Syndication Sucks!!!

I hate to dwell on the negative, especially now that I am going for a complete change, but I've got to say this, syndication SUCKS!!!! Who the Hell thought that one up? It's so annoying! Whoever thought up syndication needs a good, swift punch in the nose! My sis Anna paid over $75 for the entire series of Alf. Only to find out the versions they have on those disks are the syndicated versions, not the full versions! We checked out Mama's Family from Netflix, only to find out the same thing! After watching the Alf disks, Anna called the company that manufactured the disks and asked if they would ever come out with the full versions of the series, and their response was all that is available is the syndicated versions of the shows. That SUCKS!!!! Especially when we still have some of the full versions (recorded on video tape back in the late 80s) and I only notice that bits and pieces of each show on these DVDs are cut out!! And for what???!!! I can see it happening on television so they can make room for commercials, but why cut out pieces and scenes from the DVD copies??? That doesn't make sense to me. Mama's Family is the same way. Their disks only contain the syndicated versions. I have some of the full versions on audio cassette, so I know what scenes are taken out. It's so annoying and frustrating!! If I am going to pay good money for a DVD disk of any series, I want the FULL versions!! Not some stupid, cut-off, lame excuses of the series designed for nothing more than the tv stations (or the DVD manufacturing companies) to make money from commercial advertising!

So if you are thinking of getting the Alf or Mama's Family series on DVD, be forewarned, you'll be paying good money for something you can basically get for free if you just record it off the television yourself!! I'm sure some channel somewhere still plays those series. Don't waste good money getting the DVD's!!! You'll be very sorry! Believe me, my sis is sorry she ever got those DVDs of the Alf series, and she likes Alf!! Now, not all series on DVD are like that. The Cosby Show, Little House on the Prairie, and Punky Brewster on DVD are all equipped with the full versions. I know this for sure. My sis still has Punky Brewster and the Cosby Show still on VHS that she recorded when the series first ran on television back in 1984 and 85. And we are going down the line for Little House and I notice scenes on these disks I've never seen before. So I know these have to be the full versions. It's much better to pay good money for these.

Well, this is another step in our downsizing program, getting rid of the VHS tapes and recording them all onto DVDs. Some we are just recording for the commercials. Some of the commercials are from the mid to late 1980s and so they are commercials you don't see anymore. They are worth recording. I like to watch old commercials and say "I remember this!" and then take a brief stroll down memory lane. Back in the mid-80s, I noticed commercial breaks were no more than a minute long! Now, they are 5 minutes long. And some stations put commercial breaks in the dumbest places!!!!!! I've seen some stations put commercial breaks right in the middle of a sentence! Like someone on the show could be talking to someone about something, then right in the middle of a sentence (sometimes even right in the middle of a word) Boom! There's a damn commercial break!!! These TV stations really need to plan their commercial breaks better! I don't mind commercial breaks, but don't put them in the middle of a sentence in the show! Or in the middle of action! Like one time I was watching a show, and a man was making advances to a woman, and the woman threw the man on the bed, there came a commercial break, right in between the time she grabbed him and when he landed on the bed! It was a dumb place to put a commercial.

But this is one of my biggest pet peeves, syndication! Why pay good money for a series on DVD where all the series is nothing more than the syndicated versions of the show, when you can get all that for free recording it off the television? Of course if you want to spend the money on the DVDs, that's your choice to make! Personally, I might as well save the series that we recorded off the TV. At least some of them are the full versions and have old commercials to go along with them. Of course, I wouldn't record any of today's commercials!! All that ever seems to come on anymore are commercials for medications that you cannot even get without perscriptions (and I've had enough of those as spam e-mails!! I don't care to see them on TV!) or are 10-minute long infomercials!! So, today's commercials are stupid and worthless!!