Chicago superstation WGN had a license to air Hawaii Five-O for four years, using the same 175 episode package that The Family Channel was airing up until mid-August, 1998. WGN stopped showing Five-O at the end of 2002. It was being broadcast on the Hallmark Channel in the States as of early 2003, but this is stopping as of the end of March.
According to a posting in alt.fan.hawaii-five-o, the WGN program director confirmed that the episodes were the same chopped-up and time-compressed copies that The Family Channel was showing. Paramount, the syndicator, is allegedly to blame for the hatchet jobs. The Family Channel paid a portion of the cost to clean up the prints and while they were at it, Paramount decided to re-cut and speed up those episodes to accomodate more commercial time. (See my
separate page which details what was cut out of several of these episodes.) It seems like other stations showing Five-O are using this package -- I'm told that KICU in San Jose was mixing up "classic" Five-O episodes (with no cutting at all) with "Family Channel" style episodes.Further investigation revealed that WGN was chopping up the shows similar to Family Channel, but not necessarily in the same places which Family Channel did. I got several WGN episodes from a friend and analyzed one of them -- A Thousand Pardons -- You're Dead...
The pre-show wave is cut, about 5 seconds.ACT ONE
The sequence when McGarrett leaves Betsy's bar and is seen talking on the radio to Kono -- about 37 seconds.
Danno, in "disguise" as soldier Danny Carson, enters Betsy's bar -- about 38 seconds.
Danno drunkenly staggers with Yoko up the stairs to her apartment -- 25 seconds.
ACT TWO
McGarrett writes the women's names on the transparent blackboard -- 15 seconds.
The "Uncle Ho Chi Minh" scene on the beach -- 20 seconds.
The scene on the beach where Yoko talks about not being "from Nebraska" -- 35 seconds.
End of the scene on the beach -- 19 seconds.
ACT THREE
Amazingly, nothing is cut (other than the wave at the end).
ACT FOUR
Not only is about 30 seconds cut out of the scene where Simms and Yoko descend the stairs from her apartment, there is a commercial inserted 30 seconds before the end of the act!
Five-O is also shown in syndication in various local markets around the world. Todd Witteles maintains a list of some of these on his Web page.