Married... With Children Season 4 - Syndicated episodes (and explanation) (1 Viewer)

[Gord Lacey]

Many of you are aware of the "Sloppy Releases" editorial I posted to the site the other day. I said that we were going to start researching problems with DVD sets, talking to the studios, and hopefully getting a response from them with an explanation regarding the issue and how it happened.

The first of these reports is done, and it involved 7 syndicated episodes appearing on the "Married... with Children" season 4 DVD set. Here's a link to the article:

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=3994

Hopefully everyone finds this informative. It was a good way to start with the "sloppy release" reporting since I was able to spend a good deal of time asking questions and getting answers from the studio. It also rasied issues we haven't considered before; how music replacement is done. I have other material from the conversation that wasn't used, but I hope will make it into a future news item for the site (non "MwC" material).

Gord

 

[Daniel-M]

Thank you for this, but it doesn't change my mind. I am not buying the set. But i think it really helps that you guys confront the studios with their sloppy work

 

[Mark Silver]

Gord,

Does this mean we can expect more of the same with future seasons of MWC?

If so, I gotta ask the question, why don't they just pay the music rights ?

 

[TravisR]

Thanks for the info, Gord. At least there's an explanation beyond "We just put out what was the quickest and easiest." Undoubtedly, this won't be enough for some people though.

 

[ElijahS]

Thanks for the info, Gord. And to the people who wants Sony to bite the bullet and pay, expect to pay significantly more if that were to actually happen.

 

[Gord Lacey]

If the original elements are missing, yes.

The point of these articles won't be to change someone's mind on the release, but to get some kind of explanation from the studio as to the reason for them.

Gord

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Exactly, it will be up to each reader or consumer to determine how they feel about the information presented. For some it won't change a thing, but for someone like me, I'm willing to give the studio a break if they are forth coming with the information. If they hadn't responded to you, or gave a less details more evacive answer then I might think differently.

 

[WillG]

I can feel better about getting this now. It's lame that there will be syndicated episodes, but at least we have a seemingly reasonable explanation. I am willing to concede that there are sometimes issues (especially when it comes to music) that make edits and replacements virtually unavoidable in some cases. Hopefully this problem will not effect future seasons too badly. However, there should be disclosure of the syndicated episodes on the packaging.

The one thing I don't get (I'm not too technically inclined when it comes to original audio elements, but I am speaking from perception only) is how hard would it be to take the uncut body of the episode, edit out the original opening and just cut in the opening with the changed theme song and release it that way? I'm not sure I am understanding the problems they are saying could arise if that was done.


Supposedly the licence holders for the original theme song want a seemingly unreasonable amount of money to use the song. From what has been said about it by people in the know was that it was a substantial increase from the previous boxed sets. Sony decided they were not going to be extorted and went with the replaced music which was likely not going to bother most people terribly. Sad now as it seems that the licence holder has more leverage now that the replaced music may mean more syndicated episodes will need to be used in the future.

 

[Andrew Radke]

Well, this information won't stop me from purchasing this set. I'm a HUGE fan of the show, and purchased the three previous sets right on their respective release dates. This will be no exception. The fact that it's only 7 episodes (and not all 23) sort of softens the blow, however it is still disheartening to know that 7 of the episodes contain syndicated cuts.

Now, if the entire season consisted of syndicated episodes, I would definitely have to pass, as I have already done with 'Roseanne'.......another favorite of mine. But I'm looking at this as the lesser of two evils. With approx. 1/3 of the eps being syndicated, I still believe it's enough to warrant a purchase. I'm just glad the studio gave a reason as to 'why'. However, if they were to pay for these music rights, surely the price of the set would increase. But being the fan I am, I'd still pay it.

 

[DaveGTP]

The music issues on DVDs are getting silly.

Is this mainly a factor of greed on the part of the music owners, or is it cheapness on the part of the studios? Situations like this are getting ridiculous. Music rights problems lead to cut episodes. Kind of like like Dawson's Creek S4 *cough* not that I watch that of course :b *cough*.

Looks like the Beavis and Butthead releases will contain *some* music videos...better than nothing.

I would think fans would pay another $5 or whatever extra $ it took to get the actual uncut episodes of their shows.

My wife picked up Ally McBeal from the UK when the prices dropped a bit because music issues keep it from being released. I hacked my DVB318 to play them...and my projector could care less if the video is PAL or NTSC. But not everyone is so lucky. And getting DVDs of American content shipped across the damn Atlantic ocean is kind of silly.


Theme songs replaced. Music replaced. Episodes cut. This stuff is getting silly.

I'm just glad my favorite show (Babylon 5) had all original music. I feel bad for the REAL fans of the shows that aren't so lucky.

 

[MatthewA]

They gave an answer. But they're still not getting my money. I'd pay to get these shows UNCUT with ORIGINAL MUSIC. More than a quarter of the episodes are cut. The two evils of TV on DVD have finally dovetailed together.

Thanks for letting me know, Gord.


At this point I will pay ANY PRICE. ANY price.

 

[BrandonJF]

But, that WAS the explanation, wasn't it? It was going to take too many hours to fix those 7 episodes. The opening...something... might not match the rest of the episode's....something else... Because it's important that there's a seamless transition between the opening credits and the rest of the episode. Although, when these originally aired, there were a bunch of commercials in between. The easiest thing to do was just slap the syndicated versions on there.

The "explanation" needs an explantion, unless I totally missed something. There was no way they could've just changed the theme song? They had to go back and reconstruct the audio for the entire show? This would make sense to me if that theme was present in musical cues throughout the episodes. But, I don't think that's the case. Maybe I'm wrong.

Plus, isn't the opening just music only in the first place? There isn't any dialogue or effects, right?

It's easy to cut corners when so few people will probably know before they buy the set. It was nice that they mentioned that the theme song had been replaced on the season 3 set, but I doubt they'll add "Includes cut episodes!" to the features list. They didn't for Dawson's Creek. They might lose a couple of sales from the people that frequent sites like this, but, otherwise, I'm sure they'll see little to no impact from including syndicated episodes on the set.

 

[MatthewA]

I'm fearing the worst (uncut episodes not existing at all in some cases, such as That's My Mama). But I'd still like to hear it.

But now we know the method to the madness. Sony is Penny Wise and Pound Foolish. We can thank Gord and David for confirming what we suspected all along.

One thing confuses me. Do videotaped shows have separate tracks for music, dialogue, and effects?

 

[Brian Himes]

Thanks for the update Gord. While I'm not interested in Married With Children, it's good to at least get some kind of explanation for the folks that are buying the series.

 

[TravisR]

While I agree with that, do you really the think the average MWC fan cares if 40 seconds are missing from some of the episodes? I'm not saying that they shouldn't care, I'm saying do you think, even if they knew about the edits, that they would mind enough to not buy it?

 

[MatthewA]

Personally, I think we should start assuming they DO care.

 

[John*D]

Music Rights are why STUDIOS should use MUSIC from their own record labels and/or settle all this garbage during the original negotiations. From NOW on and into the future...

I don't even care if the show doesn't get picked up and never sees a tv broadcast or DVD release. License the music for home video anyway.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Well, when Married...with Children was on the air, home video was just not something that was really in the cards. Current shows do license for home video, but its the older ones, or the one's where they neglected to do so that caused the problem.

 

[ravma]

The thing about B5 is that most of the music was score, which was composed for B5, so the cost of using it should be little to nothing. It's a different story with Dawson's Creek. If memory serves, B5 had maybe 10 songs (if that) throughout the run of the series, while Dawson's Creek could have that number in ONE EPISODE. It's a big difference.

 

[Katherine_K]

Your point is valid but your detail is incorrect. Babylon 5 had a musical score for the entire series length that did not repeat music aside from the season main title songs. That's why there are about fifty soundtrack CDs available.