WKRP in Cincinnati

I remember during its second season a real life event happened in Cincinatti where 11 people were killed at Riverfront Stadium during a Who concert. Wkrp I thought handled this extremely well on one of their shows. I thought they handled this very well like the class act they were. One of their more memorable serious shows. The boss had come in the nest day and hadn't heard what had happened. The Music group The Who was performing a concert on December 3, 1979 and when the doors were opened for general admission there was a crowd serge and 11 people were trampled to death. It led to several changes of how concerts were promoted and also pretty much the end of general admission first come first serve seating

At the age of 40 with a leaky heart valve and car payments and rent to pay, there is a twelve-year-old boy that wants to hear Johnny Fever drag a needle across vinyl and drag a floundering Ohio radio station into the rock era. I have driven across Cincinnati at least a hundred times, but I still long to catch a glimpse of the Flimm building, and let the news tell me that "...while the Senator admitted to being intoxicated, he could note explain his nudity." (Best Ted Kennedy Joke Ever!) WKRP was based on creator Hugh Wilson's experiences at Atlanta radio station WQXI. The Turkeys really happened at Lenox Square in Atlanta, and Fever was rumored to have been modeled on longtime Atlanta radio personality (the late) "Skinny" Bobby Harper.

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!

Many sitcoms start out with great promise, but over successive seasons settle and turn dimensionally less realistic. Take for example Tony Danza's spiral down in "Taxi" into the "dumb guy." In WKRP in Cincinnati, the complete opposite was true. Two dimensional stereotypes at the beginning (cowboy programmer, dim-witted receptionist, lazy mama's boy manager, city-wise black DJ, etc.) were allowed over the show's course to become psychologically real. The on-going harassment by married salesman Herb Tarlek towards Jennifer the receptionist was finally confronted, and in subsequent episodes he was never quite the pig towards her as before. Alcoholism and drug abuse were addressed, but never in the "hit you over the head" PC style of today. The show could be simultaneously hilarious and of dire seriousness. If you can, catch the episodes in rerun in order. The final season is amazing, especially when the previous years have set you up for it. Carol Bruce (Mama Carlson) episodes are especially stunning. And always look for Les Nessman's roaming band-aid.

This was simply one of the best sitcoms ever made (along with Barney Miller). Even when the episodes were centered around characters that I did not particularly find appealing, the show always had heart. Never in WKRP did the show become formulaic or repetitive. The stories were written with feeling and a depth that is long since vanished in any sitcoms since. I believe that the best episode (not the funniest) was "In Concert". It is the one that centers around the tragedy at the 1979 Who concert, where 11 people were trampled to death outside the stadium trying to get the best seats. This show was a far cry from the current trend of having character-A insult character-B to the sound of the laugh track!!

Only a very few comedies have reached what I consider the height of mixing pathos, characterization, slapstick, verbal byplay. Night Court, Cheers, Mary Tyler Moore...and WKRP manages to surpass them all. WKRP comes out ahead of most of these (except maybe Night Court) because it was a true ensemble. It didn't focus on just Sam & Diane, or just Mary, but equally covered each of its cast members, giving them almost-equal screen time.

These were also folks who had _lives_ that didn't revolve entirely around the office or resolving the problem at the office: families, social lives, etc.

The recent Nick at Nite marathon (40 hours, five nights) just brought back home to me that this show was so funny, and why even some of the worst episodes are still a heck of a lot funnier than most "comedies" on the air today.

Hopefully WKRP will be settling into a long stay on Nick at Nite once the marathon runs its course.