Greatest American Hero!!! (1 Viewer)

[Jaime_Weinman]

Is Cannell replacing all the music because he can't pay for it, or because he doesn't want to pay for it? (Well, I know he personally has lots of money; when I ask whether "he" can't pay for it I mean his production company.) I wish someone would ask him point-blank about why he's doing this.

I realize that Cannell, as an independent producer (one of the few TV producers who actually owned his own shows and produced them himself) doesn't have the resources that the big studios have for producing a DVD set, but I agree that he's not doing a bang-up job with these things.

 

[Rick P]

Why does no one explore the possibility that THE COULD NOT GET IT? That is a possibility you know.

 

[JasonLa]

I'm afraid unless there isn't enough people not buying the sets because of music issues this will not change. There are many instances that the rights holders just wanted way to much and the studios couldn't afford to buy the music within the budget for the set. The average shopper doesn't want to pay a lot of money for a season set. So those of us willing to pay for the extra costs lose out. The problem is because there is enough sales despite the changes made on sets the studios get the idea that people don't care if they make changes IMO. Unless you make it plain and clear like telling every single person that is buying the DVD at the POS are you sure you want to buy this set it has such and such alterations we are not going to win the battle easily. My campaign has been to encourage people to write letters to the studios letting them know that we would like get unaltered/uncut as the case may be for whatever set they object to the changes in. Letting them know that they would have liked to see the set remade unaltered/uncut. If they had the ability to do so. and say I'd be willing to buy a set twice if there was enough incentive to do so.

I say instead of not buying the set if its something you truly wanted to get and do the letter thing, and hope they re-release. Especially with a show like this that might not get as good of sales as another. If too many people don't buy it then it will end with no future releases.

So really no matter what we do it all boils down to the bottom line for all involved parties, the money.

 

[Craig Beam]

If nobody buys the set, then they'll probably cancel the release of season 2 and never even bother with season 3. And believe me, this isn't the sort of show that will get multiple releases on DVD (like higher profile titles such as Star Trek or The Twilight Zone). This is it, folks. I understand why some of you are upset, but c'mon! You're kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

 

[Eric F]

Without the original music it's not the same show.

I pre-ordered this one via Columbiahouse, I'll probably put it on Half.com as soon as it arrives.

 

[Craig Beam]

They've changed A FEW SONGS playing IN THE BACKGROUND... and it's not the same show? Seriously? That's a bit over the top. All the countless changes made to Star Wars? Okay, I'll buy that: it's NOT the same movie anymore. But minor alterations to the soundtrack of a few select episodes of The Greatest American Hero? Hardly the kiss of death.

I'll say it again: no, this is not ideal. But folks, the music rights issue is clearly a GIGANTIC roadblock as more and more TV shows arrive on DVD. Should none of these series be released? Again, I'm not a supporter of the changes.... but staunchly refusing to buy an otherwise fantastic set will only convince The Powers That Be that there's no interest in GAH on DVD, and then we get nothing. That, in my eyes, is way worse than accepting the absence of a few songs that weren't even written for the series in the first place.

 

[David Lambert]

I doubt that's the case. All the shows that Cannell created and aren't being put out by one of the "giant" studios (like Universal's releases of The A-Team) are being put together by Cannell's company and merely distributed through the label you see on the package.

In a nutshell, that means everything Anchor Bay puts out from Cannell, along with the Ventura sets for "Wiseguy", are actually produced by Cannell Company.

As many of you will recall, Wiseguy - V1 had music changes, the most noticable of which was the deletion of the Moody Blues song "Knights In White Satin" from the climactic scene of the entire arc depicted on that set.

The official line, which the star of the show repeated on his website, was "music costs were too high for that song".

But former HTF poster Randy A. Salas, who writes for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, used to write for music magazines and had a great relationship with the Moody Blues band. He asked them about this, and revealed that they were mystified because they were never ASKED to license the right, or to even quote a price. The Moody Blues pointed out that they had licensed the same song to several other DVDs in the time period just prior to the production of Wiseguy - V1, and it sounded like they kept good records about such inquiries.


My conclusion is that Cannell Company probably has a policy in place to simply replace songs outright, and not even try to license in most cases. That's just a theory/opinion on my part, and not fact. But my instincts point in that direction.


I would LOVE for somebody to prove me wrong! :frowning:

 

[BrandonJF]

I think one of the questions being posed in this thread is - is it REALLY a "gigantic" roadblock? Or is it just a speed bump that someone just doesn't want to drive over?

It's one thing to try and find out it's cost prohibitive. It's another just to not even bother. Yeah, we don't know what happened here. But, really, if Miami Vice can make it out intact, I can't really see why some songs that were never even recorded by the original artists couldn't have made it.

But, after the Wiseguy V. 4 set, I'll just be happy if we get the show audio.

 

[Jay*W]

I was shocked to hear a commercial for the GAH DVD set on XM Radio today (I was flipping between sportstalk stations, so I'm not sure which one). Of particular interest in light of the confusion concerning the release date, the commercial claimed that the DVDs were available now!

Jay

 

[Jason Bennion]

It really saddens me to hear that music changes seem to be happening with more and more sets, but I'm going to have throw my vote in with Craig -- it is better to have one of these small, almost-forgotten, niche-market shows available in some form, even if it's less than ideal, than to not have them at all. I'm amazed the GAH and 21 Jump St. are even seeing the light of day, altered music or not.

Also, I think maybe we DVD hobbyists have gotten a bit spoiled. The fact is the music changes have been common in syndicated versions of shows for years as well as on VHS. I don't recall people doing (much) griping because the version of their favorite show running on Nick at Nite had been trimmed.

To echo Craig, is the situation ideal? Absolutely not -- if it was up to me we'd have beautifully restored, archival-quality versions of every show that anyone ever loved, complete with exhaustive historical documentaries and whatever missing footage could be recovered. But economics don't allow that. There simply isn't going to be enough demand to justify the expense, especially now, when the market is saturated with new TV product. It's pretty amazing to be able to buy an entire season of television for less than $100, but for most people, that's still a pretty sizeable expense.

The music deal sucks, but I think we've all got to get used to it.

 

[Craig Beam]

Very well said, Jason. And in the grand scheme of things, there are WAY bigger things to get upset over. Just watch the news on any given day.

 

[Chris_Morris]

Former? What happened to Randy?

Chris

 

[David Lambert]

There were remarks made here on HTF from certain people that he felt were disparaging toward his profession, and therefore in a backhanded way toward him personally. This was after he noted a pattern of getting strong negative feedback whenever he would post matter-of-fact info, which he always tried to state in a non-antagonistic fashion to clear up misinformation. It felt like an ongoing situation to him, so he simply left for greener pastures. It's not too hard to find his posts at another forum if you really want to say hello to him.

Note that I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing that he had good reason to leave. I haven't even investigated the situation. He remains my good friend. I am simply passing on what he told me.

In fact, the reason I even know all of this is because he gave me some info a few weeks ago about why Grizzly Adams is not coming to DVD anytime soon. He specifically mentioned posting the info here at HTF. That's a subject of a separate thread, though, and now that you've reminded me about that, I'll post it whenever I have the time.

 

[Amy Mormino]

I think there are degrees to how much music changes affect the overall program. For Wiseguy and for the second season of Quantum Leap, I found the music replaced to be really integral to the episode. With this show, I frankly probably wouldn't have noticed the change if I hadn't been online. But for other people, it may be different.

That said, if the Cannell Company is too lazy to even investigate music costs, then shame on them. That's much worse than the companies that made genuine efforts.

 

[Chris_Morris]

Thanks David. Doing a search, I'm sure I found the post that "broke the camel's back". His ability to track down info. and willingness to share will be missed.

Back on topic:
My copy of GAH should be here next week, but I rented the first two discs from Blockbuster Online, and they should be here today
I haven't seen this show since I was around 5 or 6 and am looking forward to revisiting it. It is one of those shows that must have made an impression on me because I can still picture the cast and certain scenes from the opening, even though it's been 23 years since I've seen them. Can't wait.

Chris

 

[Jason Bennion]

I agree that music is often integral to the plot and it's very distracting and/or disappointing when it's changed, but I still prefer having the series with alterations than not having it all.

Something else I've thought of in regards to this subject: I could be wrong about this, but didn't older TV series routinely use cover versions of popular songs anyway, presumably to save costs? I seem to remember that one of the things that made Miami Vice so groundbreaking was that it used the actual recordings that you were hearing on the radio.

Is it possible that some of what we're denouncing as music changes were actually these near-soundalike covers?

 

[Craig Beam]

In the case of The Greatest American Hero, all pre-existing songs WERE cover versions, sung by Joey Scarbury. This is part of the reason I'm not terribly miffed about their exclusion... they're not the original versions anyway, and weren't composed especially for the show. The vast majority of songs used on the show in seasons 2 and 3 were original songs sung by Scarbury, written expressly for the show (usually by Stephen Geyer), and all of those will reportedly be included on the forthcoming sets (seasons 2 and 3).

 

[MattHR]

I just finished a quick scan of the set. It's my first Cannell production owned, so I was a little worried about the transfers, based on reviews of previous releases. I can say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. While not pristine, the transfers are similar to other film-based shows from the 80's, such as "The A-Team" and "Knight Rider". There is a bit of dirt here and there, especially in the many SFX "process" shots when Ralph is flying. These SFX always looked pretty bad though, mainly due to the production and budget limitations of the time.

Another surprise is that these do appear to be unedited episodes, as they each run between 49 and 50 minutes. The pilot is the 95 minute "movie" version with its original title sequence, not the 2-part syndication version.

The "bonus" pilot episode for "The Greatest American Heroine" is in rougher shape, which I was expecting. It's not bad, just not as clean as the others.

I can't comment on any music alterations, since I only saw the show when it originally aired almost 25 years ago. I do remember most of the music seemed to be cover tunes, though. "Knight Rider" also used mainly cover tunes. I remember how "cheap" some TV shows seemed for using so many cover tunes of the era. Being younger, I never understood the reason behind it. It's all very clear nowadays.

Cannell and the entire cast each appear in their own newly-recorded interview segments. (Connie Sellecca and Michael Pare have an additional piece recorded together). Their insights are really informative, not the usual fluff pieces.
Connie Sellecca has aged beautifully. I haven't seen her in ages, and she looks absolutely gorgeous!

Even without confirmation of exact music alterations, I'd still highly recommend this set. For me, not having seen the show since first broadcast, I will enjoy it even knowing some music may be altered. For hard-core fans of the show, I hope the alterations are minimal (or non-existant) enough to not ruin your enjoyment.

The 3-disc set is packaged in two ThinPaks in a cardboard sleeve. I really like this double ThinPak case. It's a real space-saver.


Hopefully sales are good enough to ensure the remaining two seasons are released.

 

[MattHR]

Something else I should note: The episode descriptions on the cases refer to the main character as "Ralph Hinkley" for every episode. The character's name was changed to "Ralph Hanley" beginning with the third episode (although it was poorly dubbed to be either "Hanley" or "Mr. H").

The pilot and the first few episodes appear as originally broadcast with the name "Hinkley". I had always thought they dubbed the name for these episodes for further showings, and to remain consistent with the rest of the season. Maybe they never did, and this is the way they've always been. Anybody know for sure? Or did they re-dub the "Hanley" episodes for later showings as "Hinkley"?
I think they left them as they were, since there were a few scenes where the names were printed or visible on screen, which would be difficult/costly to correct.

The producers changed the name back to "Hinkley" for the second and third seasons. I watched all the interviews in the supplements, and it's strange that nobody mentions the name change. It's not even noted in the liner notes. There are several instances in the interviews and liner notes where references are made to the "Reagan era" and how it applies to the Bill Maxwell character and certain plot points. This makes it even more strange that no mention is made about the change.

Maybe because Ronald Reagan had recently passed away, the producers felt it would be more respectful to not even bring up the subject. I think a quick explanation would have been appropriate, especially since some viewers will be seeing this show for the first time and will undoubtedly be confused by the name change.

 

[Craig Beam]

Were some episodes actually shot using the name "Hanley"? I always thought the change was done after shooting, so all the "Hanley"s were overdubs. I assumed that the DVDs would be "Hanley"-free.... kinda sloppy.

HOWEVER... I'm still excited as hell for Tuesday to get here.