Can anyone throw some light on this?. I was watching a rerun of Episode 66 - 'The Accident' on Sky and during the scene at the roller skating rink, the track that normally plays - "Tears of a Clown" had been replaced with another very similar sounding motown track. It had the words "Such a Fool" in the chorus. Anyone know why this replaced "Tears of a Clown" and the name of this replacement track and the artist.

AtariBoy (great username, by the way!):

You are thinking of "Dance With Me" in Season 1, in which Kevin goes to his first school dance, ultimately dancing with Winnie. "Tears Of A Clown" plays in the scene in which Kevin dances with a stranger wearing a yellow dress.

This episode did not take place at the skating rink. However, in the other episode that took place at a rink, "Steady As She Goes" from Season 2, in which Kevin was going steady with Becky Slater, there was what looked like a human-sized video game that had the letters TATARE on it, as if the props people painted over the letters ATARI since ATARI video game systems did not come out until 1977! But I digress!

Hi James and thanks for your reply and thanks for the info about "Steady as she goes". The Atari 2600 video games system was released in october 1977 so yes you are quite right. Atari had been shifting Pong systems since 1971 when they first started appearing in cafes on the freeways and previous to that 'Computer Space' first appeared as an arcade game in 1970. The first Atari home systems of 'Pong' were available from 1972.
Anyway back to "The Wonder Years". Yes you are right, "Dance With Me" in Season 1 did play 'Tears of a Clown' at a dance but it also made a re-appearance in episode 66 "The Accident" at the Moon Light Roller Skating rink 15 minutes into the show and could be heard playing in the background when Kevin saw Winnie hanging out with older guys.
However during a recent rerun, I noticed that the track has been replaced by some 'generic' music...in other words a track possibly recorded by a 90's group that doesnt sound dis-similar to "Tears of a Clown". This may well be because 20th Century Fox now own the Wonder Years and as part of a plan for an eventual dvd release of the wonder years seasons, they are changing some of the music because of the cost of licensing the original music. I was curious as to what this replacement track is called as I quite like it.
So if anyone knows or would like to hear it i can mail the mp3 that i ripped off from the programme

Thanks

By the way James....if you go to 'youtube', episode 66 of the wonder years is in three seperate parts and part two shows the scene that i am talking about with "Tears of a Clown" playing in the background but as I said, having watched a rerun a couple of weeks ago here in Great Britain on BBC3 that music has been changed

My guess is that it has to do with the music rights issue.
I also noticed in episode 69 "The Wonder Years", Judy Collins sings "In My Life"
on the original telecast but was replaced by another singer on the Laserlight DVD.
The episode "On the Spot" has two completely different songs playing at the end of the episode, depending on whether it is the ABC or ABC Family episode.

Yep i think you are right. I did email fox asking for information over a week ago but had no reply so I am at a loss as to what to do now