Rhythm & Blues

I saw the first episode and said to myself, this has the potential to be a good show. There were so many funny things they did. And Roger Kabler had me in stitches with his antics. I just don't know where it went wrong.

There are, mercifully, very few things I remember about this shortlived sitcom set in a radio station, based around the "hilarious" premise of a black radio station hiring a white DJ.

1. The opening scene with the main character doing a different unamusing impersonation each week.

2. Troy Curvey Jr. as the show's answer to Venus Flytrap (just as any series set in a hotel will draw comparisons to "Fawlty Towers" - in the UK anyway; one magazine here actually insisted "Newhart" was a ripoff of Cleese's show, even though the two don't really have that much in common - so you can't talk about a show set in radio and not bring up "WKRP In Cincinnati"), who always referred to himself in the third person ("The Love Man says...").

3. An episode with the station owner (Anna Maria Horsford post-"Amen") thinking that a song called "I Can't Leave Her Behind" is a romantic record, finding out that it's a saucier number in which the singer follows a woman with a beautiful rump all over the room, and getting into a controversy over whether or not to play it.

4. The company credits - Mixed Emotions Inc in association with Twentieth Century Fox Television. The logo for the former was a face that went from :( to :) - too bad the overall series left a :( impression.

I think the writing was what I noticed the most. The first couple of episodes were full of great one-liners, sight gags and satirical puns. However, by the third show they had all but disappeared leaving only a thinly veiled recycling of "WKRP In Cincinnati". Roger Kabler's voices and antics were hilarious, and the character of "The LoveMan" was terrific. A great shame and a lost opportunity to do so much more.