WKRP...Complete Series Coming Soon! (See Post #109) (1 Viewer)

[Powell&Pressburger]

I don't mind a higher price tag for music being intact. I wish Led and Floyd would look at this from a perspective of history and nostalgia. It is also great promotion for both. Fingers crossed news will be good once Shout officially announces the release.

 

[BobO'Link]

Wow! That was a surprise announcement! I'll be purchasing this one, music replacements or not (but I'd prefer *not*).

 

[Kasey]

Wow...another Holy Grail (not mine, but for DVD in general) arrives in 2014.

I never watched it as a kid, but I will shell out for this now. I am sure Shout will do the best they can as far as securing original songs.

Those "snowball's-chance-in-hell" titles all seem to be trickling out now. The pool of vintage shows with marketability is shrinking and the small companies like Shout need to keep releasing stuff like this to stay in business. Maybe there's hope for Maude yet.

 

[jimmyjet]

Wow...another Holy Grail (not mine, but for DVD in general) arrives in 2014.

I never watched it as a kid, but I will shell out for this now. I am sure Shout will do the best they can as far as securing original songs.

Those "snowball's-chance-in-hell" titles all seem to be trickling out now. The pool of vintage shows with marketability is shrinking and the small companies like Shout need to keep releasing stuff like this to stay in business. Maybe there's hope for Maude yet.

now who has been saying this all along ??? LOL.

 

[LeoA]

Hard to imagine Shout Factory paying for music licenses. I wish it was Time Life instead.

 

[Brian Himes]

now who has been saying this all along ??? LOL.

I wouldn't crow too loudly about this just yet. This could just as quickly blow up in Shout's face. Shout is usually deceptively quiet about things until after the release is in everyone's hands and then the apologies and back peddling begins. They are not a company that inspires confidence. How many times have they promised the moon only to deliver rocks instead?

 

[MatthewA]

This week keeps getting better and better.

 

[JColl]

Wow if this has all the music, or at least reasonably close, I'm all over it.

 

[jimmyjet]

I wouldn't crow too loudly about this just yet. This could just as quickly blow up in Shout's face. Shout is usually deceptively quiet about things until after the release is in everyone's hands and then the apologies and back peddling begins. They are not a company that inspires confidence. How many times have they promised the moon only to deliver rocks instead?

okay. i will keep the roosters in the pen for now !!!!!

but be prepared for a lot of noise later on !!!!!

 

[HenryDuBrow]

Wonderful announcement. Too many shows I want to see completed are still stalled, this is the best DVD news in years. Best sitcom ever, funniest, best cast, etc. The 'high' price mentioned is peanuts, compared to what I'd love to shell out for an uncut release anyway. Fingers crossed it'll all work out, as complete as possible.

 

[Mr. Handley]

I'm going to be all over this one. Of course I'd love it with all the original music, but will understand if they can't clear it all. Easily one of my all-time faves.

 

[Sam Posten]

Here's hopin!

 

[Brian Himes]

I can't seem to get this announcement off my mind. In the Tvshowsondvd.com article it states that Shout is "clearly are aware of everything fans want to see on every season of this release."

With that being said, is Shout clearly aware of the hot seat that they have placed themselves? This release, next to Batman and The Wonder Years, is going to be picked apart scene by scene and episode by episode not only from fans, but from critics as well. If they can pull this off it could become a really big feather in Shout's cap. If it fails, I'm afraid the backlash could be so devastating that Shout's reputation may never recover. Personally, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

Another thing that concerns me, some here have stated that the recent Antenna TV airings of the series have had more of the original music restored than previous syndicated packages. If Shout is unable to clear more of the original music, will they just slap those latest versions on disc and call it a day? We've all seen that happen before and not just with Shout.

Of the shows that I have completed (and some that haven't been completed) from Shout, only That Girl, Adam 12 and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman have lived up to my expectations. Fat Albert was a major disappointment for me and The Bob Newhart Show so far (I've only watched up to about the first half of season 5) isn't quite as good as it could have been.

I don't know. I'm just . . . well . . . concerned. I truly hope that Shout steps up and pulls off the best possible release that we can ever hope to get of this show. I'd really, really love to have it in my collection.

 

[albert_m2]

Fans need to be realistic. It's not going to be perfect. While only one season, they were able to pull it off with Freaks and Geeks a decade ago and overall put out a great set. This is a bigger challenge, but there will obviously be effort involved.

 

[TravisR]

Fans need to be realistic. It's not going to be perfect. While only one season, they were able to pull it off with Freaks and Geeks a decade ago and overall put out a great set.

Also keep in mind that Shout couldn't afford to license songs from, I believe, Outkast and Jay Z for Undeclared a year or two after the Freaks And Geeks set. That's a less popular show than F&G but due to some of the same cast and writers, I'm sure a chunk of F&G fans bought Undeclared. And I'm assuming that songs from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are way more expensive than Outkast or even Jay Z.

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Though it was many years ago, Shout and Second City managed to clear the majority (though not all) of the music for their SCTV releases, which was nearly as much of a music rights nightmare as WKRP. I would realistically expect something like that, rather than a 100% night-of-broadcast restoration.

Who knows, maybe Fox has been quietly trying to resolve a lot of this (for both home video and broadcast/streaming) in the years between their botched Season 1 release and now. Also, since this is a very high-profile release, the old set clearly selling poorly due to the music replacement, and the fact that Shout regularly handles a lot of music programming apart from their TV and movie discs, this may bode well for WKRP, in particular, when it hasn't always been the case with other TV properties they've worked on. WKRP might be a special circumstance for them (similar to The Fugitive with CBS/Paramount).

Time will tell.

 

[Brian Himes]

Fans need to be realistic. It's not going to be perfect. While only one season, they were able to pull it off with Freaks and Geeks a decade ago and overall put out a great set. This is a bigger challenge, but there will obviously be effort involved.

Ahh, but what might be considered realistic for some may not be for others and what Shout may consider realistic most certainly won't be what is considered realistic by the fans. I don't know if there is a happy medium to be found here considering the way the show was produced and what work will need to be involved just to replace music that can't be licensed.

Freaks and Geeks I don't think is a good comparison. Sure, they were able to pull it off but at that time that show was a much more recent show so the music issues were probably not as problematic. WKRP is going on 40 years old and therefore the audience for this show is probably much smaller. It does have a rabid fan following, but is it enough to get say, between 95-98% of the music cleared and still turn a decent profit for Shout? I'm not sure. Anything less than 95% and I think we'll be getting into some potential trouble areas like whole scenes being edited out.

 

[JoeDoakes]

Sure, they were able to pull it off but at that time that show was a much more recent show so the music issues were probably not as problematic. WKRP is going on 40 years old and therefore the audience for this show is probably much smaller. It does have a rabid fan following, but is it enough to get say, between 95-98% of the music cleared and still turn a decent profit for Shout? I'm not sure.

Fox may have already cleared some of it.

 

[Brian Himes]

Fox may have already cleared some of it.

Just because Fox may have cleared it doesn't mean that those clearances will transfer over to Shout. We have already seen this with the Columbia House Carol Burnett releases that had music cleared but those same musical bits were not cleared by Time Life for the exact same episodes. Also, Fox's clearances may only be valid for broadcast and not for home video.

 

[Guy Foulard]

Though it was many years ago, Shout and Second City managed to clear the majority (though not all) of the music for their SCTV releases, which was nearly as much of a music rights nightmare as WKRP. I would realistically expect something like that, rather than a 100% night-of-broadcast restoration.

Didn't they do a similar approach to their recent Fridays dvd set? While we might not get EVERYthing, maybe they'll manage to clear the majority of it...fingers crossed! The music is a big part of the show, and Shout factory has a strong music orientation, so I'd expect that they "get it"...