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

When making substitutions that are unavoidable, I wish they'd choose another "real" song of the period/style (either of the original song/when the show was new/etc.) that fits pretty well, instead of some new fake stuff that sticks out and screams "replacement". Same for the production when inserting something new - it should sound like the surrounding production as much as possible, and not stick out as inserted so many years later.

 

If they put in a cover version of Dogs, then they would have to edit out the bit when Carlson asks "what's the name of that orchestra?" because it would not be Pink Floyd.

 

Neil Young "Long May You Run" & a pair of Doors songs(Riders/Fire?) didn't make the Wonder Years set.

Which songs by those 2 artists were used for WKRP?

 

Doors: "Light My Fire" and "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)" were used in the S1 episode "Fish Story". (Played in the studio while Johnny and Venus are doing the "Drunk Test" with Officer Buddy Plyler).

 

Light My Fire was approved one series and denied for another in a short time span. IMO, Wonder Years may have the bigger budget/sales prospects/fancy editions. Alabama Song is not written by the Doors.

 

I guess nobody cares about the Soundtastics.

I'd like to point out that "Your Old Lady" by David Lindley and El Rayo-X can be heard during the "Rumors" episode.

 

What about The Hallelujah Tabernacle Choir's version of "You're Having My Baby"?

 

I have to wonder in cases like this, where one entity is able to clear a song while another one isn't, if the real problem isn't money or not approving of the song's particular usage, but just simple miscommunication? I know I reference The Simpsons DVD commentaries a lot (there's an amazing wealth of information in 'em, dammit!), but though I forget who the artist in question was, they had once attempted to use one of their songs and was shot flatly down. A few years later, the artist wound up appearing as a guest on the show, and someone on the staff asked why they'd said no to their request to use the song. The answer? Nobody ever asked him about it. The request only got as far as some lackey/receptionist/agent/whatever and the person whose actual approval was needed was never even notified. They said similar situations had happened fairly frequently over the years.

In this instance, it makes me wonder if somehow Shout managed to reach "the right people" to get the Doors tunes, while Time-Life got stymied by someone who really didn't have the power to make a yes/no decision in the first place and thus the whole thing sputtered out. I bet this kind of thing happens more than we'd think.

 

http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2009/03/wkrp-episode-johnny-comes-back.html

The Soundtastics......comes with a little something extra inside the jacket, courtesy of Onslaught Records.

 

Too late to edit the above, but I'll add onto it - there's an episode where Burns is storming Springfield in a tank and tells Smithers to play the "battle music" or something to that effect. Apparently all throughout production, and practically up to the air date, the song on Smithers' tape was supposed to be Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." Within a week or less to air, they somehow learned that despite having (seemingly) all the boxes checked for months in advance, through another case of miscommunication, all that had actually been cleared was the "sync rights" - meaning, if I understood it correctly, that they had full rights to use the song, but somehow still didn't have the actual song itself. In the end it led to a last-minute scramble to quickly replace it with ABBA's "Waterloo" because there wasn't time to re-negotiate everything for the Wham song. (And the producers eventually agreed the ABBA tune made the scene funnier, anyway.)

But yeah, it's weird stuff like that that makes me think it could explain some of these odd discrepancies between who is and isn't on these WKRP and Wonder sets.

 

Thanks for posting. That's one of my favorite Simpsons scenes. I'm not an ABBA fan, but another amusing instance where one of their tunes shows up is in The Office when Andy sings "Take a Chance on Me" to Angela.

 

I wonder if the Doors office pressed the "pause" button with daily business for a while after the passing of Ray Manzarek in late May?

 

Just caught this website article on which songs had to be replaced:

A notable absence is Pink Floyd’s “Dogs”, which was heavily featured in the show’s most popular episode “Turkeys Away”. Other choice songs missing include The Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA”, The Beatles’ “Come Together”, Devo’s “Whip It!”, The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”, and U2’s “I Will Follow”.

Stunning that a song as relatively minor as "Surfin' USA" couldn't get clearance! The Beatles, I can understand.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/...eissued-with-most-of-its-original-soundtrack/

Noted industry insider Mark Evanier has some interesting thoughts on the new boxed set and some past memories of WKRP:

http://www.newsfromme.com/2014/09/22/baby-youve-ever-wondered/

 

Chuck Berry strikes again?(Brian Wilson/Berry writing credit)

I think the Wonder Years cleared at least 1 Beach Boys track.

 

I'd bet it's the publisher that wants ridiculous money, like $75K. I think something like this happened with "Love and Marriage," where the Sinatra estate was OK with the Married with Children people, and Capitol was cool with it, but Sammy Cahn's estate suddenly wanted a lot more money.

 

Has anyone entertained the thought that some songs might have just cost too much to license?
It might not be that Shout wasn't able to get them, they just didn't want to pay.


Edit: I see now that Vidiot suggested this. Guess I should read the whole thread before commenting!

 

Eddie Vedder dedicated "Spin The Black Circle" to everyone at WKRP during the Pearl Jam show this past Wednesday night in Cincinnati.

 

My set shipped yesterday with 2 day delivery. If it's not here by Saturday, I should definitely have it on Monday.

 

Can't wait to hear reviews

..

 

Some early info on the set:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/334984-wkrp-in-cincinnati-the-complete-series-review/

 

Seems pretty good, to me, but that's coming from someone not too familiar with the show. This was one classic sitcom I didn't collect back in my golden days of collecting, partly because of the music, partly because only season 1 came out. I do like it, though, so I may buy it this time. Odds of that will be increased if the seasons are released individually.

 

Thanks for the link. I continue to be cautiously psyched!

 

Sounds like Shout! did the best they could to keep the "Dogs" scene intact for DVD (unlike Fox, who took an axe to it). Luckily that scene remains intact on the current syndication run (currently airing on AntennaTV in the U.S.), and is available on VHS for those who wish to see it in it's original form.

Will be interested to see how they handle some of the other scenes. Looks promising so far.

 

Looks like there's major problems with "The Contest Nobody Could Win." See page 2 of the link I provided.

 

Wow that's some big differences. I wonder if Shout was given a different version of the show altogether rather than them using different takes. I would've thought it would make more sense that this was an episode that they originally cut but scraped rather than something Shout would've put together. Weird.

I have a VHS rip plus the Fox dvd so I'm covered but I think Shout really needs to explain what happened with this ep.