I'm currently watching the series on Netflix and noticed that in the season 2 episode 'A New Leaf' that Mr. Richfield is singing a different song than I remember. In the version I saw as a kid he sang Purple Haze, and now he is singing some made up song about being happy. This is obviously a licensing issue (though I'm a bit confused about their foresight on the matter). My question is whether there are other instances where this happened.
I noticed that too. It wasn't nearly as funny with the "happy guy" song they apparently made up for the scene. The original is still on YouTube if you look for it. Still as hilarious as always. I haven't noticed any further instances of licensing issues, but most of their pop culture references were parodies anyway (Teenage Mutant Ninja Cavemen, Lizzard Skizzard, etc.) so I doubt they ran into that problem very often.
*EDIT*
Actually, marathoning the series on Netflix, I watched the episode where Baby stole Ethyl's wheelchair and got himself into trouble. As he left the house he sang "Born To Be Wild". I guess Steppenwolf is a little more lenient than the Jimi Hendrix estate.
I was thinking of an early episode where they used canned laughter, as if the show was fimed in front of a live audience. It was really awkward, and I think they only did it once.
_______ The sun is shining... but the ice is slippery.
Netflix has music licensing issues. Queer as folk has replaced music on netflix so don't watch that version and rent the dvd's. Not sure of Dinosaurs dvds are different.
On the DVD version (via Netflix), Richfield is still singing Purple Haze. So, not sure why there would be a difference in streaming vs. DVD but there is. Perhaps, when the DVDs were made, they had the rights to the song but later lost it so that's why the stream of the episode was forced to change?