Wikipedia talk:WikiProject ITC Productions

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[edit] Man In a Suitcase

Can anyone vouch for the accuracy of the man in a suitcase episode list, more specifically the episode numbers/order? The list you have does not correspond to the imdb list (which has broadcast dates). However the source of those dats or the station they relate to is not stated, nor if the broadcast order is that intended. The running order is cast into further doubt as the current ITV4 repeats matches neither the IMDB or your order. I mailed the ITV duty office on the issue and they claimed it was the original order (they have taken case with the other ITC series currently being repeated. After the duty office sent an initial response I mailed them the order inc broadcast dates from IMDB. They refered the matter to the ITV4 schedulers and promised to get back to me, however I have yet to receive a response (I will chase them again). In the meantime it would be useful if you could try and validate the episode numbers if you have a more authorative source. Dondilly 04:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't vouch for it's accuracy, as I didn't enter the list in - neither did any of the members of the ITC WikiProject. I took a look at the fan site which also had an episode guide and that seemed to be all over the place too; with episodes made in '67 listed before some made in '66. One absolutely correct source should be the Network DVD release, as they continually have released superior and correct editions of ITC shows. Their list is as follows:

• Man from the Dead • All that Glitters • Sweet Sue • The Bridge • Find the Lady • Brainwash • The Girl Who Never Was • Variation on a Million Bucks part one • Variation on a Million Bucks part two • Day of Execution • Web With Four Spiders • Blind Spot • The Boston Square • Jigsaw Man • The Sitting Pigeon • The Man Who Stood Still • Somebody Loses, Somebody...Wins? • Dead Man's Shoes • The Whisper • Essay in Evil • Why They Killed Nolan • Burden of Proof • Who's Mad Now? • Property of a Gentleman • No Friend of Mine • Which Way Did He Go, McGill? • The Revolutionaries • Three Blinks of the Eyes • Castle in the Clouds • Night Flght to Andorra I hope this is some help. HowardBerry 11:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Im still yet to get a reply from the ITV4 scheduler however I did do a check of their schedule/listings. My first mail to ITV was after the first episode they broadcast. Episode 1 - Sweet Sue (07 November) Episode 2 - The Girl Who Never Was (14 November) Episode 3 - Blind Spot (21 November) While they havnt acknowledged the error, I noticed that in fact on the 14th they in fact broadcast 'Brainwash' and have 'The Sitting Pigeon' now scheduled for the 21st and 'Day of Execution' for the 28th, so while I got no idea where they got their original order, they now seem to have switched to the IMDB running order though I presume they will skip over brainwash as they had shown it out of sequence.

As for using the order of the DVD release, frequently they will differ from the broadcast order anyway. You only have to look at the ufoseries website where they have done a direct comparison of the differing running orders http://www.ufoseries.com/faq.html#16 notice however that most of the accepted running orders seem to follow production order, however production and intended order, filming can be dictated by various circumstances such as availability of sets and cast. Sometimes when distributing a series, the producion company wont give a suggested running order for the TV company to follow, especially where episode storylines are self contained, they might only dictate a few order dependencies (so that dead characters dont spring back to life etc) As a definitive ITC guide, it might be worthwile to decide as policy, which episode order you publish (IMDB tends to imply original broadcast order as while their lists sometimes gets screwed up, they do usually have the original broadcast date)

It would be nice to have consistency accross the project and then decide how to handle differences between production and broadcast orders if both are available. Dondilly 17:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
There is a major problem with deciding which order to list ITC shows under because they were rarely networked, either in the UK or the US. When they were networked, the order they were shown was different in the UK to the order in the US because the US has sweeps weeks and the UK doesn't. You can't even go by the ATV air-date in the UK, because frequently ATV abused ITC series and showed them out of order, whilst other ITV companies showed series and individual episodes before ATV. For instance, UFO began simultaneously on 16 September 1970 on ATV, TTT and Border, but by 7 October it had drifted and all three showed different episodes - so the premiere air-date for 3 different UFO episodes is 7 October 1970!
Also, ITC were notorious for continuity errors in all their series, so characters often ignore events that have happened in previous episodes or profess ignorance of something they were an expert on 3 episodes ago. Worse, characters have been known to refer to events that haven't happened yet! So listing episodes by "series timeline" doesn't work either.
Then there's the issue of production order. This is the most sensible order to use and the one that Network always try to stick by. But that's difficult to establish too - many programmes were made by two units in order to produce double the number of episodes a week (watch Space: 1999 and see how in later episodes Marty Landau seems to only have a part every other episode). Some ITC show episodes got delayed in post-production, especially if they needed special effects, so were completed after episodes that started filming later. Seasons are difficult to judge too, with some shows now always presented as one season actually being made in two lumps. Thunderbirds and UFO come under this - Thunderbirds getting cancelled 6 episodes into a second season, UFO shutting down after 17 episodes because MGM British studios closed and they had to find a new studio (Pinewood).
Therefore, the episodes of many shows were not consistently labeled by ITC and finding the true production order (or even establishing what constitutes a "production order") is something fans continually argue over. The amount of original research required - and Wikipedia doesn't encourage original research - put this far beyond the scope of this WikiProject.
Perhaps the best option is just to make sure that any episode list states its source - something like "This episode list is in production order, based on Network DVD research" or "This episode list is in US air-date order, based on Internet Movie Database research". Any attempt at consistency would be foolish and doomed to failure, I'm afraid. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 11:00, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Missing articles

Is there a webpage or other source that has a complete list of ITC productions? That's probably the best way of figuring out which shows are missing articles. 23skidoo 20:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The most comprehensive I can think of - and it's long(!) - is the one on the IMDb: [1] HowardBerry 20:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I've spent valuable hours of my life on this Lew List. I hope he's grateful wherever he is now and that'll I find a cigar under my pillow accordingly.
This list is not comprehensive. I've taken 3 sources of information, including the IMDB, and combined them. The result is a huge list (in horrible, horrible HTML tables format) that gives, from my perspective, the most useful information that any ITC box should have. Of course, that means that "series stars" is missing - something that would scandalise our Lord Grade, I'll tell you.
Missing, because it requires further research, is the end dates of each series. The majority are to be found on the 'pedia, the rest are easy to come by elsewhere (in theory). The list also includes some of the latter ITC bollocks when they thought they were a big-time movie studio but weren't. This can probably be disgarded with pleasure all round.
Also, there are no Wikilinks and the Indefinate Article is separated from the main title so I could sort the list whilst working on it.
It won't do, but it's a start. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 21:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Wow, that certainly is going to be invaluable. How long did this take you!? HowardBerry 22:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
For bl--dy ever! But quicker the second time around: a new version is up and now has Wikilinks to the titles and gone is the HTML, allowing the lines to be cut-and-pasted as we need. I reckon that allows us to begin the thankless task of a to-do list:
        • we can click the blue titles and seeing if they go to the TV show or movie in question; if they go elsewhere, looking if there's a "Film title (movie)"-type version and moving them to point at that.
        • we can do a similar thing with the red links, and stub them where possible.
        • we can look at the articles that already exist and glean any missing information.
        • we can infobox all the blue ones.
Does that sound fair to everyone? ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 12:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that sounds like a great idea. Having it laid out like this makes it a lot easier to see what has an article and what doesn't, and where the work needs to be done. HowardBerry 17:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

To help people concentrate on what really interests them (ie to strain out the duff TV movies!) I've split the Lew List into 3 sections under each letter - TV series, TV Movies and Movies. Hope this helps. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 14:46, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] R2 vs R1 DVD covers and other images

Although I agree with the rationale behind using R2 DVD covers when possible, aesthetics should be taken into account as well as on occasion the North American releases (primarily A&E) sometimes look better. It might not hurt to include one or two screen captures as well from the DVDs. I'd like to see that grainy picture of Brains from the Thunderbirds article replaced with a half-decent screen capture, for example. I'd do it myself but I don't have the show on DVD. The use of book and comic book covers I think also adds visual interest (see, for example, The Saint (TV series) and Danger Man, though of course care must be taken to avoid turning the articles into image galleries, and short articles that are unlikely to grow very much, such as The Secret Service, need only a single image at the moment. 23skidoo 20:53, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree - some DVD covers from the US do look better. The Captain Scarlet DVD box in the UK is very boring in comparison to the US releases, and some of the Carlton DVDs are pretty boring and standard too. Some later releases look a bit better (the Network DVD cases are a good example). Also, I was just looking at that picture of Brains and was scouting for a better one online. I found a slightly better screen capture [2], but it's still not too great. I own quite a lot of the ITC series on DVD, so I could do some screen grabs if necessary. HowardBerry 21:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Edit got a better screen grab: [3]
That's much better, though, really, the image should be of the Traceys or Lady Penelope, but this will do for now. 23skidoo 21:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The ITC infobox

My suggestion for a unique ITC infobox, due to the complexity of ITC's affairs...

{{Infobox ITC | orig_name = Lew Grade Totally Nude| other_name = Grade in a Suitcase (US); Grade dans la Eiffel (France); Lew auf der bahnhof (Germany/Austria)| image = [[Image:MIASdvd.JPG|right|British DVD release]]| caption = British DVD release image| format = Action Adventure| runtime = 60 min.| creator = [[Dennis Spooner]]| starring = [[Richard Bradford]]| country = [[United Kingdom|UK]]| ran_from = [[1967]]| ran_until = [[1968]]| num_episodes = 36,892| prod_co_img = [[Image:Atv-sm.gif|right|{{Articletitle}} production company]]| prod_co = ATV (or ITC, or APF or C21 or Unknown etc etc)| ran_on = [[ITV]] in the UK; [[?BC]] in the US (or [[Syndication]] in the US| }}

(You'll have to imagine the formatting for yourselves, or look at the edit screen)

This allows for the fact that many ITC and ATV dates are vague. For instance, the exact start date means little when a series is syndicated (although we can easily track down the first showing in the UK and the first (if any) in the US, anything beyond that gets very difficult to do).

What do people think of this? ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 22:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Yep I think that works as a very good idea. Especially with a hope of clearing up the different production companies - whilst still tying them to Lew Grade/a common company. HowardBerry 22:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be an additional entry for number of seasons too? HowardBerry 22:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


That falls down immediately, unfortunately, because "season" is a modern development and also doesn't apply to syndicated material. For instance, Thunderbirds has two seasons: 26 episodes initially (made by APF) and one of 6 episodes (made by "Gerry Anderson Productions"). Lew cancelled Thunderbirds after 6 episodes of the new season, a decision he later regretted bitterly, and with the new episodes following so quickly but not representing a full season, ITC sold the series as a "long season" of 32. The only way you know is that 6 at the end have GAP instead of APF as a prod cap, and they have a different actor playing Virgil's voice.
I don't know how an infobox could describe this usefully. But I'm prepared to be proved wrong and if you can, more power to your elbow, I say! :) Along the same lines, I don't know how we would quantify a "season" as applied to ATV's Sapphire and Steel, a show that was all over the shop in episode numbering and air-dates, despite it being (AFAIK) networked in the UK. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 22:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
So true... I don't think we want to get into dealing with the problems of what qualifies as a season/series! Best leave seasons out. HowardBerry 22:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree seasons/series is a bit too complex for the infobox. Best to just stick with number of episodes produced. I noticed that there is often discrepency with regards to airdates. For the Gerry Anderson shows I'm going with the Complete Gerry Anderson book which lists all shows with their first-ever UK airdates, which can sometimes differ by months from other sources (especially with the case of UFO, though I tried to address this in the episode list for that article). 23skidoo 15:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Yep, I've been getting some airdates from IMDb and/or tv.com, but I would expect the book to be far more accurate. HowardBerry 17:07, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

When I enter information on any page with the box, the alternative name entry doesn't ever seem to work. See what I mean on The Zoo Gang page. Weird. HowardBerry 18:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the utility of the infobox as it now stands. Its primary aim seems to be branding ITC productions. But that sort of assumes that the most important fact about a production is that it's an ITC production. Is that really a fair thing to say about, say, The Muppet Show? What's more important, there: that it's an ITC production, a Jim Henson production, or a Disney property? Is Thunderbirds best represented as a Gerry Anderson show, British children's television programme, or an ITC production? Using the box comes dangerously close to bias, and thus violation of the NPOV policy.
Another issue is the severe limitations on the box when compared to the generic television infobox. That template allows for a much greater range of information, which would be useful to have in this box. For instance, it's immediately problematic that there's no place to indicate the producer, any details about the theme song, and so on.
Finally, it's an aesthetically displeasing template, which in no way uses color to draw the reader's attention to specific bits of information.
I think the whole thing should be scrapped in favor of the generic television info box. CzechOut 00:56, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Available images

I've done some icons for the Infobox "production company" category. They are:

The YTV and Euston ones are only useful if the Rising Damp and George & Mildred movies were made by YTV and Euston respectively; I think they were but can't swear to it at this second. Nope, a simple rights buy-out job, no involvement from the original TV production companies that I can see. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 15:32, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The Weinstein and Sapphire ones (which are screenshots taken with a camera in the early 1960s by a friend of mine) are for a couple of the very early ITC shows and will have replaced the ITC Production credit in the LewList as soon as I stop having this blond moment and remember which ones. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 12:50, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Good work. I don't think we need the color ATV one - the B&W one looks better, I think. We should just have one for each of the different production companies, otherwise there's probably 3 or 4 different ITC ones out there and we'd have to figure out which one was used during a particular show's run (something made difficult by the DVD releases). 23skidoo 15:30, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Shouldn't the above images be links, rather than displayed, per fair use policy? The JPStalk to me 10:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and they are now. This page was created before the policy in question was finalised. ➨ ЯEDVERS 17:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-naming from Productions to Distributions

As we're now going with Distributions instead of Productions, should we change the category from Category:ITC Entertainment Productions to Distributions, or keep it (for those series actually produced by ITC) and introduce a secondary category for the other ITC distributed shows? HowardBerry 17:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd go for splitting into distribution and production; or dropping pure ITC distributions (ie where it's obvious they had nothing really creative/financially to do with the production) entirely. Of course, that's tantamount to saying "only where Lew's stubby fingers can be found on the film" but I'm not adverse to that! ITC's later life (post Lew losing control of ACC) is very dull compared to the "cult" aspect of the earlier productions - although Whoops! Apocolypse is a great film either way. The completist in me fancies tying everything done in ITC's name down to ITC, but the reality must be "what are our readers looking for when they search for ITC?". Wikipedia is not the IMDb, I suppose...
Some help I am. ;) ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 20:04, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Well if it were solely up to me, I'd choose to keep in everything that has at one time gone under the ITC banner. If we didn't include shows that weren't actually produced by ITC, then The Prisoner would have to not be included, along with all the APF/Century 21 productions... which I feel contribute a large part of what defines what ITC was about (certainly in it's 60s heyday at least). To me, some of those shows are synonymous with ITC. I think we should keep the ITC Ent. Productions category - so as to define those shows actually made by ITC, and introduce an ITC Ent. Distributions category for the others. That way they still are shown to be connected to ITC in some way. HowardBerry 00:05, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ATV addition

Are we including all ATV programs under this umbrella or just the ones connected with ITC? I was going through some of my Bill Haley archives and I found a VHS tape someone sent me of a 1979 UK documentary program under the ATV label called Format V. Aside from Bill Haley's appearance in March 1979, is there any other information about this program available anywhere? 23skidoo 03:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Format V was an ATV local programme (for the Midlands only; not networked) and it was never in the ITC library (it was an ATV News dept production so went to Central's archive in 1982) and I can't find evidence that ITC distributed it outside of the UK... in fact I'll lay money it wasn't distributed outside the UK. This Google search produces a little information on the Bill Haley segment, but not much. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 10:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Both references were written by me, as those are my webpages. I have a "raw footage" copy of the episode complete with a test pattern with the ATV logo. When I get a chance I'll do a screen capture of it. 23skidoo 19:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Related articles

What should be done with relation to spin-off articles? For example there are individual articles for several Prisoner episodes, John Drake has his own page, etc.? Should these be considered part of the project, too? 23skidoo 19:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thunderbirds infobox

Hello, I think Thunderbirds was produced by Gerry Anderson's earlier company AP Films rather than 21st Century productions. However, I don't really understand the formatting of the infobox, so I was wondering if somebody could change it please. Bob 21:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The first season were APF. The abortive second season were "Gerry Anderson Productions". C21's first production was Captain Scarlet. I've modified the box. ➨ ЯЄDVERS 21:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Bob 22:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

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[edit] Logos being removed

Just for anyone interested, the various ITC logos are being removed from article infoboxes as they apparently do not conform to Fair Use (see Space: 1999). I'm not the one doing the removals, but I thought I'd just give people a heads up about it. 23skidoo 11:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Maybe BetaCommandBot is deleting the images. I had ALL my images have a tag (on my Pet Force page), while he deleted the image, Abnermalcopyrighted.jpg. I guess he has some kind of bug. Oh Well. At least he might not delete my ITC first logo screen. --Garzooka, Odious, Abnermal, Starlena and ComPooky! LET THE FUR FLY! 16:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

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[edit] Stablepedia

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[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)