The Munsters "Marineland Carnival" TV Special

[whiteberry]

MPI is releasing The Munsters "Marineland Carnival" TV Special on DVD on October 4.

It is considered a holy grail by The Munsters fans because it has never been released on home video or shown on TV since its original broadcast. It first surfaced on archive.org in 2016 in poor but watchable quality but got pulled because of a copyright claim from Universal.

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TV Spot:

The Munsters At Marineland of the Pacific - March 1965 - YouTube

Behind-The-Scenes:

[whiteberry]

I received MPI's Marineland Carnival DVD today.

The packaging offers no clues as to who they licensed it from so I'm guessing MPI believes it is in the public domain.

THE GOOD NEWS

It's not the same copy that was uploaded to archive.org in 2016 and is much better quality. The MPI version is not only much better quality but there is more picture information on all four sides.

archive.org 2016 mp4 on the left, MPI 2022 DVD on the right:















The archive.org version had a lot of damage but MPI's version does not. I couldn't find any damage during a quick look through MPI's copy.

Here is an example of the damage on the archive.org version. During the opening, "The Munsters" is not completely readable on the archive.org version because about 1/4 of the frame is damaged.

archive.org 2016 mp4 on the left, MPI 2022 DVD on the right:





THE BAD NEWS

The MPI version is 54 seconds shorter than the archive.org version:

archive.org 2016 mp4: 52:36
MPI 2022 DVD: 51:42

I've found one 21 second cut but there is still 33 seconds missing somewhere. I will have to do a more thorough comparison between the two at a later date.

About the 21 second cut...

MPI has deleted 21 seconds during the last part of the end credits. They have deleted the "A CBS Television Network Production" screen which also features the "Seal Of Good Practice" logo underneath it and the announcer saying "This program was pre-recorded".

To cover up this deletion, MPI has done a new fade that fades from the "Set Decorator/Assistant To Producer" credit screen to the CBS eye logo (skipping the abovementioned 21 second long "A CBS Television Network Production" screen).

archive.org 2016 mp4 on the left, MPI 2022 DVD on the right:









Here is a screenshot of MPI's new fade ("Set Decorator/Assistant To Producer" credit screen to the CBS eye logo):




There are also a few interesting differences I noticed between the two versions:

1. The "Marineland Carnival" screen during the opening
   
   On the archive.org version, the fishes in the background are moving around. On the MPI version, the fishes in the background are not moving around.
   
   archive.org 2016 mp4 on the left, MPI 2022 DVD on the right:
   
   
   
   
2. The footage shown during the opening for four of the animals (sawfish, porpoises, monsters, and seals) is different:
   
   archive.org 2016 mp4 on the left, MPI 2022 DVD on the right:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

CONCLUSION

If you are a fan of The Munsters, buy this DVD even though it's missing 54 seconds. Most fans have never seen this TV special and, those who have seen it, have never seen it in this quality.

[8traxrule]

Is this from a real videotape source or kinescope?