UPDATE: Freaks And Geeks is coming to Hulu next week with its original soundtrack intact
Aux Features Freaks and Geeks
Paul Feig’s beloved coming-of-age dramedy Freaks And Geeks is coming to Hulu, the streamer announced via press release on Monday. The complete series (a One Season Wonder) will be available to stream beginning January 25 in all its awkward and earnest glory. Now, if you happen to own Freaks And Geeks: The Complete Series [Deluxe Yearbook Edition], courtesy of Shout Factory!, or even just the regular old DVDs or Blu-Rays, then you’ve already had a chance to revisit the NBC series from Feig and executive producer Judd Apatow that helped launch such talents as Linda Cardellini, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Busy Phillips, and John Francis Daley (the list really does go on, thanks to casting director Allison Jones) into the stratosphere.
But first-time viewers will be able to watch at their leisure starting next Monday, which is a decidedly different experience from watching Freaks And Geeks when it aired, sporadically and on multiple networks, from 1999 to 2000. One thing that Hulu has seen fit to preserve, though, is the show’s music. A representative for Hulu confirmed to The A.V. Club that Viacom has confirmed that the show will stream with its original soundtrack intact. This is a huge deal, as music licensing rights have held up home releases for shows like Freaks And Geeks and Daria in the past. And, as Feig told the A.V. Club last summer, dropping any of the pitch-perfect musical choices would be like “losing a character from the show.” But come January 25, Hulu subscribers can watch the freaks and geeks of William McKinley High navigate adolescence to the sounds of The Moody Blues, The Who, Van Halen, Styx, XTC, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Rush, and of course, The Grateful Dead.
Update, January 18, 5:50 p.m. CT: When The A.V. Club reached out to Paul Feig about Freaks And Geeks’ pending Hulu arrival, the series creator rejoiced at the news: “I’m so thrilled that Hulu is bringing Freaks And Geeks back to the [airwaves] with the original music.” Feig reiterated, “For me, the thought of our show without all the original music intact is like running the series with several of the characters cut out. The music is as big a part of this show as the writing and the performances. This is the only way to see our show and I can’t thank Hulu enough for putting us back on the air.”
Feig recently celebrated the “rescue” of another one of his short-lived series, Other Space, which is now available on the sci-fi streaming service Dust.
59 Comments
If Freaks can do this, why can’t WKRP?
Yes, yes! Somebody do WKRP please!
A lot fewer episodes, for one thing. There are 90 episodes of WKRP and only 18 of F&G. I’m sure that makes a huge difference.
they can, they just probably aren’t going to.
It’s not ideal, but the DVD’s did manage to get a surprising number of the original songs. Someone on Reddit did a full analysis.
“Hold me closer, terrible dancer.”
Shout! did WKRP, some time ago. They were able to clear about 80% of the music.
Not enough
I guess that means that the rest of the rights-holders, when given the choice between negotiating a lower licensing fee or get no money at all, chose “no money at all.”
Boom! This guy gets it!
Daria’s definitely the biggest ratio of how integral its soundtrack is vs. how impossible it would be to clear. The show is perfectly fine with filler tracks, but the regular use of contemporary hits as background and bumper music was such a key part of the show’s flavor. The show’s definitely of its time, but the music truly takes you back to that time.
Yeah, I own the complete series with the replaced music, but I also have a pirated copy with the original tracks put back in, and that’s the version I stream via Plex when I feel like rewatching.
“Integral” – I think the music was added post-production, but it does feel wrong nonetheless
…most all music is added in post-production; I’m confused what your point is.
The music wasn’t selected until after the episode was written and animated so it was arbitrary to the story – so “integral” is maybe not the word for it.
Again, you’re describing the typical production process. Most song selections are made after writing and filming (or animation) are complete; in fact, it’s a faux pas to dictate in a script what songs play over what scenes because you’re basically pumping up the budget before you even have one. Music selection is a deliberate process in post-production, with song choices being debated and negotiated off their artistic and budgetary value. There are people whose entire jobs revolve around digging for licensable music that’ll fit with a production. Where in the production process a choice is made doesn’t make that choice any more or less crucial to the finished product. That’s like saying color grading or foley work aren’t integral to a show/movie. The show Daria used contemporary pop and alternative music to score its episodes. To me, that’s integral to the final product; the music sets the tone of the show and places it in the era in which it was produced. You can stamp your feet and act as pedantically as you want, you’re picking a fight for no reason, about my opinion, citing facts about a process you clearly know nothing about.
I feel like a lot of MTV’s shows at the time suffer from expired music licensing issues—The State also had this problem when they released the show on DVD. A lot of their skits suffer without the original music, as well.
they also had to re-dub a lot of sketches to account for replacing the music and it’s…noticeable
I’ve noticed that most Beavis & Butt-Head releases only do a few music videos. In that show’s case, mind, the licensed music is literally cutaway from the episode proper and easy to excise.
It’s funny. As a teen I liked the music video scenes the least. Now, I think they’re the parts that hold up the best!
I WANNA DIP MY spheres IN IT!
It makes me think of the re-release of Beavis & Butthead where they cut out the “hacking on popular music videos” part.
The State really suffers from missing the actual music as well.Toothbrush isn’t the same without Sugar.
‘Pants’ without ‘Cannonball’ made me die inside.
At least one Daria joke was ruined by removing the original music: (apparently this is the only version of the OG airing online I can find.)
I can’t believe they didn’t clear that one song, since they built an entire scene around it. But the rest of the series plays just fine with stock music. I watched it once, in maybe 2007, with the original music and it was a little distracting. A lot of the show has aged very well, but No Doubt most assuredly has not.
Is it news that the soundtrack is intact? Freaks and Geeks was streaming on Netflix until 2018 and it included all the original songs.
great news. i was lucky to get a photo put in the High School Year Book dvd edition.
That’s pretty cool. I remember when they Kickstarted the Veronica Mars movie, one of the perks was to appear as an extra at her high school reunion — and apparently the director, Rob Thomas, was convinced the next show to get such a treatment would be Freaks and Geeks. If it ever happens, maybe you can reprise your role!
wow, that would be cool to be an extra in VM. i love VM.I dream of a F&G mini series which picks up 20yrs after high school. i want a Lynsey and Sam kitchen scene when they’re in their mid to late 30s.
Now give us Dawson’s Creek with the original theme song!
Why, you don’t wanna wait for that?
I’m so glad to hear this. I have the DVDs (the Deluxe Yearbook edition that came out a million ago), but I’m so excited that it will find some new fans soon.
I too have the Deluxe Yearbook. Which… wasn’t as exciting as all that, but still cool.Except that the DVDs all got scratched to hell in vs the regular box set. Cries.
I shelled out for the Deluxe Yearbook edition, too, but when it arrived, one of the DVDs wouldn’t play properly. I called Shout! for a replacement, but the new copy they sent had the exact same problem. I called them again, and they said, “They’re all like that.”Are you telling me your DVDs all played fine?
My DVDs all played fine, yes. I’m so sorry.
Oh well, I’ll enjoy watching it on Hulu all the more, since I haven’t seen the episode in its entirety in twenty years.
I watched Freaks and Geeks in its original run in Australia – they actually changed the soundtrack for Australia I believe and for years I tried to track down the song they were listening to when the geeks all went out on a Saturday night. The reason why I couldn’t find it was because it was different in Oz. It turns out that it was ‘Saturday Night’ by Cold Chisel – and it was the perfect track for the kids night out. I’ve since occasionally re-watched TV shows and found soundtracks vary depending on the market where they are released. Sometimes the replacements can be better.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a victim of the ‘MST3k Effect’— a show secures the rights to something that was, at the time, obscure, and catapults it into such success that they can no longer afford the rights to it.
Hm. Freaks & Geeks was on Canadian Netflix for the longest time (it’s no longer there). I’m fuzzy on if I watched it through again or not. I believe I did and noticed no missing music (I’d KNOW). This is like, five-six years ago. (Community was also on Canadian Netflix FOREVER, it’s where I watched it. It was so weird to me to see the big COMMUNITY IS NOW ON NETFLIX!!!1 hype a few months ago).
It was on American Netflix for a long time, too. Also roughly the time frame that you’re saying. I think it was three or four years ago when I went to rewatch it and was stunned that it was no longer there.
Welcome back, Freaks.
It (Community) has been on Netflix in Ireland forever ..well except for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons episode that was removed for fairly kneejerk reasons (Chang dresses as a Drow, everyone calls him out for doing blackface Shirley: ”so we all gonna ignore that hatecrime here” and it moves on.But it got the chop)Screw it since you cant watch it legally anymore ,its up on dailymotion .
It came back to canadian Netflix. Also I own all five seasons on dvd. 🤣I know, right? DVDs?
I’m of two minds for ad&d. One, the humour does rest in Chang doing accidental blackface. And looking into it, drows themselves are racially problematic. It’s tough because it’s such an important episode of the series both in terms of being one of the best episodes, being one of the deepest episodes, and cementing Pierce’s heel turn.OTOH it’s Chang and he’s clearly being mocked. Also quite frankly he’s such an inconsequential piece of the episode you could almost just lazily chop out every scene he’s in and the episode wouldn’t even feel weird.
“…drows themselves are racially problematic…” ??? I’d love to hear the problem,can you help?
Still waiting for that official release of Northern Exposure…
The first two seasons of NE on DVD had alternative Spanish audio tracks that featured the original music. Unfortunately, that oversight was corrected by Season 3.
Yeah but what about the original aspect ratio though? Here in Aus when the show got updated to the HD master it also meant removing the ability to watch it in the original 4:3. Absolutely shits me, it would cost them nothing to have two separate streams available.
Can I ask why you’d prefer to see it in 4:3? Did they do the zoom-in thing when they changed it to 16:9? Or is it like The Wire where they just expanded the frame using the full film?
“Can I ask why you’d prefer to see it in 4:3?”
Because it’s the original aspect ratio and framing.
To take The Wire as your example, it’s never as simple as just “expanding the frame’. In that case there were documented problems with lighting, visible equipment, out of sync actors. More likely than not all of these problems exist with Freaks and Geeks too. Rectifying these problems for The Wire meant a crew had to go through shot by shot and either paint out the problem elements or zoom in the image. In a taller to a wider image conversion it’s actually more common to zoom in rather than to expand out to not run into these problems and because it tends to keep the framing more intact.Framing. Film is a VISUAL medium. The entire art of storytelling within film springs up from the way in which shots are framed. Who is on the left, who is on the right, when someone is in the middle. When someone moves from one end to the other. Whether the environment looms over a character or the character drawfs the environment. Etc.Etc. Converting film to a different aspect ratio can totally destroy the meanings that is conveyed by a work. The trend of converting a TV show’s aspect ratio, which of course we stopped doing to movies decades ago, belies the company’s view that these are IP products for consumption rather than art to be caretakers for.
Call me when the greedy swine will allow me to revisit WKRP In Cincinnati with their original musical content intact.
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly…”
Wow, in high school Jason Siegel was a puny 6’3”! I wonder if the other kids teased him and called him “Peanut” and shit. High school is rough. I bet he cried himself to sleep every night and said “I’ll show ‘em! I’m gonna marry tiny Alyson Hannigan and then I’ll be the tallest one in the series!”
i remember seeing this show a few times while it aired. still surprised bill haverchuck grew up into bertram gilfoyle.
The Days & Nights of Molly Dodd is another show I’d like to rewatch, but the music rights have prevented it from coming to DVD.
Great! Now do Undeclared.
That homecoming dance scene never fails to put a smile on my face. Just one of the best endings to any pilot episode, ever. Can’t recall any first episode of a show making me want to see the rest of the show more than that one. Really captured the whole series right there.
You’re just going to throw that amazing tidbit of news in there at the end? Other Space was AMAZING and I’m pumped that it hasn’t permanently disappeared into the void of whatever Yahoo! Screen was…
Any word on if it will be on Stars for EU?