Calling Leon Redbone! Antenna TV Pilot is different than DVD version.

First of all let me applaud Antenna TV. They have showed this complete series in it's complete originally aired ABC network version. Nothing has been edited, they all run their original 24 min running time. The ten lost episodes were shown, eight of which also have a full 24 min running time. They have never been seen before this way because all syndicated prints were edited to 22 min back when these were originally shown. It is an understatement to say that this royal treatment never, and I do mean NEVER happens.

The show even has the original bumpers which lead into the commercials in which various cast members do voiceovers over a cast photo saying that "Mr. Belvedere will be right back". These were edited out of the DVD.

I paid attention mostly to season 5&6, as the others have been issued on DVD, and now was able to get them on my dvr and then burn them off with my DVD recorder. Today my dvr picked up the final episode and the pilot.

Finally getting the whole series, I put on the pilot just to see how much everyone had changed over the years. After the familiar first few scenes, I was shocked to see a totally different opening sequence than on the DVD. It is still a mélange of still photos of the cast but some are different. The background is purple instead of orange. What was really weird was that Leon Redbone was not singing the lead on the theme song. The guy sounds as if he is imitating Leon so it's probably a demo for him to put his voice on. The episode amazingly has a bumper with the weird lettering from the opening, and finally a (cool) rock version of the end theme I never heard before or again.

So what have we got here? I take it strongly that this is the original pilot as it aired the first time in 1985. I think the titles on DVD were made for the broadcast rerun, certainly it wasn't made for syndication which used generic opening titles until the Antenna broadcasts. Maybe it was made special for the DVD and they simply did not want to use the non Redbone version.

Anyway it is very interesting that Antenna seems to be giving us an experience closer to what we had in the eighties with the show, than the official DVD's are. Anybody who has the discs and have been watching notice any other differences?