The Uncut Bogus Buccaneers

Happy August! August is such a fun time, an interesting, transitional time, as summer moves towards fall. And for everyone who has had too much of this extremely hot summer, like me, autumn surely sounds like a glorious relief!

August is positive for Perry fans in that the 8th will be the birthday of Richard Anderson, our Lieutenant Drumm. (Yay!) But August is also a bittersweet time for Perry fans, marking the deaths of two Perry cast members (on the same day!). And for me, the death of Perry alumnus Simon Oakland as well.

This particular August should be exciting for Perry fans, as we will see the release of the final DVD set. That will be bittersweet too, really, but wonderful to know that all the episodes are at last available uncut! I can hardly wait to see the uncut Sausalito Sunrise and Fanciful Frail.

It also marks the second anniversary of this blog. I will do my best to make August an interesting month here!

I don’t know if I’m going to have to officially bring the blog back to single posts a week for a while. I haven’t had much luck getting up weekend posts for the last couple of weeks. I still need to review the uncut version of The Bogus Buccaneers, and by now it’s been so long that I wonder if I need to go over it again to make sure I remember all the missing scenes. I’ll give it a try and see how well I do.

The first missing scene is right near the beginning, after the wild woman and Tony have their fight. We see the police rounding up the confused Buccaneers and Tony running when they come for him.

I also seem to recall that the lineup scene is longer, with one of the Buccaneers (Mike Woods, the one who goes missing for publicity reasons later) actively complaining about being brought in. The cut and the uncut versions meet when he’s told to go stand in the lineup.

I always thought something was cut around the area where Steve is talking to parole officer Abe, but according to the disc, the scenes in that part are intact. However, I want to say that the part where Perry talks to Tony is longer. I’m not sure I remember the early part of the conversation, with Tony thinking he’s a charity case and Perry being annoyed and wanting him to stop wallowing in self-pity.

Some of the cuts in this episode are very short, but they help flesh things out better anyway, such as the little bit with Clay fussing over Tony’s wife and the telling of the special diet he has her on.

Also available is a scene right when Perry and Paul come to the murder scene to look around. Brice tells them they can come in within five minutes, when Steve will be ready. Meanwhile, they discuss the case, including the weird fact that the victim only lived there for three days.

There’s also a very short scene later showing the girl and Della heading for the car and that guy following and watching them. That takes place right before the scene where he holds them hostage (and Della gets to be awesome bonking him with a frying pan).

I recall a scene right before the reading of the fan letters, where Paul talks to the producer of the show and is given a box of letters. He’s told that it takes a whole storage room to hold them all. He inquires how the sample lists work and if the murder victim’s name was on one of them. He’s told that it was, and that they select people at random after they’ve sent in some sort of card. Paul wants to see hers, but is told that it would be very time-consuming to dig it out.

The part where Perry goes to talk to the star of the show is longer, and in the uncut we see that Della is with him. She ends up accidentally colliding with said star and having a very nice exchange with him—the dream of many girls who are nuts over certain actors. His wife comes and comments that on the show, girls are paid to run into him. When Perry asks to speak with him in his dressing room, Della and the wife are left to themselves.

The Bogus Buccaneers is one of the most interesting commentaries the show did on other television shows, what with its goofy commercials and promotional door-to-door samples and the extended parts on fan letters. And, of course, the fear of the show falling apart if there’s any hint of scandal about the star. Television certainly was different in those days, behind the scenes as well as on camera.

The only thing that seems to be relatively the same these days is fan mail. There’s no more silly commercials, rarely if ever any door-to-door promotions, and people sure don’t worry about scandal like they used to. Although I suppose to some extent some still must, considering how Charlie Sheen got booted from Two and a Half Men. But, for the most part, people didn’t seem to worry that the show would crumble without him.