Kids and Teens Network is currently airing episodes of "Jeff's Collie." So I came here to look up information on what exactly this is and it automatically brought me to "Lassie." Can someone please tell me if this is rerun title for "Lassie" or what? I didn't see any alternate titles listed.
shareJeff's Collie was a prequel to Lassie.
It explains how Timmy and Lassie met and all that. It was a pretty good show it used to air on Nick a lot.
Just because we lose today's battle doesn't mean we've lost tommorow's war.
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During the fourth season the cast converted over to the one you're familiar with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie_%281954_TV_series%29
JEFF'S COLLIE *is* LASSIE. Jeff was with Lassie the first three years of the show, then Tommy Rettig wanted to quit the show. So they brought in Timmy as a new child lead. The Jeff episodes went into reruns while the Timmy episodes were still showing, so they called the reruns JEFF'S COLLIE so people wouldn't confuse the two different formats. It's like GUNSMOKE; when the show went to an hour, the half-hour episodes were rerun as MARSHAL DILLON.
shareGood grief, LindaY, this is amazing. I was reading the previous posts and thought about adding my own, which would have been yours, almost word-for-word, right down to mentioning GUNSMOKE at the end! Phenomenal that it worked out that way.
Was GUNSMOKE also rerun as DODGE CITY also? Seems to me it was. I know there was some series with that title.
"Truth is its own evidence." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gunsmoke went into syndication as MARSHALL DILLON.
shareSaltednut, you definitely have to watch the original Lassie, aka Jeff's Collie. It is far superior to any of the shows that came after it. It's like comparing Steinbeck with Full House. Hard to buy episodes, unfortunately.
share
I am seeing Jeff's mother wearing high heels and sporty dresses every episode.
I am seeing Lassie far back as a distant 2nd banana to the people.
No impressive music.
In the mid years, Lassie joins with Timmy the idiot who needs Lassie to rescue him every week. Lassie is key to the show.
In the color years, forget the people, Lassie is the entire show solving problems of nature partnering with Smokey the Bear and protecting the innocent. The music is as equally bold and heroic.
It lasted 20 years because it became better with time.
-=Every peaceful honest adult owns their own body=-
I agree. So many people preferred Jeff to Timmy, but not me. I thought Jeff was kind of annoying and, as you mentioned, Lassie had an almost subordinate role. I liked it better when she was rescuing Timmy all the time, lol!
The later episodes, when Lassie was mostly on her own, was an entirely different show, but I loved it for what it was. And yes, the music was great.
So Ellen's wardrobe overshadowed everything else to you? Amazing.
The stories when Jeff owned Lassie were realistic dramas, with some comedy, about a typical farm boy in the time. Tommy Rettig was one of the best kid actors of all time--nice, but not ridiculously polite, who sometimes didn't do what he should have.
When Timmy came aboard, the stories changed so much that I was looking for the phone booth where Lassie put on her cape. Timmy was too precocious to be a real kid. He also seemed to do a lot of dumb things.
I continued to watch for a while after Lassie started living with Corey, and beyond, but they got so boring. They would go through most of the episode with no dialog whatsoever. We just watched Lassie running through the woods, swimming across the lake, climbing the steep hill, fighting with all sorts of wild animals, and saving some animal, the woods from a fire, or some wounded person in danger.
I would rate, overall, on the usual 1-10 scale:
Years with Jeff 9
Years with Timmy 5
Years after Timmy 3
It's all about the story, and the stories when Jeff and Gramps and Ellen were there were miles better than what transpired later.
I'm watching right now on COZI. TV guide said Lassie, but the episode said Jeff's Collie. Quite entertaining. I'm wondering where these were filmed. Looks like deep woods of the Appalacian's.
shareMost of the COZI episodes have the "Lassie" title restored. They must have used an old print with the previous syndication title.
Back in the 70s, the "Jeff's Collie" episodes were pretty much out of circulation. Part of the Timmy run was syndicated as "Timmy and Lassie", but they left a number of episodes on the shelf, including the first year with Cloris Leachman as his mother, and the last year or two. The color episodes from the ranger years were rerun under the original "Lassie" title.
These days, COZI has the whole package, and they rerun the entire thing together, under the original title.
When LASSIE went into syndication, the Miller years were called JEFF'S COLLIE. Later, when the Martin years went into syndication it was titled TIMMY AND LASSIE.