Season 2 of The Odd Couple will come out on August 28, from CBS/Paramount Home Video; as the link explains, Time-Life got first dibs on the first season, but not the others. I'm glad we'll get more than the first season, but I wish Time-Life had done the whole series the way they did Get Smart; given Paramount's corner-cutting I doubt Paul Brownstein will get to provide special features for all the seasons, the way he did for the season 1 set. Maybe I'll be wrong.
Also, Paramount is the most notorious studio when it comes to music replacements -- the latest surprise is that they've cut "Rock Around the Clock" out of Happy Days season 2 -- so if The Odd Couple had any music or singing in it, there's reason to be nervous. Does anyone remember if there were any episodes that used music in any prominent way?
The good news is that Paramount's re-release of the first season (April 24) will carry over Brownstein's special features. It will also have a bonus disc of favorite episodes from the later, better seasons.
The music that The Odd Couple used tended to be from the world of opera or ballet so I doubt they'll have a problem.
ReplyDeleteThere could be one from Season two -- in the David Steinberg episode when Felix gets up to sing the theme from the "Little Orphan Annie" radio show, and a couple in the later seasons, like the Season 5 shows with Paul Williams and Roy Clark (I would assume Paramount holds some sort of copyright on the songs Felix "composed" in the Season 4 episode with Jaye P. Morgan. It would be a shame not to hear "Happy and Peppy" or "Let's Hit Hitler Where He Lives").
ReplyDeleteWait...they're replacing Rock Around the Clock for Happy Days Season 2? That's disappointing. What'd they replace it with? I'm guessing just the HD theme from Season 3; that'll be pretty jarring. I mean, I know Garry Marshall had always intended "Happy Days" to serve as the show's theme song, but ABC insisted on Rock Around the Clock to play up the American Graffiti connection. But it'll still be strange to here.
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