Frankie And Tony Are Lovers

[ReJoys2]

I just made another discovery that is quite disappointing to me. I was watching Frankie and Tony are Lovers on the Columbia House tape Back to Brooklyn. I realized they had edited out several lines in a scene. The Columbia House scene goes like this:

Angela comes down stairs and models her peasant blouse for Tony.
Tony: Two hundred bucks? For two hundred bucks you should’a got the whole peasant!
The scene switches to the Brooklyn street fair where the camera is zooming in on Tony and Angela in their booth.

I have an official original Columbia/Embassy Television tape of Frankie and Tony are Lovers. I watched it to compare this scene. On this tape, as on most versions I’ve seen, Angela comes down the stairs and models her peasant blouse for Tony. Then,

Tony: Two hundred bucks? For two hundred bucks you should’a got the whole peasant!
(The following is what is missing from the Columbia House tape)
Ang: I know. I know it’s extravagant, but since it’s my very first street fair, I wanted to get down and get ethnic.
Mona: You look like a wasp who herds sheep for a living.
Tony: Come on, Gang. Let’s do it. (as he herds everyone out the front door)

Scene switches to wide angle view of street fair as it zooms in on Tony and Angela in their booth. The zooming scene shows twice as much here as the shorter zoom in the Columbia House version.

I don’t know about you, but I paid big bucks for those Columbia House tapes because I thought I was finally getting everything. Now I’m wondering if we will ever have every scene of every episode without doing it ourselves. And that would take a lifetime of work. So, I suppose we now have to watch the Columbia House tapes with our eyes and ears pealed for what else might be missing from them. If anyone spots something else that’s missing, please let the rest of us know.

[folle]

OK, I'm with you Rejoys, that I'm hugely dissappointed that the Columbia House tapes are edited. Good grief! Like you said, that's why we paid an arm and a leg for four episodes per tape!!!

I think CH was playing the "politically correct" police by cutting out this bit of dialogue. My guess is that they didn't want anyone to get offended by the wasp comment or even Angela's "get down and get ethnic." Makes me wonder how they handle some of the comments in their "All in the Family" tape series, which had racial slurs in every episode.

I guess the other option is this: your tape actually has something on it that wasn't ever aired in the original run. That wouldn't be surprising I guess, and would make me feel better about trusting that CH is not editing. Maybe there was a longer commercial than planned in the original run and that was cut?

Am I correct that no one has tapes from the original run? That's the only way I can think of that we'd know for sure...

[WTBFan08]

That's awful that they would even leave it off official recordings like that...my hope is that they release DVDs of the series eventually - usually those are unedited right?

It's curious - they cut that little scene you mentioned from the Prime version of the episode that I have too, so I can only assume that it must have been something to do with the content. I don't see anything particularly outrageous about either of their remarks so I'm at a loss as to why both Prime and Columbia House felt the need to edit it :huh:

[chris]

I really doubt whether Prime edited that piece out for content, because there are other scenes where they made the same types of comments. In "Angela's First Fight", Tony told Angela that Marty's Melody Room was very exclusive "...no Wasps allowed, but that's okay, you're with me." There were similar ethnic comments too. In "Thanksgiving at Mrs. Rossini's", Angela didn't really want to go to Mrs. Rossini's for Thanksgiving, at first, because everybody would be so Mediterranean. In "Field Of Screams", when Tony was trying to talk Angela into giving Jonathan a job, he told her that Italians look out for family. He quoted a saying that they have (but I can't remember what it was) and then Angela said "Well, we Anglo Saxons have an expression of our own: 'Self sufficiency.'" Tony, then, said "You are such a colourful people!" These lines aren't really any different than Angela's "Get down and get ethnic" comment.
I think folle's second option is more likely the case, that it was never aired.

[ReJoys2]

I didn't see the original WTB? episodes on ABC, but I have four video tapes with Frankie and Tony Are Lovers (in addition to the Columbia House version). Two are taped from TBS, one from UPN, and one is the Columbia/EmbassyTelevision single episode tape I mentioned in my above post. I just rewatched my tapes and all four of them show the scene that is missing from the Columbia House tape. I can't be sure, but since it's on all four of my tapes, it makes me think the missing scene would have been shown on ABC's original episode.

I'm wondering if Columbia House allows a certain number of minutes for each episode on their tapes. If that made it necessary to delete a few seconds from the Frankie and Tony Are Lovers episode, it might also require them to delete a few seconds from other episodes.

I'll be watching my Columbia House tapes to see if I recognize any other missing scenes. I hope this isn't going to be the case, but if I spot any, I'll post them to let everybody know.

[folle]

That is hugely dissappointing Rejoys. I can't believe Columbia House is editing for time (which is the only explanation I can see). That just isn't right.

Chris, so this scene is missing from the Prime version too, but other similar comments aren't? I find this so shocking. I could see that Prime might need a few extra seconds here and there, but for Columbia House to edit on their official set is incredible.

Ack!!

[taxifan]

I was watching it last night(and posted a inconsistance on the regular wtbr board) and saw a scene that i had never seen before that was funny. . .mona coming in with grover and watching the tape over and over again while angela and gover both look less than thrilled.

Then from there it continues to when tony first comes home and starting talking about how he "just couldn't do it" and angela kept it up while telling tony it was ok and there was a magazine article she read. . .lol i had never seen that scene before i was very delighted to see it.

new wtb material is always good.

P.S by the way. . .how come grover was sitting next to angela? i though he hated her and vise verse. . .maybe over time they call it truths? :lol:

[she'stheboss]

This has probably been mentioned but in the Prime airing,we don't see the scene with Samantha and Elvis, where he wins her a teddy. We only hear about it after when Sam complains about Elvis not calling her back. Strange. There was nothing wrong with this scene, so we didn't we see it?

[Unsinkable Tony]

Thank you She's for demystifying the Elvis mystery for me!

He wins her the teddy she later beheads.

I knew this character existed! His name appears on the end credits. But you're right that scene is cut off on Prime TOO.

You know what we need, guys? We need someone working at ABC. Someone who could "borrow" the original tapes for a couple of days so we could make copy of them! ;)

[i just love everything about wtb]

I get Prime and I have not seen (or at least I dont ever recal) seeing either the scene with the Peasant blouse and Ang not the scene with Elvis winning a Teddy for Sam??? I never even knew that one existed!!! So, where was this? Obviously at the fair right? When did this scene take place? I just looked it up and see that there was an Elvis listed in the guest stars credits. I never noticed that. It just isn't fair that they cut these great and as far as Im concerned important scenes out. I do understand that when they show them on tv they have to cut it out for commercials, but you would think with the Columbia home movies it would be the whole package. I don't have any of those tapes, but I know you that do paid good money for them. It's unfortunate you didn't get your whole moneys worth with them though.

[supastah]

Hi all!

Haven't posted in awhile...

Just wondered if the tapes that are being shown on Prime and on ABC family are the same tapes that Columbia House is offering for sale?

If so, that would make sense of both scenes being cut out of both the rerun and on the video itself.

I do remember both of the scenes of the peasant blouse and of the Elvis scene when I watched orginally on air and when WTB was shown on TBS about 15 years ago. Unfortunately I never taped the ones off of TBS. :(

Just thought I would let you know...

[taxifan]

I didn't remember them showing Elvis, but i do remember the blouse shown on ABC Family CH. I could be wrong though it's been a while and hard to remember which scenes were shown and which ones weren't ;)

[Peggy]

I´m so glad they didn´t cut a lot of scenes from the German version when I taped all the episodes in the 90´s.
Where or how can you buy the Columbia House tapes? Do they have all episodes for sale or just a few? Maybe that would be a way for me to get some more English episodes?? :unsure: