Many years ago there was a discussion on the forum regarding what happened to Motown's copy of The Supremes 1967 performance and interview that was used in the 1977 Evening With TV Special.

If I recall correctly a "fan" helped themselves to the master tape,which is presumably the only exisiting copy of this show as many of The Tonight Shows were wiped by NBC soon after broadcast including at least two more later apperances by DMC

The poor quality we have of the interview that has circulated between collectors is very possibly due to the mastertape not properly being stored at the right tempature and since being lifted from the Motown archives the footage noticeably suffers from disintergration giving a jointy/jumping effect on viewing

However the picture quality and distortion could be improved if a seperate audio exists - this could be synced with the footage and there are so many digital visual/paintbox apps that could smoove up the picture..it wouldnt be perfect but UK dvd makers of 1960s/70s "Doctor Who" have done similar work with damaged films with fantastic results

There is several Supremes TV apperances in vaults that have never been seen since their original air date [[whatever was shown of Supremes on American Bandstand in 67 and LLoyd Thaxton to name two)

I urge anyone who collects rare audio or video to get their stuff digitally mastered you cant rely on old tapes to survive decades