Variations – CEDatum

Welcome to the Variations page on CEDatum. Here I would like to discuss and show you the different variations that have been discovered. There are several different types of variations and things that are not considered a variation. For example, there is disc content variations, where it’s the same title but the content on the disc is different from another. There is also label variations, where a typo or mistake was printed and then changed in later pressings. Finally there are caddy variations, where a disc typically found in one color is found in the other color, some of these can be rare, but some are quite common as well. Some items that are not considered variations are titles that were released by multiple studios. The cutaway on the bottom of the label where you can grip the disc to insert and remove it from the player. And finally, any disc that was modified after it left the factory, and occasionally internal discs used in R&D or brought home by employees. So without further adieu, lets get started.

Lets go over some examples of things that are variations but not really considered variations just because they are so common. The first is going to be finger grips or cutaways on the label where one would grip the disc to insert or remove it from the player. When the format started all the players where manual load players, meaning you had to insert the caddy, and then pull the caddy back out, leaving the disc inside the player. To aid in this procedure RCA made caddies that had a recessed grip in the bottom middle of the disc. They would then cut the label to go around this grip. But as auto-loading players where introduced they no longer had the need for this grip and the player would automatically pull the disc in and push it back out again. So RCA started to get caddies without the grip. During this transition they would sometimes use old labels that had the cutaway for the grip, but the caddy lacked a grip. Or the caddy had a grip and they used fresh labels that didn’t have a cutaway and just pasted it over the grip. Eventually when it was announced the program was cancelled they just used whatever they had on hand so it was kind of a free for all. They also began to paste new labels over old labels to use caddies that had been mislabeled or were not used for whatever reason. They also began to run out of white spines and so you will quite often find certain titles, like The Empire Strikes Back in a blue stereo caddy, but with a white spine. Then they began to run out of blue caddies and so you will find most late releases in only a white caddy. But many titles where released during the transition or a blue caddy was found laying around and used on a late release.

Here we have TCM with a cutaway, and a later release without.

Another type of variation that is not considered is titles that were released under multiple studios. So for example you can find Rocky in both an RCA release and a CBS/FOX release. Rio Lobo, War Games, King of Hearts, and several James Bond titles come to mind as well. Since these were released by different studios they are not considered variations.

Here is the CBS/FOX release and the MGM/UA release of War Games

It’s tough to say if this counts but one is the MGM/CBS version and one is the MGM/UA version. The title is The Wizard of OZ.

Forbidden Planet, alternate studio on top.

Finally any discs that were modified by their owners, typically rental warehouses, or discs that were used in R&D or brought home by employees in limited configurations. For example I have several Jeff Gold discs that were brought home by him in whatever caddy was to be found, and then he brought home a label separately and just pasted it on. Some of these you can tell he did himself, but others appear he found the disc at the factory with the label already applied, or had it specifically made for himself. I’ll post some of these but I am not sure I would consider them a a variation just because they are probably a one-off.

Race for your life, Charlie Brown with a custom banner on the corner. Made at the factory.

It was created as a sample to see what the label might look like.

Upon close inspection you can see they cut the corner of the label off and glued this blue one on in it’s place.

Some re-labeled caddies made by disc rental companies. If the top corner tab of a caddy gets broken then the disc will no longer work in auto-loading players. So when this happened, the rental company would remove the label and paste in on a caddy that the disc had been discarded from. You can usually tell these because the label will look horrendous from being peeled off and there is typically glue residue around the label on the caddy.

More Candid Candid Camera is not a stereo title, the label was removed and pasted onto a blue caddy.

I don’t know if this one was done by a rental company or a consumer, but clearly it was glued onto this caddy.

The glue was not sticking and appeared to have been glued on quite some time ago. There was no label underneath so I am not sure if it was blank to begin with or if someone did an excellent job removing the previous label.

OK, lets get into the gritty of CED Variations. The first variation I want to talk about needs a little explanation. So there are some titles that were pressed, and then when sales did well, or they ran out of discs they would press more. Well during this time they would sometime update their discs with the new fanfare or maybe change something in the program on the disc, if they were unable to get rights to a particular song or something during the first release but then did during the second, or whatever be the case.

The old RCA fanfare can be found on all the early discs, at some point later on they updated their fanfare to the one on the bottom. Tom talks about this on the CED Magic website. Some discs that were pressed a 2nd or 3rd time later on will have the updated newer fanfare. Looking for Mr. Goodbar is one of them. There is nothing on the label that indicates this change. I don’t really keep a running list as I rarely watch different discs and pay attention to this.

CBS/FOX also has two different fanfares, one is the blue which I think was the earlier one but I’m not sure, then the grey or marble background was the update. The Entity is one that can be found with either, again there is no indication on the label of this change.

The next type of variation is typos. Sometimes the studio would use a sticker to hide typos. This isn’t always a variation as all copies would be like that. Here are some examples,

Yoga Moves with Alan Finger has this sticker covering a typo on the right side of the rear label. I removed one to see what the difference was.

Max Dougan Returns (Sticker over word Stereo on corner)

Doctor Dolittle (Sticker over word Stereo on corner)

Sometimes, the typo got missed and and they had to fix it on later releases.

Saturday Night Fever was originally released with the Dolby Stereo logo used on the back of the Laserdisc. This was later changed to “Mono sound track for videodisc”.

The Muppet Movie was released with the same error.

The Big Red One (Misspelled on spine The Rig Red One)

Bad Boys has a different style title number on the back on later releases, not sure this is an error but for sure a variation.

The next variation is a little odd, just different colors used on the label. I’m not sure if this was an ink issue or if it was done on purpose. The two most notable ones are,

Tender Mercies in both yellow and orange. (No it’s not sun faded or nicotine.)

Magnum Force (one in purple one in orange)

Another one that kind of falls into this category is Paul McCartney & Wings Rockshow. There was two different covers of this title made, one cover was color and the other was slightly different and in black and white. The black and white cover was made for the “See The Music, Stereo Music Six Pack”

CBS/FOX had 2 different cover variations for a few of their movies. Some with a 20th Century Fox logo bar across the top and a variation with the logo bar removed and just a CBS/FOX logo on the top right corner of the cover. Here are the titles that have been found so far with both variations.

Alien

Porky’s

Star Wars

Young Frankenstein

9 to 5

Fort Apache The Bronx Vestron title that has the rainbow border, a version was also released without this border.

Some other miscellaneous variations are,

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -A version was found with a mismatched front and rear label, chances are this was a line error during production and they were destroyed but one or two may have snuck out with an employee.

The Cincinnati Kid -One version has a CX Stereo logo on the bottom right of the front cover and the other version has nothing there.

For Your Eyes Only[UA] -One version will have a Stereo logo in white on the lower bottom corner of the front cover and the other version will have a red CX Stereo logo instead.

Victor Victoria (Jesse Skeen) -One version will have a Stereo logo in white on the lower bottom corner of the front cover and the other version will have a red CX Stereo logo instead.

The Secret of NIMH -It was discovered that there are two variations of this disc, one with a time of 26:19 on side two and the other with a time of 40:27 on side two. I managed to obtain both copies and noticed that one has the word Stereo with two bars on the bottom right corner of the front cover and the other has a CX logo in front of it with a slight variation on the word stereo. The version with the longer side 2 of 40:27 was the earlier release and just has the word stereo on the bottom right of the front cover while the version that has a side 2 of 26:19 was the later release with CX encoding and for some reason they felt the need to cut about 15 minutes of the movie on side 2.

Spacehunter -One version has a red border.

Christine -One version has “A Richard Korbitz Production” added under the title. (The fact that the 2nd one has a white spine would probably mean it was the later release.)

Jane Fonda’s Workout can be found with both the original RCA logo in the top right corner as seen on the back disc, or with the newer updated logo like the front disc.

Finally the most common variation to look for is alternate color caddies. When the format began they used white to indicate a mono title and blue to indicate a stereo title. Once the program got cancelled they continued to produce titles but they used what they had on hand. So once they ran out of blue spines they used white, and once they ran out of blue caddies they used white. So you will find titles with white spines in blue caddies, like Empire Strikes Back is a very common one. You will also find some titles in both blue and white caddies during the “transition” phase when they began to run out of blue caddies. I would also imagine that they occasionally found a spare and used it. Additionally they started making the labels wider so they could paste them over older labels. So you will also find discs with labels glued over other labels. So here are the titles we have discovered so far in both a blue and white caddy.