I mean, this is such a wonderful program, even the obscure acts are excellent. I am aware some of the early episodes were lost, but many episodes still exist, a lot more than most of variety shows of the time.
Too bad only a handful of complete episodes are on DVD, I'd love to see more.
Pickle Me Grandmother!!
Unfortunately, releasing complete episodes is a copyright nightmare. Two words - music licensing. Clearing music copyrights can be extremely difficult and expensive. It's probably why complete episodes of only The Beatles and Elvis Presley were released - sufficient copies would be sold to break even.
You are correct in stating that many episodes still exist. According to SOFA Entertainment's search engine, the earliest episode known to exist dates from November 28, 1948. The program debut June 20, 1948. Presumably episodes aired before Nov. 28, 1948 predated CBS' ability to make kinescopes.
Transferring complete seasons or entire series to DVD is an enormous task. Now multiply this by 23 seasons. Let's say they released each season in chronological order i.e. The Simpsons or Saturday Night Live. Two seasons per calendar year. You wouldn't hit the 1960s until the year 2020. Put them all in one huge slam-bang collection? I think around 1,050 shows were produced. Four shows per DVD would be 263 discs! We're looking at a low-ball cost of over $800 for the collection, probably more. Few people who have this kind of money want to see Bert Lahr or Eve Arden. People who remember this stuff are retired and on a fixed income. And the production costs? Millions and Millions. They'd lose their shirts.
shareComplete episodes is far-fetched. But how about complete performances. For favorite artists I could savor everything from introduction to parting.
Also didn't the network just throw out a lot of the film from those days just because they were losing money storing them all? TVDays.com is one person who scavenged those scraps and saved many.