I know we spoke about this some time ago, in this thread. Rather than resurrecting that old thing to give my impressions of WKRP on DVD, I’ll start this new one. Anyway, I’ve now had the chance to see some of the WKRP episodes on DVD, and can comment on some of the music issues we discussed earlier this year in that thread.
First of all, yes–much of the music you expect to hear isn’t there. It’s been replaced by fairly generic music. The music itself isn’t bad, to be honest–if you’re expecting Johnny to play some, say, hard-rockin’ Foreigner; then you’ll get hard rock, but it won’t be Foreigner. This isn’t so bad and can be excused, even when Johnny announces the name of the record–in (I think it was the Ferriman funeral home show), Johnny announces Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” except it’s been replaced. The replacement isn’t bad, to tell the truth, which (IMHO) excuses it in spite of it not being Blondie.
So the replacement music gets, in my mind, a passing grade.
What is surprising is what has been either (a) replaced, or (b) deleted. This would consist of musical yet non-musical things that occurred, and that I was expecting–but they weren’t there. That’s a little confusing, so I’ll explain. Remember Jennifer’s apartment doorbell? In the original airings and syndication, it played “Fly Me To The Moon.” It’s been replaced by a similar (that is, that kind of doorbell “bonging”) rendition of Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer.” Of course, “Fly Me To The Moon” must have been one of the songs that the DVD people were unable to get rights for, but I didn’t expect to hear it replaced.
The same thing occurs in the episode where Little Arthur return from military school. Instead of the theme from Patton, we hear a generic trumpet fanfare.
The deletion(s) are most surprising of all. Remember when Herb and Venus were asking Bailey to sing an audition for Ferriman’s Funerals? The dialogue went something like this:
Venus: Bailey, sing. Sing a song.
Herb: Yes, Bailey. Sing out loud. Sing out strong. [beat] Sing of goo–mmph! (As Venus clamps his hand over Herb’s mouth)
Bailey: (sings) Amazing Grace…
All of Herb’s lines except “Sing of goo–mmph” have been deleted. It’s a little jarring to miss those lines, but it’s doubly jarring to have the camera cut to Bailey as she begins to sing “Amazing Grace,” because the uproarious laugh track (coming from silence for Venus’s “Sing a song” statement) cuts in too.
Overall, though, no bad, and nearly as much fun as I remember. Certainly, the memorable lines are there (“Booger!” “The turkeys are falling like sacks of wet cement!”) and Hoyt Axton does sing “Della and the Dealer” in the “Jennifer marries Johnny” episode. In spite of my remarks in the earlier thread, I have to say that if we had to put up with music substitutions, they didn’t do too much harm. I won’t go so far as to say that they enhance the shows, but at least they don’t subtract too much from them.
Your thoughts?