LOS ANGELES - They've tried reruns. They've tried remakes and big-screen adaptations. Now the overlords of American entertainment have come up with a new idea for breathing new life into stale, old television shows from the 1970s. They are re-editing them as five-minute "minisodes", poking fun at thetired, formulaic absurdity of the originals.
In June, Sony will start pumping out reduced versions of shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels and airing them on MySpace, the internet social networking site.
In many ways, the idea is similar to the witty, creative "mash-ups", or re-edits, of well-known footage shown many times on the internet, in which ordinary geeks with digital editing equipment lampoon famous films or score political points. What makes this different is that it has been dreamed up by a major conglomerate.
Steve Mosko, the head of Sony's television division, says the conceit is based on the deeply predictable formula that so many old cop shows follow.
"So in Charlie's Angels," he told the New York Times, "they have a meeting, Charlie's on the intercom telling them what the assignment is, there's a couple of fights, then a chase, and they catch the bad guy. Then they're back home wrapping it up."
Mr Mosko called the abbreviated re-edits "campy and fun", but they are also a potential new revenue stream for a company with a large back-catalogue.
"We've been looking for a way to make money from our library," he said, "something that could bring new life to shows that have been on the shelf for a while."
He said he came up with the idea after he saw The Seven-Minute Sopranos, a condensation of the 77-episode Mafia saga, on YouTube in March.
