Just a short update on the season 4 dvd-set.
There is another episode syndicated on the disk.
“It’s a bundyful life” is not the same version as the VHS-version.

Belonging to this russion news site http://lenta.ru/articles/2005/08/22/tv/ the tv-station THT (TNT) plans to make remakes of MWC.

The bought the rights for 250 episodes.

Translation:

In the new season TNT it is also intended to neglect sitcom, which will be removed on license Sony Pictures. Series is called “Married with children”. TNT has purchased rights to remake 250 series.

Another source: http://tv.net.ua/news.php?id=3872

During the development of comedy on TNT of the following in spring we will neglect the major project, which we will make together with Sony Pictures. This sitkom “Married with children”, it is transferred “they are married, with the children”, but in the Russian version it will be called differently. We purchased rights to remeyk of 250 series. We consider that this there will be breakthrough. We try to form our face according to the principle of dissimilarity, innovating, molodezhnosti and, possibly, provokativnosti.

Sony forgot to replace the closing-theme on one episode on season 4.
It’s episode “Buck saves the day” (403) where they forgot to change the closening-theme.
As a result you’ll still hear the instrumental version of “Love & in Marriage”.

I don’t want to know how much Sony must now pay for that one theme to the license holder “Barton Music Corporation and Cahn Music Company”?.

Gord Lacey has done us a real favor.
He spent 4 hours on his birthday to get to the sony headquater and ask them about season 4 and the problem with the seven episodes.

Read my feedback below this statement.

Source: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=3994

Response from Sony:
Married… with Children – Syndicated Episodes Explained – Studio Response
Posted by Gord Lacey
8/26/2005

The other day I wrote an editorial about “sloppy” DVD releases, and how we were going to start covering them regularly. The plan was to call studios when there’s a problem, and then report the problem and studio explanation to our audience. This is the first report on the subject.

A few readers tipped us off to an issue with the Married… With Children Season 4 DVD release (releases on 8/30), and the possibility that it contains some syndicated episodes. A review by “skees53″ at SitcomsOnline.com mentions 7 episodes with shorter running times (approx 22:30 instead of approx 23:10). One of these episodes, “Rain Girl,” appeared on the “Most Outrageous Episodes Volume 2″ release, but ran 23:12 (as timed by “pilot” at DVDTalk.com).

Armed with this information, I went to Sony Pictures to ask how this could happen. How could 7 episodes out of the season be syndicated, while the others are fine, especially when one of the episodes was already released uncut on a previous DVD from the same company? The answer isn’t “sloppy work” by the company; it’s much more complicated.

Please indulge me for a moment while I explain something about audio on TV shows. I’ll simplify things a bit and say that shows have two sets of audio tracks; “music and effects” (M&E) tracks, and dialog tracks. This allows the companies to use the same music and effects while swapping in a new set of dialog in another language for overseas broadcasts. They go back to these original elements when they have to replace music on the DVDs since they can replace the background music while leaving the dialog intact.

When Sony Pictures and the music publisher couldn’t reach a reasonable price for licensing the Married… With Children theme song it had to be replaced, starting with season 3. This caused more problems than we could have imagined at the time. Sony had to go back to their vaults and find the original episodes, along with the dialog and M&E tracks so they could replace the opening theme. Unfortunately they didn’t have some of the original audio tracks for the episodes, but they had them for the syndicated episodes. With their hands tied by the material they had access to, they used the syndicated episodes and audio tracks.

I asked whether a combination of the elements could be used; the opening using the syndication audio tracks (with new music) blended with the original episode and audio. While this is technically possible, it would require hours in the studio mixing the audio tracks, and then the result may not match and be noticeable to everyone who views the DVD set. With the added cost to mix this, and the possibility that it wouldn’t sound right, they decided to stick with the syndicated episodes.

Hopefully this helps to explain what happened with the title. What appeared to be a sloppy job by the studio was actually a complicated process filled with decisions from various departments that came as the result of music replacement (who would have guessed?). Special thanks to the asset management manager, and the marketing manager from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment who were kind enough to speak with me regarding this situation. I hope future reports are as informative as this one.

My Feedback:

That’s an explanation, but no excuse.
Of course it takes some time to change the titles on the episodes. But all in all it could never take longer than a few days.

I tried it myself and it took me 20 minutes (including to search for a software).
The example shows you “Rainy Girl” from Season 2. On the DVD with the original theme.

I replaced it with the new one: http://www.albundy.net/download/season2old2new.avi (5 mb, xvid codec)

Dear Fans (please start reading a few lines below!)

Liebe Fans !

Ab sofort ist eine Petition eingerichtet welche sich gegen
– die Kürzung der 4. Staffel auf DVD (mehr Infos)
– sowie für eine schnellere Veröffentlichung aller Staffeln
richtet.

>> Hier geht es zur Petition

From now on the petition is online.
We are
– against a syndicated 4th season (more info)
– for a faster releasing for all 11 seasons

Note: The Petition is at the moment only in german, but we’ll translate it in the next few days.

>> Petition

– german translation of the last post –

Nach ersten Berichten von Testern der 4. Staffel (US-Version, welche am 30. August erscheint) ist herausgekommen, dass einzelne Episoden gekürzt wurden.

Insgesammt scheinen 7 Folgen um jeweils ca. 2-3 Minuten gekürzt worden zu sein.
In Summe könnten dadurch um die 20 Minuten verloren gehen.

Die Al Bundy Site startet in kürze eine Petition wo wir ein Zeichen setzten wollen, dass wir uns damit nich abfinden wollen. Wir kämpfen für eine schnellere Veröffentlichung der DVDs sowie ungeschnittene Versionene auf DVD.

genaue DVD-Details –
Mehr Infos zur Petition –
Zur Petition

Today I got detailed information about the forth MWC DVD-Set.
Release Date: 30th August 2005
Number of Disks: 3
Number of Episodes: 23
Running Time: 511 Minutes
Special Features: None

Additional information:
Again we don’t have the original theme on this DVD-Set.
It’s the same as on season 3.
There are no specials on this volumes. Only some trailers (The King of Queens, Newsradio , Rescue Me, The Partridge Family, Seinfeld, Bewitched TV).
But it’s very sad that Sony put syndicated episodes on this disks. All in all the cut about 20 minutes (2-3 min. on seven episodes).

I hope that maybe the european version of has the uncutted episodes.

Personly I wouldn’t buy this Season on DVD so that Sony sees that they can’t sell such dvd-sets to fans.