WWTBAM Bored

When I watched it, one player got blipped while singing. anybody know why?

lilyvonschtupp26 wrote:When I watched it, one player got blipped while singing. anybody know why?

I think if WWTBAM had aired her singing Another Brick In The Wall, they would have had to pay royalties to Pink Floyd or whomever owns the rights to that song.

Yeah, I noticed that and it looked strange, but I guess it's hard to edit out something like that when you're showing the the continuous countdown of the clock. It appeared that she sang a line from "Another Brick In The Wall," which was the subject of the question she was answering. I assume the sound was muted because WWTBAM didn't want to have to deal with paying publishing (songwriter) royalties, not just now, but any time in the future when this episode is rerun. There are several examples of popular old TV programs that are difficult or impossible to see anymore, because it would be too expensive to pay all the royalties that would be required to broadcast the reruns. A prime example is "Name That Tune." I guess the contestant handlers didn't warn the contestants not to break out into song.

I watched it for the transcript a little while ago.

Spoiler

The song was Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. I noticed he singing was muted and wondered if it was a glitch or a mute-out. I wonder if she sing a tweaked version with explicit lyrics?

Hotseat Or Bust! wrote:

lilyvonschtupp26 wrote:When I watched it, one player got blipped while singing. anybody know why?

I think if WWTBAM had aired her singing Another Brick In The Wall, they would have had to pay royalties to Pink Floyd or whomever owns the rights to that song.

Ahh, that makes sense. I remember in American Idol, David Archuleta surprisingly threw in a line of another song in one of his performances. They did not have permisson to perform it, and had to pay a large sum.

That's correct, they specifically told us not to sing because they would have to pay to use the song, or just edit it out. They said please just don't put us in a position to have to do either.

sunflower wrote:That's correct, they specifically told us not to sing because they would have to pay to use the song, or just edit it out. They said please just don't put us in a position to have to do either.

Where was this rule 7 years ago!?!?!?!?!?!?!



lb13

This brings me back to my 16K Llamarama question it was about the song "Stairway to Heaven." I was just about to sing it out and realized that I couldn't carry a tune so I went to speaking the lyric and answering.

"Ally McBeal" was never put into syndication because of the many songs used in the shows. The rights fees were prohibitive.

This is also why it took so long for them to release a box set of WKRP in Cincinnati.

nobody told me that when I was on the show. The way I understand royalty rights, you can play or sing 30 seconds w/o playing royalty. hmmmm.... it made for very weird TV.

And I immediately bought the box set of WKRP and will get the rest when they come out. Still one of the funniest show ever.

One of the more interesting rules added when I taped Million Dollar Password was that we couldn't hum real songs as part of our clues. So, it looks like this is a fairly common "across the board" thing.

lilyvonschtupp26 wrote:nobody told me that when I was on the show. The way I understand royalty rights, you can play or sing 30 seconds w/o playing royalty. hmmmm.... it made for very weird TV.

Yes, it did, particularly since the subsequent chit-chat gave the impression that she really did sing something, instead of just silently moving her lips, as we all saw on TV!

But, thanks to the damned clock, most contestants realize that they can't waste time like that any more while answering questions.

ontellen wrote:And I immediately bought the box set of WKRP and will get the rest when they come out. Still one of the funniest show ever.

I thought they still removed most of the songs and made them generic crap. The whole Russian defection episode revolved around Elton John's "Tiny Dancer", and I clearly recall a TV rerun where they dubbed over even the spoken lyrics. And removing "Hot Blooded" from over the scene with Les preparing for his date with Jennifer is just criminal.

OTOH, it's worth almost any sacrifice to get that Thanksgiving episode. Never mind MTM's "The Death of Chuckles the Clown". IMHO that WKRP episode is definitely the best sitcom episode ever.

chad1m wrote:One of the more interesting rules added when I taped Million Dollar Password was that we couldn't hum real songs as part of our clues. So, it looks like this is a fairly common "across the board" thing.

Speaking of which, any word on when the new season of M$P begins airing?

Apparently, the whole song-rights thing is why my favorite movie (and source of "Trevor Macfee"), "Until the End of the World," has never been released on DVD. It has an incredible soundtrack with U2, Peter Gabriel, REM, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, K.D. Lang, and on and on. It would be a travesty if it was ever released without those songs.

KillerTomato wrote:This is also why it took so long for them to release a box set of WKRP in Cincinnati.

And at that they had to edit out or change some of the music. Sad, really.

gsabc wrote:

ontellen wrote:And I immediately bought the box set of WKRP and will get the rest when they come out. Still one of the funniest show ever.

I thought they still removed most of the songs and made them generic crap. The whole Russian defection episode revolved around Elton John's "Tiny Dancer", and I clearly recall a TV rerun where they dubbed over even the spoken lyrics. And removing "Hot Blooded" from over the scene with Les preparing for his date with Jennifer is just criminal.

OTOH, it's worth almost any sacrifice to get that Thanksgiving episode. Never mind MTM's "The Death of Chuckles the Clown". IMHO that WKRP episode is definitely the best sitcom episode ever.

I bought the boxed set just to get that episode - and the one about the mortician wanting to advertise on the station ranks right up there with it, IMO.

"Ferryman, Ferryman.
He's the man with the plot, the man with the plan.
Ferryman, Ferryman,
he's the mortician man who loves you --
a lot."

earendel wrote:

gsabc wrote:

ontellen wrote:And I immediately bought the box set of WKRP and will get the rest when they come out. Still one of the funniest show ever.

I thought they still removed most of the songs and made them generic crap. The whole Russian defection episode revolved around Elton John's "Tiny Dancer", and I clearly recall a TV rerun where they dubbed over even the spoken lyrics. And removing "Hot Blooded" from over the scene with Les preparing for his date with Jennifer is just criminal.

OTOH, it's worth almost any sacrifice to get that Thanksgiving episode. Never mind MTM's "The Death of Chuckles the Clown". IMHO that WKRP episode is definitely the best sitcom episode ever.

I bought the boxed set just to get that episode - and the one about the mortician wanting to advertise on the station ranks right up there with it, IMO.

"Ferryman, Ferryman.
He's the man with the plot, the man with the plan.
Ferryman, Ferryman,
he's the mortician man who loves you --
a lot."

I haven't seen even a rerun in maybe 20 years, and so many individual episodes come to mind so quickly. I may hold out another year to see if an unexpurgated set comes out, but it's definitely on my wish list.

TheConfessor wrote:Yeah, I noticed that and it looked strange, but I guess it's hard to edit out something like that when you're showing the the continuous countdown of the clock. It appeared that she sang a line from "Another Brick In The Wall," which was the subject of the question she was answering. I assume the sound was muted because WWTBAM didn't want to have to deal with paying publishing (songwriter) royalties, not just now, but any time in the future when this episode is rerun. There are several examples of popular old TV programs that are difficult or impossible to see anymore, because it would be too expensive to pay all the royalties that would be required to broadcast the reruns. A prime example is "Name That Tune." I guess the contestant handlers didn't warn the contestants not to break out into song.

The first season of WKRP in Cincinnati was released on DVD with vastly different music and bombed because many of the jokes were specifically about the music the station was playing. It's doubtful the rest of the series will be released.

Bosom Buddies (one of my favorites) used My Life as its theme song when it aired originally but different theme music on the DVD release and it just didn't work nearly as well.

There's a real controversy about some of these older TV shows being released with disclaimers saying that they have been edited for content. In many cases the air times of individual episodes can vary by a minute or more which shouldn't be the case for shows made during the same season. Since virtually no one has access to the original master tapes, it's hard to say what edits have been but it's a safe bet that these versions will be the only ones ever released in any video format in the forseeable future (syndicated episodes are routinely shortened by 10% or so to cram in more commercials). A lot of purists insist they won't buy the edited episodes, which, frankly, for most shows doesn't have that much of an impact on the show's watchability (WKRP and a few other examples aside).

trevor_macfee wrote:Apparently, the whole song-rights thing is why my favorite movie (and source of "Trevor Macfee"), "Until the End of the World," has never been released on DVD. It has an incredible soundtrack with U2, Peter Gabriel, REM, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, K.D. Lang, and on and on. It would be a travesty if it was ever released without those songs.

Until the End of the World was released on VHS in the mid 90's. I don't know if the soundtrack was intact, but I would guess so since by the time the film was made it was standard practice for studios to get video clearances for soundtrack music.

Releasing older titles on DVD, except for a handful of big name hits, is a risky proposition for studios. The number of people who actually will go out and buy a 20-year-old catalogue title (especially a foreign one) is fairly small, and there's only so many of those movies they can release at any one time. Video stores don't carry them; a lot of department stores don't carry them and Netflix doesn't buy very many copies of them because demand is so low.

My guess is that it will eventually be released, possibly as part of a Wenders box set (it's easier to get people to cough up $40 for five or six movies than $15 for a single title).

silverscreenselect wrote:

trevor_macfee wrote:Apparently, the whole song-rights thing is why my favorite movie (and source of "Trevor Macfee"), "Until the End of the World," has never been released on DVD. It has an incredible soundtrack with U2, Peter Gabriel, REM, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, K.D. Lang, and on and on. It would be a travesty if it was ever released without those songs.

Until the End of the World was released on VHS in the mid 90's. I don't know if the soundtrack was intact, but I would guess so since by the time the film was made it was standard practice for studios to get video clearances for soundtrack music.

Releasing older titles on DVD, except for a handful of big name hits, is a risky proposition for studios. The number of people who actually will go out and buy a 20-year-old catalogue title (especially a foreign one) is fairly small, and there's only so many of those movies they can release at any one time. Video stores don't carry them; a lot of department stores don't carry them and Netflix doesn't buy very many copies of them because demand is so low.

My guess is that it will eventually be released, possibly as part of a Wenders box set (it's easier to get people to cough up $40 for five or six movies than $15 for a single title).

Actually, I saw a Wim Wenders interview where he identified music rights as the reason the DVD has been released in Europe but not in the US.

I don't hold out a lot of hope that the DVD will be out any time soon, but keep thinking about investing in multi-region DVD player so I can buy the European DVD - which is like 5 hours long and reportedly preserves the continuity much better than the pared-down US release (which I saw in the theater and have on video).

trevor_macfee wrote: I don't hold out a lot of hope that the DVD will be out any time soon, but keep thinking about investing in multi-region DVD player so I can buy the European DVD - which is like 5 hours long and reportedly preserves the continuity much better than the pared-down US release (which I saw in the theater and have on video).

Many US DVD players are multi-region. It just requires a software hack. The hack voids your warranty, but frankly most people just toss a DVD player it breaks anyway (and there's at most a 90 day labor warranty to boot). You can look up bulletin boards that deal with that and they can direct you to web sites where you download the hack and copy it onto a CD or DVD. Then just put the disc in your player and it installs the hack automatically (check to be sure if the site seems reliable before trying it).

I did this with my current DVD player to get rid of a nagging glitch it had which the manufacturer would not correct and it works fine.