well, a very long time ago anyway.
Recently, a 400ft film came up on the old flea bay, it was the Kentucky fried movie. Certainly not a classic but it raised a few laughs and still does for me and it was also noted for being the first main works of the Zucker Brothers & Jim Abrahams who went onto do Airplane, Top secret and Police squad, this movie was also directed by John Landis, Major 8 released two extracts from this film there was this titled 400 footer which showed some of the sketches and another 400 footer from the film called Fistful of yen, a piss take of enter the dragon, i have had both for well over 20 years now, both were purchased brand new direct from M8. A fistful of yen was fine in every way, sharp image and good sound, (some terrible edits by Major 8 in this excerpt), and today it is the same with no fade what so ever.
The Kentucky fried titled 400 footer always had a slightly soft focus with a sort of haze to it if you take my meaning. Well, i sent it back to them and it was returned stating that this extract is as good as it gets as the soft picture was on all of these due to the negative.
Well, what bullshit that was. Being a bit greener behind the ears when dealing with firms i accepted it at that time. Now then, a couple of weeks ago i spotted a copy for 9.99 in its original case and the screenshots looked pretty good. I popped my bid on and won it, i viewed it the other night and its absolutely perfect, not a mark on it, good sharp image and stunning colour with no fade. I am kicking myself for accepting a brand new poop copy all those years ago though. Major 8 did have some reasonable titles but this made dealing with them a bit sour. Assholes

Hilarious when the TV commentators get distracted by the couples love making. I got only this, would love to find the Fistful of Yen you mentioned

The problem back in those mass production days compared to later, was they would get many different labs involved in the printing when demand was high from what I gathered.

Often, no two batches ever looked the same apparently.

The irony of this is, early prints from the digest years as I tend to call them, all tended to have very stable upstanding sound tracks but the image quality could be all over the place.
The exact opposite can be said from the later "specialist hobby" years I find.
Typically the image is consistently very good or excellent whereas the sound can be anything from acceptable or maybe a little better to downright awful.

Tom: I wasn't aware that there the "Kentucky Fried Movie" was ever released in Super-8. I still enjoy that film and consider it a "guilty pleasure"!

Hi Douglas, yes this was quite an old release really, it often crops up on dealers lists. Well worth a look, especially now i realise the quality is good on both.