The Dad's Army missing episodes are lost episodes of the British warfare sitcom programme Dad's Army, plus some short sketches. The programme ran for nine series between 31 July 1968 and 13 November 1977. Three out of six episodes from Series 2 and two of the four Christmas sketches (1968 and 1970) are missing as at that time, the BBC routinely reused videotape as a cost saving measure.
Until 1978, when the BBC Film and Videotape Library was created as a permanent archive for all its television programmes, the BBC had no central archive. The videotapes and film recordings stored in the BBC's various libraries were often either wiped or discarded for recording new programmes and to free storage space to reduce costs.[1] The BBC Film Library kept only some programmes that were made on film, whilst the Engineering Department handled videotape but had no mandate to retain material. Some shows were kept by BBC Enterprises, but they too had limited storage space and only kept material that was considered commercially exploitable. In the mid-1970s, BBC Enterprises disposed of much older material for which the rights to sell the programmes had expired, and the Engineering Department routinely wiped videotapes in an era when rescreening potential was limited.
The first two series (12 episodes) of Dad's Army were made in black-and-white, with almost all episodes made on two-inch quad videotape for initial broadcast. The first series was thought to have commercial potential overseas, and was offered for sale to foreign broadcasters by BBC Enterprises. To this end, 16mm film copies were made of the first six episodes by the BBC Engineering Department before the master videotapes were wiped, and these were retained by the Film Unit.
In the event, the first series sold very poorly and so BBC Enterprises did not express any interest in selling Series 2 abroad. Thus very few film copies of Series 2 episodes were made. Dad's Army was made in colour from Series 3 onwards; overseas interest in the series picked up, and BBC Enterprises resumed offering the episodes for sale in film and video format; this meant they were more likely to be permanently retained.
Recovery
In 1998, David Croft made an appeal on BBC Two asking people if they held an off-air video copy of the missing episodes. At the time, five of the six episodes of series 2 were missing. "Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret" had survived the cull as it was recorded onto 35 mm film instead of videotape, either because it required additional editing (which was easier with film before the advent of electronic timecode editing) or because no videotape recording facilities were available in the recording period. This fortuitously assured the episode's survival: as a production made on film, it fell within the BBC Film Library's remit of retaining filmed productions.[1]
In 2001, 16 mm film recordings of "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage" were returned to the BBC archive.[2] It has since been established that the two episodes were film recorded to show to executives at Columbia Pictures during discussions on the structure of the Dad's Army feature film. The film copies were then junked and retrieved from a skip by an opportunistic collector and stored in a garden shed for 30 years until returned to the BBC.
The three Series 2 episodes that remain missing are "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", "A Stripe for Frazer" and "Under Fire".[3] The only currently remaining hope for recovery is either that the lost episodes were recorded off-air during their original UK broadcasts using an early videotape recorder such as a Shibaden or Sony CV-2000 machine, or 16 mm tele-recordings being saved from being junked. However these three episodes were among the 67 adapted for BBC Radio in the 1970s, and recordings of the radio episodes still exist.
The colour episodes in series 3–9 have been remarkably fortunate compared with many of their contemporaries. Missing episodes were returned from overseas broadcasters, mainly from those in Europe, New Zealand and Australia, with the result that all full-length episodes now exist in the original colour format.
Restoration and recreation
Episode restoration and recreation
"Room at the Bottom" - to the left is the 16 mm black and white copy; to the right is the restored colour version.
"A Stripe for Frazer" - a scene from the animated episode
Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring and Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes
Colour restoration
By the 1990s, "Room at the Bottom", the sixth episode of Series 3, was the only episode produced in colour that did not have a colour copy in the archive; instead, it survived only as a 16 mm black-and-white film recording. Because of the way in which the original black and white telerecordings were made, colour information was sometimes inadvertently preserved in them even though it could not be displayed. In 2008, a computer technique of colour recovery was developed to recover the colour information from telerecordings, known as chroma dots, to recreate a usable colour signal. "Room at the Bottom" was used as the pilot project to test this process of colour recovery, with the success of the episode's restoration leading to it being used on other 16mm telerecordings.[4] The new colour copy was officially adopted as the BBC's archive copy,[5] and "Room at the Bottom" was broadcast in colour for the first time in almost forty years on 13 December 2008.[6]
Recreations
Restagings
Although not a deliberate attempt to restore lost material, the "Cornish Floral Dance" was also performed at the Royal Variety Performance of 1975. This second version is still extant.
Animated episode
In 2008, the soundtrack of "A Stripe for Frazer" was rediscovered in the hands of a private collector. This recording was then digitally remastered for a 2015 BBC Audio CD release. In January 2016, it was announced that the BBC were creating an animated version of the episode, to be combined with the newly discovered copy of the audio, which was released via the BBC Store online service.[7][8]
Pre-production for "A Stripe for Frazer" began in October 2015 and a little under 12 weeks later the finished animated episode was released on BBC Store 4 February 2016.[9] The animation was produced and directed for BBC Worldwide by Charles Norton and a team that included comic book artist, Martin Geraghty.[9]
Remake
In 2018, UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, directed by Ben Kellett. The recreations were broadcast in 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast on the BBC.[10]Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson,[11] with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey.[12] The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal.[13] However, Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project, and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West.[14] The recreated episodes were shown in August 2019[15] and released on DVD & Blu Ray on 25 November 2019 by the British Network imprint. The series also ran on Yesterday on 25–28 August 2020.[16]
Mainwaring has the opportunity to promote someone to corporal. Rather than promote Jones, he tests who has the greatest potential by temporarily promoting Private Frazer to lance corporal. Frazer's increasingly dictatorial manner soon alienates the platoon.
When Frazer spots what he believes to be a German spy signalling planes, the platoon arrests a suspect who protests that he is a naturalised Englishman.
Dad's Army: Missing Presumed Wiped (2001) – a 30-minute documentary about episode recoveries and restoration.[19]
Time Shift – Missing Believed Wiped (2003) – a general documentary about archive television, featuring some clips and discussions about Dad's Army.[20]
^The episode has been animated and was released on 4 February 2016.[22]
^Video still missing, amateur soundtrack recording found (can be heard as an extra on the Christmas Specials DVD). The script was recycled for a scene in the radio adaptation of The Godiva Affair and as part of the Dad's Army stage show (a segment of which was also included in the 1975 Royal Variety Performance).
^ abBowles, Chris (5 February 2016). "Dad's Army Animation / Release day". LinkedIn. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
^Braxton, Mark (3 October 2018). "Lost episodes of Dad's Army to be remade with a new cast". Radio Times. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
^"Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst to star in new Dad's Army". comedy.co.uk. 9 November 2018. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
^. The Oldie. 12 November 2018. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
^"Cast revealed for Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes". comedy.co.uk. 16 January 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
^"Timothy West replaces Bernard Cribbins in Dad's Army remakes". comedy.co.uk. 19 February 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
^Gold [@goldchannel] (20 June 2019). "Don't panic! Not long now... #DadsArmy: The Lost Episodes starring @exkevinmcnally, @RobertBathurst, @ItsKevinEldon, David Hayman, Timothy West, @rosentweets and @mfhorne will transmit this August only on Gold.pic.twitter.com/n0jVv9dGwZ" (Tweet). Retrieved 24 June 2019 – via Twitter.
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The Dad s Army missing episodes are lost episodes of the British warfare sitcom programme Dad s Army plus some short sketches The programme ran for nine series between 31 July 1968 and 13 November 1977 Three out of six episodes from Series 2 and two of the four Christmas sketches 1968 and 1970 are missing as at that time the BBC routinely reused videotape as a cost saving measure Contents 1 Background 2 Recovery 2 1 Christmas sketches 2 2 Colour episodes 3 Restoration and recreation 3 1 Colour restoration 3 2 Recreations 3 2 1 Restagings 3 2 2 Animated episode 3 2 3 Remake 3 2 4 Cast 4 List of missing content 4 1 Episodes 4 2 Sketches 5 Further research 5 1 Documentaries 6 Overseas broadcasters that purchased Series 2 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External linksBackground EditUntil 1978 when the BBC Film and Videotape Library was created as a permanent archive for all its television programmes the BBC had no central archive The videotapes and film recordings stored in the BBC s various libraries were often either wiped or discarded for recording new programmes and to free storage space to reduce costs 1 The BBC Film Library kept only some programmes that were made on film whilst the Engineering Department handled videotape but had no mandate to retain material Some shows were kept by BBC Enterprises but they too had limited storage space and only kept material that was considered commercially exploitable In the mid 1970s BBC Enterprises disposed of much older material for which the rights to sell the programmes had expired and the Engineering Department routinely wiped videotapes in an era when rescreening potential was limited The first two series 12 episodes of Dad s Army were made in black and white with almost all episodes made on two inch quad videotape for initial broadcast The first series was thought to have commercial potential overseas and was offered for sale to foreign broadcasters by BBC Enterprises To this end 16mm film copies were made of the first six episodes by the BBC Engineering Department before the master videotapes were wiped and these were retained by the Film Unit In the event the first series sold very poorly and so BBC Enterprises did not express any interest in selling Series 2 abroad Thus very few film copies of Series 2 episodes were made Dad s Army was made in colour from Series 3 onwards overseas interest in the series picked up and BBC Enterprises resumed offering the episodes for sale in film and video format this meant they were more likely to be permanently retained Recovery EditIn 1998 David Croft made an appeal on BBC Two asking people if they held an off air video copy of the missing episodes At the time five of the six episodes of series 2 were missing Sgt Wilson s Little Secret had survived the cull as it was recorded onto 35 mm film instead of videotape either because it required additional editing which was easier with film before the advent of electronic timecode editing or because no videotape recording facilities were available in the recording period This fortuitously assured the episode s survival as a production made on film it fell within the BBC Film Library s remit of retaining filmed productions 1 In 2001 16 mm film recordings of Operation Kilt and The Battle of Godfrey s Cottage were returned to the BBC archive 2 It has since been established that the two episodes were film recorded to show to executives at Columbia Pictures during discussions on the structure of the Dad s Army feature film The film copies were then junked and retrieved from a skip by an opportunistic collector and stored in a garden shed for 30 years until returned to the BBC The three Series 2 episodes that remain missing are The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker A Stripe for Frazer and Under Fire 3 The only currently remaining hope for recovery is either that the lost episodes were recorded off air during their original UK broadcasts using an early videotape recorder such as a Shibaden or Sony CV 2000 machine or 16 mm tele recordings being saved from being junked However these three episodes were among the 67 adapted for BBC Radio in the 1970s and recordings of the radio episodes still exist Christmas sketches Edit Two of the four Christmas sketches which aired as part of Christmas Night with the Stars from 1968 Santa On Patrol and 1970 Cornish Floral Dance which were made in colour remain missing though audio recordings of both have been recovered The Cornish Floral Dance was also performed at the Royal Variety Performance of 1975 This second version is still extant Colour episodes Edit The colour episodes in series 3 9 have been remarkably fortunate compared with many of their contemporaries Missing episodes were returned from overseas broadcasters mainly from those in Europe New Zealand and Australia with the result that all full length episodes now exist in the original colour format Restoration and recreation EditEpisode restoration and recreation Room at the Bottom to the left is the 16 mm black and white copy to the right is the restored colour version A Stripe for Frazer a scene from the animated episode Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring and Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson in Dad s Army The Lost Episodes Colour restoration Edit By the 1990s Room at the Bottom the sixth episode of Series 3 was the only episode produced in colour that did not have a colour copy in the archive instead it survived only as a 16 mm black and white film recording Because of the way in which the original black and white telerecordings were made colour information was sometimes inadvertently preserved in them even though it could not be displayed In 2008 a computer technique of colour recovery was developed to recover the colour information from telerecordings known as chroma dots to recreate a usable colour signal Room at the Bottom was used as the pilot project to test this process of colour recovery with the success of the episode s restoration leading to it being used on other 16mm telerecordings 4 The new colour copy was officially adopted as the BBC s archive copy 5 and Room at the Bottom was broadcast in colour for the first time in almost forty years on 13 December 2008 6 Recreations Edit Restagings Edit Although not a deliberate attempt to restore lost material the Cornish Floral Dance was also performed at the Royal Variety Performance of 1975 This second version is still extant Animated episode Edit In 2008 the soundtrack of A Stripe for Frazer was rediscovered in the hands of a private collector This recording was then digitally remastered for a 2015 BBC Audio CD release In January 2016 it was announced that the BBC were creating an animated version of the episode to be combined with the newly discovered copy of the audio which was released via the BBC Store online service 7 8 Pre production for A Stripe for Frazer began in October 2015 and a little under 12 weeks later the finished animated episode was released on BBC Store 4 February 2016 9 The animation was produced and directed for BBC Worldwide by Charles Norton and a team that included comic book artist Martin Geraghty 9 Remake Edit In 2018 UKTV announced plans to recreate the three missing episodes for broadcast on its Gold channel under the title Dad s Army The Lost Episodes Mercury Productions the company responsible for Saluting Dad s Army Gold s 50th anniversary tribute series produced the episodes directed by Ben Kellett The recreations were broadcast in 2019 coinciding with the 50th anniversary of their original broadcast on the BBC 10 Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson 11 with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey 12 The full cast was announced in January 2019 with McNally Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon Mathew Horne David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal 13 However Bernard Cribbins subsequently withdrew from the project and was replaced as Godfrey by Timothy West 14 The recreated episodes were shown in August 2019 15 and released on DVD amp Blu Ray on 25 November 2019 by the British Network imprint The series also ran on Yesterday on 25 28 August 2020 16 No TitleOriginal series numberOriginal episode airdateRecorded dateOriginal air date1 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker 2 315 March 19691 March 2019 2019 03 01 17 25 August 2019 2019 08 25 Walker is called up into the army The platoon anxious at how they will obtain off the ration supplies without him fight to keep him 2 A Stripe for Frazer 2 529 March 19698 March 2019 2019 03 08 17 26 August 2019 2019 08 26 Mainwaring has the opportunity to promote someone to corporal Rather than promote Jones he tests who has the greatest potential by temporarily promoting Private Frazer to lance corporal Frazer s increasingly dictatorial manner soon alienates the platoon 3 Under Fire 2 65 April 196915 March 2019 2019 03 15 17 27 August 2019 2019 08 27 When Frazer spots what he believes to be a German spy signalling planes the platoon arrests a suspect who protests that he is a naturalised Englishman Cast Edit Kevin McNally Captain Mainwaring Robert Bathurst Sergeant Wilson Kevin Eldon Lance Corporal Jones David Hayman Private Frazer Mathew Horne Private Walker Timothy West Private Godfrey Tom Rosenthal Private PikeList of missing content EditEpisodes Edit Series no Episode no Title Recorded Original airdate NotesVideo Audio Radio episode29 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker 27 October 1968 15 March 1969 Missing Missing Exists11 A Stripe for Frazer 15 November 1968 29 March 1969 Missing a Exists 18 Exists12 Under Fire 27 November 1968 5 April 1969 Missing Missing ExistsSketches Edit No Title Recorded Original airdate NotesVideo Audio Radio episode1 Santa On Patrol 27 October 1968 25 December 1968 Missing Exists 18 None3 Cornish Floral Dance 4 December 1970 25 December 1970 Missing Exists Exists b Further research EditDocumentaries Edit Dad s Army Missing Presumed Wiped 2001 a 30 minute documentary about episode recoveries and restoration 19 Time Shift Missing Believed Wiped 2003 a general documentary about archive television featuring some clips and discussions about Dad s Army 20 Overseas broadcasters that purchased Series 2 EditCountry 21 TV Network s Australia ABC Bahrain BRTC Barbados CBC Finland Yle Gibraltar GBC Hong Kong RTV Jamaica JBC Malta TVM Netherlands NOS New Zealand NZBC Nigeria Saudi Arabia Singapore Sweden SVT Yugoslavia JRT Zambia ZNBCSee also EditWiping BBC Archive Treasure Hunt Missing Believed Wiped Doctor Who missing episodesNotes Edit The episode has been animated and was released on 4 February 2016 22 Video still missing amateur soundtrack recording found can be heard as an extra on the Christmas Specials DVD The script was recycled for a scene in the radio adaptation of The Godiva Affair and as part of the Dad s Army stage show a segment of which was also included in the 1975 Royal Variety Performance References Edit a b Documentary Dad s Army Missing Presumed Wiped BBC 2001 Lost Dad s Army shows found BBC News BBC 1 June 2001 Retrieved 9 August 2008 The missing episodes at the BBC Treasure Hunt site URL accessed 4 June 2006 Norton Charles 11 December 2008 Unscrambling an army of colours The Guardian Retrieved 17 April 2019 Re Colouring the Past Radio Times 13 19 December 2008 pages 24 25 Press Office Dad s Army episode to be seen in colour BBC Retrieved 21 July 2012 Lost Dad s Army episode to be released as an animation Radio Times 7 January 2016 Retrieved 7 January 2016 https store bbc com a stripe for frazer permanent dead link a b Bowles Chris 5 February 2016 Dad s Army Animation Release day LinkedIn Retrieved 5 October 2016 Braxton Mark 3 October 2018 Lost episodes of Dad s Army to be remade with a new cast Radio Times Retrieved 7 November 2018 Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst to star in new Dad s Army comedy co uk 9 November 2018 Retrieved 9 November 2018 Bernard Cribbins the new Private Godfrey The Oldie 12 November 2018 Archived from the original on 29 March 2019 Retrieved 13 November 2018 Cast revealed for Dad s Army The Lost Episodes comedy co uk 16 January 2019 Retrieved 1 March 2019 Timothy West replaces Bernard Cribbins in Dad s Army remakes comedy co uk 19 February 2019 Retrieved 2 March 2019 Gold goldchannel 20 June 2019 Don t panic Not long now DadsArmy The Lost Episodes starring exkevinmcnally RobertBathurst ItsKevinEldon David Hayman Timothy West rosentweets and mfhorne will transmit this August only on Gold pic twitter com n0jVv9dGwZ Tweet Retrieved 24 June 2019 via Twitter Dad s Army Lost Episodes Yesterday Channel a b c Bernard Cribbins leaves Dad s Army remake chortle co uk 19 February 2019 Archived from the original on 19 February 2019 Retrieved 28 March 2019 a b Missing Episodes Dad s Army Appreciation Society Retrieved 9 June 2015 Dad s Army the Lost Episodes BBC Genome Retrieved 6 October 2016 Have A Very Merry Digital Christmas BBC Retrieved 12 January 2012 www cambridgeairforce org nz Lost Dad s Army episode to be released as an animation chortle co uk 7 January 2016 Retrieved 7 January 2016 External links EditBBC Missing episode list A Stripe For Frazer Animating the lost episode of Dad s Army at BBC Blogs Dad s Army The Lost Episodes at IMDb Dad s Army The Lost Episodes at British Comedy Guide Dad s Army A Stripe for Frazer animated episode at IMDb Dad s Army A Stripe for Frazer animated at British Comedy Guide Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Dad 27s Army missing episodes amp oldid 1154471142, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
