One More WKRP Post (1 Viewer)

When Peter Staddon said this at the chat:


...It wasn't clear whether he was talking about "working on" both WKRP and Ally McBeal, or just Ally. I think he meant just Ally, but assuming he was also talking about WKRP, I thought this would be a good time to say that, as a big WKRP In Cincinnati fan, I would buy a DVD set with some music changes -- as long as the "integrity of the show" was preserved.

An example of what I mean is the second episode of the show. There are three songs played in this episode, all in one scene: One at the beginning of the scene, one that is introduced by Johnny and tied in with the onscreen action ("That Old Time Rock n' Roll") and one at the tail end of the scene. The first and third songs are not really essential to the scene (in fact, they were actually changed as soon as the show went into syndication, even though much of the music was still intact back then). "That Old Time Rock n' Roll," on the other hand, is essential and the scene makes no sense when it's removed (as it is in the current syndication version). I personally could live with the replacement of those two snippets with carefully chosen songs or soundalikes, as long as the replacement was tastefully done and, most importantly, as long as the really essential song remained.

Now, if Fox were to go through WKRP and replace some of the non-essential songs, that still might not reduce the music costs sufficiently (they'd still have to pay for at least one real song per episode). But like I said, I think it's the best hope. If Fox were to change some of the music in consultation with Hugh Wilson (the creator of the show) and make every effort to bring the music costs down without wrecking the show (part of the problem with the current syndication version is not just that the music is changed, but that it's done ineptly -- painfully phony soundalikes, badly redubbed voices, entire scenes robbed of their point), I would be happy to buy it, because there's probably no way the show is going to come to DVD with every scrap of music intact. When Wilson made the decision to cram the show full of music, it was a good decision at the time -- but it was expensive even then (the reason the show was taped rather than filmed was that music costs were, at the time, lower for videotaped shows), and now it's just impossibly expensive. The show needs to be properly restored and remastered with at least some careful and tasteful music changes, or it may never be seen again in anything but the current awful, all-music-replaced package. My hope is that Fox will do what it can to create and distribute a WKRP with the show's integrity intact -- I'd be willing to put up with some music changes in exchange for that.

I've got to agree, I'm holding out hope that Fox will do something with this based on the fact that they're going to do something with In Living Color which is another show that was usically messy, probably not as much as WKRP, but still it shows at least to me that Fox is trying. I'm pretty sure that Fox realizes that there is an audience for this show on DVD, and now its just a matter of if they can make it work so that its profitable and also so its not as awful as the episodes running on TV are in terms of all the changes.

WKRP is 1 show where I would gladly live with different music if it helped to get it released on DVD, just as you said as long as it doesn't ruin the integrity of the show.