We've contacted the producers, and found that they weren't responsible for the Houseman intros, and were frankly at a loss as to where they came from (or who would actually hold the rights to them). They simply had no record of them whatsoever, or held anything in the archives. Here's the best guess that we could arrive at here: When syndicated stateside (rather than appearing on a network, Tales was nationally syndicated), the US distributors added intros featuring John Houseman as the host in order to keep a sense of continuity going (figuring that since people were used to having a host in Roald Dahl, a new one was needed for consistency's sake).
Frankly, we expected to see Houseman intros as well, and were puzzled as to his absence. The good news, though, is that the "hostless" episodes that followed Dahl's tenure are all exactly the same length as the ones he'd hosted. Which means that the US-syndicated versions would have had a small chunk of footage removed to make room for the host segments (and possibly to make room for commercial breaks as well -- the episodes run close to 25 minutes, and I believe that US broadcast half-hours are 22 minutes, but I could be mistaken on that count).
Also, we asked about the "carousel" opening that some people have remembered -- their response was that there were only two versions of the credits sequence made for the program. One is the regular "dancing woman" opening, and a shorter, more tightly-edited one, that I believe was created for repeat showings. Both are nearly identical, though, and feature the same elements (the shorter one loses the gun, but that's it). Which leads me to believe that the carousel opening was also appended to the US broadcast versions by the syndicator. As to where these alternate openings are holed up, we're stumped.
Hope this answers some questions. Or at least answers as many as it raises in its wake!
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rhklein
20 years ago
Hmm. Your response raises more questions than it answers. But, it's appreciated. :-)
Doesn't the back of the box of Set 2 mention that John Houseman is host? It mentions this in the description of the discs on Netflix. How could they say that on the box but have no trace of Houseman inside. Where did the cock-up occur?
Wouldn't this have been sorted out before the DVD's were made, say, during the planning stages?
<i>"Which leads me to believe that the carousel opening was also appended to the US broadcast versions by the syndicator. As to where these alternate openings are holed up, we're stumped."</i>
See, I'm really confused about this. Part of me still has a vague memory from childhood of a different opening, one with an actual carousel with horses going up and down. But I seem to be the only one (apart from my brother) with this memory. So the other part of me is thinking that I am mixing up the memory of the Tales theme music (which obviously sounds very carousel like) with the images of things going around in circles (tarot cards, roulette wheel, etc) combined with the memory of a part from the opening titles for the New Twilight Zone, which was on the mid-eighties, which briefly featured an image of a carousel horse (along with other spooky images). To sum up, it's very convoluted. But at this point, I'm willing to accept that there was only one title sequence for Tales, and that it's my memory that's faulty.
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In any case, how could we track down the Houseman intros. Or at least who owns them? It seems like the first people to contact would be the US distributors of the show way back when. Any idea who were the distributors?
Thanks again,
Rick
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Aleck-3
20 years ago
Actually, Houseman is not mentioned on any of the box copy for the second set (no host at all is mentioned). Netflix generally composes their own descriptions, and they seem to have assembled these without actually looking at the episodes, relying on outside research (and most US sources refer to the broadcast versions with Houseman hosting). In fact, they probably composed the descriptions well in advance of receiving the inventory. As nobody here thought to check their site for inaccuracies, we just never caught it. So, in short, NOT OUR FAULT! :-) I've passed along the info to the person over the Netflix account to see if he can get this changed.
As for the carousel opening, someone actually brought this up elsewhere a little while ago (though where exactly I stumbled upon it, I can't quite remember this morning), so you're definitely not alone in your remembrance of it. Or it could be possible that someone else was conflating the same images as you and your brother. As for myself, I initially thought that the carousel was from the opening credits of RAY BRADBURY THEATER, but then I realized that I am quite possibly an idiot.
So far, our leads haven't taken us far in tracking down the Houseman footage (or if we would be able to lease the rights to that footage in the first place, or if it even still exists in a usable form), and as we're down to the wire, schedule-wise, on putting together the upcoming SET 3, I'm not overly optimistic that they'll appear.
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homer34
19 years ago
I remember the Carousel and horse opening as well.
Perhaps the dancing woman opening might have been considered "too racy" and was replaced in the US?
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