Examples of Re-Release Soundtrack in TV.
- 21 Jump Street's DVDs had a lot of the music replaced with generic tracks. While the licensed music wasn't the whole draw of the show, it was an important part of the atmosphere, and lyrics were often used to communicate plot, which makes chunks of some DVD episodes make very little sense now that they're backed by nothing but elevator music.
- 30 Rock has multiple licensed songs replaced with public domain songs in the versions available on streaming services, but the subtitles will show the song titles and lyrics from the original run.
- Are You Afraid of the Dark?:
- The episode "The Tale of the Prom Queen" originally had "In The Still of the Night" by The Five Satins played during the final scene, but it was removed in the DVD release.
- In "The Tale of C7", the C7 tune was originally "Save The Last Dance for Me", but it too was replaced with generic music on the DVD.
- When the first three syndicated seasons of Baywatch were released by Fremantle/First Look, all the licensed music (including the iconic theme song) was thrown out and replaced by other songs.
- The first series of Being Human (UK) used a lot of licensed music from artists such as Arctic Monkeys, The Prodigy, and Johnny Cash, all of which had to be removed from the DVD release and replaced with generic music cues. Thankfully the producers caught on to this problem with subsequent series using less licensed music and making sure to clear the songs they did use for home media.
- Birds of Prey (2002), produced as it was in the early 2000s shortly before home video DVD releases became de facto expected for every series and being little more than a critically-lauded cult hit at the time, spent years in Keep Circulating the Tapes limbo because the music couldn't be cleared. When the pleas of fans continued for several years, Warner Bros finally relented and released it to DVD, but had to compromise and replace some of the music, which is noted on the back of the DVD packaging.
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie: The TV version of the Countdown sketch uses the actual Countdown clock music, but the DVD replaces this with a generic piece.
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine had to replace a few songs for the versions on streaming services. The subtitles still show the song titles and lyrics from when it originally aired.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The original airing of the season 2 episode, "Lie to Me", included a song by The Sisters of Mercy which was removed for subsequent re-airings and the home versions. The exact reason has never been made clear, it's been suggested that it was either a licensing issue or the band objecting to the use of their music.
- For all eight seasons, Charmed's theme song was Love Spit Love's cover of The Smiths' "How Soon is Now?". However, before the Season 8 DVDs came out, the song's license expired. The producers were unable to get the license back, and therefore the opening song on the DVDs was replaced by a generic hard-rock instrumental theme. To make matters worse the song had to be removed from the entire series when it was added to Netflix. When the series was remastered to HD in 2018 the producers were finally able to get the rights to the song back and restored the credits for the Blu-ray editions.
- Several episodes have also had licensed music removed and replaced with either generic instrumentals or Suspiciously Similar Song alternatives. Frustratingly, the captions sometimes display the lyrics to the original song that was used and not the one that it was replaced with.
- Cheers:
- "Please Mr. Postman": In the version that aired on NBC in 1989 the song that turned Rebecca on was "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers. That's the title Sam says in a line of dialogue. But in every version of this episode available since — syndication, home video, streaming — the song that Sam plays on the radio is a different Righteous Brothers tune: "Unchained Melody".
- The Season 9 episode "Grease" involves Robin going to jail for corporate espionage. In the original broadcast version, Sam taunts Rebecca at the bar by playing the song "I Fought the Law". In syndication and home video, however, a generic rock song is substituted, ruining the joke.
- "Bar Wars V: The Final Judgment": When this episode ran on NBC, the song that played over the jukebox and phone was "Monster Mash". On home video, syndication, and streaming, and indeed on everything except the subtitles, it was replaced with "The Vampire Twist".
- The DVD release of Cosmos was unable to reacquire music rights for some pieces of music, such as works by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Jean-Michel Jarre, so they were replaced with new compositions by Vangelis.
- Crime Story, a mid-80s show set in the Rat Pack-era early 60s, used a lot of pop standards in its soundtrack, most of which were swapped out for generic, similar-style tunes in the video release.
- HBO's On Demand versions of Dennis Miller Live have replaced the theme song (originally "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears) with something that sounds like it was written by someone who had heard the lyrics of the original song described second-hand and tried to re-write it.
- Derry Girls: In the Netflix version, near the end of Episode 6, Season 1, Madonna's "Like a Prayer" is replaced with Take That!'s "Pray".
- Has happened a few times with old Doctor Who serials that used contemporary popular music:
- One of the first scenes of "The Chase" has the Doctor and his companions watching footage of The Beatles on the newly-acquired Time-Space Visualizer. The BBC released this serial on DVD in 2010 but has announced that outside of Region 2, the original footage will be replaced, as the BBC's license to use the footage does not extend outside the UK.
- "The Evil of the Daleks" had the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" playing in a bar. On the narrated cassette release (the story has been lost, but the soundtrack survives), the whole scene was deleted. The scene was retained on the CD release, with "Paperback Writer" replaced by a generic tune that would fit the coffee bar atmosphere.
- "Spearhead from Space" featured Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" during the doll factory montage; the song was edited out of the 1988 VHS and 2001 DVD releases, due to the BBC's license for it only covering TV broadcasts, not home media releases. The license was subsequently renegotiated, allowing the track to appear on the 2011 DVD release.
- "Revelation of the Daleks" was one of the last serials to be released on video because of the time it took to secure the rights to the music. The story featured a significant guest character who was a Fan of the Past, leading to the use of a number of classic sixties rock tracks. Because the music is so integral to the plot and often featured characters talking over the top of it, it could not easily be replaced. Ultimately the only track the BBC could not secure the rights to was Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". This track had to be carefully digitally excised and replaced without losing the dialogue occurring over the top of it.
- Doctor Who Confidential used to air their own fan-type vids occasionally, usually tributes to a character who was leaving. The episode for The Parting of the Ways had one for the Ninth Doctor set to Snow Patrol's "Run", which was removed on the DVD release.
- Drake & Josh: The ending of the episode "The Storm" features a bunch of characters singing Queen's "We Will Rock You". In some DVD releases, the song is changed to them singing a song called, "Let's Get This Party Started".
- Felicity had almost all of its music replaced for syndication, DVD releases, and streaming (except for the theme song and a couple of episodes) because of music rights issues, despite fans clamoring for the episodes to be released with the original music intact.
- Fresh Off the Boat's Season One DVD kept all the hip-hop tracks intact, but the Cattleman's Ranch commercial at the end of the pilot used a replacement instrumental track in place of Aaron Copland's Hoedown.
- Friday Night Lights had a good number of its songs from the broadcast version replaced with other songs that convey similar moods (when necessary) on the DVD and iTunes releases. One of the more notable changes is at the end of "A Sort of Homecoming," where Jose Gonzalez's cover of "Teardrop" is replaced with a noticeable soundalike; usually, though, the replacements are fairly effectively blended in.
- Season 1 of Funny You Should Ask used Pharrell Williams' 'Happy' as its theme song; future seasons used an instrumental soundalike. The season 1 reruns were re-dubbed with the later theme in fall 2021.
- The DVD release of The George Lopez Show couldn't use the song "Low Rider" for the theme song, so a whole new theme was used.
- DVD releases of The Goodies special "The Goodies Rule - O.K.?" replace The Beatles song "She Loves You" with a generic stock tune, which creates a weird dissonance when the stock footage of the band playing is still there, yet not performing anything recognizable.
- The Greatest American Hero: The episode "Operation: Spoilsport" concerns a looming plot to start World War III, and features the highly-appropriate Protest Song "Eve of Destruction" constantly being played for/at Ralph by the supersuit-bestowing aliens; a whole lot of impact and sense is lost in those airings of the episode where the song has to be replaced with a generic instrumental tune.
- For the season 2 DVD release of Happy Days, 95% of the licensed music was replaced. Even the theme song, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, was replaced with a slightly extended version of the seasons 3-10 theme. Fortunately, seasons 1, 3, and 4 have their licensed music intact.
- Hawaii Five-O:
- The music from Saturday Night Fever that's used in "Number One With A Bullet" is notably absent from the streaming versions.
- "The Execution File" is stripped of its Cover Version of "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" on the DVD.
- How I Met Your Mother was met with music licensing problems, leading to Chumbawumba's "Tubthumping" being replaced on a 90s high-school mix with a generic-sounding song.
- In Living Color!'s DVD releases have a lot of sketches either edited to remove song references or entire music video parodies, which often serve as the show's cold opening, removed.
- Limmy's Show: The version of the show on Netflix removed some of the copyrighted music and either replaced them with generic pieces (as with the Adventure Call theme, or "Holiday Rap" used in this sketch
) or cut those scenes altogether (as with this sketch from S02E01). - Married... with Children had Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage" play as the show's opening theme, but when it came time to make the original DVD release, the rights to the song had expired. It was replaced by a song that sounded pretty close, but wasn't quite right. Mill Creek Entertainment renewed the rights to the original and restored the opening for their releases of it.
- The videos for Newtons Apple replaced Kraftwerk's "Ruckzuck" with a soundalike.
- Nomes Trilogy: When the series was released on VHS, some licensed music was changed. For example, in Episode 1, the radio in the lorry that the Nomes stow away on to go to Arnold Bros (est. 1905) plays "2-4-6-8 Motorway" by the Tom Robinson Band. This was changed in the VHS release to generic rock music.
- Northern Exposure had its soundtrack replaced on the home release. Because the show involves a DJ at a radio station playing commercial music appropriate to the situation or character, a lot of the original intent is lost in the home release version.
- Now and Again: It wasn't until 2014 that a DVD was released for the series (the show aired 1999-2000), and unsurprisingly, many of the popular songs were replaced, though certain ones that were important to the plot were left in.
- The Odd Couple's DVDs have quite a few scenes and jokes cut out entirely due to the use of copyrighted music.
- Only Fools and Horses:
- The DVD releases were made before blanket licensing deals were introduced in the UK, which would allow episodes to be released as originally broadcast, so several songs were cut.
- In "Time On Our Hands", "Our House" by Crosby, Stills & Nash has been replaced by a cover version sung by Helen Ruddy.
- Popular had many songs replaced in the DVD release. One of the examples included replacing Missy Elliot's She's a Bitch" with Roberto Pregadio's "Ballata per un Pistolero (Ballad of a Gunman)."
- Primeval used "All Sparks" by Editors during the closing credits for the TV broadcast of Series One, which was replaced with the series original opening theme for the DVD release. Series Two just used the main theme for the closing credits from the get-go.
- The episode of Profiler "I'll Be Watching You" made such prominent use of The Police song "Every Breath You Take" that the entire episode was left off the DVD release.
- The second, third, and fourth seasons of Quantum Leap's Region 1 DVDs were stripped of all licensed music not explicitly mentioned in dialogue, even when it left characters dancing the Twist, shouting "TEQUILA!" in unison, and mouthing the words to "Louie Louie" for no apparent reason. The most notable omission was the Ray Charles cover of "Georgia On My Mind," used repeatedly in the show to underscore the bigger Tear Jerker moments. After a vociferous outcry, the final season set was spared from any music cuts. In 2017, Mill Creek Entertainment re-released the series with most of the original songs that had to be cut from previous seasons now cleared.
- When the U.S. version of Queer As Folk appeared on Netflix there was great umbrage over the dance-music tracks having been replaced. Most of the lost songs were both very recognizable and plot-relevant, but especially annoying was the cue being lost for Abba's "Dancing Queen"—the generic replacement for which sounded like the alternate universe underwater version played backwards on a broken calliope.
- Red Dwarf only had permission to use James Last's version of Copacabana on the initial broadcast of the episode "Terrorform". All other broadcasts and releases use a soundalike, albeit one that is virtually indistinguishable from the original.
- The DVD and Blu-ray releases of Ressha Sentai ToQger removed the end credits completely, skipping straight to the next time preview. On broadcast, the end credits had been an "Everybody's Train Corner" segment, during which shots of various trains, some of which were sent in by viewers, would play. Rights issues on the clips are likely why this was cut.
- Roseanne:
- When the series was first released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment, the final two season sets suffered from this. Any use of copyrighted music was removed or dubbed over with generic music, and any credits sequences featuring music or celebrity cameos were replaced with generic white-on-black credits.
- Most infamously, this included replacing the credits of the Season 8 premiere, which was a parody of the opening from The Patty Duke Show lampshading the fact that two actresses alternated between the role of Becky. This sequence can still be seen in syndicated airings.
- Another memorable credits sequence that was replaced included a black-and-white scene of Roseanne's mother Beverly covering Billie Holiday's "Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)" from the Season 9 episode "Someday My Prince Will Come".
- In the two-part Disney World episode, the various uses of "When You Wish Upon a Star" were all replaced. When David sadly sings it to himself when he thinks he's not invited on the trip, he is dubbed over with a canned audience "aww". When Roseanne leads the family in a military cadence-style chant of the lyrics on their way to the park, they're dubbed over with the show's typical scene change music. The various uses of the original song played over the family enjoying the park were replaced with the 1812 Overture. When all seasons were re-released by Mill Creek Entertainment, this episode was the only one to have its original music restored; the rest of the replacements from the Anchor Bay release carried over to the Mill Creek sets.
- Any time insert songs were used in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, about half of them were replaced for the show's DVD releases with generic music. These edits went into the reruns on Nickelodeon, TeenNick, ABC Family, and The Hub.
- Scrubs: The sitcom fantasy episode ended with a melancholy cover of the Cheers theme, as JD leaves the harsh tragedies of the hospital to seek some comfort and escapism in television sitcoms. Tragically, this performance is removed for the DVD release of the season.
- SCTV had to hold a number of sketches from video release (or modify some) because of music issues — one being an ad for "Stairways to Heaven", a record full of covers of the song from various unlikely artists.
- Skins: Bob Dylan's Wigwam on the fourth episode was replaced by a generic track.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the Season 1 episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Goodnight, Sweetheart" was replaced with generic music for monetary reasons on the VHS and Laserdisc releases, but the track was accidentally included on the DVD release, so Paramount paid the money and all future releases kept the track.
- Since The State was on MTV, they got to use a lot of popular songs during their run. Most of it had to be replaced with sound-alikes when the DVD came out. There was even an insert written by the members of the group about how they worked to make it as close as possible.
- * On the DVDs of Takin' Over the Asylum, cover versions of Beatles tracks finishing up episodes have been swapped in.
- The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson:
- The Antenna TV reruns feature a different ending instrumental than the original airings. Thankfully, the iconic opening theme is intact (albeit with different visuals).
- Speaking of the Antenna TV reruns, the music coming back from commercials has been replaced by various stock music pieces. Once you know that, it's a little weird seeing Ed praise Doc and the NBC Orchestra, since they didn't actually play the songs.
- Top Gear (UK): Several episodes have copyrighted music removed for syndication and home release.
- The original BBC run contains a running gag in which whenever the guys are given the task of making over their cars, it will be accompanied by the A-Team theme. Due presumably to costs, the repeats on the Dave channel replace this theme with a variety of tunes.
- In the Vietnam Special, where the backup vehicle — a motorcycle with a Stars and Stripes paint scheme — had a speaker playing Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" on a loop, which was replaced with "Star-Spangled Banner", ruining a number of jokes.
- Tour of Duty: Every licensed song was replaced with a soundalike, including "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones, which was used as the Real Song Theme Tune.
- Trigger Happy TV, which frequently used licensed alternative-rock tunes as background music, averted this in its Region 2 DVD release, which left the soundtrack entirely intact. North America, however, was not so lucky; this is why there is no official Region 1 DVD, as well as why North American rebroadcasts replaced the music with instrumental soundalikes.
- Waterloo Road had its music changed for all 8 seasons on DVD. Series 1 and 2 have kept some songs such as Kaiser Chief's "I Predict a Riot", Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole", and Razorlight's "In The Morning". In addition, some scenes from Series 5 onwards have been cut due to copyright reasons. As a result, episodes from Series 5 onwards are 10 minutes shorter on DVD than on TV (as it was on the BBC) as intended.
- When Shout! Factory tried to release Werewolf (1987) on DVD, they couldn't clear all the music. Instead of replacing it, they discovered the raw soundtrack tapes were gone, and could not replace the music. They were forced to let the rights revert back to Sony.
- A lot of the soundtrack for Witchblade was replaced for the DVD release. While the music for the pilot remained intact, because of issues securing rights to the mostly classic rock songs, the rest of the episodes featured an original score of generic electronic music.
- WKRP in Cincinnati: Because of the expiration of all the license agreements regarding music, a significant number of songs had to be cut from the original DVD release. The poor fan reception affected its sales (keep in mind that this is a show about a radio station), causing Fox to halt its DVD releases past the first season. The syndicated version also replaces a fair amount of its music. In 2014, Shout! Factory released the show on DVD in a complete series set. They cleared most of the music and used special new technology to replace background songs they couldn't clear (the show's raw soundtrack tapes are long gone).
- The Wonder Years as a whole took some time to be released on DVD due to the large amounts of music that needed to be cleared. All but fifteen songs were eventually cleared.
- The original BBC DVD release of The Young Ones Series 2 omitted the cover version of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" from the episode "Money", along with a lot of visual gags seen while the song was playing. Fortunately, the song was restored in the later complete box set version.
