On Facebook, I have “liked” the Dukes of Hazzard page and you can imagine (predictably so) that a great many people are very upset over the current characterization of the Confederate flag and have expressed such views on that page.
I’m glad that I bought my first two seasons of Dukes on DVD (have one or a couple of episodes taped off TNN from a number of years back as well) when I did, since I’ve read comments here in the past about peoples’ concerns about movies or TV shows being censored or even banned because of a vocal minority and that that show could easily be such a target for that sort of thing. As an example, remember when “Happy Days” originally had “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley as it’s theme song for the first two seasons? Now, the DVD releases have the later theme plastered onto it because of potential copyright infringement issues with the Bill Haley song. “WKRP in Cincinnati” episodes are now edited for the same reason.
They edit the crap out of the old time shows. If the woman’s skirt was too short and revealing they edit the whole scene.
That all come about from the issue of a series being pre full blown digital revolution.
See when Happy Days and WKRP and Northern Exposure first aired the issue of selling Video Tapes etc. of TV series was not a fully developed business model for the networks. So when music rights were negotiated they only worried about "Performance Rights" and using a Mechanical Production inside another Mechanical Production (using a song as part of a movie or TV series Video Tape.) was still not used much and most that were were usually theme songs that the show makers held all the rights to.
Now Performance rights are very straight forward. As long as I pay the fee to a performing rights organization OR directly to the people who hold the performance rights in case the are unaffiliated with a PRO then I can use it for a public performance like a radio Broadcast or a TV show broadcast etc. At least that was how it worked before we got DVR and On Demand. Now the Mechanical Rights must be cleared first.
But see Mechanical Rights are much different. If I hold the mechanical rights to a piece I can stop you from using it in a new Mechanical piece. This was set in stone in the "Sampling law suits"
Now you cannot use a nanosecond of a recording of previous mechanical piece without clearing it first.
So the reason those older shows don't have the mucis in them is either because they don't want it in there OR the people putting out the DVDs etc of the show are not willing to pay the huge fees most of those mechanical Rights holders want