THE WONDER YEARS (Consolidated Thread; No New Ones, Please!)

In anticipation of this never hitting DVD . . . About three months ago I started taping episodes off ABC Family on my computer here, and I was going to start burning sets myself. I think I started at about episode 40, and it was a Monday. Got all five episodes, formatted them, and everything was working great. That next week, ABC Family stopped airing them, and it hasn't been on TV since.

They're toying with me now . . .

ABC Family is resuming programming. I think I heard October ... back-to-back episodes each day, if I remember right.

Still, this show absolutely needs to be on DVD.

Come on....... The Wonder Years for the Top Pick

it seems that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment holds the rights for The Wonder Years!

Visit www2.foxhome.com/tvdvd/poll/ to vote for a release of TWY on DVD!

i voted. heck, there must be some possibility of this coming out eventually or else why would they put it on the list?

and ally mcbeal is the series we all thought would be the show we would NEVER see due to music rights but its on the list too!

in the meantime also 20th Century Fox Germany did a poll and TWY was among the shows

unfortunately I can't join the chat on January 12 with Peter Staddon - could somebody ask him about The Wonder Years?

I watched this show as a kid, from the time I was about 7 until I was 12. At the time I based my whole life around the show, using it a benchmark for my own.

I honestly beloived than when I was 11 I would automatically have a girlfriend. I mean, Kevin did!

But I digress, I really want this show on DVD, but only if it arives unscathed with the original music.

I would purchase all the series. Good show

any news about this?

I taped all of these when they were originally on but the video tape is getting old and not very good quality.

I sure wish they would come out on DVD.



That voting link didnt work for me.

That poll ended awhile ago. I'd of course buy this on DVD, but it like WKRP in Cincinnati isn't something I'm going to hold my breath for.

Add me to one of the many people who really want The Wonder Years to come out on DVD. I have every episode (from when they aired on TNN in 2001) taped on VHS, but the quality is getting slightly worse as I watch them over and over again. Any news on the recent poll or anything else at all regarding a possible release?
-Isaac

I would definitely pay a higher price for the season sets if they could keep ALL the music intact. The music is a HUGE part of that show and it would be a shame if it was altered. I have never seen the LaserLight DVDs and I'm glad I haven't. I just can't imagine watching the opening for "The Wonder Years" without hearing Joe Cocker belt out, "With a Little Help from My Friends."

What exactly is the deal with The Wonder Years?

Why isn't this great show out on DVD?
Is this an example of the "legal problems" that occasionally come up or is the studio just not understanding the depth of this show?

I'm sure the studio (Fox) would love to release this show on DVD. Fact is that its a music clearance nightmare. It falls in with WKRP in Cincinnati as being very problematic for a DVD release and like WKRP the main hold up is music rights issues.

It is too bad that music clearance rights are such an issue. You would think that the licensors for the music would see value in having the music attached to a show beyond gouging the producers for DVD fees. Wonder Years surely encouraged people to go out and buy CDs of the artists showcased. Surely the DVDs would do the same.

I find it distasteful that the licensors attempt to rape producers of television shows simply because they didn't predict the advent of DVD or TV on DVD.

And I find it short-sighted bordering on incompetance that producers of shows did not make arrangements for clearances beyond network airings and including other media. But also to be fair, unless the show was a period piece, like the Wonder Years, is it really necessary to have real songs in them? What, underscore which was fine for the first 30 or so years of television, is no longer adequate? Obviously WKRP is not included only because of the show's setting in a radio station. But the shows I loved growing up like Outer Limits, Man from UNCLE, etc, had great scores written for the show which do not have to be cleared or replaced. All of a sudden its better to use pop songs instead? Why? Is this cheaper or is it just easier?

The problem is that DVDs weren't around when this show first aired. Mainly, it is my understanding that music rights have to be renegoitated everytime it is released into a new medium.

There's no reason for a record company not to give the right to use a song that they allowed 15 years ago. Especially, as someone mentioned, because The Wonder Years soundtrack 3-disc set from a few years ago with many of the songs from the series contains them, and fans of the DVDs may purchase them, causing profit for the record company.

With good promotion (maybe a duel ad for the DVD and CD boxed set), the record companies could come out on top for once.

Regarding people being short sited, there is no way that these companies could've known that these shows would be such a hit on DVD, especially since a show like the Wonder Years was going through its run long before DVD was even thought of. You might say that they knew about VHS, but there are 2 things wrong with this notion.
1. TV on VHS didn't exactly light the world on fire.
2. As was stated above many of these shows would've had to renegotiate for DVD clearance anyway.
Even shows as recently as 5 years ago can be caught up in music rights problems, why do you think you haven't seen Malcolm in the Middle season 2 yet?

I don't fault those behind these older shows as there is know way they could've predicted these market trends. Even if they had some idea regarding the existance of DVD, they had no way of knowing that TV on DVD would be so profitable.

Yeah, but what does that have to do about this?

What?

Music clearance issues are why the DVDs aren't being released. That's what's going on with this, I think. Or is it?

Part of the problem is that I believe multiple parties have to sign off for the use of a song. And all said parties want a piece of the action. Personally, I would rather just have the show and if music has to be replaced, I'll live with it (unless the piece of music was intergal to the plot, such as the "Desperado" episode of Seinfeld).

I am holding some faith that clearace issues will ease up a bit now that TV on DVD has become so popular. I believe that we are starting to get some material that was previous deemed near impossible. "In Living Color" for example



Is that an actual law? I thought that nowadays when a studio pays for a song for television or film, home video rights are written into the initial contracts.

The Wonder Years was a period piece so popular music of the time made sense. WKRP took place in a radio station. Other than either reason, there is no reason why any other show needs to use popular music in a show. It wasn't done in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s. Now its all of a sudden necessary? Why? You do a show, you hire an arranger to write scores for the season's episodes. No rights issues after the fact. Sorry but these are problems that exist that didn't have to.

That would be a crime to do with "The Wonder Years", as the music was so perfectly selected and fit each moment to a tee. I can only register a guess at this point, but this is probably one of a handful of shows in which songs actually might have inspired some scenes. Because if you look back at some great moments in the show's history, the music there just seems too perfectly placed to be true!

Clearing music rights in this case has virtually nothing to do with the record companies. The song rights are owned by music publishers, which is a bit of a misnomer because they rarely actually publish anything. These are companies and people who own the rights to songs like real estate. They make money by selling the rights to use a song, or grouping the songs as a package and selling them outright. The latter is how, for example, Michael Jackson came to own the entire Beatles catalog--not the recordings or the music, but the publishing rights to re-use the songs (from which he made a lot of money).

Music publishers don't care if their actions do or don't sell records. They have nothing to do with that. Sometimes artists own their songs, but many times it's just some company or individual who has nothing to do with its creation or music. For example, Sonny Bono couldn't include one of his songs in a rebroadcast of one of his TV shows. He wrote the song and it was his TV show, but the person who owned the publishing rights to half of the song wouldn't grant permission.

As Fox exec Peter Staddon told me for an article I wrote about music rights for TV DVDs: "Often, if you approach an artist, they say, 'Yeah, sure, use it.' Then you talk to the music[-publishing] company, and they say, 'Yeah, you can use it. Here's the bill.' "

About shows like WKRP and The Wonder Years, which use a lot of songs by various artists in one episode, he said: "Each one of those [songs] is a separate negotiation. You could get 95 percent of the music cleared, and if one person is still holding out for something outrageous, then you're back to square one."



Home video wasn't even a force--and certainly not for TV shows--when many of these shows were popular. But things are done differently now.

Staddon: "One thing we're much better at now is working with the TV production companies up front to make sure we're not going to be facing this issue on titles in the future. When they are in production on something, they clear the music not just for the initial broadcast but also for the home-video rights."

Randy,

Thanks for your insights into the process for acquiring music rights. I thought it was that complicated. Hopefully, the music rights have been cleared if there is a release of American Dreams on DVD.

Marty - It's coming in the fall, so it looks like they've got something worked out.

I still don't think The Wonder Years is going to sit on the shelf for years & years. I don't even care if it is Fox -- who has done very little to branch out to a demographic not interested in just their sci-fi & animated shows -- I still think it's just a matter of time.

I would tend to agree on the Wonder Years, but I'm sure with many shows, replacing the music wouldn't matter all that much.

The reason I mentioned American Dreams in an above posting is that the original music they choose fits perfectly into the scene it is playing.

For example, Old Friends by Simon & Garfunkel was playing in the background when Meg was running away from home. It was out of continuity with the year, but it fit perfectly with the scene. There have some great Dylan songs played during recent episodes, as well.

I did not intend to steal this thread, but I did want to address the issue of the importance of retaining the original music in a TV show. The original music in China Beach was also very important.