Daily vs. monthly schedules

Normally, I download the monthly TCM schedule just before the beginning of a new month. The one big negative about this is that the monthly schedule doesn't include the shorts that TCM shows under the TCM Extras banner. Yesterday, for example, that included the MGM Studio Tour from 1925, a half-hour look at every department of MGM from the actors to the commissary to payroll and beyond. It's a great way to put some names to faces as well, as there are several directors shown.

Unfortunately, I only saw the last ten minutes of it, and it doesn't seem to have been released as an extra on any DVD. Further, because it's got a running time of 32 minutes, it's one of those shorts that gets scheduled much more infrequently than all those nine-minute Traveltalks shorts which are much easier to schedule. A similarly interesting piece from MGM that doesn't get aired all that often would be Some of the Best from MGM's silver anniversary year of 1949. That one ends with a banquet with most of MGM's stars, of which there were more than in the entire firmament. The camera pans over all of them, some in regular clothes and some in costume from whatever movie they were working on. However, identifying all of them is difficult, since there's no mention made of who any of them are.