Shout Factory Working on a Complete-Series "WKRP in Cincinnati"

What's odd for me this time is...I really could simply pass on this, and not feel badly.
The other day, I was putting away the Hill Street Blues box, when I decided to count how many different TV series I've accumulated since 2008.
In round figures, 30 ! 30 ?
Am I willing to part with any of them ? No, not right now.
Space is running out, money can, and will be spent elsewhere.
My backlog right now is 13 films, and two television series !
12 films, and two more television series are pre ordered until the end of the year.
I'll likely forget 5 minutes after cancelling the pre order, and unsubscribing from this thread.

That 3 year-old in the high chair, laughing at Curly, and the Stooges...
That 8 year-old glued to the set on Thursday night for Batman...
That 21 year-old that shed a tear when WKRP used the show to acknowledge the Cincinnati Tragedy...
None of " us " ever would've imagined we could pop a disc into a player, and watch what we wanted, when we wanted.
But it's still just entertainment, and I have to remember to keep my priorities straight.
It won't be the end of the world if this set doesn't work out, but it'll be great if it does. I've already got way more than I ever expected.


Old man pontification is over.

 

I agree with both sides: I think it's nutty to buy a complete set of a show this mediocre, but I also understand why crazy collectors have to be completists and have everything. This is not the first time I've seen discussions on the subject of "why buy this when you'll probably only watch it once?" These arguments have literally been going on for 35 years.

One can make a good argument that music is something you can listen to hundreds of times without any problem. It'd be tough for me to watch episodes of a 40-year-old sitcom more than once or twice. One reason is that TV commands too much of your attention, while music can always go on in the background, in the car, when you workout, walk around at the mall, whatever.

Generally, all the "complete DVD" packages of shows I've bought (which would include Avengers, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Wild Wild West, Twilight Zone, Honeymooners, Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Supercar, Seinfeld, Lucy, SNL, etc.) I wind up watching a scattered number of discs but can never quite find the time to watch them all. I keep meaning to sit down and watch all the Breaking Bads from the beginning as a big marathon session, but who's got the time? I suspect this is what happens to the vast majority of people who buy complete series boxed sets.

 

The current WKRP syndication package was put together in the mid-nineties, and hasn't been altered since. Things may have changed since then (music rights transferred to different owners, for example).

Also Shout! Factory is actively seeking rights to the music, something I doubt Fox did as fervently when assembling the much maligned 90's syndie package. The return on investment would not have justified the expense on a then 10+ year-old show destined for the occasional run on basic cable.

Most likely in this case the DVD set will be more complete music-wise than the syndication package.

I'd never shell out the bucks for a complete series set of a mediocre show...but I'll gladly purchase a stone classic like WKRP In Cincinnati if done correctly.

 

35 years next month, as a matter of fact. Bought the first VCR sold, in Smyrna, Tennessee, solely to tape the PBS broadcast of Volunteer Jam V, which I had attended 9 months earlier, and featured the first public appearance of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
When I started ordering catalogs of the few pre recorded VHS tapes there were, priced around $89. - $125., family and friends said exactly that...how many times will you actually watch that ?

 

My answer is usually, "ehhhhh, it's nice just knowing it's there on the shelf if I ever need to watch it someday."

 

Mine has always been " If I reach for it, I want it to be there." Goes for certain foods too.
It's the Elvis in me.

 

Alrighty then...

 

What causes music used in syndication versions to change over the years? Say the original syndication package for WKRP vs. what's commonly been out there for the last 10-15 years? Also something like HAPPY DAYS when shown on TV now vs earlier syndication?

 

One problem is that it's possible the rights clearances were only for a limited period of time -- say, 5 years or 10 years. What if, for example, Publishing Company A owns "Song #1," but five years later Publishing Company B comes along and buys out A, then tells the producers, "hey, we want a 50% raise on Song #1." You can tell them to get stuffed and change the song, or you can renegotiate some compromise. I know of cases where the studio could have negotiated, but their policy was X dollars was the top they would pay and not a dime more. (That happened with the Bruce Springsteen songs in Peter Bogdonovich's Mask. Peter wanted the songs, Springsteen agreed to the deal, but the record label wanted to squeeze Universal. Not the first or last time this has happened.)

I worked on the video transfers for at least 100 episodes of Happy Days, and I can tell you that we did lay down all the original tracks, but laid down separate tracks for M&E. It's very possible later on editors came in and had to drop out songs due to rights clearances. It might also be something as simple as being cheap: presented with paying $20,000 for one song or paying $5000 for a soundalike, they might have just gone with the latter for syndication out of pure cheapness. Most likely the show creators' contracts would not allow them to stop this from happening, but there are a handful of producers who won't allow any changes; I think David Chase would have that power with Sopranos, as would Vince Gilligan in Breaking Bad. But a show done 20, 30, 40 years ago? Nobody had that kinda pull.

 

Although... I have no problem with somebody who later streams the shows on the net and watches them that way. That's a huge difference from going out and spending $120 on a box of sitcoms. If you could stream them on Netflix in HD for $10 a month, that's pretty reasonable, plus you'd just be picking through and watching the best episodes.

BTW, did anybody ever check the picture quality on this thing? Knowing how cheap Shout Factory is, I would be extremely surprised if they tried to clean up those old analogue 2" videotape masters very much. As shown by the recent CNN documentary series The Sixties, it is possible to make old 2" look fantastic if you get great tapes, great people, and work hard at it.

 

Gb overage has to be figured in too now, for those of us that have to pay it. $10. for every 50Gb
over. Thanks to Comcrap, Amazon Prime video is now out, and physical media is back in.

 

Amazon Prime and Netflix are working fine here -- 100mbps via Crime-Warner. As long as Netflix and Amazon pay the piper -- which, so far, they are -- the ISPs are cooperating. My hope is that eventually legislation will force net neutrality and give power back to the people. (Right on!)

 

Comcrap rep told us Amazon pulls more juice than anything else streaming, and with the 150 Gb overage it caused here last month, that looks to be true.

 

The remastered opening credits look better than anything I've seen on TV, the official Fox S1 DVD, or certainly bootleg DVD's.

Unrelated: all things are subjective, but what comedy fan over the age of, say, 35 would find "WKRP" mediocre?

 

I'm trying to remember if it was film or tape. Both?



[Jump to 3:00 minutes in for the credits.] Yeah, it's a combination of 16mm print (city footage), Betacam (video of buildings), and studio cameras (set interiors), all ugly composite video. This could look far better than the YouTube video if they tried, but it would cost money.

Terrific show for its time, but I think it's very dated and I'd balk at watching more than a couple of episodes today. I'd have an easier time watching WKRP than a hundred other '70s sitcoms. Hell, I find it hard to watch Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley and I worked on a bunch of those. Those shows are hideously unfunny -- at least the later episodes. The earlier episodes are tolerable.

 

Well, that was a mediocre episode, and I'm way past 35. You sure as hell couldn't use that episode to compare to Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, Barney Miller, or All In The Family.

 

I have to say, those are all really great shows. Though I think Mary Tyler Moore holds up better than all of them.

 

Odd, since to me Amazon always looked significantly worse than Netflix or other streaming services. I haven't had access to it since late last year, mind you, so maybe it improved, but I definitely found Amazon Prime to be the worst-looking of the bunch.

 

What does how it looks have to do with the Gbs it's pulling ? I'm not into computers, so I have no idea.

We gauged it tonight...25 Gb before my son watched Under The Dome, 31 Gb after.

 

No, many sources say that Netflix often occupies one-third of all internet usage, which is an incredible statistic:

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/netflix-youtube-bandwidth-usage-1201179643/

 

"Everytime I come into this town I get fired"
I guess you don't know Sparky Anderson.

 

Huh? What show are you talking about...?

 

I've not seen "MTM" in years, but I watched a bunch of "Bob Newhart" last spring and was impressed at how well it held up. Won't call it totally "timeless" but it's aged very nicely...

 

This one.

 

If the artist list is to be believed in this press release... they cleared a lot more than I thought they would.
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/WKRP-Cincinnati-The-Complete-Series/20286