Question: I was watching The Breakfast Club on AMC and noticed scenes that aren't on my commercial tape of the movie. Were these lost scenes that were added in, or were they specially made for television? I've had a similar experience with Billy Madison and always wondered what the deal was.
Answer: The deal is that movies are often aired on broadcast and basic cable television in versions that differ to some degree from the theatrical versions. The two big reasons are standards and practices, and length. Because television programming goes into so many households for free or for a minimal basic-cable fee, the programming assumption is that it has to be held to a different standard than material that people have to actively seek out. You have to buy a ticket and go to a theater or pay a steep monthly fee to subscribe to a premium cable channel like HBO or pay to buy a movie on video or DVD, so the assumption is that befo
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Question: I was watching The Goonies on TV the other night with my roommate, and we saw an unfamiliar part with an octopus near the end. There's a piece of dialogue in the normal release in which the Data character refers to an octopus, but we'd never seen it before. We've asked everyone we know if they've ever seen this different version, and they all say no. We're beginning to think we're crazy or something; can you assure us that we're not?
Answer: Consider yourself assured. The scene in which a giant octopus attacks Martha Plimpton was cut from the theatrical release of The Goonies (1985), which is also the version that's on tape. But the scene has been put back in for TV, presumably to increase the running time; although I haven't seen the PG-rated Goonies since it was new, it seems unlikel
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