October 31, 2017
Writers: Steve Marshall
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: February 7, 1981
Call it the dungarees versus the disco suits.
This is a strangely dated episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" even for 1981. Today it plays like an episode of "Mad Men" in which the audience is constantly asking "Is that really how things happened?"
I believe this episode exists for reasons outside of the story, which I will get to later. Storywise, the entire HOUR LONG episode is based on the premise of business versus authenticity. This is the moment, dear readers, in which the baby boomer generation (the "dungarees" of these past three season) must enter the Dark Night of the Soul and decide to either cling to their fading, tie-dyed ideals or embrace the Reagan-era, trickle down "greed is good" aesthetic and do what is best for business, best for your own wants and best for the bottom line. For John Caravella, this decision will literally rip his mind in half.
Writing a blog 36 years after this show aired means the direction of society has already been decided. Johnny has been perpetually broke since we first met him. If "Gotta Dance" is going to pay him $500 a week, that's more than Jennifer makes (we learned in Ep. 10 she is the highest paid employee at WKRP at $24,000 a year) PLUS he gets to keep his WKRP job. We saw in this season's "Daydreams" episode, Johnny longs to be the decadent, adored rock star figure he has always admired. Since getting fired in LA, Johnny's always been looking for a way to get back on top. The song he plays as his defiant send off from "Gotta Dance" is "Ready Teddy" by Little Richard, an artist who wore makeup and sparkling costumes to help sell his music. In 2017, there's not even a decision to be made: Dr. Fever would have taken the money and played music he didn't like. As the Ripper himself says "The dude was stuck in the 60's and these are the 80's!"
But we as the audience are suppose to see Johnny as our better selves, the side that is never going to sell out. Loyal to the ideal that Rock 'n Roll can change the world, we are rooting for Johnny to have his Rip Tide cake and eat his WKRP cake too (sorry for strangling that metaphor). We want to be Johnny and believe we could walk away from both the big payday and the legal threats just to stand by our convictions.
We need to see the producer, Avis, as the face of the bad guys: the corporate suits. We need to forget that Johnny signed contracts, drunk, without a lawyer and then tried to back out 45 minutes before the show was to air.
Which begs the larger question: why hire Johnny Fever for a TV Dance show? Venus Fly Trap, who regularly plays a style of music more in line with what the producer wants, is literally standing right beside him! If this producer ever listened to Johnny's show, in which he famously never plays the hits, why would she think he'd be a good host for "Gotta Dance"? After looking at him, in his dark, rumbled T-shirt and sagging skin (sorry Howard) no one would hire him to host this show. If he was so important to it success, it would have been called "Dr. Fever's Dance Prescription" and replacing him with a no-name Rip Tide would have killed it.
I've written all of this and none of it matters. Because none of that is why this show was written, and certainly not why it had to be an hour long. This episode is an acting showcase for Howard Hesseman. He was nominated the season previously for an Emmy and would be again this season. I was not able to confirm if he was nominated in 1981 for this episode in particular but I be surprised if it wasn't. Hesseman plays both characters to their fullest, sometimes within the same sentence!
Johnny isn't just ashamed of the Rip Tide character he created - he's paranoid of him! He genuinely is afraid this "schlemiel" is going to take over his life. Johnny goes from casually taking on this new job to anger and fear about the job to glee that he's fooling people with this new persona to fearing the persona to regretting the whole thing happened. Rip Tide moves from being thrilled to perform to ambitious about his career to annoyed Johnny is holding him back. That's a lot for one actor to keep a handle on and Hesseman navigates well.
I'd love to get a commentary from Hesseman on this episode, describing how much was on the page and how much was improvised. We know about his years with the San Francisco improv troop the Committee and how he drew on that time to play Johnny Fever. I want to know if he came up with "I could eat you up Jennipoo. Yum, yum yum!" on the spot.
So many good lines! "My wink is my word, digez vous?" "The undoubtably soulful Oblivious Neutron Bomb!" "Well, I Gotta Dance! Hug hug!"
I felt a little split myself figuring out what to write this blog about. I was going to write a whole piece on schizophrenia and how it is NOT split personality disorder. And how Les can not claim to be "something of an expert" on it because he saw "Three Faces of Eve." I could have also written quite a bit about the relationship between Herb and The Ripper, and that Herb is the first person, even before Avis, to see what the potential of Rip Tide could be. I also gave some thought to how poorly Venus and Bailey treated John Caravella. If he wasn't going to be the Dr. Fever they knew, they were ready to abandon him. I also could go on at great lengths about how the time in this episode is too condensed. Johnny becomes Rip in under an hour. It seems like the whole "Gotta Dance" phenomena lasted a month at most.
But I'm going to wrap it up the way the episode wrapped it up - discussing payola. We saw in Ep. 14 "Johnny Comes Back" that the one unforgivable thing in radio (or even radio on the television) is to suggest the band or label have paid to have their songs played. Johnny knew that treating people badly, drinking, drugs, insulting his audience or even an interest in "really young girls" would not be enough to make the Rip Tide character unsellable. But saying he's only playing a song because it's been paid for is the death knell. Although that might have been a lie, it was only because Johnny was getting paid that Rip was pretending to like these songs as well. Where did the real payola start and excuse payola end? Maybe the way to judge would be to have Jennifer defiantly say "No! I really liked those songs."
Roy
Other Notes - Mary Frann, who played Avis, went on to her greatest success playing Bob Newhart's wife, Joanne, on "Newhart," which was also an MTM Production. She died in 1998. "Gotta Dance" is based on the nationally syndicated dance show "Solid Gold" which ran from 1980 to, surprisingly, 1988. Allen Carr was a producer and manager whose clients included "the undoubtedly soulful" Olivia Newton-John, Ann-Margaret, Herb Alpert and many more. He also produce the films "Grease" and the Village People's "Can't Stop the Music."
Tuesday 31 October 2017
Thursday 19 October 2017
Ep. 57 - Venus and the Man
October 19, 2017
Writers: Hugh Wilson
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 31, 1981
^^^ Very Important ^^^
What the writers of this episode (who included Tim Reid as well as the credited Hugh Wilson) want you to remember about this episode is its commentary about the life of Africian Americans in the U.S., specifically Cincinnati, in 1980. It is jarring to notice this is the first episode of WKRP with more than two black characters in it. The writers want you to remember the value of education in such a society. But that's not what you remember.
You remember the atom.
Venus claims he can teach Arnold the basics of the atom in two minutes and "you'll remember it for months." That's not true. I've remembered it for decades! The Newboys, The Pros and the Elected Ones got me through Grade 9 chemistry better than my teacher did. In fact, when I first received the Shout Factory box set, this was the first episode I showed my son - because he needed to know about the atom for science class. "Turkey's Away" was second.
In the previous episode, a dead frog is presented to each staff member and we watch their reactions to it. We have an idea of how each will react because, after three seasons, we have come to know the nuances of each character's personality. In this episode, each staff member is presented, not with something ridiculous, but with something very real... a black man. And not the black man they have all become friends with in the past three years, but a "Big, Tricky and Bad" black man.
The first reaction we hear is actually from the audience. They sort of gasp and oooooh the way a crowd does before two Real Housewives have a catfight ????????? What are they expecting to happen in this episode? Certainly not a chemistry lesson.
Mr. Carlson comes out first, and is visibly terrified by the gang. In fact, he seeks a sort of protection from Venus and then hides in his lush, comfortable office until they go away. Even ultra-liberal Bailey is uncomfortable, giggling her way through a half-hearted defense of education.
Yet the centrepiece of these interactions is Les. Again, remember back to just the previous episode in which Les asks Venus if he knows of "some voodoo plantation thing" to get paint off a frog. When he first met Venus in the pilot, Les asked him if he noticed "there are an awful lot of negros in sports." Venus groans at whatever Les might say.
Surprisingly, amazingly, he is not only not actively bigoted, but complimentary and excited to share some of his views on black influence on America as a whole. It's a different type of racism from Carlson's direct jump to fear and hiding. Les would never give that speech to Bailey or Herb. But Les "can't help noticing both... gentlemen are black." He could have just left the office after introducing himself as a friend of Arnold's mother, but he can't do it. Oddly, the speech he gives sounds like what a white professor might give to an undergraduate class on African studies. It sounds read from a book. Les is polite and thrilled to express these ideas he has learned in a forum he assumes would be interested in them.
I wonder if meeting Venus has encouraged Les to read up on the African American experience. He seems to know much more on the subject than he did before they met.
Johnny doesn't care that Arnold is black or big. Herb may be the most genuine. Finding a $100 bill will do that to Herb. But he isn't either nervous or overly impressed and the "hip" walk he tries after the two men leave is really just a tacked on joke.
"I think there are only two things anybody cares about in this world: 1) Survival 2) Conquest." That is a really interesting quote, especially coming from Gordon Sims. Think about what we know about him: Vietnam vet and deserter. Where was the line draw between conquest and survival for him? Failed school teacher: How did that job conquer him? Black DJ at a white radio station: is that a battle to survive for him? Does slipping a little Della Reese into the playlist constitute a conquest? Venus has obviously been thinking about it.
Venus Flytrap has always been the character that has had the least continuity to his character. When he first entered the show, if was as a flamboyant, freaky, funky DJ - a blast of New Orleans street into buttoned-up Cincinnati. But then we heard the harrowing story of Gordon Sims, the Vietnam deserter. Venus has been Johnny's investment advisor and a Boy Scout leader. We've heard that he played Triple A baseball in Texas for three years. In the very next episode, we'll hear he hosted a children's program as Sailor Ned. Now we hear the he graduated from Carlise State Teacher's College. That's a lot for one person by the age of 31. Tim Reid has mentioned in interviews that he was insistant the character of Venus portray a well-rounded black man and not a stereotypical "jive" cartoon.
So is the "jive" Venus Reid's method of "survival" - getting on a network show, and then his scattershot development a method of "conquest" - show the many sides of a man who happens to be black? Possibly. It would show just how "strong and smart" Tim Reid is.
Roy
Other Notes - There is no Carlise State Teacher's College. The closest thing I found is Dickinson College in Carlise, Pennsyvania, but they do not offer a teaching program. Cora's little boy Arnold looks like a "regular man" because he was portrayed by dancer Keny Long, who was in his early 30's at the time.
Writers: Hugh Wilson
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 31, 1981
^^^ Very Important ^^^
What the writers of this episode (who included Tim Reid as well as the credited Hugh Wilson) want you to remember about this episode is its commentary about the life of Africian Americans in the U.S., specifically Cincinnati, in 1980. It is jarring to notice this is the first episode of WKRP with more than two black characters in it. The writers want you to remember the value of education in such a society. But that's not what you remember.
You remember the atom.
Venus claims he can teach Arnold the basics of the atom in two minutes and "you'll remember it for months." That's not true. I've remembered it for decades! The Newboys, The Pros and the Elected Ones got me through Grade 9 chemistry better than my teacher did. In fact, when I first received the Shout Factory box set, this was the first episode I showed my son - because he needed to know about the atom for science class. "Turkey's Away" was second.
In the previous episode, a dead frog is presented to each staff member and we watch their reactions to it. We have an idea of how each will react because, after three seasons, we have come to know the nuances of each character's personality. In this episode, each staff member is presented, not with something ridiculous, but with something very real... a black man. And not the black man they have all become friends with in the past three years, but a "Big, Tricky and Bad" black man.
The first reaction we hear is actually from the audience. They sort of gasp and oooooh the way a crowd does before two Real Housewives have a catfight ????????? What are they expecting to happen in this episode? Certainly not a chemistry lesson.
Mr. Carlson comes out first, and is visibly terrified by the gang. In fact, he seeks a sort of protection from Venus and then hides in his lush, comfortable office until they go away. Even ultra-liberal Bailey is uncomfortable, giggling her way through a half-hearted defense of education.
Yet the centrepiece of these interactions is Les. Again, remember back to just the previous episode in which Les asks Venus if he knows of "some voodoo plantation thing" to get paint off a frog. When he first met Venus in the pilot, Les asked him if he noticed "there are an awful lot of negros in sports." Venus groans at whatever Les might say.
Surprisingly, amazingly, he is not only not actively bigoted, but complimentary and excited to share some of his views on black influence on America as a whole. It's a different type of racism from Carlson's direct jump to fear and hiding. Les would never give that speech to Bailey or Herb. But Les "can't help noticing both... gentlemen are black." He could have just left the office after introducing himself as a friend of Arnold's mother, but he can't do it. Oddly, the speech he gives sounds like what a white professor might give to an undergraduate class on African studies. It sounds read from a book. Les is polite and thrilled to express these ideas he has learned in a forum he assumes would be interested in them.
I wonder if meeting Venus has encouraged Les to read up on the African American experience. He seems to know much more on the subject than he did before they met.
Johnny doesn't care that Arnold is black or big. Herb may be the most genuine. Finding a $100 bill will do that to Herb. But he isn't either nervous or overly impressed and the "hip" walk he tries after the two men leave is really just a tacked on joke.
"I think there are only two things anybody cares about in this world: 1) Survival 2) Conquest." That is a really interesting quote, especially coming from Gordon Sims. Think about what we know about him: Vietnam vet and deserter. Where was the line draw between conquest and survival for him? Failed school teacher: How did that job conquer him? Black DJ at a white radio station: is that a battle to survive for him? Does slipping a little Della Reese into the playlist constitute a conquest? Venus has obviously been thinking about it.
Venus Flytrap has always been the character that has had the least continuity to his character. When he first entered the show, if was as a flamboyant, freaky, funky DJ - a blast of New Orleans street into buttoned-up Cincinnati. But then we heard the harrowing story of Gordon Sims, the Vietnam deserter. Venus has been Johnny's investment advisor and a Boy Scout leader. We've heard that he played Triple A baseball in Texas for three years. In the very next episode, we'll hear he hosted a children's program as Sailor Ned. Now we hear the he graduated from Carlise State Teacher's College. That's a lot for one person by the age of 31. Tim Reid has mentioned in interviews that he was insistant the character of Venus portray a well-rounded black man and not a stereotypical "jive" cartoon.
So is the "jive" Venus Reid's method of "survival" - getting on a network show, and then his scattershot development a method of "conquest" - show the many sides of a man who happens to be black? Possibly. It would show just how "strong and smart" Tim Reid is.
Roy
Other Notes - There is no Carlise State Teacher's College. The closest thing I found is Dickinson College in Carlise, Pennsyvania, but they do not offer a teaching program. Cora's little boy Arnold looks like a "regular man" because he was portrayed by dancer Keny Long, who was in his early 30's at the time.
Monday 9 October 2017
Ep. 56 - Frog Story
October 9, 2017
Writers: Robert H. Dolman
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 24, 1981
^^^FAMOUSLY FUNNY^^^
First thing I need to get off my chest with this episode is that there is a running joke that I don't think most people get. It doesn't earn a laugh from the audience and none of the characters make a comment on it, so I need to point this out right now: nobody in their right mind spray paints the INTERIOR of their kitchen cabinets! Much less in pink! You would choke on the fumes! It would go on too thick, drip off, and make a huge mess! Spray paint in not durable enough for that much wear and tear - that why most cabinet interiors are left alone, or maybe have shelf paper in them.
Nobody spray paints the interior of their kitchen cabinets! Certainly not pink! It's a joke to show once again how clueless and lazy Herb is, and that it was his cluelessness and laziness that killed a frog. We all need to laugh at that for a minute before I can go on.
And how did the frog get into the kitchen cabinets to end up being spray painted in any case?!? The frog is kept in Bunny's room. So how did...
Nope, nope. I'm okay. I'm better now. With those huge logic jumps behind us, let's go ahead and analyze this generally very good episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati."
Remember that this episode appears only six years after the original MTM Productions show "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" aired its funniest episode called "Chuckles Bites the Dust." This episode is always listed with WKRP's "Turkeys Away" as one of the funniest episode of television ever aired. Ostensibly, that episode is about the funeral of kiddie show host Chuckles the Clown (and thankfully, not Sailor Ned) after a bizarre accident. But really it's about characters trying not to laugh at a ridiculous situation. The writer of this episode, Robert H. Dolman (see: Other Notes - there's a lot about him) who only wrote this one episode for WKRP would definitely have known this and may have used the same idea to pitch a script to another MTM show.
Even before the credits, we see Jennifer trying to hold in her laughter so as not to appear rude to a distraught Herb over his painting of Bunny's pet frog. Bailey can't even bring herself to tell Les what happened. Andy is complete nonchalant about the whole incident. Venus thinks it's the setup to a joke until Les quickly says something racially insensitive about how Venus could help. Strangely Les is the only person who really tries to help by convincing Herb to take Greenpeace the frog to the only doctor in the building.
Les exhibits a behaviour I remember well from the 1970's that I don't see in the world as much today: doctors as Gods. Perhaps it is through changes in pop culture that takes us from the saintly "Marcus Welby, MD" through "ER" and into "Gray's Anatomy" that has pulled doctors down from their pedestals, but there was once a time when the word of a doctor was law. To ask for a second opinion was practically unheard of and the motivations of doctors were not questioned. That's why, eventually the opinion of a podiatrist is seen as valuable in the case of a chemically poisoned frog.
Let's also pause to note that I think this is the first time the word "environmentalist" has ever been used on the show. It's used to describe Herb's daughter Bunny and I think it's an interesting decision for the daughter of Herb and Lucille. It's as if this little eight-year-old has already looked at the adult role models in her life and said "Nope. There's gotta be another way to go."
WKRP is never more itself then when it takes a ridiculous situation and passes it from character to character to see how they handle it. Think of Ep. 35 in which Johnny thinks he hears God, or Ep. 20 when Carlson's weird son visits. Now they are passing around a frog in a shoebox so every character can give their explanations of death. Now all of that stifled laughter has turned into the same general condolences people give when a friend's relative dies: they don't know quite what to say but they want to appear sympathetic. Jennifer even says "my sympathies, Herb." Herb, who was so distraught earlier, is now the person who has to remind everyone that Greenpeace was "just a frog." Andy calls him "a great frog;" Venus goes even farther, saying "he was an all right frog."
Jennifer and Bailey go into a very deep discussion on the nature of death. To Jennifer "death is the logical, unavoidable conclusion to all things." Bailey mentions how waves may end but the water that makes a wave continue, and I believe that's proof that, at some point on her summer vacation, Bailey got high at the beach.
Through all of this discussion of poisonings and death, the staff misses the main point that has upset Herb so much: what will his daughter think of him? How disappointed will she be in him that he has killed something she cares about. Despite Herb trying his best to "Herb" his way out of facing the music, in the end he does come clean and tell his daughter the truth.
Which brings us to what I always remember most about this episode: "schistosomiasis!" Whenever someone around me is ill and they don't know what's the matter, I'll often yell "schistosomiasis" and nobody but me gets the reference.
Schistosomiasis, or "snail fever" is caused by parasitic flatworms and is caused by contact with contaminated fresh water. It is most commonly found in the developing countries in Africa and Asia (thanks, Wikipedia). In short, it is not the sort of disease a DJ in Cincinnati is likely to pick up. A lot of this episode is taken up with Les's frightening diagnosis of Johnny's cold, especially "the chin-chest thing." The highlight of all this is Johnny's complaint that people will care more about the health of an animal than another human. "It's like in the movies. You can waste the entire Confederate Army - nobody cares. 395,000 guys deader than doornails. But you kill one collie, everyone collapses in grief."
Roy
Other Notes: The writer is credited as "Robert H. Dolman." He would go on to greater success as Bob Dolman under which he won two Emmys writing for SCTV. In fact, he even married and had two children with SCTV star Andrea Martin and his sister was married to another SCTV alum Martin Short. He also wrote the films "Willow" and "Far and Away".
Johnny is referencing the collie Lassie, who was a TV staple in the 1950's and 60's. The actor who played the doctor, Kenneth Tigar, currently has 156 imdb.com acting credits. Stacy Heather Tolkin, who portrayed bunny both here and in "Real Families" was also a voice of Sally from The Peanuts cartoons.
Writers: Robert H. Dolman
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 24, 1981
^^^FAMOUSLY FUNNY^^^
First thing I need to get off my chest with this episode is that there is a running joke that I don't think most people get. It doesn't earn a laugh from the audience and none of the characters make a comment on it, so I need to point this out right now: nobody in their right mind spray paints the INTERIOR of their kitchen cabinets! Much less in pink! You would choke on the fumes! It would go on too thick, drip off, and make a huge mess! Spray paint in not durable enough for that much wear and tear - that why most cabinet interiors are left alone, or maybe have shelf paper in them.
Nobody spray paints the interior of their kitchen cabinets! Certainly not pink! It's a joke to show once again how clueless and lazy Herb is, and that it was his cluelessness and laziness that killed a frog. We all need to laugh at that for a minute before I can go on.
And how did the frog get into the kitchen cabinets to end up being spray painted in any case?!? The frog is kept in Bunny's room. So how did...
Nope, nope. I'm okay. I'm better now. With those huge logic jumps behind us, let's go ahead and analyze this generally very good episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati."
Remember that this episode appears only six years after the original MTM Productions show "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" aired its funniest episode called "Chuckles Bites the Dust." This episode is always listed with WKRP's "Turkeys Away" as one of the funniest episode of television ever aired. Ostensibly, that episode is about the funeral of kiddie show host Chuckles the Clown (and thankfully, not Sailor Ned) after a bizarre accident. But really it's about characters trying not to laugh at a ridiculous situation. The writer of this episode, Robert H. Dolman (see: Other Notes - there's a lot about him) who only wrote this one episode for WKRP would definitely have known this and may have used the same idea to pitch a script to another MTM show.
Even before the credits, we see Jennifer trying to hold in her laughter so as not to appear rude to a distraught Herb over his painting of Bunny's pet frog. Bailey can't even bring herself to tell Les what happened. Andy is complete nonchalant about the whole incident. Venus thinks it's the setup to a joke until Les quickly says something racially insensitive about how Venus could help. Strangely Les is the only person who really tries to help by convincing Herb to take Greenpeace the frog to the only doctor in the building.
Les exhibits a behaviour I remember well from the 1970's that I don't see in the world as much today: doctors as Gods. Perhaps it is through changes in pop culture that takes us from the saintly "Marcus Welby, MD" through "ER" and into "Gray's Anatomy" that has pulled doctors down from their pedestals, but there was once a time when the word of a doctor was law. To ask for a second opinion was practically unheard of and the motivations of doctors were not questioned. That's why, eventually the opinion of a podiatrist is seen as valuable in the case of a chemically poisoned frog.
Let's also pause to note that I think this is the first time the word "environmentalist" has ever been used on the show. It's used to describe Herb's daughter Bunny and I think it's an interesting decision for the daughter of Herb and Lucille. It's as if this little eight-year-old has already looked at the adult role models in her life and said "Nope. There's gotta be another way to go."
WKRP is never more itself then when it takes a ridiculous situation and passes it from character to character to see how they handle it. Think of Ep. 35 in which Johnny thinks he hears God, or Ep. 20 when Carlson's weird son visits. Now they are passing around a frog in a shoebox so every character can give their explanations of death. Now all of that stifled laughter has turned into the same general condolences people give when a friend's relative dies: they don't know quite what to say but they want to appear sympathetic. Jennifer even says "my sympathies, Herb." Herb, who was so distraught earlier, is now the person who has to remind everyone that Greenpeace was "just a frog." Andy calls him "a great frog;" Venus goes even farther, saying "he was an all right frog."
Jennifer and Bailey go into a very deep discussion on the nature of death. To Jennifer "death is the logical, unavoidable conclusion to all things." Bailey mentions how waves may end but the water that makes a wave continue, and I believe that's proof that, at some point on her summer vacation, Bailey got high at the beach.
Through all of this discussion of poisonings and death, the staff misses the main point that has upset Herb so much: what will his daughter think of him? How disappointed will she be in him that he has killed something she cares about. Despite Herb trying his best to "Herb" his way out of facing the music, in the end he does come clean and tell his daughter the truth.
Which brings us to what I always remember most about this episode: "schistosomiasis!" Whenever someone around me is ill and they don't know what's the matter, I'll often yell "schistosomiasis" and nobody but me gets the reference.
Schistosomiasis, or "snail fever" is caused by parasitic flatworms and is caused by contact with contaminated fresh water. It is most commonly found in the developing countries in Africa and Asia (thanks, Wikipedia). In short, it is not the sort of disease a DJ in Cincinnati is likely to pick up. A lot of this episode is taken up with Les's frightening diagnosis of Johnny's cold, especially "the chin-chest thing." The highlight of all this is Johnny's complaint that people will care more about the health of an animal than another human. "It's like in the movies. You can waste the entire Confederate Army - nobody cares. 395,000 guys deader than doornails. But you kill one collie, everyone collapses in grief."
Roy
Other Notes: The writer is credited as "Robert H. Dolman." He would go on to greater success as Bob Dolman under which he won two Emmys writing for SCTV. In fact, he even married and had two children with SCTV star Andrea Martin and his sister was married to another SCTV alum Martin Short. He also wrote the films "Willow" and "Far and Away".
Johnny is referencing the collie Lassie, who was a TV staple in the 1950's and 60's. The actor who played the doctor, Kenneth Tigar, currently has 156 imdb.com acting credits. Stacy Heather Tolkin, who portrayed bunny both here and in "Real Families" was also a voice of Sally from The Peanuts cartoons.
Monday 2 October 2017
Ep. 55 - Daydreams
September 30, 2017
Writers: Peter Torokvei
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 17, 1981
As much as every episode of WKRP in Cincinnati is a strange episode, this one is stranger than most, in its structure and tone. This really feels like an episode written by committee, with each member of the staff perhaps being given one "daydream"to write and that Peter Torokvei gets the writing credit because he put the pieces together. I have no evidence of that other than the feeling I get from watching the show.
However, if I can still assume the entire episode was directed by one person, regular director Rod Daniel, then kudos to him, because each daydream looks and feels very different from the others which in turn feel very different from the "real life" of the big guy's speech. Some of the daydreams are very elaborate while others are not much more than a one joke set-up.
Here's a very geeky blogger's theory: I think the characters with the most elaborate daydreams (Herb, Les and Andy) are the characters who feel the trapped in their own lives and do the most daydreaming - they are really good daydreamers. Those characters who are most satisfied with their lives (Jennifer and Venus) have the simplest daydreams - they are only daydreaming because they are bored. Again I have no evidence the writers were putting that much thought into it, other than from watching the show.
In his book "Here on Gilligan's Island," Russell Johnson, who played the Professor, said his favourite episodes were the dream sequence ones ("Gilligan's Island" seemed to have a dream sequence every fifth episode) because all the actors got to play different roles than their usual characters. I would have to imagine the same is true for the actors in this episode. Everybody gets to play dress up! (except for Gordon Jump, who got to play a lot of dress up back at Christmas time, so we can't feel too bad for him). The best example of this is in Johnny's daydream of rock stardom, in which everyone gets in on the decedent rockstar lifestyle: Jennifer is the sexy limo driver; Andy is the sleazy promoter, Herb is a leather clad fan while Bailey is a wide-eyed groupie; Les is a... bowtied rock reporter? and Venus is the corn-rowed "Jamaican Doctor" to the rockstar.
But I'm starting at the end. Let's go back to the beginning. Mr. Carlson is nervous about giving the keynote address at the Annual Ohio Broadcasters Dinner. Let's not worry ourselves too much about how many people had to turn down this "honour" before it was bestowed to the General Manager of a mid-ranked AM rock radio station in Cincinnati. Or that Mr. Carlson is delivering a speech outlining the history of radio to an audience that would already have in depth knowledge of the history of radio. Carlson is nervous so Andy (with Jennifer's help) convinces him to test the speech out on the staff.
Note the knowing little wink Jennifer gives Mr. Carlson when she advises him to "imagine your audience is naked" to help him relax. It's as if she's giving him permission to do something naughty that she knows he'll like. In fact, she mentions it twice, and each time Carlson gets a good chuckle... at Andy's and Les's expense.
Johnny guesses at what Andy already knows when he moans "Oh God." It a fifth grade level speech, running through the historic highlights of the 20th century and the role radio played in them. It's starts by stating the obvious, radio is for speaking to the people, and this prompts the first daydream.
Herb is now "Franco" the dictator/monarch of a small South American country besieged by rebels (Franco must be a take-off on Frank Bonner's name). It's surprising to see that Herb's fantasy is all about romancing the most beautiful woman in his country - Jennifer - and not something more graphic. The fantasy is about being sauve, romantic, powerful - all the things the real Herb is not. Jennifer is just the conclusion of that. The best line of the episode is Franco's timing on "I too am in love with someone. The pope... has again refused my request for a divorce."
This then floats to a very simple daydream of Jennifer imagining herself being romanced by Cary Grant. It completely fits Jennifer's personality that she wouldn't imagine a more comtemporary heartthrob, say like Robert Redford, but a classic leading man, like... Les? who gives the wonderful reading on "I was wondering if you could pour something sticky all over me?" I don't know how you daydream, but I usually don't have random people popping up in my imagination to ruin the daydream. That's is just the connective tissue to the next dream.
Les is an interesting case because he lives in his daydream all the time. He has always seen himself as a modern day Edward R. Murrow, the legendary CBS newsman who made a name himself reporting on the European front of World War II. Being radio, Murrow needed to describe in florid detail what he was seeing and hearing around him. It was exciting for the time, but to modern ears, it sounds excessive and showy, like watching an opera on TV. But it's a style Nesman has always emulated. So to see him daydreaming of standing on a rooftop in mid-Blitz London, with an enamored "dame" at his side, waiting to have a few drinks with the boys, is simply the lifestyle he has actually aspired to.
When you watch the end of this episode, you will notice the credits begin before the action ends and there is no epilogue scene. This is actually the longest single episode of WKRP as it runs about two minutes longer than the average. The "linking" device makes it difficult to cut anything out. I have read stories that Bailey's daydream sequence often got cut from syndication, however I clearly remember it airing. Having said all of that, it's easy to see why it would have been cut. It's boring. There are two jokes: one is that we are to figure out Bailey has become President of the United States. The other is that Johnny is her neglected First Spouse who is worried about "the social calendar" and longing for affection. Another way to say that is this: can you imagine a world in which a woman is the President of the United States and a man had to do all of the First Lady stuff? Har-de har har!!
Let's get past that very dated idea and look at some other stuff. Whereas Herb dreams of romancing Jennifer, Bailey actually daydreams about ignoring her spouse? Who daydreams about being a jerk? Also, this dream isn't either elaborate like Herb's or Les's, or simple like Jennifer's. It's just boring. More importantly, if we are to keep up the "linking device," shouldn't ANDY be the First Husband? I understand we have seen the flirtations between Bailey and Johnny in the past, but if the writers really wanted to show a shift in the power balance, having her boss in bed would be much more effective.
Andy's daydream is all about power, but it is interesting to note he is the only one daydreaming about being at the radio station. Andy's dream is all about getting respect from the actual staff and results for the actual station. Helping Herb land a big client and getting Johnny to play the playlist, all as an unquestionable mafia boss is what Andy desires. What's funny is that in this daydream, Johnny not playing the playlist is Don Travis's greatest problem - one that earns a Kiss of Death. Not Herb or Les or even Mama Carlson.
Venus's daydream simply doesn't make sense given what we know of the character. Even if we think he would want to be a standup comedian (Tim Reid is the only WKRP cast member who actually was a stand up comedian), why would he want to be a cheesy Vegas standup playing to "Sammy and Frankie"? Wouldn't he have wanted to be Richard Pryor? Also, like Jennifer, who gets their daydreams interrupted by outside characters? Neither Jennifer of Venus know how to daydream well. It really seems tacked on and, although I'm not a fan of Bailey's dream, I would much rather have cut this one for time in syndication.
At the end, Carlson's speech is a success, in that it is over. Carlson's daydream of delivering a successful speech has come true. "Frankly Andy, I think I stunned 'em!"
Roy
Other Notes: Is this my longest episode of the blog? Which two minutes need to be trimmed for syndication?
Writers: Peter Torokvei
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 17, 1981
As much as every episode of WKRP in Cincinnati is a strange episode, this one is stranger than most, in its structure and tone. This really feels like an episode written by committee, with each member of the staff perhaps being given one "daydream"to write and that Peter Torokvei gets the writing credit because he put the pieces together. I have no evidence of that other than the feeling I get from watching the show.
However, if I can still assume the entire episode was directed by one person, regular director Rod Daniel, then kudos to him, because each daydream looks and feels very different from the others which in turn feel very different from the "real life" of the big guy's speech. Some of the daydreams are very elaborate while others are not much more than a one joke set-up.
Here's a very geeky blogger's theory: I think the characters with the most elaborate daydreams (Herb, Les and Andy) are the characters who feel the trapped in their own lives and do the most daydreaming - they are really good daydreamers. Those characters who are most satisfied with their lives (Jennifer and Venus) have the simplest daydreams - they are only daydreaming because they are bored. Again I have no evidence the writers were putting that much thought into it, other than from watching the show.
In his book "Here on Gilligan's Island," Russell Johnson, who played the Professor, said his favourite episodes were the dream sequence ones ("Gilligan's Island" seemed to have a dream sequence every fifth episode) because all the actors got to play different roles than their usual characters. I would have to imagine the same is true for the actors in this episode. Everybody gets to play dress up! (except for Gordon Jump, who got to play a lot of dress up back at Christmas time, so we can't feel too bad for him). The best example of this is in Johnny's daydream of rock stardom, in which everyone gets in on the decedent rockstar lifestyle: Jennifer is the sexy limo driver; Andy is the sleazy promoter, Herb is a leather clad fan while Bailey is a wide-eyed groupie; Les is a... bowtied rock reporter? and Venus is the corn-rowed "Jamaican Doctor" to the rockstar.
But I'm starting at the end. Let's go back to the beginning. Mr. Carlson is nervous about giving the keynote address at the Annual Ohio Broadcasters Dinner. Let's not worry ourselves too much about how many people had to turn down this "honour" before it was bestowed to the General Manager of a mid-ranked AM rock radio station in Cincinnati. Or that Mr. Carlson is delivering a speech outlining the history of radio to an audience that would already have in depth knowledge of the history of radio. Carlson is nervous so Andy (with Jennifer's help) convinces him to test the speech out on the staff.
Note the knowing little wink Jennifer gives Mr. Carlson when she advises him to "imagine your audience is naked" to help him relax. It's as if she's giving him permission to do something naughty that she knows he'll like. In fact, she mentions it twice, and each time Carlson gets a good chuckle... at Andy's and Les's expense.
Johnny guesses at what Andy already knows when he moans "Oh God." It a fifth grade level speech, running through the historic highlights of the 20th century and the role radio played in them. It's starts by stating the obvious, radio is for speaking to the people, and this prompts the first daydream.
Herb is now "Franco" the dictator/monarch of a small South American country besieged by rebels (Franco must be a take-off on Frank Bonner's name). It's surprising to see that Herb's fantasy is all about romancing the most beautiful woman in his country - Jennifer - and not something more graphic. The fantasy is about being sauve, romantic, powerful - all the things the real Herb is not. Jennifer is just the conclusion of that. The best line of the episode is Franco's timing on "I too am in love with someone. The pope... has again refused my request for a divorce."
This then floats to a very simple daydream of Jennifer imagining herself being romanced by Cary Grant. It completely fits Jennifer's personality that she wouldn't imagine a more comtemporary heartthrob, say like Robert Redford, but a classic leading man, like... Les? who gives the wonderful reading on "I was wondering if you could pour something sticky all over me?" I don't know how you daydream, but I usually don't have random people popping up in my imagination to ruin the daydream. That's is just the connective tissue to the next dream.
Les is an interesting case because he lives in his daydream all the time. He has always seen himself as a modern day Edward R. Murrow, the legendary CBS newsman who made a name himself reporting on the European front of World War II. Being radio, Murrow needed to describe in florid detail what he was seeing and hearing around him. It was exciting for the time, but to modern ears, it sounds excessive and showy, like watching an opera on TV. But it's a style Nesman has always emulated. So to see him daydreaming of standing on a rooftop in mid-Blitz London, with an enamored "dame" at his side, waiting to have a few drinks with the boys, is simply the lifestyle he has actually aspired to.
When you watch the end of this episode, you will notice the credits begin before the action ends and there is no epilogue scene. This is actually the longest single episode of WKRP as it runs about two minutes longer than the average. The "linking" device makes it difficult to cut anything out. I have read stories that Bailey's daydream sequence often got cut from syndication, however I clearly remember it airing. Having said all of that, it's easy to see why it would have been cut. It's boring. There are two jokes: one is that we are to figure out Bailey has become President of the United States. The other is that Johnny is her neglected First Spouse who is worried about "the social calendar" and longing for affection. Another way to say that is this: can you imagine a world in which a woman is the President of the United States and a man had to do all of the First Lady stuff? Har-de har har!!
Let's get past that very dated idea and look at some other stuff. Whereas Herb dreams of romancing Jennifer, Bailey actually daydreams about ignoring her spouse? Who daydreams about being a jerk? Also, this dream isn't either elaborate like Herb's or Les's, or simple like Jennifer's. It's just boring. More importantly, if we are to keep up the "linking device," shouldn't ANDY be the First Husband? I understand we have seen the flirtations between Bailey and Johnny in the past, but if the writers really wanted to show a shift in the power balance, having her boss in bed would be much more effective.
Andy's daydream is all about power, but it is interesting to note he is the only one daydreaming about being at the radio station. Andy's dream is all about getting respect from the actual staff and results for the actual station. Helping Herb land a big client and getting Johnny to play the playlist, all as an unquestionable mafia boss is what Andy desires. What's funny is that in this daydream, Johnny not playing the playlist is Don Travis's greatest problem - one that earns a Kiss of Death. Not Herb or Les or even Mama Carlson.
Venus's daydream simply doesn't make sense given what we know of the character. Even if we think he would want to be a standup comedian (Tim Reid is the only WKRP cast member who actually was a stand up comedian), why would he want to be a cheesy Vegas standup playing to "Sammy and Frankie"? Wouldn't he have wanted to be Richard Pryor? Also, like Jennifer, who gets their daydreams interrupted by outside characters? Neither Jennifer of Venus know how to daydream well. It really seems tacked on and, although I'm not a fan of Bailey's dream, I would much rather have cut this one for time in syndication.
At the end, Carlson's speech is a success, in that it is over. Carlson's daydream of delivering a successful speech has come true. "Frankly Andy, I think I stunned 'em!"
Roy
Other Notes: Is this my longest episode of the blog? Which two minutes need to be trimmed for syndication?
Tuesday 12 September 2017
Ep. 54 - The Painting
September 12, 2017
Writers: Steven Kampmann
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 10, 1981
This is Steven Kampmann's first script since "Hotel Oceanview" and it shares that episode's clockwork- like story structure. It is so complex, I created a chart to follow the money and the ownership of the painting...
In fact, I can't quite tell if Mr. Carlson ever actually gave Herb any money for the painting, and/or if so, if Herb paid it back. Even if the accounting is a little off, the passing of money is little more than the slamming doors in a French bedroom farce. The doors don't matter; it's all about the people showing their true faces.
We've always known Herb's true face. It's his only face! He's a hustler, whether hustling Carlson for favour by showing up at a church auction he has no interest in, or trying to cut Les out of a deal to make big money from the painting. Herb fancies himself "a shrewd businessman" while admitting "when have you ever known any of my schemes to work out?"
What is more interesting is Bailey. Throughout the entire episode, she holds herself in higher moral standing to Herb because she acts as the only true lover of the art for the art's sake. But when Herb's price jumps up to $500, she is willing to sell. Herb even calls her out on this, saying "Deep down inside you're just a shrewd businessman like me." Bailey protests by saying she doesn't hold Herb's belief that everything has a price. But Bailey is the one who sold the painting! She proves Herb's point, AND demands the tax deductable receipt while doing so! The episode ends with Bailey gazing lovingly at the painting, but we've already seen that she has a price.
Les is also a lot more like Herb. He originally intended to go to the auction with Herb for the same reason - to curry favour with the Big Guy. And he might get guilted into visiting his mother and paying Herb $50. But in the end, he uses Herb's own cheque to suck up to Carlson, all while smirking at his "best friend."
I brought up Kampmann because this is a very "writterly" episode, with call backs and repeated phrases used one on top of the other to building comedic effect. Whether any real people would ever speak like that is another matter.
Here are some of the phrases Herb uses over and over:
- planning on taking the family to Milwaukee/Oklahoma City
- were you there when... ?
- that's just a word people use...
- no lectures
It really only gains some traction when Bailey repeats these phrases back to him, especially the very well timed "so's your mother." By repeating Herb back, it shows us that she has been learning from him this whole time. Again, she is more of the "shrewd businessman" than she would want to admit to herself.
There is one scene that seems like it may have been written by somebody else, because it doesn't follow along with the clockwork symmetry of the main story and that's the scene in Andy's office in which Bailey shows off the painting. Can we all admit here that this is a terrible painting? Maybe not terrible, but stodgy and old-fashioned and certainly not the sort of item a young, college educated woman would literally swoon over. It looks like it could be hanging in a hotel hallway.
Andy likes the frame. Maybe he could use it to frame his bumper sticker collection. Venus exaggerates his poses before proclaiming it "nice." Johnny's rants on how he doesn't like it. But the boys all come to Bailey's defense when Herb threatens to take back the painting. I've always loved the line "How about the four of us pounding you to dust?" No one backs down from the threat - there is solidarity. Someday I'll work it into a conversation.
By the conclusion. Herb was right and his scheme doesn't work, but he's only out the amount he spent on the painting anyhow and Bailey get the painting she desperately wanted. It's a "Midsummer Night in Cincinnati."
Roy
Other Notes: Steven Kampmann might be best known for the two season he played the character of Kirk Devane on "Newhart."
Writers: Steven Kampmann
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 10, 1981
This is Steven Kampmann's first script since "Hotel Oceanview" and it shares that episode's clockwork- like story structure. It is so complex, I created a chart to follow the money and the ownership of the painting...
In fact, I can't quite tell if Mr. Carlson ever actually gave Herb any money for the painting, and/or if so, if Herb paid it back. Even if the accounting is a little off, the passing of money is little more than the slamming doors in a French bedroom farce. The doors don't matter; it's all about the people showing their true faces.
We've always known Herb's true face. It's his only face! He's a hustler, whether hustling Carlson for favour by showing up at a church auction he has no interest in, or trying to cut Les out of a deal to make big money from the painting. Herb fancies himself "a shrewd businessman" while admitting "when have you ever known any of my schemes to work out?"
What is more interesting is Bailey. Throughout the entire episode, she holds herself in higher moral standing to Herb because she acts as the only true lover of the art for the art's sake. But when Herb's price jumps up to $500, she is willing to sell. Herb even calls her out on this, saying "Deep down inside you're just a shrewd businessman like me." Bailey protests by saying she doesn't hold Herb's belief that everything has a price. But Bailey is the one who sold the painting! She proves Herb's point, AND demands the tax deductable receipt while doing so! The episode ends with Bailey gazing lovingly at the painting, but we've already seen that she has a price.
Les is also a lot more like Herb. He originally intended to go to the auction with Herb for the same reason - to curry favour with the Big Guy. And he might get guilted into visiting his mother and paying Herb $50. But in the end, he uses Herb's own cheque to suck up to Carlson, all while smirking at his "best friend."
I brought up Kampmann because this is a very "writterly" episode, with call backs and repeated phrases used one on top of the other to building comedic effect. Whether any real people would ever speak like that is another matter.
Here are some of the phrases Herb uses over and over:
- planning on taking the family to Milwaukee/Oklahoma City
- were you there when... ?
- that's just a word people use...
- no lectures
It really only gains some traction when Bailey repeats these phrases back to him, especially the very well timed "so's your mother." By repeating Herb back, it shows us that she has been learning from him this whole time. Again, she is more of the "shrewd businessman" than she would want to admit to herself.
There is one scene that seems like it may have been written by somebody else, because it doesn't follow along with the clockwork symmetry of the main story and that's the scene in Andy's office in which Bailey shows off the painting. Can we all admit here that this is a terrible painting? Maybe not terrible, but stodgy and old-fashioned and certainly not the sort of item a young, college educated woman would literally swoon over. It looks like it could be hanging in a hotel hallway.
Andy likes the frame. Maybe he could use it to frame his bumper sticker collection. Venus exaggerates his poses before proclaiming it "nice." Johnny's rants on how he doesn't like it. But the boys all come to Bailey's defense when Herb threatens to take back the painting. I've always loved the line "How about the four of us pounding you to dust?" No one backs down from the threat - there is solidarity. Someday I'll work it into a conversation.
By the conclusion. Herb was right and his scheme doesn't work, but he's only out the amount he spent on the painting anyhow and Bailey get the painting she desperately wanted. It's a "Midsummer Night in Cincinnati."
Roy
Other Notes: Steven Kampmann might be best known for the two season he played the character of Kirk Devane on "Newhart."
Thursday 31 August 2017
Ep. 53 - Baby, It's Cold Inside
August 31, 2017
Writers: Blake Hunter
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 3, 1981
Shirley Levy was 21 years old when Irving Berlin himself tapped her for a role in his latest Broadway musical "Louisiana Purchase" in 1930. Later she played the lead role of Julie in the first major revival of Kern and Hammerstein's "Show Boat," directed by Oscar Hammerstein himself. Her career was dotted by appearances on radio, in movies and the big playhouse productions on television where statuesque strength and delicate voice combined keep her busy. She was a classic Hollywood beauty that belied sly comic timing, which she used in comedies such as "Abbott and Costello's Keep 'Em Flying." And somewhere along the line, she changed her name to Carol Bruce.
Bruce was not the first choice to play Mama Carlson. That was Sylvia Sidney, who had made a career of playing "tough dames," from gangster's molls in the 1930's and 40's to the grouchy afterlife administrator in "Beetlejuice." But after having Ms. Sidney in the pilot, scaring Arthur and the rest of the staff, Hugh Wilson decided to take a different approach to Mama when the show had a soft relaunch at episode nine. After being off the air for a couple of weeks, and in a new time slot, WKRP returned with a clip show (yes, after only eight episodes!) re-introducing the characters with "Mama's Review" of the station. But now Mama would be very different. She would not be shrill and mean - she would cold and imperious. She would not be a small hag - she would be statuesque and superior.
It is not surprising that the station member Mama Carlson most closely relates to is Jennifer. They are both strong, smart, beautiful who have used people's underestimations of them to their advantages. Jennifer is in many ways the guiding-force "mother" of the station and that Arthur relies on her so heavily because she is the compassionate mother figure he always yearned for. Mama has always spoken to Jennifer as an equal (followed closely by Bailey) and it would be easy to imagine that they both socialize in the same high brow Cincinnati circles. But she must also recognize Jennifer's compassionate side because it is to Jennifer that Lilian (she's not really "Mama" at this point anymore) discusses her past.
Wait! Why does she do that? Let's go back to the fundamental conflict of this episode. The heat is off in the Flemm Building. The Sales Manager has lost all feeling in his lower extremities! The staff is doing everything in their power to keep warm and Johnny's solution is to drink "brandy" on the air. This is a particularly strong beverage because it gets Jennifer drunk before the credits even run. We see one strong, controlled woman start to act silly and flirty after a few sips. Why not another one?
The drinking on the air subplot is just a distraction. The entire purpose of this episode is to give the audience a background on Lilian. How did she wind up as head of a business conglomerate like Carlson Enterprises? And, most importantly, what does she truly value. Most sit-coms, especially in the early 80's wouldn't risk an entire episode filling in the backstory of just a recurring character. Many don't bother doing this much for a main character.
She starts off laughing about how she "hasn't lost her touch" in scaring someone like Johnny just by looking at him. But what she really wants is a good old-fashioned gossip session with one of the girls, and Jennifer is the closest thing she's going to get to that. We just saw in the last episode where the General Manager was likely having an affair with his secretary. We don't know it until the final scene that Lillian has come to the station because she has the past on her mind, and with the help of the brandy, she gets sentimental about her late husband, her past as a singer and the price of her success. Carol Bruce delivers what might be her finest WKRP performance. It's is funny and poignant all at once.
If, as I suggest, the purpose is to give us some of Lillian's background, then the climax is her touching rendition of "Someone to Watch Over Me." She tells Johnny that she wants to hear it, but want she really wants is to perform it. Is she telling the staff that she is the one watching over them? Or does she miss having someone, like her husband, to watch over her? Or is she reliving a spotlight moment from her past, on a day when the past is on her mind? Either way, the producers were smart using the Bruce's talents in this way.
Moving away from Mama, the rest of the staff gives us some funny, panicky scenes. It has often been a struggle for the writers to explain why the night time DJ is hanging out at the station during the day. So for Johnny to call in Venus in a panic only to tell him to "Go home and get some sleep" actually highlighted that dilemma.
I don't know what is in that drink, but the flirtiness continues with Mama, who has her eyes on a certain cowboy. Gary Sandy is at his best when Andy is flustered and nothing gets him flustered faster than being hit on by a strong woman. Her touching of his knee knocks him off kilter for the rest of the episode. It takes a strong, forceful man to turn that flirting back on Mama Carlson.
Enter Les Nesman. He sees this as his opportunity to talk to her about getting walls. But Mama is drunk enough and strong enough to do what everyone else has been too polite to do... she laughs in his face! And calls him "ingenius" while she does it!
As anyone who has had too much brandy knows, once the giddiness subsides, reality steps in. Jennifer pops two asprins dry and Arthur comes to collect his mother. They were to meet to go visit his father's grave; the grave of the man she still loves. They leave arm in arm to the strains of Gershwin. So raise a glass to this episode...
"To Pale Grey."
Roy
Other Notes: I cannot find any references to a real Hoffman's Department Store in Dallas in 1980. Can anyone help?
Writers: Blake Hunter
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: January 3, 1981
Shirley Levy was 21 years old when Irving Berlin himself tapped her for a role in his latest Broadway musical "Louisiana Purchase" in 1930. Later she played the lead role of Julie in the first major revival of Kern and Hammerstein's "Show Boat," directed by Oscar Hammerstein himself. Her career was dotted by appearances on radio, in movies and the big playhouse productions on television where statuesque strength and delicate voice combined keep her busy. She was a classic Hollywood beauty that belied sly comic timing, which she used in comedies such as "Abbott and Costello's Keep 'Em Flying." And somewhere along the line, she changed her name to Carol Bruce.
Bruce was not the first choice to play Mama Carlson. That was Sylvia Sidney, who had made a career of playing "tough dames," from gangster's molls in the 1930's and 40's to the grouchy afterlife administrator in "Beetlejuice." But after having Ms. Sidney in the pilot, scaring Arthur and the rest of the staff, Hugh Wilson decided to take a different approach to Mama when the show had a soft relaunch at episode nine. After being off the air for a couple of weeks, and in a new time slot, WKRP returned with a clip show (yes, after only eight episodes!) re-introducing the characters with "Mama's Review" of the station. But now Mama would be very different. She would not be shrill and mean - she would cold and imperious. She would not be a small hag - she would be statuesque and superior.
It is not surprising that the station member Mama Carlson most closely relates to is Jennifer. They are both strong, smart, beautiful who have used people's underestimations of them to their advantages. Jennifer is in many ways the guiding-force "mother" of the station and that Arthur relies on her so heavily because she is the compassionate mother figure he always yearned for. Mama has always spoken to Jennifer as an equal (followed closely by Bailey) and it would be easy to imagine that they both socialize in the same high brow Cincinnati circles. But she must also recognize Jennifer's compassionate side because it is to Jennifer that Lilian (she's not really "Mama" at this point anymore) discusses her past.
Wait! Why does she do that? Let's go back to the fundamental conflict of this episode. The heat is off in the Flemm Building. The Sales Manager has lost all feeling in his lower extremities! The staff is doing everything in their power to keep warm and Johnny's solution is to drink "brandy" on the air. This is a particularly strong beverage because it gets Jennifer drunk before the credits even run. We see one strong, controlled woman start to act silly and flirty after a few sips. Why not another one?
The drinking on the air subplot is just a distraction. The entire purpose of this episode is to give the audience a background on Lilian. How did she wind up as head of a business conglomerate like Carlson Enterprises? And, most importantly, what does she truly value. Most sit-coms, especially in the early 80's wouldn't risk an entire episode filling in the backstory of just a recurring character. Many don't bother doing this much for a main character.
She starts off laughing about how she "hasn't lost her touch" in scaring someone like Johnny just by looking at him. But what she really wants is a good old-fashioned gossip session with one of the girls, and Jennifer is the closest thing she's going to get to that. We just saw in the last episode where the General Manager was likely having an affair with his secretary. We don't know it until the final scene that Lillian has come to the station because she has the past on her mind, and with the help of the brandy, she gets sentimental about her late husband, her past as a singer and the price of her success. Carol Bruce delivers what might be her finest WKRP performance. It's is funny and poignant all at once.
If, as I suggest, the purpose is to give us some of Lillian's background, then the climax is her touching rendition of "Someone to Watch Over Me." She tells Johnny that she wants to hear it, but want she really wants is to perform it. Is she telling the staff that she is the one watching over them? Or does she miss having someone, like her husband, to watch over her? Or is she reliving a spotlight moment from her past, on a day when the past is on her mind? Either way, the producers were smart using the Bruce's talents in this way.
Moving away from Mama, the rest of the staff gives us some funny, panicky scenes. It has often been a struggle for the writers to explain why the night time DJ is hanging out at the station during the day. So for Johnny to call in Venus in a panic only to tell him to "Go home and get some sleep" actually highlighted that dilemma.
I don't know what is in that drink, but the flirtiness continues with Mama, who has her eyes on a certain cowboy. Gary Sandy is at his best when Andy is flustered and nothing gets him flustered faster than being hit on by a strong woman. Her touching of his knee knocks him off kilter for the rest of the episode. It takes a strong, forceful man to turn that flirting back on Mama Carlson.
Enter Les Nesman. He sees this as his opportunity to talk to her about getting walls. But Mama is drunk enough and strong enough to do what everyone else has been too polite to do... she laughs in his face! And calls him "ingenius" while she does it!
As anyone who has had too much brandy knows, once the giddiness subsides, reality steps in. Jennifer pops two asprins dry and Arthur comes to collect his mother. They were to meet to go visit his father's grave; the grave of the man she still loves. They leave arm in arm to the strains of Gershwin. So raise a glass to this episode...
"To Pale Grey."
Roy
Other Notes: I cannot find any references to a real Hoffman's Department Store in Dallas in 1980. Can anyone help?
Wednesday 23 August 2017
Ep. 52 - Bah, Humbug
August 23, 2017
Writers: Lissa Levin
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: December 20, 1980
"This isn't going to be one of those Charles Dickens "Christmas Carol" things, is it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Oh boy!
There are 80 episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati" which when shown once a day, five days a week, makes for an tidy 16 weeks of programming. However, when going into syndication, the hour long episode "Filthy Pictures" gets split up into two shows. That makes for 81 episodes, which is just cumbersome to program. So most stations dropped one particular episode and would only play it once a year, or roughly once every three programming rotations. This is that odd episode and for some fans, the box set may be the first time they have ever seen it.
It's not hard to see why "Bah, Humbug" became the "lost episode." First and most obviously, it is a Christmas themed show. But there are other Christmas themed WKRPs, so why this one? Because it's so weird, that's why. Here are all the ways it's weird.
The story is told as a dream sequence (and not as a drug-fueled fantasy if Johnny is to be believed). It follows the plot of Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in which three ghosts haunt Mr. Carlson to show him the error of his greedy ways. After the opening credit sequence, Jennifer peeks into his office to see Mr. Carlson asleep at his desk, so we know it's all a dream.
A dream is not part of reality which might explain Mr. Carlson's behaviour. For a show that prides itself on, in fact was an innovator of character continuity, at the beginning of the episode, Mr. Carlson comes off as a greedy jerk, not the befuddled father figure we have come to know and love. It's almost as if he has reverted to the Carlson of the pilot episode. The Carlson we know would love to get the team together to hand out bonuses. This Carlson is sneaky and deceitful.
This episode, hands down, utilizes the most special effects the show ever has, beating out the exploding window from "Tornando." Because of this, the set seems "off." The lighting isn't right; there are strange shadows even in the "awake" scenes. Even Carlson himself remarks upon his return from the past "I'm alone. And in bad lighting again."
But mostly, the audience seems out of sync with what is on our scenes. My best guess is that some of the scenes were filmed in front of a studio audience, as usual, but that the special effects, such has Carlson speaking with his deceased "Marley-like" grandfather (both played by Gordon Jump) just couldn't be filmed live. Some audience "sweetening" was needed and it is noticeable.
Something else that makes this episode stand out is how self-referential it is. The characters, especially Carlson himself, talk openly about how they are in a telling of "Christmas Carol." Carlson mocks "The Ghost of Christmas Present" for not being too good with his magic. "The Ghost of Christmas Past" goes on and on in his defense of "poor, misunderstood Johnny." It's almost as if the cast and crew are getting to put on a community theatre production of "Christmas Carol" rather than a network sit-com.
We start with an audience "Oooooo!" when Arthur is confronted with the ghost of his grandfather, warning that he will be visited by three ghosts that night. The effect of Jump conversing with himself is pretty well done, especially for 1980 television. But this ghost doesn't speak like either a ghost or like Arthur's grandfather would have. He speaks like Arthur using terms like "suckers" and buster" giving a very modern (for 1980) and irreverent twist to the telling.
Jennifer visits as the beautiful, white clad Ghost of Christmas Past and brings Arthur back to December 24, 1954 - 26 years before. This scene is a Christmas present for the audience in the form of a heaping helping of fan service. See squeaky-voiced Artie Carlson land his first big account as WKRP sales manager, sitting at the same desk Herb sits at now. See the staff of WKRP from a quarter century ago, including GM Mr. Armour who may be having an affair with sweet old Mrs. Butterworth, the receptionist. But mostly, see scrappy young office boy Les Nesman with a full head of hair be named a "full blown" cub reporter. And, touchingly, receive his first bow tie.
This scene sweetly emphazies how important WKRP is to Arthur. It is where he has spent his entire adult life and it's a place he is going to remain long after all these kids in their dungarees leave Cincinnati.
It is a good choice to make Venus the jovial, if not quite magical Ghost of Christmas Present. He is a natural Master of Ceremonies. Carlson gets to see what his employees really think of him. I'm not sure who is playing the Bob Cratcrit role here though. Is it Herb, who calls himself Carlson's "number one Yes Man," just to be screwed out of a Christmas bonus again? (Does this mean his snaggletoothed daughter will have to live out her days in a convent?) Or is it Andy, who has to be the one to break the bad news to the staff and explain the bonuses aren't coming? For all the times Carlson and Andy have spent together, does Andy really think of him as "Cheap. A skinflint. A tightwad."?
What Carlson really sees is the camaraderie of the staff, excluding himself. They are the ones organizing their own Christmas party and bringing their own potluck treats. Johnny brings brownies that, for some reason, nobody wants to try. Bailey brings her Grandmother's cookies, even if they taste terrible. But Bailey also lies so she will work the Christmas Day shift and Les can visit with his Mother in Dayton.
All of this is enough for Carlson to agree to give out the bonuses, even out of his own pocket. But just as in the original story, these visits aren't to just earn a one time donation. As Carlson is told by the Ghost of Christmas Future "This trip is for you to understand the true spirit of giving. It's to teach you Good Will Among Men. Peace on Earth. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and so on.
No other cast member could ever be the sombre, Reaper-like Ghost of Christmas Future than Johnny Fever. Clad in black with red-rimmed eyes, he's always been only a couple of cups of coffee away from death at the best of times. But it is a chilling glimpse into the future of WKRP and radio itself that pays off here. If Christmas past was 26 years ago, we can assume Christmas Future is 26 years ahead, which takes us to the dystopian year of... 2006! While others were Bringing Sexy Back, Herb Tarlek is alone in a THX1137 - inspired futuristic radio office, free to read actual girlie magazines at his desk because no one else is around. The station is fully automated (gasp!). Only the least effective employee has survived (gasp again!).
In an act of fan service like the Past gives us, the Future tells us what will become of our beloved 'KRP family, and each of the answers feels like it could possible happen - except for Les. Bailey runs a TV station in Chicago. Andy breeds guard dogs in New Mexico. Venus owns a clothing line called "Upwardly Mobile." Jennifer married and bought an island of the coast of Sardinia (which itself is off the coast of Italy). Christmas Past says that Les Nesman has become the Republican Whip of the U.S. Senate, but I think it would have to be another ten years or so before the Republican party would give someone like Les that kind of authority. Fever "just sort of... disappeared. There were rumours, of course..." also seems to be right on the money for his character.
Of course, true to Dickens' story, Arthur wakes up from his dream and is giddy about being generous to the staff. The ending of the show is the only time we don't hear the rockin' "knock 'em all dead, uh-huh" outro music, but instead we watch the staff enjoying their Christmas party together. They are all laughing and dancing together, and mixing outside of their usual office cliques until finally, Arthur Carlson throws kisses us all.
God Bless Us, Every One!
Roy
Other Notes: This is the one episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" that won an Emmy. Andy Ackerman won for "Outstanding Videotape Editing for a Series." He would later win Emmys for "Cheers" and be nominated for "Seinfeld." The Republican Whip of the U.S. Senate in 2006 was William Frist. Don Diamond, who played Past news director Don Bassett on this episode, had one other WKRP espisode... in the other Christmas episode "Jennifer's Home for Christmas!
Writers: Lissa Levin
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: December 20, 1980
"This isn't going to be one of those Charles Dickens "Christmas Carol" things, is it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Oh boy!
There are 80 episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati" which when shown once a day, five days a week, makes for an tidy 16 weeks of programming. However, when going into syndication, the hour long episode "Filthy Pictures" gets split up into two shows. That makes for 81 episodes, which is just cumbersome to program. So most stations dropped one particular episode and would only play it once a year, or roughly once every three programming rotations. This is that odd episode and for some fans, the box set may be the first time they have ever seen it.
It's not hard to see why "Bah, Humbug" became the "lost episode." First and most obviously, it is a Christmas themed show. But there are other Christmas themed WKRPs, so why this one? Because it's so weird, that's why. Here are all the ways it's weird.
The story is told as a dream sequence (and not as a drug-fueled fantasy if Johnny is to be believed). It follows the plot of Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in which three ghosts haunt Mr. Carlson to show him the error of his greedy ways. After the opening credit sequence, Jennifer peeks into his office to see Mr. Carlson asleep at his desk, so we know it's all a dream.
A dream is not part of reality which might explain Mr. Carlson's behaviour. For a show that prides itself on, in fact was an innovator of character continuity, at the beginning of the episode, Mr. Carlson comes off as a greedy jerk, not the befuddled father figure we have come to know and love. It's almost as if he has reverted to the Carlson of the pilot episode. The Carlson we know would love to get the team together to hand out bonuses. This Carlson is sneaky and deceitful.
This episode, hands down, utilizes the most special effects the show ever has, beating out the exploding window from "Tornando." Because of this, the set seems "off." The lighting isn't right; there are strange shadows even in the "awake" scenes. Even Carlson himself remarks upon his return from the past "I'm alone. And in bad lighting again."
But mostly, the audience seems out of sync with what is on our scenes. My best guess is that some of the scenes were filmed in front of a studio audience, as usual, but that the special effects, such has Carlson speaking with his deceased "Marley-like" grandfather (both played by Gordon Jump) just couldn't be filmed live. Some audience "sweetening" was needed and it is noticeable.
Something else that makes this episode stand out is how self-referential it is. The characters, especially Carlson himself, talk openly about how they are in a telling of "Christmas Carol." Carlson mocks "The Ghost of Christmas Present" for not being too good with his magic. "The Ghost of Christmas Past" goes on and on in his defense of "poor, misunderstood Johnny." It's almost as if the cast and crew are getting to put on a community theatre production of "Christmas Carol" rather than a network sit-com.
We start with an audience "Oooooo!" when Arthur is confronted with the ghost of his grandfather, warning that he will be visited by three ghosts that night. The effect of Jump conversing with himself is pretty well done, especially for 1980 television. But this ghost doesn't speak like either a ghost or like Arthur's grandfather would have. He speaks like Arthur using terms like "suckers" and buster" giving a very modern (for 1980) and irreverent twist to the telling.
Jennifer visits as the beautiful, white clad Ghost of Christmas Past and brings Arthur back to December 24, 1954 - 26 years before. This scene is a Christmas present for the audience in the form of a heaping helping of fan service. See squeaky-voiced Artie Carlson land his first big account as WKRP sales manager, sitting at the same desk Herb sits at now. See the staff of WKRP from a quarter century ago, including GM Mr. Armour who may be having an affair with sweet old Mrs. Butterworth, the receptionist. But mostly, see scrappy young office boy Les Nesman with a full head of hair be named a "full blown" cub reporter. And, touchingly, receive his first bow tie.
This scene sweetly emphazies how important WKRP is to Arthur. It is where he has spent his entire adult life and it's a place he is going to remain long after all these kids in their dungarees leave Cincinnati.
It is a good choice to make Venus the jovial, if not quite magical Ghost of Christmas Present. He is a natural Master of Ceremonies. Carlson gets to see what his employees really think of him. I'm not sure who is playing the Bob Cratcrit role here though. Is it Herb, who calls himself Carlson's "number one Yes Man," just to be screwed out of a Christmas bonus again? (Does this mean his snaggletoothed daughter will have to live out her days in a convent?) Or is it Andy, who has to be the one to break the bad news to the staff and explain the bonuses aren't coming? For all the times Carlson and Andy have spent together, does Andy really think of him as "Cheap. A skinflint. A tightwad."?
What Carlson really sees is the camaraderie of the staff, excluding himself. They are the ones organizing their own Christmas party and bringing their own potluck treats. Johnny brings brownies that, for some reason, nobody wants to try. Bailey brings her Grandmother's cookies, even if they taste terrible. But Bailey also lies so she will work the Christmas Day shift and Les can visit with his Mother in Dayton.
All of this is enough for Carlson to agree to give out the bonuses, even out of his own pocket. But just as in the original story, these visits aren't to just earn a one time donation. As Carlson is told by the Ghost of Christmas Future "This trip is for you to understand the true spirit of giving. It's to teach you Good Will Among Men. Peace on Earth. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and so on.
No other cast member could ever be the sombre, Reaper-like Ghost of Christmas Future than Johnny Fever. Clad in black with red-rimmed eyes, he's always been only a couple of cups of coffee away from death at the best of times. But it is a chilling glimpse into the future of WKRP and radio itself that pays off here. If Christmas past was 26 years ago, we can assume Christmas Future is 26 years ahead, which takes us to the dystopian year of... 2006! While others were Bringing Sexy Back, Herb Tarlek is alone in a THX1137 - inspired futuristic radio office, free to read actual girlie magazines at his desk because no one else is around. The station is fully automated (gasp!). Only the least effective employee has survived (gasp again!).
In an act of fan service like the Past gives us, the Future tells us what will become of our beloved 'KRP family, and each of the answers feels like it could possible happen - except for Les. Bailey runs a TV station in Chicago. Andy breeds guard dogs in New Mexico. Venus owns a clothing line called "Upwardly Mobile." Jennifer married and bought an island of the coast of Sardinia (which itself is off the coast of Italy). Christmas Past says that Les Nesman has become the Republican Whip of the U.S. Senate, but I think it would have to be another ten years or so before the Republican party would give someone like Les that kind of authority. Fever "just sort of... disappeared. There were rumours, of course..." also seems to be right on the money for his character.
Of course, true to Dickens' story, Arthur wakes up from his dream and is giddy about being generous to the staff. The ending of the show is the only time we don't hear the rockin' "knock 'em all dead, uh-huh" outro music, but instead we watch the staff enjoying their Christmas party together. They are all laughing and dancing together, and mixing outside of their usual office cliques until finally, Arthur Carlson throws kisses us all.
God Bless Us, Every One!
Roy
Other Notes: This is the one episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" that won an Emmy. Andy Ackerman won for "Outstanding Videotape Editing for a Series." He would later win Emmys for "Cheers" and be nominated for "Seinfeld." The Republican Whip of the U.S. Senate in 2006 was William Frist. Don Diamond, who played Past news director Don Bassett on this episode, had one other WKRP espisode... in the other Christmas episode "Jennifer's Home for Christmas!
Wednesday 2 August 2017
Ep. 51 - A Mile in My Shoes
August 2, 2017
Writers: Dan Guntzelman
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: December 6, 1980
The great paradox of Herb Tarlek's life is this: His being Sales Manager may not be that important to WKRP but being Sales Manager of WKRP is the most important thing in his life.
This is evident before the credits even roll. Herb brings a letter to Mr. Carlson stating that "Herb Tarlek is ... essential and indispensable to the operation of the company" and Carlson, who has always been Herb's biggest supporter, literally laughs in his face. "Is this some kind of joke?" he laughs. The thing is, jury duty or not, that has always been the way Herb has seen himself at the station - as essential and indispensable. In the season two episode "Venus Rising," Herb bluffs he has a job elsewhere to get WKRP to give him a raise and loses big time when Carlson is ready to just let him go. The Sales department is essential to the running of any radio station, and he is the sales manager. Those two things are true. The false conclusion Herb then jumps to (and lives his life by) is that, therefore he is personally essential to the station. The great dirty truth in business is anyone can be replaced.
So Herb goes off to jury duty and Andy steps in with the intention of showing Herb the way things should be done. Andy is confident he can do the job better because he thinks ANYONE could do the job better than Herb. We'll come back to Andy's story in a minute.
Herb is elected foreman of the jury and what ensues is the "WKRP in Cincinnati" version of "12 Angry Men," except Herb is trying to convince everyone the defendant is guilty. As is alluded to in the final scene, this is suppose to represent Herb stepping into Andy shoes, trying to get a group of disparate people to work together without much success. Writer Dan Guntzelman made a wise decision in not having the jury be made up of representative characters from the station. There isn't an old hippie, a commie-hating paranoid, a smart, beautiful blonde, etc. Instead we see an "old, immigrant man," a bimbo and a guy trying to hit on the bimbo. This group can't even decide what to order for lunch! How can Herb wrangle them into a conviction?
He does so by pretending to be pretending. Herb gives a heart-tugging speech about how all the time spent in the courtroom is letting some young hotshot have a chance at taking over his job. He starts to tear up. The lady tries to comfort him and he reveals he is "acting" the same way the defendant is. Thing is, he's not acting. That is the real reason he wants out of jury duty. He's not missing his wife and kids - he's afraid someone is taking over his job. Once the jury finally lets out, the first place he goes, even late at night, is back to the office. And a real moment of fear overcomes him when he sees Andy, dressed in a suit, sitting at the Sales desk.
Before we get to Andy's "mile," what is happening with the rest of the cast? Venus has been made temporary Program Director and it's interesting to see he's now not dressing like funky "Venus" or cowboy "Andy." They say dress for the job you want, and in his suit, he more resembles General Manager Carlson than anyone else. He immediately bumps up against the same problems Andy constantly faces: Johnny not playing the playlist and Les with some hairball, award-baiting scheme.
The C-story in this script is that Les wants to adapt John Howard Griffin's 1961 book "Black Like Me" for radio. There is so much wrong with this idea, both in the WKRP universe and in the real world.
I have often critized Richard Sanders' showy acting, and I realize he was just following his script here. However, I'd like to point out that in three of the past four episodes, Frank Bonner has been working as a lead character, utilizing his comic timing and improve skills to elevate the show. In contrast, Richard Sanders has been reduced to a bit player, who with this episode, reaches the lowest point the character of Les Nesman would ever reach. The joke is Les in blackface - period. Look how silly Les is in blackface, especially in front of Venus ha ha ha. Sanders doesn't add anything to that joke and even in 1980, that joke isn't funny. It feels to me like the writers don't trust Sanders to carry an episode as much as they do Bonner.
But just go back to the world of WKRP. The book Les wants to adapt is already 20 years old. There was already a movie made of it 16 years earlier. So the premise is outdated. Also, this is a Rock 'n Roll station, with a mixed raced listenership, as evidenced by the popularity of both Johnny and Venus. This is not the audience for an expose on race relations in Cincinnati. But most obviously, you can't see Les in blackface on the radio. Venus is equal parts offended and terrified by Les in blackface. How would the whole listenership react?
Now it's time for Andy, who once again proves he's not as good at his job as he thinks he is. Andy loses six clients in a week. He claims to have "lived and breathed radio since (he) was a little boy" and "done every job there is to be done at a radio station, including sales" but after all this time he still doesn't understand WKRP's position in the marketplace. There are no national advertisers on this station, no agencies buying blocks of airtime. Herb has cobbled together a string of shady, sleazy clients because that's what he's had to do since the station was 24th in a 28 station market. The "Mile in My Shoes" of the title is a reference to Andy, who in four minutes in Smilin' Al's office sees what Herb has lived with, day after day for years. He needs to drink "hootch" and make mindless, glad handing small talk all while jumping around professional hustlers who are just waiting to take advantage of him.
Andy slowly turns into Herb, from the suits and slicked-back hair to killing time around the bullpen, building pencil towers just waiting, HOPING for one of his contacts to come back. When Herb comes back to save the account, Andy gains a new appreciation for him and how tough his job is. But not enough of an appreciation to actually hire some more salesmen, or a professional collection agency to help Herb out. The debts problem isn't solved, Herb has to earn back six new clients to make up for what Andy lost and Andy still needs to wash that stuff out of his hair.
Roy
Other Notes - Shout out to the scene of Johnny and Venus speaking in unison. Genuinely funny. Walter Jonowitz, who played the immigrant juror, made a career out of playing either Jewish immigrants or Nazis (specifically on "Hogan's Heroes"). That's a unique range
Writers: Dan Guntzelman
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: December 6, 1980
The great paradox of Herb Tarlek's life is this: His being Sales Manager may not be that important to WKRP but being Sales Manager of WKRP is the most important thing in his life.
This is evident before the credits even roll. Herb brings a letter to Mr. Carlson stating that "Herb Tarlek is ... essential and indispensable to the operation of the company" and Carlson, who has always been Herb's biggest supporter, literally laughs in his face. "Is this some kind of joke?" he laughs. The thing is, jury duty or not, that has always been the way Herb has seen himself at the station - as essential and indispensable. In the season two episode "Venus Rising," Herb bluffs he has a job elsewhere to get WKRP to give him a raise and loses big time when Carlson is ready to just let him go. The Sales department is essential to the running of any radio station, and he is the sales manager. Those two things are true. The false conclusion Herb then jumps to (and lives his life by) is that, therefore he is personally essential to the station. The great dirty truth in business is anyone can be replaced.
So Herb goes off to jury duty and Andy steps in with the intention of showing Herb the way things should be done. Andy is confident he can do the job better because he thinks ANYONE could do the job better than Herb. We'll come back to Andy's story in a minute.
Herb is elected foreman of the jury and what ensues is the "WKRP in Cincinnati" version of "12 Angry Men," except Herb is trying to convince everyone the defendant is guilty. As is alluded to in the final scene, this is suppose to represent Herb stepping into Andy shoes, trying to get a group of disparate people to work together without much success. Writer Dan Guntzelman made a wise decision in not having the jury be made up of representative characters from the station. There isn't an old hippie, a commie-hating paranoid, a smart, beautiful blonde, etc. Instead we see an "old, immigrant man," a bimbo and a guy trying to hit on the bimbo. This group can't even decide what to order for lunch! How can Herb wrangle them into a conviction?
He does so by pretending to be pretending. Herb gives a heart-tugging speech about how all the time spent in the courtroom is letting some young hotshot have a chance at taking over his job. He starts to tear up. The lady tries to comfort him and he reveals he is "acting" the same way the defendant is. Thing is, he's not acting. That is the real reason he wants out of jury duty. He's not missing his wife and kids - he's afraid someone is taking over his job. Once the jury finally lets out, the first place he goes, even late at night, is back to the office. And a real moment of fear overcomes him when he sees Andy, dressed in a suit, sitting at the Sales desk.
Before we get to Andy's "mile," what is happening with the rest of the cast? Venus has been made temporary Program Director and it's interesting to see he's now not dressing like funky "Venus" or cowboy "Andy." They say dress for the job you want, and in his suit, he more resembles General Manager Carlson than anyone else. He immediately bumps up against the same problems Andy constantly faces: Johnny not playing the playlist and Les with some hairball, award-baiting scheme.
The C-story in this script is that Les wants to adapt John Howard Griffin's 1961 book "Black Like Me" for radio. There is so much wrong with this idea, both in the WKRP universe and in the real world.
I have often critized Richard Sanders' showy acting, and I realize he was just following his script here. However, I'd like to point out that in three of the past four episodes, Frank Bonner has been working as a lead character, utilizing his comic timing and improve skills to elevate the show. In contrast, Richard Sanders has been reduced to a bit player, who with this episode, reaches the lowest point the character of Les Nesman would ever reach. The joke is Les in blackface - period. Look how silly Les is in blackface, especially in front of Venus ha ha ha. Sanders doesn't add anything to that joke and even in 1980, that joke isn't funny. It feels to me like the writers don't trust Sanders to carry an episode as much as they do Bonner.
But just go back to the world of WKRP. The book Les wants to adapt is already 20 years old. There was already a movie made of it 16 years earlier. So the premise is outdated. Also, this is a Rock 'n Roll station, with a mixed raced listenership, as evidenced by the popularity of both Johnny and Venus. This is not the audience for an expose on race relations in Cincinnati. But most obviously, you can't see Les in blackface on the radio. Venus is equal parts offended and terrified by Les in blackface. How would the whole listenership react?
Now it's time for Andy, who once again proves he's not as good at his job as he thinks he is. Andy loses six clients in a week. He claims to have "lived and breathed radio since (he) was a little boy" and "done every job there is to be done at a radio station, including sales" but after all this time he still doesn't understand WKRP's position in the marketplace. There are no national advertisers on this station, no agencies buying blocks of airtime. Herb has cobbled together a string of shady, sleazy clients because that's what he's had to do since the station was 24th in a 28 station market. The "Mile in My Shoes" of the title is a reference to Andy, who in four minutes in Smilin' Al's office sees what Herb has lived with, day after day for years. He needs to drink "hootch" and make mindless, glad handing small talk all while jumping around professional hustlers who are just waiting to take advantage of him.
Andy slowly turns into Herb, from the suits and slicked-back hair to killing time around the bullpen, building pencil towers just waiting, HOPING for one of his contacts to come back. When Herb comes back to save the account, Andy gains a new appreciation for him and how tough his job is. But not enough of an appreciation to actually hire some more salesmen, or a professional collection agency to help Herb out. The debts problem isn't solved, Herb has to earn back six new clients to make up for what Andy lost and Andy still needs to wash that stuff out of his hair.
Roy
Other Notes - Shout out to the scene of Johnny and Venus speaking in unison. Genuinely funny. Walter Jonowitz, who played the immigrant juror, made a career out of playing either Jewish immigrants or Nazis (specifically on "Hogan's Heroes"). That's a unique range
Friday 21 July 2017
Ep. 50 - Hotel Oceanview
July 21, 2017
Writers: Steven Kampmann
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: November 29, 1980
Writers: Steven Kampmann
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: November 29, 1980
***Very Important***
^^^FAMOUSLY FUNNY^^^
This might be the most perfect episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" ever written.
That's not to say the best, or the funniest, but this is the episode that has been the most perfectly constructed. All of the jokes and storylines weave seamlessly into each other. The rhythm and pacing are tight and deliberate. The characters stay very true to themselves. This episode refuses to blink from the ridiculousness of the situations it has put our three lead characters in. And all of that is summed up in the title of the episode, which no one at home would ever see.
Usually, WKRP episode titles are very bland. Last week's episode about Carlson's baby was called "The Baby." The episode before that set in the fictional show was titled "Real Families." This one could have been called "The Business Trip" or "The Dayton Poisoner." But the actual title is a reference to one early joke, that a hotel in VERY landlocked Dayton would be name "Hotel Oceanview" is ridiculous, emphasises that the focus of this episode is the ridiculous.
Jennifer, can you please give the audience some quick exposition as to what our main characters will be up to in this episode?
"You're driving to Dayton, where you'll be staying at the luxurious Hotel Oceanview, and you'll meet with Vicky Von Vicky at 7 pm. Because the Vicky Von Vicky jeans account could make the station a lot of money."
So Mr. Carlson, Andy and Herb drive Herb's Chrysler Cordoba, with rich Corinthian leather, an hour north to Dayton, home of Les' mother and the Dayton Poisoner. Dayton in 1980 had about 200,000 people in it, making it about half the size of Cincinnati. There will be many jokes at the expense of Dayton being dangerous and "nasty after dark" when in reality, this should have been a small town meeting for these three men. It's never really explained why a designer as popular and "major" as Vicky Von Vicky would want to meet in a hotel in Dayton, especially if she is already centred there. Just the allure of the Hotel Oceanview, I suppose.
I'm now going to return to a running theme of this blog: that Andy Travis is not good at his job. He is the Program Director of WKRP, so why should he be at a sales meeting? In reality, those should be two separate departments under the General Manager's control. Even if he is attending because you want to present a show of strength, Herb is correct in saying that, as Sales Manager, he should be delivering the presentation. The reason to bring Andy is because you don't trust that Herb is not going to screw it up. So who screws up the presentation? The guy who loads pornographic and vacation slides onto his own projector, that's who!
The episode really comes to life when Mickey the bartender shows up. He is played by veteran character actor Larry Hankin (as of this writing, he has 172 IMDB.com acting credits) and immediately pushes a cadence of speaking onto the characters that turns the script into poetry. Is "poetry" too much praise for a sit-com script? There is plenty of evidence. Mickey knows Nikki who works for Vicky Von Vicky and where to buy a bulb? At Ricky's. When Mickey tells Arthur the Poisoner writes in verse, he says he's been staying awake "tossing and turning, thinking and churning."
Yet the best piece of poetry in the script in a joke that is only funny because of the rhythm at which it is delivered.
"You're sleazy."
"I'm smart."
"I'm ready."
"Let's go!"
On it's own, that's not funny. But delivered in a perfect staccato by three different actors, the rhythm delivers one of the biggest laughs of the night!
Something else we see for the only time ever on the show is Herb cheating on Lucille! He doesn't end up going all the way through with it, but he was obviously intending to! We can tell that Herb is as surprised his "oozing charm" has worked this well as Andy and Arthur are. He asks Nikki St. Clair "Are you kidding?" and when she answers "No I'm not!" his shocked expression to the other guys looks pretty genuine. Even Herb can't believe that he is finally going to close a deal through sex!
But it doesn't come naturally to him. Looking up at Herb dancing, Nikki asks "Nervous, Tiger?" He quickly answers "No, married." But Nikki is very aggressive and Herb is soon doing what none of us in the audience ever thought, or wanted, to see.
But in the world of Eighties sit-com's, no immoral deed goes unpunished, and we get the biggest punishment for a man who earlier in the episode didn't want to drink a fruity drink because the bartender said it was just for ladies. We have discussed before the gay panic that spreads over most comedies from the late 70's/ early 80's, WKRP in Cincinnati included. It goes back to "Les on a Ledge" in only the third episode. So transsexual panic? In 1980, that's just an immediate punchline.
Nikki was originally "Nick Sinclair, class of '64," male high school football classmate of Herb and Herb's previously jacked up sense of manhood now crumples and dies. Bonner rolls though Herb's emotions of shame, fear and regret slowly and hilariously as he physically rolls into the fetal position. Even though Nikki makes a sound argument why he shouldn't feel this way, Herb is too gripped by his panic to hear any of it. Or maybe it's the huge laugh from the audience that keeps him from hearing it. I'd like to think they are laughing more at Herb's comeuppance than at Nikki's revelation.
Speaking of revelations, in another room, Arthur has no fear of fruity drinks. What he does have is a growing fear of Mickey the bartender and his strange fascination with the Dayton Poisoner. To give Arthur his due, Mickey is acting very suspiciously: the intense, first-name repeating conversation about the Dayton Poisoner, Mickey's seeming insulted that Arthur might not like his Bamboozle, heck, he even brings out a tape of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor! (It's not just WKRP, readers. I also can remember Fantasia!) But the part part that breaks from Three's Company style misunderstand to pure inference of danger is Mickey just pulling out a pre-made drink called the Mickey Special "Get it? Mickey special." I'd be crying like Arthur too!
Our time in Dayton ends with the arrival of Vicky Von Vicky played by '70's TV stalwart Dr. Joyce Brothers. For those too young to remember, she was the Dr. Drew Pinsky of her time - someone who was brought onto talk shows every time a pseudo-psychological opinion was needed. The fact that she is brought in to just play this jeans executive is one more element of the ridiculous.
Since most of the cast is isn't in Dayton, everybody gets their line in the final scene, as each walks through the lobby. Les giving Bailey advice on her love life is a jarring moment! But the final bit of poetry is in both Carlson and Andy's matching answers when asked how the trip went: "She's not going to sue, if that's what you mean."
Roy
Other Notes: The song Herb plays on the coin operated radio is Herb Alpert's "Rise," and not Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" which samples it. A Bamboozle is made with three types of rum, bitters, pineapple juice, grenadine, coconut extract and a slice of mango. Linda Carlson, who played Nikki, was never actually a man.
^^^FAMOUSLY FUNNY^^^
This might be the most perfect episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" ever written.
That's not to say the best, or the funniest, but this is the episode that has been the most perfectly constructed. All of the jokes and storylines weave seamlessly into each other. The rhythm and pacing are tight and deliberate. The characters stay very true to themselves. This episode refuses to blink from the ridiculousness of the situations it has put our three lead characters in. And all of that is summed up in the title of the episode, which no one at home would ever see.
Usually, WKRP episode titles are very bland. Last week's episode about Carlson's baby was called "The Baby." The episode before that set in the fictional show was titled "Real Families." This one could have been called "The Business Trip" or "The Dayton Poisoner." But the actual title is a reference to one early joke, that a hotel in VERY landlocked Dayton would be name "Hotel Oceanview" is ridiculous, emphasises that the focus of this episode is the ridiculous.
Jennifer, can you please give the audience some quick exposition as to what our main characters will be up to in this episode?
"You're driving to Dayton, where you'll be staying at the luxurious Hotel Oceanview, and you'll meet with Vicky Von Vicky at 7 pm. Because the Vicky Von Vicky jeans account could make the station a lot of money."
So Mr. Carlson, Andy and Herb drive Herb's Chrysler Cordoba, with rich Corinthian leather, an hour north to Dayton, home of Les' mother and the Dayton Poisoner. Dayton in 1980 had about 200,000 people in it, making it about half the size of Cincinnati. There will be many jokes at the expense of Dayton being dangerous and "nasty after dark" when in reality, this should have been a small town meeting for these three men. It's never really explained why a designer as popular and "major" as Vicky Von Vicky would want to meet in a hotel in Dayton, especially if she is already centred there. Just the allure of the Hotel Oceanview, I suppose.
I'm now going to return to a running theme of this blog: that Andy Travis is not good at his job. He is the Program Director of WKRP, so why should he be at a sales meeting? In reality, those should be two separate departments under the General Manager's control. Even if he is attending because you want to present a show of strength, Herb is correct in saying that, as Sales Manager, he should be delivering the presentation. The reason to bring Andy is because you don't trust that Herb is not going to screw it up. So who screws up the presentation? The guy who loads pornographic and vacation slides onto his own projector, that's who!
The episode really comes to life when Mickey the bartender shows up. He is played by veteran character actor Larry Hankin (as of this writing, he has 172 IMDB.com acting credits) and immediately pushes a cadence of speaking onto the characters that turns the script into poetry. Is "poetry" too much praise for a sit-com script? There is plenty of evidence. Mickey knows Nikki who works for Vicky Von Vicky and where to buy a bulb? At Ricky's. When Mickey tells Arthur the Poisoner writes in verse, he says he's been staying awake "tossing and turning, thinking and churning."
Yet the best piece of poetry in the script in a joke that is only funny because of the rhythm at which it is delivered.
"You're sleazy."
"I'm smart."
"I'm ready."
"Let's go!"
On it's own, that's not funny. But delivered in a perfect staccato by three different actors, the rhythm delivers one of the biggest laughs of the night!
Something else we see for the only time ever on the show is Herb cheating on Lucille! He doesn't end up going all the way through with it, but he was obviously intending to! We can tell that Herb is as surprised his "oozing charm" has worked this well as Andy and Arthur are. He asks Nikki St. Clair "Are you kidding?" and when she answers "No I'm not!" his shocked expression to the other guys looks pretty genuine. Even Herb can't believe that he is finally going to close a deal through sex!
But it doesn't come naturally to him. Looking up at Herb dancing, Nikki asks "Nervous, Tiger?" He quickly answers "No, married." But Nikki is very aggressive and Herb is soon doing what none of us in the audience ever thought, or wanted, to see.
But in the world of Eighties sit-com's, no immoral deed goes unpunished, and we get the biggest punishment for a man who earlier in the episode didn't want to drink a fruity drink because the bartender said it was just for ladies. We have discussed before the gay panic that spreads over most comedies from the late 70's/ early 80's, WKRP in Cincinnati included. It goes back to "Les on a Ledge" in only the third episode. So transsexual panic? In 1980, that's just an immediate punchline.
Nikki was originally "Nick Sinclair, class of '64," male high school football classmate of Herb and Herb's previously jacked up sense of manhood now crumples and dies. Bonner rolls though Herb's emotions of shame, fear and regret slowly and hilariously as he physically rolls into the fetal position. Even though Nikki makes a sound argument why he shouldn't feel this way, Herb is too gripped by his panic to hear any of it. Or maybe it's the huge laugh from the audience that keeps him from hearing it. I'd like to think they are laughing more at Herb's comeuppance than at Nikki's revelation.
Speaking of revelations, in another room, Arthur has no fear of fruity drinks. What he does have is a growing fear of Mickey the bartender and his strange fascination with the Dayton Poisoner. To give Arthur his due, Mickey is acting very suspiciously: the intense, first-name repeating conversation about the Dayton Poisoner, Mickey's seeming insulted that Arthur might not like his Bamboozle, heck, he even brings out a tape of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor! (It's not just WKRP, readers. I also can remember Fantasia!) But the part part that breaks from Three's Company style misunderstand to pure inference of danger is Mickey just pulling out a pre-made drink called the Mickey Special "Get it? Mickey special." I'd be crying like Arthur too!
Our time in Dayton ends with the arrival of Vicky Von Vicky played by '70's TV stalwart Dr. Joyce Brothers. For those too young to remember, she was the Dr. Drew Pinsky of her time - someone who was brought onto talk shows every time a pseudo-psychological opinion was needed. The fact that she is brought in to just play this jeans executive is one more element of the ridiculous.
Since most of the cast is isn't in Dayton, everybody gets their line in the final scene, as each walks through the lobby. Les giving Bailey advice on her love life is a jarring moment! But the final bit of poetry is in both Carlson and Andy's matching answers when asked how the trip went: "She's not going to sue, if that's what you mean."
Roy
Other Notes: The song Herb plays on the coin operated radio is Herb Alpert's "Rise," and not Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" which samples it. A Bamboozle is made with three types of rum, bitters, pineapple juice, grenadine, coconut extract and a slice of mango. Linda Carlson, who played Nikki, was never actually a man.
Friday 14 July 2017
Ep. 49 - The Baby
July 14, 2017
Writers: Blake Hunter
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: November 22, 1980
For many TV shows, the "new baby" episode is a classic, highlight episode. For "WKRP In Cincinnati," it was a palate cleanser between two genre-stretching and bizarre episodes. Leave it to WKRP to take the then-new idea of a father in the delivery room, and put it in a very conventional sit-com formula.
That formula isn't the zany "get her to the hospital" plot television has used since "I Love Lucy." It is the character study of our familiar cast members' reactions to being in a hospital, combined with Arthur Carlson's self-debate about being in the delivery room, combined with regular, old doctor jokes.
Can you remember a time when just wearing a tracksuit could make you look good? Neither do I, but Andy is casually in control as he proudly takes new-Dad-to-be Mr. Carlson to the hospital while wearing his fancy new tracksuit. And it seems to work too, because he immediately earns the attentions of a candy stripper/wannabe Playboy model and isn't seen again until after the baby is born.
Venus is not confidant. He can't stand the smell of hospitals although he comes to support Carlson. He immediately gets lost. Jennifer and Bailey arrive together and the viewer gets the sense that they were out together when summoned to the hospital. Ever the newsman, Les takes it upon himself to document the momentous event. Herb would rather be in bed but shows up because he thinks it will make Mr. Carlson happy.
Then there is Johnny, for whom the birth of Carlson's baby just seems like an excuse to wander around a hospital. There he meets the elderly Peggy Sue, who, if the viewers are still getting senses of things, might believe will never be leaving the hospital. She wants someone to talk to about the larger issues of life and death and she couldn't be luckier than to run into our "not really" Doctor. It becomes clear that life after life is a topic Johnny has done a lot of thinking about. He discussion of the band in Heaven included musicians you might not associate with Dr. Fever, including Coltrane, Beethoven and... Albert Schweitzer!
If this were a different show, like say "Twin Peaks" or "Lost," I might argue that Fever discussing life after life with the personification of the most famous woman reference by the singer who died "The Day the Music Died" in Buddy Holly might just be a drug-fuelled fantasy, or even evidence that this is really Johnny's own near death experience!! But, it's WKRP, so Venus finds Johnny and shuttles him back to the group.
Looking back now, Arthur Carlson's nervousness about being in the delivery room might seem silly, but they are tied into his concerns about being new parents in their forties. My wife and I were new parents in our forties and I can tell you, many of Arthur's concerns are real. Being "the oldest couple they ever had" in a birthing class can be shocking. The health concerns for a woman in her forties giving birth are real and although everyone involved tries to put the brightest face on them, when those concerns actually arise in a real delivery room, it is very scary and very sobering.
WKRP did a very nice job of not hiding from those real health issues. The detail of a possible Caesarean section is something most "wacky delivery" sit-com episode never even bring up. The far-away stare Gordon Jump delivers when Arthur is being told about Carmen's possible surgery reveals years of love for his wife and a hundred worries. It is a powerful moment.
Powerful moments need to be broken up with... tired doctor jokes. The constant paging of doctors to call everyone except another health care worker is funny due to repetition (they are, in order: call your pool man, call your contractor, call your pilot and call your chiropractor). Watching each characters reactions to the task of following complicated coloured lines throughout the hospital has its charms. The dim witted candy stripper and jokes about the nervous dad are easy marks for these writers.
The best parts of this episode are whenever Arthur and Carmen are together. The two actors create the gentle chemistry of a couple who deeply care about each other, and are happy to have a new adventure together - this time with a little girl who may not grow up to be Patton.
Roy
Other notes - I didn't want to neglect Venus' comment about Andy's jogging: "If I ran home from here, I'd be stopped by the cops seven times." We often think these ideas like "white privilege" are new. Watching something like WKRP shows us they aren't. Actress Darian Mathias never appeared in Playboy. The Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival has been held annually in Wethersfield CT since 1997. He really was a highly regarded organist.
Writers: Blake Hunter
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: November 22, 1980
For many TV shows, the "new baby" episode is a classic, highlight episode. For "WKRP In Cincinnati," it was a palate cleanser between two genre-stretching and bizarre episodes. Leave it to WKRP to take the then-new idea of a father in the delivery room, and put it in a very conventional sit-com formula.
That formula isn't the zany "get her to the hospital" plot television has used since "I Love Lucy." It is the character study of our familiar cast members' reactions to being in a hospital, combined with Arthur Carlson's self-debate about being in the delivery room, combined with regular, old doctor jokes.
Can you remember a time when just wearing a tracksuit could make you look good? Neither do I, but Andy is casually in control as he proudly takes new-Dad-to-be Mr. Carlson to the hospital while wearing his fancy new tracksuit. And it seems to work too, because he immediately earns the attentions of a candy stripper/wannabe Playboy model and isn't seen again until after the baby is born.
Venus is not confidant. He can't stand the smell of hospitals although he comes to support Carlson. He immediately gets lost. Jennifer and Bailey arrive together and the viewer gets the sense that they were out together when summoned to the hospital. Ever the newsman, Les takes it upon himself to document the momentous event. Herb would rather be in bed but shows up because he thinks it will make Mr. Carlson happy.
Then there is Johnny, for whom the birth of Carlson's baby just seems like an excuse to wander around a hospital. There he meets the elderly Peggy Sue, who, if the viewers are still getting senses of things, might believe will never be leaving the hospital. She wants someone to talk to about the larger issues of life and death and she couldn't be luckier than to run into our "not really" Doctor. It becomes clear that life after life is a topic Johnny has done a lot of thinking about. He discussion of the band in Heaven included musicians you might not associate with Dr. Fever, including Coltrane, Beethoven and... Albert Schweitzer!
If this were a different show, like say "Twin Peaks" or "Lost," I might argue that Fever discussing life after life with the personification of the most famous woman reference by the singer who died "The Day the Music Died" in Buddy Holly might just be a drug-fuelled fantasy, or even evidence that this is really Johnny's own near death experience!! But, it's WKRP, so Venus finds Johnny and shuttles him back to the group.
Looking back now, Arthur Carlson's nervousness about being in the delivery room might seem silly, but they are tied into his concerns about being new parents in their forties. My wife and I were new parents in our forties and I can tell you, many of Arthur's concerns are real. Being "the oldest couple they ever had" in a birthing class can be shocking. The health concerns for a woman in her forties giving birth are real and although everyone involved tries to put the brightest face on them, when those concerns actually arise in a real delivery room, it is very scary and very sobering.
WKRP did a very nice job of not hiding from those real health issues. The detail of a possible Caesarean section is something most "wacky delivery" sit-com episode never even bring up. The far-away stare Gordon Jump delivers when Arthur is being told about Carmen's possible surgery reveals years of love for his wife and a hundred worries. It is a powerful moment.
Powerful moments need to be broken up with... tired doctor jokes. The constant paging of doctors to call everyone except another health care worker is funny due to repetition (they are, in order: call your pool man, call your contractor, call your pilot and call your chiropractor). Watching each characters reactions to the task of following complicated coloured lines throughout the hospital has its charms. The dim witted candy stripper and jokes about the nervous dad are easy marks for these writers.
The best parts of this episode are whenever Arthur and Carmen are together. The two actors create the gentle chemistry of a couple who deeply care about each other, and are happy to have a new adventure together - this time with a little girl who may not grow up to be Patton.
Roy
Other notes - I didn't want to neglect Venus' comment about Andy's jogging: "If I ran home from here, I'd be stopped by the cops seven times." We often think these ideas like "white privilege" are new. Watching something like WKRP shows us they aren't. Actress Darian Mathias never appeared in Playboy. The Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival has been held annually in Wethersfield CT since 1997. He really was a highly regarded organist.
Monday 3 July 2017
Ep. 48 - Real Families
July 3, 2017
Writer: Peter Torokvei
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: November 15, 1980
Writer: Peter Torokvei
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: November 15, 1980
*** Very Important ***
Thanks for reading the "Real Life Blog" in which we examine the banality of everyday living and see if we can make it seem seedy and illicit!
No, wait! Don't stop reading yet! You are actually reading the right blog "WKRP Re-Lived!" in which we look way too deeply into the significance of an early 80's sit-com and see how it relates to today. And wow, does this episode relate to television today!
The episode might be as remembered for its fake-out opening, which made many original viewers change the channel when it didn't look like WKRP was starting up, as it is for its "mockumentary" style (that term didn't even exist at this time. "This is Spinal Tap" wouldn't be released for another four years!). What ought to be remembered is its criticism of the public's hunger for entertainment and scandal and television's decent into feeding it to them.
Two very popular shows at the time of this episode were "Real People" and "That's Incredible!" Both showed filmed clips of regular American's with extraordinary or ridiculous hobbies or talents. I watched both shows with my family as a kid, and I clearly remember on "Real People" a woman who was so patriotic, she wore nothing but red, white and blue. Everything in her home, down to the wallpaper, was festooned with the American flag. But the real reason I remember her is that, whenever she heard "The Star-Spangled Banner," she would stop and stand with her hand on her heart. The producers then filmed her on the side of a busy highway, standing patriotically, as the song played on her car radio. I remember at the time, even as a 10 year old boy, thinking "That's Crazy! She's going to get killed or get somebody else killed. Who does that?" But I also thought "Why is the National Anthem playing on the radio? How did they know that was going to happen? THIS HAS BEEN A SET UP!"
Remember, this is a time before the internet, when eccentric people couldn't easily meet other eccentric people to wallow in their eccentricities. Nobody knew exactly how their neighbours really lived, so there was a pent-up curiosity that these shows catered to. Also, and this is simply my own experience, people love to be judgy. Talking about how bad "those people" are goes back much further than television.
So "Real Families" combines these two basic wants: seeing how people really live, and then judging them for it. All you need is some dolt willing to go under such scrutiny.
"That's right, Elaine. This is Herb and Lucile Tarlek and their two children."
Let's start with Herb's letter to the show. "I am edified by your broadcast presentation and the direction of same in the entire field of television" ending with "I know the time difference can be a hassle, so call anytime." If this program were real, the producers would have been licking their lips at a chance to get this family on their show! It starts with the most pretentious opening line, using words no "Average Joe" (especially Herb) would really use. It finishes off with the tip-off that this guy is so unsophisticated, he thinks a three-hour time difference would confuse a Hollywood producer. This is a guys with something to hide!
Before we go into that too far, I want to mention the "Real Families" opening, in which the host Phil updates us on last week's guest, Dr. Feltner, who, because of the show's "journalism" was arrested for keeping Demerol in his garage. This piece would have set the audience up for the kind of attack Herb was about to face, but it was cut from syndication. Fortunately, the box set restores it.
So what does it take to start to uncover all of the Tarleks' hidden shames? Just showing up one day early. By arriving on Sunday, the show immediately discovers 1) unattended children answering the door to strangers (with cameras), 2) children watching loud TV on their own, 3) a messy house, 4) a boy playing with dolls and 5) Herb was drinking in bed last night. Lucille is so desperate to appear "normal" she comes up with something she thinks other "normal" families would do on a Sunday morning: go to church.
I don't know if the subsequent car chase was actually filmed in Cincinnati (I don't think it was) because it could really be any suburban neighbourhood, but this is the first time it is dawning on Herb that he won't be able to "outrun" these Hollywood producers. His scheming and hustling might work in the sleazier parts of Cincinnati, but it's not going to be enough against these guys. The chase is actually a hilarious scene, as hosts Phil and Elaine narrate Herb's obviously growing desperation; so much so that he just stops at the first religious looking building he can find (How could Herb, a life-long Cincy resident, to not even know where one church is in his own neighbourhood).
Let's talk about Edie McClurg! This would be her last appearance on WKRP but she brings a ton of heart to what could be a one-note ditzy character. McClurg was a founding member of the famous improv group, the Groundlings (thanks, IMDB!) so this episode's improvisational format suits her to a tee. Lucille thinking she needs to explain how shopping works is funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Later, when she admits her life hasn't turned out the way she had hoped, she is not shamed the way the hosts wants her to be shamed. Lucille is defiant and proud of the life she and Herb have built. McClurg brings all of that to Lucille and WKRP is forever in her debt.
Another little side note - "WKRP in Cincinnati's" time slot was often up against "Little House on the Praire." Having Lucille use "Little House" as the example of a wholesome, family show she would let her children watch, in which "every week a house burns down or someone goes blind" contrasts nicely against the "counter-cultural" WKRP. Which would YOU rather have your kids watch?
Here's something only a blog would ever say: Is Herb Tarlek the WKRP MacBeth? (Would that make Lucille Lady MacBeth?) The answer is probably no, except for this: Herb's fatal flaw is his hubris. He thinks he will always be able to con and hustle his way out of every situation. That's what makes it so much fun to watch him fail! With "Real Families," Herb is betting he can hustle a bunch of Hollywood producers, and by extension all of America, into believing he is a really great guy. But the hustle that might work on stereo shops in Cincinnati is not going to work on the bigger scale.
Convincing literally everyone at the station (Andy, Venus, Bailey, Les, Johnny, Mr. Carlson, Jennifer and eventually his own daughter) to repeat the same phrase, and not think the producers wouldn't notice is such a small time move. The ironic thing is that "hard worker, loyal husband and all around fine person" is a good description of Herb: he does work hard at hustling, just not at selling radio airtime, to always be supportive and available for his wife and family. He may not be a Great person, but Herb is a Fine person. Certainly not the sort of person who would torture ducks.
Call it the Karma of the Ducks that Herb practically has to dance on a hot plate himself to explain away his SPCA condemned behaviour, then follow it up with a call back to the "Turkeys Away" episode. The heat is slowly but steadily being turned up on Herb Tarlek, until he finally cracks! And when he does, and he stops hustle and just says the real things that are on his mind, he comes across at his best, protecting and loving his family by just admitting... they're not perfect!
What he says in his blow up is the whole point of the show: "The Truth? You mean, what's real?" Why are those two different questions? Even the title of the show is a falsehood. Nobody would watch a show about REAL families. The need to be crazy, interesting, illicit families to have viewers tune in. "My life is boring!" Most people's lives are boring! There are always more people in the audience than there are on the stage. But somehow people have been lead to believe that boring is not good enough; that they have failed because they are not up on the stage for everyone to applaud. Here is the hubris of Herb: he proclaims this as a revelation; something he figured out. But later, when they are flown out to California to appear on the stage, the host tells him and the audience point blank "almost anybody will do almost anything to get their picture on television." The producers have known this all along.
The same is even truer in a world with 1000 cable channels and unlimited YouTube. Someone can even write a blog about a 35 year old TV show and have people worldwide read it (seriously). But perhaps the most poignant thing Herb says to our times is "Nothing on the tube is Real! Not even the news!"
We tend to look back today to the late 70's and early '80's with nostalgia about the news industry. There were stalwarts of journalism like Walter Kronkite and Knowlton Nash who would only be concerned with bringing us the facts of the world without regard for ratings. It was a time when every major city had multiple newspapers with reporters who dug for the facts rather than repeat press releases. But was that really the case? Maybe we're just more aware of the stagecraft now than we were back then. Maybe Herb's revelation is one the general public is only starting to have now, while the "producers" have known the truth the whole time.
In the end, Herb gave Herb jr. his doll back, because it was more important for his son to be happy than to appear "normal." That's the truth.
Roy
Other Notes - This might already be the longest blog I've written and I didn't even get into the other characters at the station! Especially: Johnny's piece about Herb being Nitchzie, Bailey being the person who couldn't remember her lines, Carlson and Herb being grilled. Next week's family "He's a cuban bandleader and, she says, she's an average, redheaded housewife" is obviously a reference to "I Love Lucy."
Thanks for reading the "Real Life Blog" in which we examine the banality of everyday living and see if we can make it seem seedy and illicit!
No, wait! Don't stop reading yet! You are actually reading the right blog "WKRP Re-Lived!" in which we look way too deeply into the significance of an early 80's sit-com and see how it relates to today. And wow, does this episode relate to television today!
The episode might be as remembered for its fake-out opening, which made many original viewers change the channel when it didn't look like WKRP was starting up, as it is for its "mockumentary" style (that term didn't even exist at this time. "This is Spinal Tap" wouldn't be released for another four years!). What ought to be remembered is its criticism of the public's hunger for entertainment and scandal and television's decent into feeding it to them.
Two very popular shows at the time of this episode were "Real People" and "That's Incredible!" Both showed filmed clips of regular American's with extraordinary or ridiculous hobbies or talents. I watched both shows with my family as a kid, and I clearly remember on "Real People" a woman who was so patriotic, she wore nothing but red, white and blue. Everything in her home, down to the wallpaper, was festooned with the American flag. But the real reason I remember her is that, whenever she heard "The Star-Spangled Banner," she would stop and stand with her hand on her heart. The producers then filmed her on the side of a busy highway, standing patriotically, as the song played on her car radio. I remember at the time, even as a 10 year old boy, thinking "That's Crazy! She's going to get killed or get somebody else killed. Who does that?" But I also thought "Why is the National Anthem playing on the radio? How did they know that was going to happen? THIS HAS BEEN A SET UP!"
Remember, this is a time before the internet, when eccentric people couldn't easily meet other eccentric people to wallow in their eccentricities. Nobody knew exactly how their neighbours really lived, so there was a pent-up curiosity that these shows catered to. Also, and this is simply my own experience, people love to be judgy. Talking about how bad "those people" are goes back much further than television.
So "Real Families" combines these two basic wants: seeing how people really live, and then judging them for it. All you need is some dolt willing to go under such scrutiny.
"That's right, Elaine. This is Herb and Lucile Tarlek and their two children."
Let's start with Herb's letter to the show. "I am edified by your broadcast presentation and the direction of same in the entire field of television" ending with "I know the time difference can be a hassle, so call anytime." If this program were real, the producers would have been licking their lips at a chance to get this family on their show! It starts with the most pretentious opening line, using words no "Average Joe" (especially Herb) would really use. It finishes off with the tip-off that this guy is so unsophisticated, he thinks a three-hour time difference would confuse a Hollywood producer. This is a guys with something to hide!
Before we go into that too far, I want to mention the "Real Families" opening, in which the host Phil updates us on last week's guest, Dr. Feltner, who, because of the show's "journalism" was arrested for keeping Demerol in his garage. This piece would have set the audience up for the kind of attack Herb was about to face, but it was cut from syndication. Fortunately, the box set restores it.
So what does it take to start to uncover all of the Tarleks' hidden shames? Just showing up one day early. By arriving on Sunday, the show immediately discovers 1) unattended children answering the door to strangers (with cameras), 2) children watching loud TV on their own, 3) a messy house, 4) a boy playing with dolls and 5) Herb was drinking in bed last night. Lucille is so desperate to appear "normal" she comes up with something she thinks other "normal" families would do on a Sunday morning: go to church.
I don't know if the subsequent car chase was actually filmed in Cincinnati (I don't think it was) because it could really be any suburban neighbourhood, but this is the first time it is dawning on Herb that he won't be able to "outrun" these Hollywood producers. His scheming and hustling might work in the sleazier parts of Cincinnati, but it's not going to be enough against these guys. The chase is actually a hilarious scene, as hosts Phil and Elaine narrate Herb's obviously growing desperation; so much so that he just stops at the first religious looking building he can find (How could Herb, a life-long Cincy resident, to not even know where one church is in his own neighbourhood).
Let's talk about Edie McClurg! This would be her last appearance on WKRP but she brings a ton of heart to what could be a one-note ditzy character. McClurg was a founding member of the famous improv group, the Groundlings (thanks, IMDB!) so this episode's improvisational format suits her to a tee. Lucille thinking she needs to explain how shopping works is funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Later, when she admits her life hasn't turned out the way she had hoped, she is not shamed the way the hosts wants her to be shamed. Lucille is defiant and proud of the life she and Herb have built. McClurg brings all of that to Lucille and WKRP is forever in her debt.
Another little side note - "WKRP in Cincinnati's" time slot was often up against "Little House on the Praire." Having Lucille use "Little House" as the example of a wholesome, family show she would let her children watch, in which "every week a house burns down or someone goes blind" contrasts nicely against the "counter-cultural" WKRP. Which would YOU rather have your kids watch?
Here's something only a blog would ever say: Is Herb Tarlek the WKRP MacBeth? (Would that make Lucille Lady MacBeth?) The answer is probably no, except for this: Herb's fatal flaw is his hubris. He thinks he will always be able to con and hustle his way out of every situation. That's what makes it so much fun to watch him fail! With "Real Families," Herb is betting he can hustle a bunch of Hollywood producers, and by extension all of America, into believing he is a really great guy. But the hustle that might work on stereo shops in Cincinnati is not going to work on the bigger scale.
Convincing literally everyone at the station (Andy, Venus, Bailey, Les, Johnny, Mr. Carlson, Jennifer and eventually his own daughter) to repeat the same phrase, and not think the producers wouldn't notice is such a small time move. The ironic thing is that "hard worker, loyal husband and all around fine person" is a good description of Herb: he does work hard at hustling, just not at selling radio airtime, to always be supportive and available for his wife and family. He may not be a Great person, but Herb is a Fine person. Certainly not the sort of person who would torture ducks.
Call it the Karma of the Ducks that Herb practically has to dance on a hot plate himself to explain away his SPCA condemned behaviour, then follow it up with a call back to the "Turkeys Away" episode. The heat is slowly but steadily being turned up on Herb Tarlek, until he finally cracks! And when he does, and he stops hustle and just says the real things that are on his mind, he comes across at his best, protecting and loving his family by just admitting... they're not perfect!
What he says in his blow up is the whole point of the show: "The Truth? You mean, what's real?" Why are those two different questions? Even the title of the show is a falsehood. Nobody would watch a show about REAL families. The need to be crazy, interesting, illicit families to have viewers tune in. "My life is boring!" Most people's lives are boring! There are always more people in the audience than there are on the stage. But somehow people have been lead to believe that boring is not good enough; that they have failed because they are not up on the stage for everyone to applaud. Here is the hubris of Herb: he proclaims this as a revelation; something he figured out. But later, when they are flown out to California to appear on the stage, the host tells him and the audience point blank "almost anybody will do almost anything to get their picture on television." The producers have known this all along.
The same is even truer in a world with 1000 cable channels and unlimited YouTube. Someone can even write a blog about a 35 year old TV show and have people worldwide read it (seriously). But perhaps the most poignant thing Herb says to our times is "Nothing on the tube is Real! Not even the news!"
We tend to look back today to the late 70's and early '80's with nostalgia about the news industry. There were stalwarts of journalism like Walter Kronkite and Knowlton Nash who would only be concerned with bringing us the facts of the world without regard for ratings. It was a time when every major city had multiple newspapers with reporters who dug for the facts rather than repeat press releases. But was that really the case? Maybe we're just more aware of the stagecraft now than we were back then. Maybe Herb's revelation is one the general public is only starting to have now, while the "producers" have known the truth the whole time.
In the end, Herb gave Herb jr. his doll back, because it was more important for his son to be happy than to appear "normal." That's the truth.
Roy
Other Notes - This might already be the longest blog I've written and I didn't even get into the other characters at the station! Especially: Johnny's piece about Herb being Nitchzie, Bailey being the person who couldn't remember her lines, Carlson and Herb being grilled. Next week's family "He's a cuban bandleader and, she says, she's an average, redheaded housewife" is obviously a reference to "I Love Lucy."
Monday 12 June 2017
Ep. 47 - Jennifer Moves
June 9, 2017
Writers: Hugh Wilson
Director: Linda Day
Original Air Date: November 8, 1980
The wonderful website TVTropes.org defines a Back Door Pilot as an "Episode in which the show's primary characters take a back seat to secondary or, more likely, brand new characters in order to test the waters for a separate show." "Jennifer Moves" is the closest WKRP ever came to trying a Back Door Pilot of its own.
Let's introduce the characters from "Jennifer in Landersville": Jennifer Marlowe is the beautiful, unexplainably wealthy single woman who moves from the hustle and bustle of the Big City (in this case, Cincinnati) to relax among the treelined streets of Landersville. Ken and Dottie are the completely suburbanized married couple next door, who dress alike and talk alike, but each have their own secrets. Does Ken have a wandering eye, and if so, would it wander towards Jennifer? Is Dottie more jealous and manipulative than she lets on? We can find out after we meet Mr. Fergood, another neighbour with a macabre sense of humour and perhaps a well-placed mistrust of local government. Also this quiet neighbourhood may be hiding a sex pervert! And is Jennifer's new house actually... haunted?
Of course, this never became a real show and I can find no actual evidence that this was the intention, but this episode certainly feel this way. This "show" has the same feel as the most ridiculous episodes of WKRP, most notably "Fish Story" in which character development is pushed aside for laughs. This is an episode with a runaway piano and an exploding princess phone, for goodness sake! Written by Hugh Wilson, who famously took his name off of the "Fish Story" episode, maybe he finally was relaxing into allowing his show to go crazy every so often.
Okay, so much for the show that never was. What about the show that is here?
Like episodes from the first season, "Jennifer Moves" employs a great deal more "theatre of the mind" pieces than in season two. Herb's growing frustration at having to move a piano by himself feeds seamlessly into his monologue describing how he "lost it;" the piano getting away from him and rolling down the hill. Frank Bonner once again pulls both humour and sympathy from his graphic description of chasing a piano for two blocks. When the policeman comes in at the end to read his report of the piano finally "destroying a hatchback," this theatre piece is fully wrapped up.
However, it is Jennifer's rendition of the events of her first evening in the house to Les at the very end of this episode that is the high point of its "theatre of the mind." Loni Anderson tells the story like a girl around a campfire, spinning a ghost story in the best way possible to prevent her friends from getting a good night's sleep. Her tale draws in more than Les, but Herb, Johnny and Andy as well; as drawn in as Jennifer was to the mysterious light beneath the door. But when the mystery is finally revealed, Herb and Les are the only ones gullible enough remaining to hear how things end.
This is a wonderful episode to show how stupid Herb Tarlek is! There is what I just spoke about with him listening to the ghost story even after it's revealed to be a hoax (did I need to say "Spoiler"?). At the beginning of the episode, Jennifer gives him the choice of moving the kitchen utensils or a piano. He gives it a great deal of thought (while oblivious to Les' murderous rage) before deciding on moving the heaviest, most awkward item anyone ever moves rather than a box of spoons. Equally, he can't understand why nobody else will help him! (until Ken, under Jennifer's spell, agrees to also move a piano.)
Ken and Dottie are an excellent commentary of the veneer of suburbia, a subject the show tackles head on in the next episode. They appear completely in sync, dressing alike and watching the same TV shows at the same time ever week. But it's all a facade when the mere presence of a beautiful woman next door can unravel an eleven-year marriage in twenty minutes. She's been suspicious for years (since the country club party). Only Jennifer, having a lifetime of experience dealing with men like Ken, will be able to fix everything.
Mr. Fergood revels in this juxtaposition, delighting in the idea of unveiling the corruption in city government. The audience gets the sense he doesn't much care about the apartment building going up; he just want to see the government burn!
One final thought: this is the first episode in which WKRP takes on the phone company. Jennifer's question about the phone company's lack of customer service receives an answer that is business school 101: "It's like that because we don't have any competition." In a world full of competing mobile phone companies, it's difficult to remember a time when all of the U.S. was wired together by one giant monopoly. The Bell Company was broken up into the "Baby Bells" in January 1982, so when this (and future telephone-centric episodes aired) the issue of the Bell monopoly was very front of mind. It could be traumatic, even it was "just a phone."
Roy
Other notes: Although I don't believe there really is a Landersville, "across the river in Landersville" would indicate the town is across the border in Kentucky. Is there another kind of pervert besides a "sex pervert?"
To celebrate completing two season's worth of blogs, I purchased the Kindle edition of Michael B. Kassel's book "America's Favorite Radio Station: WKRP in Cincinnati" (1993). I believe it is the only book to deal exclusively with the back stage story of this show. Although it has been out of print for some time, the e-book is still available and it contains interviews with all of the major cast (including Gordon Jump) and crew members, such as directors and creator Hugh Wilson himself.
Writers: Hugh Wilson
Director: Linda Day
Original Air Date: November 8, 1980
The wonderful website TVTropes.org defines a Back Door Pilot as an "Episode in which the show's primary characters take a back seat to secondary or, more likely, brand new characters in order to test the waters for a separate show." "Jennifer Moves" is the closest WKRP ever came to trying a Back Door Pilot of its own.
Let's introduce the characters from "Jennifer in Landersville": Jennifer Marlowe is the beautiful, unexplainably wealthy single woman who moves from the hustle and bustle of the Big City (in this case, Cincinnati) to relax among the treelined streets of Landersville. Ken and Dottie are the completely suburbanized married couple next door, who dress alike and talk alike, but each have their own secrets. Does Ken have a wandering eye, and if so, would it wander towards Jennifer? Is Dottie more jealous and manipulative than she lets on? We can find out after we meet Mr. Fergood, another neighbour with a macabre sense of humour and perhaps a well-placed mistrust of local government. Also this quiet neighbourhood may be hiding a sex pervert! And is Jennifer's new house actually... haunted?
Of course, this never became a real show and I can find no actual evidence that this was the intention, but this episode certainly feel this way. This "show" has the same feel as the most ridiculous episodes of WKRP, most notably "Fish Story" in which character development is pushed aside for laughs. This is an episode with a runaway piano and an exploding princess phone, for goodness sake! Written by Hugh Wilson, who famously took his name off of the "Fish Story" episode, maybe he finally was relaxing into allowing his show to go crazy every so often.
Okay, so much for the show that never was. What about the show that is here?
Like episodes from the first season, "Jennifer Moves" employs a great deal more "theatre of the mind" pieces than in season two. Herb's growing frustration at having to move a piano by himself feeds seamlessly into his monologue describing how he "lost it;" the piano getting away from him and rolling down the hill. Frank Bonner once again pulls both humour and sympathy from his graphic description of chasing a piano for two blocks. When the policeman comes in at the end to read his report of the piano finally "destroying a hatchback," this theatre piece is fully wrapped up.
However, it is Jennifer's rendition of the events of her first evening in the house to Les at the very end of this episode that is the high point of its "theatre of the mind." Loni Anderson tells the story like a girl around a campfire, spinning a ghost story in the best way possible to prevent her friends from getting a good night's sleep. Her tale draws in more than Les, but Herb, Johnny and Andy as well; as drawn in as Jennifer was to the mysterious light beneath the door. But when the mystery is finally revealed, Herb and Les are the only ones gullible enough remaining to hear how things end.
This is a wonderful episode to show how stupid Herb Tarlek is! There is what I just spoke about with him listening to the ghost story even after it's revealed to be a hoax (did I need to say "Spoiler"?). At the beginning of the episode, Jennifer gives him the choice of moving the kitchen utensils or a piano. He gives it a great deal of thought (while oblivious to Les' murderous rage) before deciding on moving the heaviest, most awkward item anyone ever moves rather than a box of spoons. Equally, he can't understand why nobody else will help him! (until Ken, under Jennifer's spell, agrees to also move a piano.)
Ken and Dottie are an excellent commentary of the veneer of suburbia, a subject the show tackles head on in the next episode. They appear completely in sync, dressing alike and watching the same TV shows at the same time ever week. But it's all a facade when the mere presence of a beautiful woman next door can unravel an eleven-year marriage in twenty minutes. She's been suspicious for years (since the country club party). Only Jennifer, having a lifetime of experience dealing with men like Ken, will be able to fix everything.
Mr. Fergood revels in this juxtaposition, delighting in the idea of unveiling the corruption in city government. The audience gets the sense he doesn't much care about the apartment building going up; he just want to see the government burn!
One final thought: this is the first episode in which WKRP takes on the phone company. Jennifer's question about the phone company's lack of customer service receives an answer that is business school 101: "It's like that because we don't have any competition." In a world full of competing mobile phone companies, it's difficult to remember a time when all of the U.S. was wired together by one giant monopoly. The Bell Company was broken up into the "Baby Bells" in January 1982, so when this (and future telephone-centric episodes aired) the issue of the Bell monopoly was very front of mind. It could be traumatic, even it was "just a phone."
Roy
Other notes: Although I don't believe there really is a Landersville, "across the river in Landersville" would indicate the town is across the border in Kentucky. Is there another kind of pervert besides a "sex pervert?"
To celebrate completing two season's worth of blogs, I purchased the Kindle edition of Michael B. Kassel's book "America's Favorite Radio Station: WKRP in Cincinnati" (1993). I believe it is the only book to deal exclusively with the back stage story of this show. Although it has been out of print for some time, the e-book is still available and it contains interviews with all of the major cast (including Gordon Jump) and crew members, such as directors and creator Hugh Wilson himself.
Friday 26 May 2017
Ep.46 - The Airplane Show
May 26, 2017
Writers: Michael Fairman and Richard Sanders
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: March 31, 1980
Welcome to Season Three of "WKRP in Cincinnati" which begins in, of all places... Cincinnati!
You may also have noticed this episode aired a full seven months since season two ended. Both of these things happened as a results of a Actors' Strike in Hollywood in the summer of 1980. Actors' wanted a piece of the newly emerging "videocassette" revenue stream, among other things. All TV and movie production went into hiatus. Actors were not allowed to work by their union.
But writers and film crews could still work. So Richard Sanders, who played Les Nesman, and his writing partner Michael Fairman (who is also an actor - he played the shopkeeper in the "Turkey's Away" episode as well as Buddy) got special permission to film their scenes for this episode in Cincinnati because they were also the writers. That also explains why the rest of the cast is filmed in just two sets (bullpen and control room) tightly and quickly. The strike ended October 25 and this episode was on the air on November 1st!
Oddly, the final episode of season two was also written by Sanders and Fairman and both episodes place a certain focus on needing therapy. I counted six separate occasions in this episode in which psychological therapy is either suggested for Les, or he is outright called crazy. When I look back at episodes written by Richard Sanders, I can't really tell how he feels about his own character. I think he thinks Les needs help and that he could do something "crazy" at any moment.
I see Les more as a frustrated "doer." He wants to get things done and solve problems. He sees WPIG getting ahead of WKRP in traffic reporting and he wants to DO something about it. He's frustrated management hasn't gotten him the helicopter they promised him two years ago. So he solves the problem by getting a crop duster to fly him over the city. Problem solved, right?
It's strange and random to see where Les applies this "talent." He's prepared to stand up against his bosses to put his career and life in danger. But he can't stand up to pilot Buddy over paying for a cup of coffee.
Buddy is kinda crazy too, and not just because he threatens to take Les and himself down in a murder/suicide pact. On one hand, he criticizes the government, saying "the President's plan of a controlled recession seems to have gotten out of hand" (which is a great line to just drop into conversation) but on the other hand he is fiercely patriotic and proud of the role he played in the war.
One of the most impressive shots ever filmed on this show is from Les' point of view, in which, as Les approaches the airplane on Veteran's Day, he is wiping his glasses. Then we see as he puts them back on, the airplane, with Buddy in full dress uniform, come into focus. It literally refocuses Buddy from a greedy crop duster to a war hero, literally in Les' eyes. That must have been a stage direction in the script as Rod Daniel, in the many WKRP episode he has directed, has never made another shot like that.
The bulk of the show is taken up with the fact that Buddy is upset nobody is remembering Veteran's Day (and it is "Veteran's Day" in November in the US) and his efforts to remind the people of Cincinnati. He takes off to the tune of The Who's "Had Enough" featuring the line "I've had enough of being nice." As he is buzzing the city, we take in a lot of the sites in Cincinnati, including Riverfront Stadium and Fountain Square. This will be the most we ever see of the city outside of the title sequence, but from what I've been able to learn, the producers had been hoping to show more of the city at a later time because Cincinnati had been so supportive of the show.
The rest of the WRKP staff comes together to help Buddy (and save Les' life) when Johnny calls them all in to plan a parade. What's most interesting here for us is a glimpse into what the staff does on a day off of work just by what they're wearing. Andy was playing football for the Baptists. Jennifer was horseback riding. Bailey was jogging, maybe? Herb was barbecuing with his family in his Kiss the Cook apron (which will get a surprising amount of play in upcoming episodes). Venus is a Boy Scout leader and Mr. Carlson is just in a casual sweater. Johnny is of course working.
The episode ends with Mr. Carlson commenting on a city that blew their car horns to save a crazy newsman and honour its veterans, and that would breed a group of people like the WKRP staff... "Strange town, Cincinnati."
Roy
Other Notes: The show makes a lot of fun that the name has changed to Veteran's Day from Armistice Day, but that happened back in 1954. Armed Forces Day is in May. Because of the Actor's Strike, it was difficult to find anybody to go up in the plane who looked like Les, so all of those stunts actually do feature Richard Sanders flying over the city! Interesting the producers were willing to feature a Who song so prominently less than a year after the concert tragedy. At one point it is said that WKRP has "2000 listeners, tops." The population of Cincinnati in 1980 was 385,000. That is less that 1/2 of 1%!
Writers: Michael Fairman and Richard Sanders
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: March 31, 1980
Welcome to Season Three of "WKRP in Cincinnati" which begins in, of all places... Cincinnati!
You may also have noticed this episode aired a full seven months since season two ended. Both of these things happened as a results of a Actors' Strike in Hollywood in the summer of 1980. Actors' wanted a piece of the newly emerging "videocassette" revenue stream, among other things. All TV and movie production went into hiatus. Actors were not allowed to work by their union.
But writers and film crews could still work. So Richard Sanders, who played Les Nesman, and his writing partner Michael Fairman (who is also an actor - he played the shopkeeper in the "Turkey's Away" episode as well as Buddy) got special permission to film their scenes for this episode in Cincinnati because they were also the writers. That also explains why the rest of the cast is filmed in just two sets (bullpen and control room) tightly and quickly. The strike ended October 25 and this episode was on the air on November 1st!
Oddly, the final episode of season two was also written by Sanders and Fairman and both episodes place a certain focus on needing therapy. I counted six separate occasions in this episode in which psychological therapy is either suggested for Les, or he is outright called crazy. When I look back at episodes written by Richard Sanders, I can't really tell how he feels about his own character. I think he thinks Les needs help and that he could do something "crazy" at any moment.
I see Les more as a frustrated "doer." He wants to get things done and solve problems. He sees WPIG getting ahead of WKRP in traffic reporting and he wants to DO something about it. He's frustrated management hasn't gotten him the helicopter they promised him two years ago. So he solves the problem by getting a crop duster to fly him over the city. Problem solved, right?
It's strange and random to see where Les applies this "talent." He's prepared to stand up against his bosses to put his career and life in danger. But he can't stand up to pilot Buddy over paying for a cup of coffee.
Buddy is kinda crazy too, and not just because he threatens to take Les and himself down in a murder/suicide pact. On one hand, he criticizes the government, saying "the President's plan of a controlled recession seems to have gotten out of hand" (which is a great line to just drop into conversation) but on the other hand he is fiercely patriotic and proud of the role he played in the war.
One of the most impressive shots ever filmed on this show is from Les' point of view, in which, as Les approaches the airplane on Veteran's Day, he is wiping his glasses. Then we see as he puts them back on, the airplane, with Buddy in full dress uniform, come into focus. It literally refocuses Buddy from a greedy crop duster to a war hero, literally in Les' eyes. That must have been a stage direction in the script as Rod Daniel, in the many WKRP episode he has directed, has never made another shot like that.
The bulk of the show is taken up with the fact that Buddy is upset nobody is remembering Veteran's Day (and it is "Veteran's Day" in November in the US) and his efforts to remind the people of Cincinnati. He takes off to the tune of The Who's "Had Enough" featuring the line "I've had enough of being nice." As he is buzzing the city, we take in a lot of the sites in Cincinnati, including Riverfront Stadium and Fountain Square. This will be the most we ever see of the city outside of the title sequence, but from what I've been able to learn, the producers had been hoping to show more of the city at a later time because Cincinnati had been so supportive of the show.
The rest of the WRKP staff comes together to help Buddy (and save Les' life) when Johnny calls them all in to plan a parade. What's most interesting here for us is a glimpse into what the staff does on a day off of work just by what they're wearing. Andy was playing football for the Baptists. Jennifer was horseback riding. Bailey was jogging, maybe? Herb was barbecuing with his family in his Kiss the Cook apron (which will get a surprising amount of play in upcoming episodes). Venus is a Boy Scout leader and Mr. Carlson is just in a casual sweater. Johnny is of course working.
The episode ends with Mr. Carlson commenting on a city that blew their car horns to save a crazy newsman and honour its veterans, and that would breed a group of people like the WKRP staff... "Strange town, Cincinnati."
Roy
Other Notes: The show makes a lot of fun that the name has changed to Veteran's Day from Armistice Day, but that happened back in 1954. Armed Forces Day is in May. Because of the Actor's Strike, it was difficult to find anybody to go up in the plane who looked like Les, so all of those stunts actually do feature Richard Sanders flying over the city! Interesting the producers were willing to feature a Who song so prominently less than a year after the concert tragedy. At one point it is said that WKRP has "2000 listeners, tops." The population of Cincinnati in 1980 was 385,000. That is less that 1/2 of 1%!
Friday 19 May 2017
Bonus Feature -"Do My Eyes Say Yes?"
May 19, 2017
We have come to the end of the Second Season of "WKRP in Cincinnati," so let's celebrate by taking a look at Loni Anderson. (Does that sound right? That doesn't quite sound right). One of the Bonus Features of the boxset is the featurette "Do My Eyes Say Yes" that looks a little deeper into the phenomena that was Loni Anderson/Jennifer Marlow in 1980. This featurette first appeared in the Season One WKRP box set that was released in 2007 ("The Black Box"). That's why all of the clips used come exclusively from Season One.
Should I read anything into it that the first full minute of this featurette plays before they ever talk to Loni Anderson? Or that this minute includes Frank Bonner, Tim Reid and Hugh Wilson all mentioning how sexy she is, while the first words Anderson uses to discuss her character are "really intelligent woman"?
What is interesting is seeing how much Frank Bonner views his own character of Herb through his relationship to Jennifer. Now, of course, this is a clip about Jennifer, so it's not surprising, but Anderson talks about the real friendship between the two characters. In fact, I think we see that friendship more in the second season than the first. Looking at a very funny reel of clips in which Jennifer shoots Herb down, it becomes apparent that his hitting on her is just a running joke between colleagues. The second season Ep. 38 "Put Up or Shut Up" confirms this.
There's also quite a bit of discussion on which characters Jennifer kissed. Anderson confirms that Johnny is a good kisser, something I'm sure Bailey would like to know.
Tim Reid doesn't say "Jennifer" when he talks about her being "no dumb blonde." He says Loni Anderson is no dumb blonde and that's the point this piece tries to make. Jennifer cared about the staff and relished being the face of the station. She knew she could handle anybody and we are left with the impression that Loni was the same way.
This is just a fun little extra that doesn't add much to our understanding of the character. As I said of the "Fish Story" featureete at the end of Season One, I would have much preferred to get a commentary track instead.
The featurette does concludes with a wonderful little anecdote from Anderson of how she would get drinks sent to her in a bar when she was wearing the blonde wig from a play, but not when she wore her naturally brown hair and how Hugh Wilson took this story and worked it into the Ep. 15 "Never Leave Me Lucille" episode.
Roy
Note: To add more value to this blog, I am going to go back through and make a note at the top, stating if this is a "Very Important" or "Famously Funny" episode. Some might be both; most will be neither.
"Very Important" will mean it is important to the development of the overall story or characters. It does not necessarily mean it tackles an important topic. They are the episodes that I imagine the writers, producers and actors are most proud of.
"Famously Funny" will mean the biggest laughs of the series. These episodes will have the most quoted lines and craziest scenes.
I don't intent to rank the shows but to give a quick guide to those people just wanting to check out a few episodes. The choices are all mine, but I'd love to debate them with you!
We have come to the end of the Second Season of "WKRP in Cincinnati," so let's celebrate by taking a look at Loni Anderson. (Does that sound right? That doesn't quite sound right). One of the Bonus Features of the boxset is the featurette "Do My Eyes Say Yes" that looks a little deeper into the phenomena that was Loni Anderson/Jennifer Marlow in 1980. This featurette first appeared in the Season One WKRP box set that was released in 2007 ("The Black Box"). That's why all of the clips used come exclusively from Season One.
Should I read anything into it that the first full minute of this featurette plays before they ever talk to Loni Anderson? Or that this minute includes Frank Bonner, Tim Reid and Hugh Wilson all mentioning how sexy she is, while the first words Anderson uses to discuss her character are "really intelligent woman"?
What is interesting is seeing how much Frank Bonner views his own character of Herb through his relationship to Jennifer. Now, of course, this is a clip about Jennifer, so it's not surprising, but Anderson talks about the real friendship between the two characters. In fact, I think we see that friendship more in the second season than the first. Looking at a very funny reel of clips in which Jennifer shoots Herb down, it becomes apparent that his hitting on her is just a running joke between colleagues. The second season Ep. 38 "Put Up or Shut Up" confirms this.
There's also quite a bit of discussion on which characters Jennifer kissed. Anderson confirms that Johnny is a good kisser, something I'm sure Bailey would like to know.
Tim Reid doesn't say "Jennifer" when he talks about her being "no dumb blonde." He says Loni Anderson is no dumb blonde and that's the point this piece tries to make. Jennifer cared about the staff and relished being the face of the station. She knew she could handle anybody and we are left with the impression that Loni was the same way.
This is just a fun little extra that doesn't add much to our understanding of the character. As I said of the "Fish Story" featureete at the end of Season One, I would have much preferred to get a commentary track instead.
The featurette does concludes with a wonderful little anecdote from Anderson of how she would get drinks sent to her in a bar when she was wearing the blonde wig from a play, but not when she wore her naturally brown hair and how Hugh Wilson took this story and worked it into the Ep. 15 "Never Leave Me Lucille" episode.
Roy
Note: To add more value to this blog, I am going to go back through and make a note at the top, stating if this is a "Very Important" or "Famously Funny" episode. Some might be both; most will be neither.
"Very Important" will mean it is important to the development of the overall story or characters. It does not necessarily mean it tackles an important topic. They are the episodes that I imagine the writers, producers and actors are most proud of.
"Famously Funny" will mean the biggest laughs of the series. These episodes will have the most quoted lines and craziest scenes.
I don't intent to rank the shows but to give a quick guide to those people just wanting to check out a few episodes. The choices are all mine, but I'd love to debate them with you!
Thursday 4 May 2017
Ep. 45 - Most Improved Station
May 4, 2017
Writers: Michael Fairman and Richard Sanders
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: March 31, 1980
There is a lot I want to discuss about this episode, but I'd first like to discuss an issue in WKRP fandom that is a personal peeve. I have waited specifically for this episode to discuss it, because out of all the WKRP in Cincinnati episodes, this is the only one in which Jennifer and Bailey are made to confront each other.
If you do a cursory Google search on "WKRP in Cincinnati," two things come up most often. 1) "Turkeys Away" is the funniest episode of anything ever. (This usually gets more play around Thanksgiving) 2) Who is hotter: Jennifer or Bailey? Actually, let me rephrase that. It is usually posted by some guy who thinks he is wiser, deeper or more liberal when he posts "Bailey was actually sexier than Jennifer" with a lot of late 70's short shorts pictures to make his point.
A reminder about who I am. I am currently writing my 45th blog entirely about WKRP in Cincinnati. So I think a LOT more about this show than almost anyone on the planet, and I preach that it has a lot more to offer the world than just those two details. Also, I'm a straight white guy in my mid-40's. There is no question both Loni Anderson and Jan Smithers were very attractive (and still are) and that WKRP was not afraid to showcase the beauty of both women to draw their audience.
But this binary meat marketing of the characters (and it's always about the characters, not the actresses themselves), choosing between the curvy blonde bombshell and the smaller, bespectacled brunette is crude and reductive and should be left to the past. I'd say the same thing if I were writing a Gilligan's Island or Scooby Doo blog. I have never read a piece debating if Andy or Venus is sexier. And it does not make any guy "deeper" for opining that Bailey is the true beauty because she isn't as showy about it. This program has gone to great lengths to display both female characters as intelligent and desirable. Please, future bloggers of WKRPs: stop talking about which female cast member is hotter! Neither of them would have had anything to do with you anyway!!!
Thank you for indulging me there. Now, back to the important stuff, like how is Johnny going to get lipstick out of a rented tux.
Having just written the post about Ep. 44 "Venus Rising," I think this episode can be viewed as a companion piece to that one (especially in the crack where Les asks Herb why he doesn't just quit and Herb grits his teeth and says "Shut up, Les.") That one was about respect. This one is about responsibility. Each member of the staff feels the station is in some way their own responsibility and that by losing the Most Improved Station award, each feels they have neglected their responsibilities.
Bailey considers herself "basically an executive" (which I think would come as a surprise to Mr. Carlson and maybe even Andy) who has been reduced to fetching coffee for DJ's. In Johnny's opinion DJs are "what make radio alive" but that they are disposable and therefore insecure. Les feels the "management is not responsive to the needs of the news department" as demonstrated by his lack of walls. Mr. Carlson worries so constantly about the station he wakes up in mid-argument about his feelings of responsibility. We know from the end of last season how seriously Andy takes the success of the station and feels he doesn't get the support from a divided staff to get things accomplished.
But the solution writers Fairman and Sanders concoct to solve this problem seems very late 70's / early 80's. Today, communications consultants might be brought in to conduct team building exercises, but here the staff use bits and pieces pop psychology to confront their issues. Bailey suggests they break up into "dyads." (Why can't she just use the word "pairs"?) Venus tries relaxation exercises. But nothing actually gets accomplished until Johnny stands up and just speaks honestly from the heart.
This leads to Andy's "Walls" speech, and for my money, if you needed to show someone one minute from the entire series to explain what the character of Andy Travis is all about, this is that minute. Andy 1) confronts Les, 2) makes a heartfelt and intelligent point and then 3)undercuts the whole thing with a joke.
You would think Richard Sanders would give his own character the long climatic monologue of summing up all the characters but wisely he gives that to the character who spends the most time observing the others: Jennifer. She breaks down the family that is the WKRP staff:
It is the last statement of the season. If it had turned out to be the last statement of the series, I feel it would have been a satisfying wrap up, leaving all these characters in a better place than where we found them.
Roy
Other Notes: The station that WKRP loses to, "Those crazies" was WTNA. Twelve year old me likes that joke.
Writers: Michael Fairman and Richard Sanders
Director: Rod Daniel
Original Air Date: March 31, 1980
There is a lot I want to discuss about this episode, but I'd first like to discuss an issue in WKRP fandom that is a personal peeve. I have waited specifically for this episode to discuss it, because out of all the WKRP in Cincinnati episodes, this is the only one in which Jennifer and Bailey are made to confront each other.
If you do a cursory Google search on "WKRP in Cincinnati," two things come up most often. 1) "Turkeys Away" is the funniest episode of anything ever. (This usually gets more play around Thanksgiving) 2) Who is hotter: Jennifer or Bailey? Actually, let me rephrase that. It is usually posted by some guy who thinks he is wiser, deeper or more liberal when he posts "Bailey was actually sexier than Jennifer" with a lot of late 70's short shorts pictures to make his point.
A reminder about who I am. I am currently writing my 45th blog entirely about WKRP in Cincinnati. So I think a LOT more about this show than almost anyone on the planet, and I preach that it has a lot more to offer the world than just those two details. Also, I'm a straight white guy in my mid-40's. There is no question both Loni Anderson and Jan Smithers were very attractive (and still are) and that WKRP was not afraid to showcase the beauty of both women to draw their audience.
But this binary meat marketing of the characters (and it's always about the characters, not the actresses themselves), choosing between the curvy blonde bombshell and the smaller, bespectacled brunette is crude and reductive and should be left to the past. I'd say the same thing if I were writing a Gilligan's Island or Scooby Doo blog. I have never read a piece debating if Andy or Venus is sexier. And it does not make any guy "deeper" for opining that Bailey is the true beauty because she isn't as showy about it. This program has gone to great lengths to display both female characters as intelligent and desirable. Please, future bloggers of WKRPs: stop talking about which female cast member is hotter! Neither of them would have had anything to do with you anyway!!!
Thank you for indulging me there. Now, back to the important stuff, like how is Johnny going to get lipstick out of a rented tux.
Having just written the post about Ep. 44 "Venus Rising," I think this episode can be viewed as a companion piece to that one (especially in the crack where Les asks Herb why he doesn't just quit and Herb grits his teeth and says "Shut up, Les.") That one was about respect. This one is about responsibility. Each member of the staff feels the station is in some way their own responsibility and that by losing the Most Improved Station award, each feels they have neglected their responsibilities.
Bailey considers herself "basically an executive" (which I think would come as a surprise to Mr. Carlson and maybe even Andy) who has been reduced to fetching coffee for DJ's. In Johnny's opinion DJs are "what make radio alive" but that they are disposable and therefore insecure. Les feels the "management is not responsive to the needs of the news department" as demonstrated by his lack of walls. Mr. Carlson worries so constantly about the station he wakes up in mid-argument about his feelings of responsibility. We know from the end of last season how seriously Andy takes the success of the station and feels he doesn't get the support from a divided staff to get things accomplished.
But the solution writers Fairman and Sanders concoct to solve this problem seems very late 70's / early 80's. Today, communications consultants might be brought in to conduct team building exercises, but here the staff use bits and pieces pop psychology to confront their issues. Bailey suggests they break up into "dyads." (Why can't she just use the word "pairs"?) Venus tries relaxation exercises. But nothing actually gets accomplished until Johnny stands up and just speaks honestly from the heart.
This leads to Andy's "Walls" speech, and for my money, if you needed to show someone one minute from the entire series to explain what the character of Andy Travis is all about, this is that minute. Andy 1) confronts Les, 2) makes a heartfelt and intelligent point and then 3)undercuts the whole thing with a joke.
You would think Richard Sanders would give his own character the long climatic monologue of summing up all the characters but wisely he gives that to the character who spends the most time observing the others: Jennifer. She breaks down the family that is the WKRP staff:
- Mr. Carlson - Father - concerned
- Andy - Son - competent and success-oriented
- Les - Brother - bookish
- Herb - (no relationship mentioned) - lovable jackass
- Johnny - Uncle - weather-beaten ("no, I never could nail you down")
- Venus - Brother - spiritual and loving
- Bailey - Sister - beautiful, shy with brains
She doesn't put herself in this family, but the remaining role is clearly the compassionate, watchful Mother of the station. Her description is very specifically structured. Only Carlson and Andy are placed in a father-son relationship. The others are connected as brothers and sisters, apparently of Andy, except for Johnny, who as an uncle is on a near even level to Mr. Carlson as far as wisdom and experiences go, and Herb who, although loved, isn't really part of the family. That matches up to the previous episode in which we the staff wasn't broken up over possibly losing him to another job. Jennifer also leaves the person she was put in a dyad with, Bailey, until the end. Oh, bloggers of the future, please note that Jennifer recognizes Bailey is also beautiful.
It is the last statement of the season. If it had turned out to be the last statement of the series, I feel it would have been a satisfying wrap up, leaving all these characters in a better place than where we found them.
Roy
Other Notes: The station that WKRP loses to, "Those crazies" was WTNA. Twelve year old me likes that joke.
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