Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Livin' on the Web in Cincinnati

Baby, if you've ever wondered if you could watch the first season of WKRP online... the answer is hell, yeah. Last night, for instance, I stayed up a half hour longer than I shoulda, watching a fish fight a pig in a men's room.

And you can, too! (Well, most of you.)



Also available are Remington Steele, Barney Miller, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the Bob Newhart Show, Firefly and more.

But seriously: Fish versus Pig. Furry Fight!

Rob

4 comments:

christianready said...

It's hard to watch it without the original music. The songs were as much a character of the show as anyone else in the cast. Still, what a show it was.

Getting to watch Barney Miller on the other hand is great!

Greg! said...

I'd forgotten that both the drinking impairment bit and the KaRP vs. PIG fight were in the same episode.
This show was pure genius.

And at least the title music remains the same.

Rob said...

I was wondering if they had gotten the clearance for the music, but apparently they hadn't. I also wonder if these are the episodes meant for syndication. They typically cut out up to 2 minutes of "extraneous" material in most sitcom syndication, to allow for extra commercials. Sometimes it's extraneous, sometimes it's not. It's a crap shoot.

The one thing I hate about Hulu frankly is that I HAVE to watch it on my computer. I don't watch TV that way.

--*Rob

Rob S. said...

Since Hulu has only season 1 available, I think they're the episodes prepared for DVD -- whichever configuration they're in. I read yesterday that the original use of the songs was afforded by a legal loophole -- royalty fees were considerably lower for shows taped on video rather than filmed on film. Eventually that loophole closed.

Sadly, that leaves us with the worst of both worlds -- shows that don't have the music they were written around, but also have the poorer visual quality of video instead of film.

From what I understand, later seasons are less affected overall by the loss of the original music. Though I'm sure there are some episodes (the concert tragedy, the Russian defector) that will be hobbled by it.