Remembering Howard Hesseman

 February 6, 2022

     Howard Hesseman was given a mission statement from Hugh Wilson in 1978. This character of Dr. Johnny Fever had to be more than funny, or cool, or wise. The fact that a Johnny Fever can even exist is because, to this character, Rock and Roll is IMPORTANT. 

Keep in mind, in 1978, rock and roll wasn't important. The King had just died as a bloated, bedazzled caricature of his former self. Disco was rising. Art Rock and Prog Rock and Country Rock were taking the place of music that was just old stuff your parents listened to. Even though Andy says he wants to turn WKRP into a Rock and Roll station, he only means that compared to the easy listening music the station played before his arrival. He really meant a Top 40 Pop station, and he only meant it because it could turn a profit.

Wilson needed a character who would move across the country, from job to job, breaking up two marriages, leaving a daughter behind, live "like a college student" from hand to mouth just to proselytize the transformative magic of rock and roll. Wilson knew he needed an actor who could make that audience at home not look at this person as some '60's hippie washout, but as the only man in the room who had heard the truth and was wise enough to follow that truth, while STILL delivering the laughs and look cool while doing it.  Howard Hesseman's mission was to make us believe that rock and roll was important.

Hesseman died last week at the age of 81 and you can find many well researched biographies of the man on line. But they will all begin with some version of "actor who played "WKRP in Cincinnati's" Dr. Johnny Fever..." It's a role he played for four years, plus one season of "the New WKRP;" the same length of time he played Charlie Moore on "Head of the Class." But you need to read farther down those obituaries to see that credit, or "The Bob Newhart Show," or "This is Spinal Tap" or "Police Academy." It's Fever we remember because Fever was important.

I want to provide here a small list of Howard Hesseman's best performances on WKRP. The thing with being the breakout character on a show like this is that Dr. Fever always got at least one or two great gag lines on every episode, so you may read this list and think "Hey! What about ...?"   I'm hoping to highlight some of the places in which Howard Hesseman the actor was at his best; being funny or sweet or vulnerable or completely over the top.

1) Dr. Fever and Mr. Tide (Season 3 Eps. 13-14) Originally a full hour long episode, this exists to give Hesseman an acting showcase, following his nomination for the best supporting actor in a comedy series the season before. This did, in fact, give him his second nomination.

Johnny takes on hosting duties for a new TV show called "Gotta Dance" but only discovers 45 minutes before it is to go live on the air, that it is a disco dance show a la "Solid Gold." He is expected to wear gold lamé suits and play Olivia Newton-John songs. Johnny, of course, balks but the producers show him the contracts he drunkenly signed and threaten to sue him beyond the poverty he already lives in. The man behind Dr. Fever,  Disc Jockey for hire John Caravella, needs to make a decision:  save himself and the integrity he has spent his whole life building up or fulfill the "Gotta Dance" contract. The decision literally rips his mind in half!

John Caravella creates the character of Rip Tide, a sleazy, trend-happy musical clown that might be the most successful thing he has ever done. People love him! The ratings are hot! The money is flowing! And all Johnny has to do is turn his back on everything he has ever cared about.

I wish we knew how much of this script was improvised and how much was on the page, but Hesseman fully embraces both characters, sometimes within the same sentence! There are differences in voice, walk, mannerisms and speech patterns between the two characters. We feel real empathy for the Johnny who is scared he's being pushed aside by his friends and the station. He's confused about how easy it is to slip into the personality of someone completely against his moral code. We also really laugh and are a little scared of this self-centered, self-indulgent "schlemiel" who's tired of the lonely, destitute life Johnny's moral code has made him live.

Simply, Hesseman was never better.

2) Three Days of the Condo (Season 4, Episode 7) So what if Dr. Fever got money without the moral dilemma? 

Johnny receives a $24,000 settlement cheque from the station in LA that fired him for saying "Booger!" on the air. He immediately starts blowing the cash on wine, women and "soap you can see through" until Venus convinces him to invest in a condo. But Johnny hates that and the two of them have to get him out of his condo deal.

Two years before Hesseman plays an outrageous pimp in "Doctor Detroit," he plays an outrageous, cash flush lunatic here. Buying leather suits and harmonicas, with a woman on each arm, Johnny is wallowing in his own crapulence! 

But a trapped Johnny is a very funny Johnny and when the condo people play hardball with Venus and him, Johnny comes up with a plan to make them so uncomfortable they won't want him in their condo - he plays gay. I mean over-the-top, mincing, flaming super gay, going on about how he and Venus are going to "practically live in the sauna." It wouldn't play well today, but Hesseman certainly throws his all into the role.

(Fun Aside - for six seasons, Hesseman played a recurring role on the "Bob Newhart Show" as a group therapy patient would later came out as gay. It's a far more sensitive portrayal)

3) God Talks to Johnny (Season 2, Episode 13) The title says it all. Johnny hears a voice in the middle of the night, telling him that it loves him. Could it be God?

This episode follows the classic WKRP premise of one character bringing his problem to all the other characters to get their reactions. In this case, do you believe in God, and if so, would he talk to Johnny Fever? This episode won a Humanitas Award, which is an award for writing "that promotes human dignity, meaning and freedom." Hesseman brings all of that to this script, and it is probably what earned him his first Emmy nomination. Johnny is grateful to be told he is loved, scared he might be losing his mind and confused at being asked to become a golf pro. 

Hesseman often comes up with fantastic physical comedy. Watch him gesturing with limp celery here!

4) Jennifer and Johnny's Charity (Season 4, Episode 14) In Johnny's world, he's the responsible successful person, looking out for his less fortunate friends. In Jennifer's world, Johnny is a bum. In this episode, we see the two worlds colliding.

Hesseman and the other breakout star of WKRP, Loni Anderson, really did play well off of each other, because they were both very funny as well as complete contrasts. Check out their chemistry in "Baby, It's Cold Inside (Season 3, Episode 8). At the beginning of this episode, we see Johnny acting responsibly, trying to raise money for a shelter after a kitchen fire. It's a shelter he needs to eat at often himself. Later, when Jennifer's rich friends start spending money just to be charitable, Johnny gets angry and even confronts his friend Jennifer to maintain the dignity of his less fortunate friends. A lesser actor might have either leaned more into joking about the shelter friends or pulled back on making his anger with Jennifer seem real and dangerous. Hesseman does neither, bringing respect to both sides.

 5) Hold Up (Season 1, Episode 5) Hesseman played best against great comedy actors (in the cast, especially Tim Reid, Loni Anderson and Gordon Jump) and he never got better than Hamilton Camp, also from his 60's comedy troupe The Committee. Camp plays a fast talking stereo store owner where Johnny is doing a live broadcast. The store is taken hostage by a hapless out-of-work DJ, who Johnny decides to help out. 

That description does not do the episode justice. Hesseman goes into straight man mode, allowing Camp to become unhinged at the whole situation, all the while remaining in complete control. He feeds and baits Camp's character the whole way. Only five episodes in, this showed where Hesseman could take what might have been a one-note, burn-out character.

6) Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1) I wanted to make this a list of five Hesseman-centric episodes that displayed his range as an actor and his comedic talents. In writing this, I see I could have made it 20 episodes long. But the pilot is where Hesseman presented us with so much of the iconography we remember about Dr. Johnny Fever 40 years later. A perpetually tired morning man with a giant mug of coffee he uses to list all the air names he's used in the past. The wise observer who explains the true motives and personalities of all the people around him. The once-was who knows he's too old to live the life he's been living but doesn't know any other way.

And the Rock and Roll Prophet, who scratches a record and unleashes a pent up hellion with the clarion call: "It's time for this town to get down! The character who is not afraid of this music or what it can do to the listeners. Hugh Wilson gave Howard Hesseman the mission to show all of us in the audience what both men had personally known since the 1960's: Rock and Roll is important!

Thank you, Mr. Hesseman, for teaching the children about Bo Diddley.

Roy

Also to be watched: The Doctor's Daughter (Season 2, Episode 20); Fish Story (Season 1, Episode 21) (better known as The One Where Fever Gets Faster the More He Drinks); Up and Down the Dial (Season 4, Episode 22); Filthy Pictures (Season 2, Episodes 21 & 22); An Explosive Affair, pt 2 (Season 4, Episode 2) (this is The Phone Cops episode) and For Love and Money (Season 2, episode 1 &2). Actually, just go watch the whole series. It's very funny!

Thank you to Allen Stare of the "WKRP-Cast" podcast for insisting I include the Pilot episode. Please go listen to his and Donna Stare's re-watch podcast wherever you download quality podcasts.