Theme Tunes

[uncle al]

Back before the Bonanza channel on Sky became Majestic, they had re-runs of Bonanza and the Beverly Hillbillies, both with different theme tunes to the very famous originals. Why?

[Suckyourgill]

It was possibly because the TV Channel couldnt afford the rights to the original Music or something legal and confusing like that?

[jimmer]

Early episodes of the beverly hillbilies had different theme music much in the same way as early happy days. not sure about bonanza.

[GWR71]

Due to a legal oversight, some episodes from the early series of both Bonanza and Beverly Hillbillies (and many other American programmes from the 50s and 60s) dropped out of copyright and became public domain. This means that anyone can release them on DVD/video or broadcast them without having to pay any fees to actors, writers and so on.

However, due to different licensing agreements for music, the classic themes (and original incidental music) for these shows have remained in copyright. It is possible to show the public domain episodes of Bonanza with the classic theme, but this requires paying licensing fees.

Hence, to get around this, the Bonanza Channel showed versions that had had the original music replaced with generic non-copyright music. As suckyougill suggests, it was purely a money-saving move.

[johngammon]

I'm not sure it's true that Bonanza and Beverly Hillbillies are now in the public domain.  When TV companies lose their rights to material, these rights revert to the actors etc who need to be consulted if the programmes are to be shown again. 

It's worth remembering that Beverly Hillbillies was sponsored by Kellogg's and this features in the original theme tune.  A section of this always had to be cut in Britain, which always seemed to jar when you watched it on ITV, and perhaps this is the reason it's shown with a different theme.

I bought a DVD of several episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies in a 99p shop in Brighton a few weeks ago (made by a company called Classic Entertainment), and was surprised that there was a different theme and opening titles, but that was not always surprising when a series was a long-running one as it would have been thought to be boring to hear the same "Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed" bit played for years.  However, the Bonanza DVD which I also bought for 99p had its original theme and opening titles. 

PS:  I know they're only 99p, but these cheap DVDs routinely cut off credits etc for no apparent reason, so let the buyer beware!