Hollywood Q&A

A: The “Scrubs” soundtrack featured on the streaming services is different for the same reason that “WKRP In Cincinnati” was completely unavailable for decades after it aired — and so, the situation could be worse. The show’s rights owners had to swap out many of the songs used on “Scrubs” before making it available online because they didn’t have the songs’ streaming rights. Basically, the producers of “Scrubs” committed the sin of not predicting the streaming revolution.

“Scrubs” debuted in 2001, back when Netflix was still just sending DVDs through the mail (it wouldn’t launch its streaming service until 2007). That is to say that when the show’s producers were negotiating the rights to the cutting-edge pop songs they wanted to feature (one of the reasons fans and critics loved “Scrubs” so much), streaming wasn’t even a thing yet, so they didn’t know to negotiate the rights for it.

It’s a near-perfect repetition of what happened with “WKRP in Cincinnati.” That show, too, got loads of acclaim when it first aired for featuring popular, edgy music. However, years later when home video and DVD boxed sets became a huge new source of revenue for old shows, “WKRP’s” rights holders found themselves unable to capitalize on it because they didn’t have the rights for this new medium. It was only a few years ago that things were finally worked out and a DVD release happened, but it was arguably too late — boxed set fever had passed, giving way to streaming as the rerun format of choice.

A: You’d think that would be a simple question, but nothing about the history of this show is simple.

The show in question was a co-production between the U.K.’s

ITV and Showtime in the U.S. (but it was later rerun over here on PBS as well). In the U.K. it was called “Robin of Sherwood,” but it was retitled “Robin Hood” for the North American release ( just in case we North American dumb-dumbs got him confused with that other guy named Robin who lived in Sherwood). If you’re looking for it today, you can find DVD releases under the “Sherwood” title.

Since it was a show with two names, why not two completely separate Robin Hoods? The first two seasons of the show featured Michael Praed (who later did runs on soaps “Dynasty” and “Emmerdale”) as Robin of Loxley, a low-born woodsman who was handy with a bow. But Praed quit the show to try his luck on Broadway. Rather than simply recast the charac ter, they opted to kill him dramatically and then have the Merry Men led by a new Robin, the disgraced nobleman Robert of Huntingdon.

That may sound like a crazy workaround dreamed up by a desperate writers room, but it is actually a reflection of the two separate Robin Hood legends. The second Robin was played by Jason Connery, son of the late, great Sean Connery (who took his own shot at the legend years earlier in 1976’s “Robin and Marian”).

Connery only got one “season” on the show before it was canceled, but that one season contained as many episodes as the first two combined, so both versions of the character got equal screen time. Despite this incredibly weird and complicated backstory, this series is considered by many to be the definitive screen adaptation. In some ways it offered a more realistic depiction of England at the time, giving more prominence to the pre-Christian culture that was there, but it also introduced fun elements of magic and mysticism that would show up in some later renditions.

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