Happy Days - future releases may be too musical (1 Viewer)

I don't know about season 4, which has yet to be announced but I'm in the midst of transferring to DVD the 5th season from off-network records and I have to say there is so much music in there that I can't see how Paramount could possibly put this out. The episodes where Suzi Quatro guest stars are filled with songs. There would be about 12 minutes left once they took the music out. Right now I'm doing the Valentine's Day episode and the whole show is love songs. It's one thing for them to eliminate the little 5 second snippets of music for transition scenes but this season's shows are full of music. Again, I don't have season four but if it's anything like season five then I think this series may be done.

Somewhat OT, but I just ordered Happy Days Season 2, R2, and am curious to see if any of the music cuts survived - knowing that there are different rules governing the use of music in the UK (hence shows like Ally McBeal seeing release in R2). I won't hold my breath but I will keep my fingers crossed.

I would hazard a guess to say that they would actually delete that episode right off the set.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to post once & let us know when you have the set.

My guess would be they just used the American prints but if not then I may double dip as I find the changes disconcerting.

I suspect you are right but I'll definitely post my findings once I receive...hopefully later this week.

It also seems around this time Anson Williams sings a song every episode.

I received today. The box art still retains the music substitution warning of the r1 version but I haven't watched yet to confirm. The art looks identical to the r1 version so I'm still holding out hope. I'll be watching this later so I'll let y'all know what I find.

I quickly scanned some of the episodes and here's what I found:

1. Transfers look to be the same as r1.
2. Like r1 release, themesong is not Rock Around the Clock, but rather the season 3+ Happy Days theme with season 2 opening visuals.
3. Good news: from the handful of episodes I scanned, it appears that the original music is intact...and on the 1 episode's closing credits I watched, the card with the "contributing artists" is intact as well (unlike the r1 release where it was dropped).

So, aside from the themesong, it looks like this is as close to the original broadcasts as we have on DVD currently. I'm going to start watching the complete episodes tonight so I'll see if there appears to be anything missing. This may be worth a double dip for some of you HD fans.

Yeap, and those songs were recorded previously by many recording artists during the 50's and 60's.

Great news Matt!!
Do you also happen to know if the Roseanne sets are also uncut in the R2 region?

Sorry. I don't know about the Roseanne sets.

I did watched some more episodes last night and so far, there have been no music substitutions and the original paramount logo appears after the credits as opposed the the new CBS Paramount logo on the r1 release.

Lucky Brits. We need the laws that they have here.

Do you know about the similar status of Laverne and Shirley in Region 2?

I don't think that has been released in r2 yet.

All the reason more NOT to release the episodes.

Thankfull,he makes a BETTER director than singer

Anson Williams had a recording career, and his single had his name in a hard-to-read script font. Who was the target audience, near-sighted Andy Williams fans?

Reviving this thread to ask about the music content in the R2 sets of the first 2 season sets as compared to the R1 sets:

Can anyone confirm that the music content (with the exception of the opening theme) is intact in the S1 & S2 sets as originally broadcast in the 70's?

I am going to buy the R2 sets if this is true. I read earlier in the thread that Matt indicated that the R2 S2 set includes the original music. I would like to confirm that with the S2 set as well as the S1 set.

Nope, there has been music replaced in the sets for the Region 1 releases.

Which is precisely why Jeff was asking about the Region 2 releases.

This topic is for Region 1 releases of the series, not Region 2,3 or, 4.

At any rate, I think we've seen the end of the Happy Days releases. Don't expect any more to be released anytime soon until the music rights issue is resolved.

What? So Jeff can't ask a simple question about the R2 here?

Gary "I've been wondering the same thing myself and would have to seriously consider a region free player if there were no music cuts on the R2 sets" O.