On last night's episode "Inquisition", the other story was of a guy who had vandalized "muzak" equipment at a department store. I noticed that whenever anyone said the word "muzak", it got muted. Anyone have any idea why? Is it a TV Land thing?

maclen

Maclen, I noticed that too. I don't know the reason, but my guess is, that since Muzak is an actual company, the show may have encountered a problem with saying the name. They were sort of slamming Muzak (and its fictional competitor), and accusing it of unflattering stuff like mind-control and subliminal messages and lousy music.
I don't know how this played out in the show's original run, but somewhere along the line, the word Muzak was edited out.
On Cheers, there was a similar situation. Kirstie Alley's character goes wild for and keeps talking about the Righteous Brother's song, You've Lost That Loving Feeling. At the end of the show, the song that plays is another song.
I posted this on on the Cheers message board, and someone told me that there was a problem with the rights to that particular song and that You've Lost That Loving Feeling did play in the show's original run.
That's what leads me to believe that something of a similar nature happened on Barney Miller...a type of copyright infringement of sorts.
Maybe the folks at Muzak don't have a sense of humor. :crazy:

Maybe the folks at Muzak don't have a sense of humor


In my opionion They sure dont,my wife works there and all they worry about is lining their pocket booksShe does the job of 3 people and they didint even give her a raise last year.,I would say they probually wanted payed for it

... one of my favorites ... easily Norman Bartold's best work on the series. The word is muted on the DVD release from Shout Factory as well, doubtlessly a result of copyright, since the company is still in business. It's a shame. Harris introducing him as the Muzak man is priceless!

Shame.

It's a copyright thing. There is an actual company that has trademarked the word Muzak and they decided to be real jerks about it being used in the show. As I recall they demanded to be paid every time the episode aired, and demanded a fee for each time the word was said. Danny Arnold and Co said no way and just cut it out instead.

Can you blame them? I sure can't.

Yeah, I remember reading that it was already edited even when it originally aired. There's lots of substitutions/changes of music etc when a show is rerun or released on home video, but this is one of the few times I can think of where a show has obvious tampering done upon its original airing. My guess is that the writers probably just thought that "muzak" was a generic term, and had no idea that there was an actual company with that name [muzak is one of those brand names that has evoved into a generic term, such as "coke", "kleenex", etc].

There are two scenes in the "Inquisition" episode where the word "Muzak" was uttered (three times in total).

Captain Barney Miller: I take it Siegel's is, uh, pressing charges?
Sergeant Ron Harris: No, they were only leasing the equipment, but the, uh... ( ) company is.
Detective Arthur Dietrich: Actually, it's not the ( ) company property, it's a competitor.
Sergeant Ron Harris: Yeah, it was the Automated Moods, Inc..

Man: They told me downstairs to see Captain Miller.
Sergeant Ron Harris: They did?
Man (Jack Corwin): I'm Jack Corwin. Automated Moods, Inc..
Sergeant Ron Harris: Oh... ( ) Man. (laughs) Uh, excuse me, just a second. I'll see if...

Corp Jerks at their Best