One of my favorite shows I've been wanting to see on DVD is WKRP in Cincinnati. It's been stuck in musical licensing limbo, because the rights for the songs used in the show (most of which were integral to the plots) would have been prohibitively expensive to obtain. That's also why the show hasn't been in syndication for awhile.The first season was released on DVD this week, but with its original songs replaced by generic soundalike songs. So the legendary Thanksgiving episode doesn't have the scene with Johnny playing Pink Floyd's "Dogs", Jennifer's doorbell doesn't play "Fly Me To The Moon", etc. etc.
On one hand, it's nice to be able to watch this classic show (it hasn't even been in syndication for awhile, thanks to music licensing), but many of the songs were an important part of the show, and having the show without the music is like having the pictures without the sound. Apparently it's a combination of Fox wanting to keep the costs affordable, and music publishers asking too much to re-license the original songs.
Hopefully this set will sell well enough that the studio will spring for the music licenses on later seasons. That "Tiny Dancer" episode just doesn't make much sense without the song "Tiny Dancer"! At least most of the dialog is still intact: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"
5 comments:
We were talking about the rights issues on a music mailing list: apparently, it's just way too much for accountants to work out percentage deals all at once for various potential kinds of redistribution (syndication, sales of rentals of recordings, etc.). You'd think that would be relatively easy. You'd think the rights owners of both the TV show/movie/etc. and of the music would be glad for the ongoing exposure. You'd think wrong.
A couple of Jill Tracy songs have been featured on the CBS drama "NCIS." I have no idea if it'll ever come out on DVD, but it would be super cool if it did. (Since Jill owns the rights to her music -- we just distribute it -- 125 wasn't in on the negotiations, but I suspect she was happy to do it mainly for the exposure.)
I was momentarily excited, but there's really no point if Jennifer's doorbell doesn't play "Fly Me To The Moon".
They had to re-soundtrack the WKRP DVDs so Jennifer's doorbell plays "Beautiful Dreamer" (which is in the public domain). That's even sillier than not being able to use the songs -- paying for rights to use a monotonic doorbell chime from a 50 years old song!
Thanks for the heads-up, HoltRox. The DVDs are now safely queued on Netflix and winging their way to my mailbox as we speak.
Post a Comment