It isn't lost and it isn't a masterpiece

September 26, 2023 11:43 AM

Apparently back in 1975, Graham Chapman of Monty Python and Douglas Adams not quite yet of Hitchhiker's Guide wrote a television show. It's an incomprehensible mess that's entirely worth watching. Out Of The Trees [32m]
posted by hippybear (24 comments total)

Some background:

"After “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” ended, Graham Chapman worked with an up-and-coming young writer named Douglas Adams on a new sketch comedy show for the BBC. It was called "Out of the Trees," and it bombed. Only one episode was made, and that aired only once, on January 10, 1976.

Once the Beeb gave up on "Out of the Trees," they did to it what they did to so many other programs of that era: they erased it. They wiped the master tapes so they could be re-used. "Out of the Trees" went into the history books as lost media.

That changed nearly 30 years later, when Chapman's partner, David Sherlock, approached Dick Fiddy, an archivist at London's National Film Theatre. Sherlock revealed that Chapman had in fact recorded a copy of "Out of the Trees" onto videotape from his home TV the one and only time it aired.

But there was a problem. That air date was in 1976, before VHS or Betamax became global videocassette standards. Chapman had recorded the show on one of the very earliest home videotape formats -- Philips' "Video Cassette Recording" (VCR), which had reached the market in 1972. The rise of Beta and VHS had, however, led Philips to abandon its VCR format. The last compatible players had been made in 1979. By the mid-2000s, they were impossible to find. Sherlock had been left with an historic tape, and no machine to play it on.

Fiddy says it took two years to build a compatible player, but eventually it was done. And that is why you can watch the one and only episode of "Out of the Trees" ever produced on YouTube today.

Is it any good? Ehhh, not really. It's not Chapman or Adams' best work, that's for certain. But it's a good example of what the future will hold for lots of cultural artifacts, if we're not careful."

posted by urbanwhaleshark at 12:41 PM on September 26, 2023 [21 favorites]

Fiddy says it took two years to build a compatible player, but eventually it was done.

Ok that is really interesting. If anyone has more information on that I would love to hear about it.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:49 PM on September 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

I haven't had time to watch yet, but the tag "GenghisKhan" strikes fear in my heart.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:55 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

I believe all the known recordings of Alan Turing's voice have been lost/copied over, including one that was broadcast by the BBC. What a loss.

That's much better quality than I would have believed (image and sound, not material). I assume there was a lot of cleanup done during the transfer.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 1:07 PM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Regardless of the content's quality, it's really charming that it's Chapman's own recorded copy.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:07 PM on September 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

The rise of Beta and VHS had, however, led Philips to abandon its VCR format. The last compatible players had been made in 1979. By the mid-2000s, they were impossible to find.

That's not correct; there are plenty of collectors and a few facilities houses with N1500/N1700 decks, and even now questions about them come up fairly regularly on UK video forums. Several of the Doctor Who DVDs made in the mid 2000s have extras recovered from this format. Perhaps Fiddy just meant that NFT didn't have one themselves and the writer got the wrong end of the stick?
posted by offog at 1:25 PM on September 26, 2023

It seems like the "two years" comment comes from this article:

It took two years to transfer because a customised player had to be built, Mr Fiddy says, with the entire process filmed in case the tape "dissolves after one play".

Maybe it was an exceptionally fragile tape?
posted by ectabo at 1:36 PM on September 26, 2023

Maybe it was an exceptionally fragile tape?

It had lived through the excess of Mr Chapman's household.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:38 PM on September 26, 2023

Perhaps he was dictating?

Like maybe it's not a tape of the show at all, but rather a tape of Chapman describing what he's seeing and it's taken this long to train up an AI that can take his dictation as prompts and reconstruct what he might have been observing?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:38 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Graham Chapman's household is a recording format I wish had caught on as it was superior to both Betamax and VHS, although I will grant there are some engineering issues involved in constructing compatible players that can reconstitute molecules from fifty years ago with the resolution that the specification suggests is theoretically possible. For example, this reconstruction should be much, much funnier than it is due to excessive rolloff in the comedic high end.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 1:47 PM on September 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

Fascinating! Also of note - the Youtube video was posted in May 2012.
posted by davidmsc at 2:01 PM on September 26, 2023

I was just reflecting the other day that a lot of writing that was readily available on the internet of the early '00s is gone now. One day this very site might be gone. And what then? There's a lot of stuff here. Poof! It'll be gone. It seems insane that the BBC routinely just threw stuff out, but nothing much has changed since then, really.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:51 PM on September 26, 2023

The last compatible players had been made in 1979. By the mid-2000s, they were impossible to find. Sherlock had been left with an historic tape, and no machine to play it on.

Hey, I remember this Cowboy Bebop episode!
posted by jackbishop at 3:00 PM on September 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

Now we just need to find an extant copy of director Hal Ashby and Graham Chapman’s last project: ‘Jake’s Journey’
posted by pipian at 3:38 PM on September 26, 2023

That's not correct; there are plenty of collectors and a few facilities houses with N1500/N1700 decks, and even now questions about them come up fairly regularly on UK video forums. Several of the Doctor Who DVDs made in the mid 2000s have extras recovered from this format. Perhaps Fiddy just meant that NFT didn't have one themselves and the writer got the wrong end of the stick?

on the one hand, that's great, on the other its too bad, because the story of resurrecting a media format by building a machine from first principals would be THE BEST.
posted by Dr. Twist at 3:39 PM on September 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

It was a short-lived format called Betaflop-D, made exclusively for use inside Tom Brokaw's house. I'm glad they found a device beige enough to play it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:52 PM on September 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's almost like Prosser's backstory.
posted by bbrown at 4:52 PM on September 26, 2023

I thought it was funny. Funnier than the vast majority of so-called humor these days. I’m glad that they preserved it. Will watch it again. And it was far far better than that American one shot blunder Turn On which was posted around here.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:19 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

I was thrilled to find this show on Youtube years ago but I think I bailed about five minutes in. It just doesn't work, and as you watch it you kind of feel like everybody involved knows it doesn't work.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:36 PM on September 26, 2023

I was just reflecting the other day that a lot of writing that was readily available on the internet of the early '00s is gone now. One day this very site might be gone.

The Wayback Machine works at preserving internet things.
posted by davidmsc at 5:50 PM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

...It's an incomprehensible mess which is entirely worth watching.

Cogito ergo dissonantia patior cognitiva
posted by y2karl at 6:22 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

My inner archivist screams whenever it hears something like "they did to it what they did to so many other programs of that era: they erased it."
posted by Flunkie at 6:39 PM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

One day this very site might be gone. And what then?

Some day, even Mozart will be forgotten, I'm afraid.
posted by Rash at 10:09 PM on September 26, 2023

"Some day, even Mozart will be forgotten, I'm afraid."
Who?
posted by Floydd at 1:59 PM on September 27, 2023 [1 favorite]