of offence to be funny, and likely will bring a corresponding increase in traffic to this Weblog. Traffic I would rather do without. But anyways.
An opinion is an opinion is an opinion. It is so if just one person holds it, or if a multitude of people do. I do not care if 99.9 percent of the human beings on this planet are of that same opinion. They could still be wrong. There is such a thing as mass formation psychosis. It happened during the Salem witch hunts, for example. And I would dare say that it happened quite recently on some other matter. And when it comes to human artistic creativity, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or the unblinkered eye. Opinion on art does not become fact when a vast majority of people espouse it, any more than it does when one person is disseminating it. A person, or a plurality of people, can say that monsters are bad science fiction until he or she is, or they are, blue in the face, but it is not an objective fact. No. Certainly not if there is an artistic expression, whether it be consciously or subconsciously infused into the material. Saying that something is "shite" because some sizable number of people have an unfavourable opinion of it and have rejected it, is being rude (yes, rude!) to the people, however many that there are, who appreciate that something. And it is fallacy to proclaim that opinion to be incontrovertible fact because it is being held by people in numbers large enough to, say, cause to downfall of a line of merchandise. Like the Space: 1999 Annual. There may be a variety of factors involved in that downfall. And I have not stated all of them. People outgrowing their interest in Annuals, for instance. Or Space: 1999 having been off the air for some time and people deciding to spend their money instead on the latest thing, because, "It's new-w-w-w-w!" To quote that little boy who persuaded his mother to buy the Empire Strikes Back comic magazine that I was eyeing to purchase back in 1980.
An opinion may be disregarded as uninformed and therefore as far from being factual as can reasonably be argued. When it is based on a blinkered unwillingness to receive and consider and be persuaded by information provided by a person with insight into the merits in a particular item. And Season 2's detractors are unwilling to absorb any positive commentary on second season. Rather, they become even more entrenched and vociferous in their emnity. And they denounce and attempt to "gaslight" the person advocating for insight into Season 2's artistic qualities. Insights are not mere opinions. They are much closer to being facts. And are, when they are verifiable. And I can assure my readers that the "Provincialism" in Season 2, the etymology in certain names, and the symbolism in certain subject matter in the episodes, are verifiable. And people who will not consider Jung's theories and maintain that art is only ever possible when it is deliberate, are blinkered. And ignorant. And rude, damnably rude, when they call anything created for entertainment and liked or loved by anyone, feces. And I am within my rights to resent and loathe such people, being one who happens to love that which they are calling "shite". Being one whose best year of life was one of many a pleasurable experience with it, and the sharing of it with people whose friendship I treasure.
But worry not. I know right from wrong in our society. I value my freedom and am law-abiding. I am not a violent man. And the disingenuous attempts twenty-five years ago to compare me with someone who was, will have to be accounted-for by the persons who did that, when they eventually meet their maker. That and their lifelong hatred for Mr. Fred Freiberger, a family man doing a job and sincerely trying to preserve the life of a television programme.
I have persisted in my researches into Space: 1999's heyday transmissions in the United States. I have looked into how Space: 1999 fared in the U.S. forty-ninth State. Yes, Space: 1999 did air in Alaska. In Anchorage, on CBS-affiliated KTVA. And I have also put together a broadcast history for Space: 1999 on Stockton and Sacramento, California's CBS affiliate, KOVR. Neither television station aired a single episode of Season 2, only airing first season in the 1975-6 television broadcasting year.
Without further adieu, here is Space: 1999 in Anchorage on KTVA.
KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Broadcasts (1975-6) Tuesdays Select Station 11- KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Date Channel Episode Airtime Oct. 7, 1975 11 "Breakaway" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 14, 1975 11 "Matter of Life and Death" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 21, 1975 11 "Alpha Child" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 28, 1975 11 "Force of Life" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 4, 1975 11 "Collision Course" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 11, 1975 11 "Guardian of Piri" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 18, 1975 11 "Death's Other Dominion" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 25, 1975 11 "Dragon's Domain" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 2, 1975 11 "War Games" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 9, 1975 11 "Mission of the Darians" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 16, 1975 11 "Black Sun" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 23, 1975 11 "End of Eternity" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 30, 1975 11 "Voyager's Return" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 6, 1976 11 "The Full Circle" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 13, 1976 11 "Ring Around the Moon" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 20, 1976 11 "The Infernal Machine" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 27, 1976 11 "The Last Enemy" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 3, 1976 11 "Earthbound" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 10, 1976 11 "Another Time, Another Place" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 17, 1976 11 "The Last Sunset" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 24, 1976 11 "Missing Link" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 2, 1976 11 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 9, 1976 11 "The Troubled Spirit" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 16, 1976 11 "Space Brain" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 23, 1976 11 "Breakaway" (R) 6:30 P.M. Mar. 30, 1976 11 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 6, 1976 11 "Collision Course" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 13, 1976 11 "Force of Life" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 20, 1976 11 "Alpha Child" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 27, 1976 11 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 6:30 P.M. May 4, 1976 11 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 6:30 P.M. KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Broadcasts (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 11- KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Date Channel Episode Airtime May 8, 1976 11 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 5 P.M. May 15, 1976 11 "War Games" (R) 5 P.M. May 22, 1976 11 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 5 P.M. May 29, 1976 11 "Black Sun" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 5, 1976 11 "End of Eternity" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 11 "Voyager's Return" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 11 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 26, 1976 11 "The Full Circle" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 11 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 11 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 11 "The Last Enemy" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 24, 1976 11 "Earthbound" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 31, 1976 11 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 7, 1976 11 "The Last Sunset" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 11 "Missing Link" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 21, 1976 11 "Space Brain" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 28, 1976 11 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 5 P.M. Sept. 4, 1976 11 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 5 P.M. Sept. 11, 1976 11 "Breakaway" (R) 5 P.M. Sept. 18, 1976 11 "Collision Course" (R) 5 P.M.After September 18, Alaskans would only be able to see Space: 1999 if they were able to receive a Canadian CBC Television station from either the Yukon or northern British Columbia. Cable television may have been available in Anchorage and in Juneau. Elsewhere in Alaska, I doubt it. And with strong Arctic winds and and the west-to-east movements of weather from the Pacific, through Alaska, and then into Canada, over-the-air signals would be dispersed most of the time, I expect, before they could reach Alaska from Canada.
And now, for the good people of the Sacarmento region of California.
KOVR- Sacramento, California Broadcasts (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 13- KOVR- Sacramento, California Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 13, 1975 13 "Breakaway" 6:30 P.M. Sept. 20, 1975 13 "War Games" 6:30 P.M. Sept. 27, 1975 13 "Collision Course" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 4, 1975 Preemption Oct. 11, 1975 13 "Voyager's Return" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 18, 1975 13 "Dragon's Domain" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 25, 1975 13 "Force of Life" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 1, 1975 13 "Death's Other Dominion" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 8, 1975 13 "Alpha Child" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 15, 1975 13 "Mission of the Darians" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 22, 1975 13 "Black Sun" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 29, 1975 13 "End of Eternity" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 6, 1975 13 "Guardian of Piri" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 13, 1975 13 "Missing Link" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 20, 1975 Preemption Dec. 27, 1975 13 "The Last Sunset" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 3, 1976 13 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 10, 1976 13 "The Full Circle" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 17, 1976 13 "Ring Around the Moon" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 24, 1976 13 "Collision Course" (R) 7 P.M. Jan. 31, 1976 13 "The Last Enemy" 7 P.M. Feb. 7, 1976 13 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M. Feb. 14, 1976 13 "The Infernal Machine" 7 P.M. Feb. 21, 1976 13 "Space Brain" 7 P.M. Feb. 28, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M. Mar. 6, 1976 13 "Earthbound" 7 P.M. Mar. 13, 1976 13 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Mar. 20, 1976 13 "Breakaway" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 27, 1976 13 "Voyager's Return" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 3, 1976 13 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 10, 1976 13 "Force of Life" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 17, 1976 13 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 24, 1976 13 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 7 P.M. May 1, 1976 13 "Black Sun" (R) 7 P.M. May 8, 1976 13 "End of Eternity" (R) 7 P.M. May 15, 1976 13 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 7 P.M. May 22, 1976 13 "Alpha Child" (R) 7 P.M. May 29, 1976 13 "Missing Link" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 5, 1976 13 "The Last Sunset" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 13 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 Preemption Jun. 26, 1976 13 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 13 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 13 "The Last Enemy" (R) 8 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 13 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 24, 1976 13 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 31, 1976 13 "Space Brain" (R) 6:30 P.M. Aug. 7, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 13 "Earthbound" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 21, 1976 13 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 28, 1976 Preemption Sept. 4, 1976 13 "The Full Circle" (R) 10 P.M.And that is all for good old KOVR.
A pattern is becoming very clear, my readers. Network-affiliated television stations were not availing themselves of a further year of Space: 1999 post-summer-of-1976, with the result being that Season 2 was not viewable at all to people of numerous places beyond the range of the independent broadcasters.
The going "narrative" of the past forty-eight years of Space: 1999 fandom, that Season 1 was a smashing success from start to finish, that Sir Lew Grade renewed Space: 1999 without reservation or specification, that the makers of Space: 1999 "fixed" something that was "not broke", and that after some weeks of seeing Season 2, audiences across the U.S. "tuned out" and television stations dropped Space: 1999 midway through "Year 2" or immediately after its episodes all were run, ought now to crack, should it not? How could people form an cancellation-causing, unfavouring opinion of episodes of Season 2 such as "The Rules of Luton", "Brian the Brain", "A Matter of Balance", and "Space Warp", when television stations severed their association with Space: 1999 before the 1976-7 broadcasting season began? With not a single second season episode, not even "The Metamorph", screened for public consumption?
Now, some people might say that the programme managers of the television network affiliates based their decision on previews of Season 2 that they did not assess to be worth gambling-upon in a costly renewal of contract. Maybe. Maybe not. Some of them might simply have said, "No, thank-you," when being offered an episode or two to preview. Some may have declined even a sending to them of the ITC Space: 1999 "Year 2" promotional brochure. They may have said that they were not satisfied with the ratings numbers brought onto their desks by Season 1. They had moved the television series from weekday evening to weekend afternoon in some cases, in reaction, perhaps, to "flagging" viewership. And so, were disinclined to go for a further year of Space: 1999 no matter what the changes. But the decision was ultimately being made at the managerial level of television stations, by men (and women) whose opinions on Space: 1999, either season, were not necessarily representative of those of the general public. And views toward science fiction, any science fiction, being what they were then, the greatest likelihood was that the average programme manager at the average American television station with a network affiliation to maintain, was quite indifferent to the aesthetic properties of any work of the genre, and maybe even regarded the genre with disdain. And with that disdain, or maybe merely an unflinching dispassion, was looking at the drop in ratings for the season previous and making his (or her) decision with the ratings drop as an unalterable consideration.
Falling ratings during Season 2, were not possible if Season 2 were not being shown to start with. As to the independent television stations in the U.S. that did run Season 2, from what I have seen, all of them aired the complete season, and several of them continued showing Space: 1999 after the 1976-7 television broadcast year had concluded. That was certainly so in my native Canada. The British experience with the broadcasting of second season Space: 1999 would appear to be unique. There, yes, Space: 1999's second season's run was truncated. Aborted part of the way through it. And later episodes surfacing much later, and on Saturday morning.
I may never understand, much less appreciate, the British mindset when it comes to television standards and practices. Heck, even Season 1 was shown in the U.K. on Saturday morning, for a time. It would seem to me quite improper to show lustful advances, alcohol consumption, murdered people on a planet's surface, and blood from violent fighting, on Saturday morning. To say nothing of the body horrors in Season 1.
But I will say this. The British reaction to Season 2 Space: 1999 would seem to be an exaggerated revulsion to a few Americanised aspects to Space: 1999 in its second, changed iteration. And there is a bent, apparently, toward treating American content as unsophisticated and childish. I just cannot match my thinking with such, at least where Space: 1999 is concerned. Season 2 still looks and sounds distinctly British to me, when compared to purely U.S. productions of its time. It was filmed by British crews. It had mainly British guest stars. Most of its writers were British. There were British actors and actresses speaking lines of dialogue penned by British writers (yes, I do know that some of them were Freiberger's). It was not as slow-paced and talky as British television might tend to be, but why is that necessarily a bad thing?
But what would I judge to be an acceptable metric for objectively determining a production to be execrable- if that word were to be acceptable to me? Well, obvious ones. Untrained actors and actresses in leading parts "fluffing" their lines in every other sentence. Paper pie plates dangling on wires. Actor tripping over cardboard tombstones that fall over with the sound of cardboard falling over. Villain looking straight into camera and laughing in a most exaggeratingly villainous way. A villain changing his plans in mid-stream with no clear motivation. An antagonist character obligingly dropping a weapon and running away, to be easily dispatched by the hero. A rotund actor in a carrot costume. Anything that "sends up" its genre, shows to it no respect. These sorts of things. Or simply being boring at the same time as being cheaply made. Season 2 Space: 1999 is neither of that. Money was clearly spent on it. Alien environments were convincingly created. Spaceships flew about and crashed or exploded. Keith Wilson and Brian Johnson delivered on their talents. We have a television show that looks better than any other production of its time. And it dared to do things that staid works like the latter-day Star Treks were too pompous to touch. They gave to us family visits, border disputes, interpersonal problems, and without a "pulp" science fiction/fantasy phenomenon of the week underpinning them. Who is "beaming aboard" this week? Is it Picard's brother, Troi's mother, Worf's child, or Riker's ex-girl-friend?
I think that I have had enough of a rant for today. Now, to start preparing for another solitary Christmas. Hopefully not the last Christmas that I will ever see. When one is nearing sixty, and living in a country in which governments can threaten termination of income as punishment for not agreeing to a dangerous injection, one must face the possibility of losing everything, everything (including one's life), sometime within the 365 days hence.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025.
LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 has been announced at long last! Announced with its full list of content cartoons.
And here they are.
First Blu-Ray disc:
"A-Lad-in His Lamp"
"Ain't That Ducky"
"Bone, Sweet Bone"
"Boston Quackie"
"Boulevardier From the Bronx"
"The Bird Came C.O.D."
"Country Boy"
"The Daffy Duckaroo"
"Dr. Jerkyl's Hide"
"The EGGcited Rooster"
"Fastest With the Mostest"
"Fowl Weather"
"I Taw a Putty Tat"
"I Gopher You"
"I Was a Teenage Thumb"
"Little Blabbermouse"
"Mother Was a Rooster"
"Pests For Guests"
"The Rattled Rooster"
"A Sheep in the Deep"
"Sock a Doodle Do"
"A Street Cat Named Sylvester"
"To Itch His Own"
"A Waggily Tale"
"Woolen Under Where"
"Zoom at the Top"
Second Blu-Ray disc:
"The Awful Orphan"
"A Bird in a Guilty Cage"
"Bowery Bugs"
"Claws For Alarm"
"Crowing Pains"
"Frigid Hare"
"Hare Remover"
"The Heckling Hare"
"Hop and Go"
"Hyde and Hare"
"Jumpin' Jupiter"
"The Last Hungry Cat"
"Mexican Boarders"
"Mouse Menace"
"Odor of the Day"
"Often an Orphan"
"The Pest That Came to Dinner"
"Scent-imental Over You"
"Stop! Look! And Hasten!"
"To Beep or Not to Beep"
"Wagon Heels"
"Whoa, Be-Gone!"
"Wise Quackers"
"You Were Never Duckier"
It looks like the curators have accepted my deal. No more negativity from me on the releases of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies on Blu-Ray (and/or DVD) in exchange for both "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide" and "Hyde and Hare" in this COLLECTOR'S VAULT volume. Both of them are here among the listed cartoons for the Blu-Ray set. And so, I will be a man of my word. A man of integrity. And not say another disparaging word henceforth about any home video release for Bugs and the gang. I have what I want, and then some.
It is easy for me not to be negative, because this Blu-Ray set has scarcely anything about it that I could possibly be negative about. The post-1948 cartoons are prominent, with emphasis on the major characters. What I wanted. And pleasantly surprisingly, both of the remaining Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog cartoons are here. And we have the remaining pre-1964 Road Runners. The Foghorn Leghorn cartoons still to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray, are now down to two. "A-Lad-in His Lamp" will be on shiny digital videodisc, at last. We have "I Gopher You" and "Pests For Guests", meaning that every Goofy Gophers cartoon pre-1964 is now on digital videodisc. And there are some hitherto not on home video "one-shots" given the nod, among them "A Waggily Tale", "To Itch His Own", and "I Was a Teenage Thumb". Plus many new-to-Blu-Ray Road Runners. And, very unexectedly, the coming to Blu-Ray of the problematic-for-political-correctness "Frigid Hare" and "Wise Quackers", and on the same Blu-Ray set as "A-Lad-in His Lamp", to boot! Amazing!
Interesting that "Hare Remover" ("Eh, I think Spencer Tracy did it better. Don't you, folks?") accompanies "Hyde and Hare" on Blu-Ray disc. As does the Dr. Jekyll-referencing "Odor of the Day". Was this deliberate, I wonder? Or unconscious? I love it.
For certain, this has brought a beam to my face for Christmas, even though the Blu-Ray set, its release date 24 March, will likely not be in my hands until early April. It fully offsets the detrimental impact upon my Christmas of that obnoxious Space: 1999 fan's Sunday posting. And I do not feel quite as desperately urgent over the matter of Warner Brothers' pending absorption by Netflix as I was before.
I have an urge to put VOLUME 1 of COLLECTOR'S VAULT into my Blu-Ray player for a spin.
My mother up in heaven is doubtless saying, "There, Kevin. You were kept waiting long, but was the wait worth it?" Yes! Oh, yes!!!
