The Merv Griffin show problem is very easy to fix. Just use any video editor (I use Video Edit Magic). There is an audio glitch at approximately 0:09:53.00 that causes playback to stop(timeline seems to vary, depending on your editor). In any case, it's exactly at the point where Jerry is rummaging through the medicine cabinet, going "will not make you drowsy", ..."MAY make you drowsy...". The glitch is just before that last word "drowsy". I cut off exactly half a second of video+audio at that point, wrote back as a new DivX, and it works perfectly!
I am not aware of any other video problems related to playback. There are some issues on some of the avi's related to converting to MPEG2, but I've explained those elesewhere.