WKRP in Cin-ci-naaat-tiiiii....

(sorry Ned for derailing yr thread)

love this show. they are in my top 8.

WHERE IS THE LOVE FOR SCUM OF THE EARTH?

Two best things about this wonderful show:

1. Bailey Quarters
2. Theme song

PHONE COPS!

Two best things about this wonderful show:

1. Bailey Quarters
2. Bailey Quarters

Steve Carell is a perfect choice for Maxwell Smart, despite his recent Noah debacle.

How would you make a WKRP movie? Radio stations don't work like that anymore. And we already have FM and Private Parts if you want movies about radio people.

Two best things about FM:

1. Martin Mull
2. the theme song

How would you make a WKRP movie? Radio stations don't work like that anymore

WKRP at the University of Cincinatti

How would you make a WKRP movie?

duuuuuuuude you'd set it in the 70's duuuuude

Fuckin' great, Will Ferrell as Johnny Fever.

yesssssssssssssss Jessica Simpson as Jennifer Marlowe

Jamie Foxx as Venus Flytrap

Howard Hessman as Mr. Carlson

the episode with WREQ "Ramblin Wreck radio" is a reference to the station I work for!

Who is perfect enough to be Bailey?

Wait, I got it: Hope Davis.

I would prefer Anne Hathaway.

I think this must have been one of the first US comedies I saw (aprt from possibly Soap). Totally great. I assumed completely that this was what America was like.

The Thanksgiving Day turkey drop -- "Oh the humanity!"

I also remember that after the Who concert in Cincinatti where 11 people were killed in the crush at the doors, they did an episode that had that event as the main focus. Starts with someone mentioning it after getting a phone call and others in the office not believing it. It was done fairly soon after the real event. I was pretty impressed with a sitcom gettin' real like that.

Errmmm, and Bailey Quarters.

I wish one of the cable networks had it on in reruns.

Wild guess: a problem with getting all the rights to all the music.

Yeah, that's why it wasn't on DVD for the longest time. A problem since rectified.

Same problem for the best show ever, China Beach.

Some say it will never come out.

This thread needs more pictures.

Yeah, that's why it wasn't on DVD for the longest time. A problem since rectified.

yeah, well, I still can't buy that set if there's no "Do you hear dogs barking?" "I do." scene.

xpost of Bailey

My random favorite song drop-in:

"We've only just begunnnnnnnnnn..."

Maura Tierney could be Bailey.

Favorite moment:
Venus Flytrap: On the air? I AM the air!

I think Maura's too old now (she's married to Luka! And has a baby!), but she is the right type.

I remember one guy's sunglasses but not much else.

....oh yeah, BOOOOOGERRRRRR!!!!!

the one where they fool the consultant that mother carlson hires slays me every time. the big guy is over worked, jennifer's a ditz, and the scene where venus pulls a switchblade on johnny fucking kills me.

who is smarmy enough to play herb? i can totally see dwight from the office as les nesman.

"Hoodlum rock. Two steps below punk rock."

Yeah, that's why it wasn't on DVD for the longest time. A problem since rectified.

I thought I read somewhere that the DVD sets have replaced original songs with "soundalikes."

Sadly the case, it seems. Fuller details down towards the bottom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKRP

"hit the road... DUNGAREE."

I thought this was interesting (http://members.allstream.net/~jacjud/wkrpmusic.html):

"WKRP was produced by MTM Enterprises, but in the mid-'90s MTM was bought out by Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment (which also owned the Family Channel in the U.S.), and then in 1997 International Family Entertainment was bought by 20th Century-Fox. Fox soon shut down the struggling MTM Enterprises. So currently Fox owns the rights to WKRP, and since the "redubbed" versions did not start to appear until the videotape set in 1998, a year after Fox bought MTM, I think it's quite possible that the music changes were made by Fox (other MTM shows, like "St. Elsewhere," also had some music changed around this time). But on the other hand, it's equally possible that the changes were made while MTM was the nominally independent but financially-strapped property of International Family Entertainment."

PAT ROBERTSON IS BEHIND THIS!

i loved this show when i was a kid
i don't remember why or much about it though, which is weird

I've listened to two very different versions of the theme song. I'm wondering if it too was replaced (or perhaps re-recorded during the shows actual run).

I like this bit about the closing theme:

The closing theme, "WKRP In Cincinnati End Credits", was a hard rock number composed and performed by Jim Ellis, an Atlanta musician who recorded some of the incidental music for the show. According to people who attended the recording sessions, Ellis didn't yet have lyrics for the closing theme, so he sang nonsense words to give an idea of how it would sound. Wilson decided it would be funny to use lyrics that were deliberately gibberish, as a satire on the incomprehensibility of many rock songs.[3] Also, since CBS always had an announcer talking over the closing credits, Wilson knew that no one would actually hear the closing theme lyrics anyway. In one pop-cultural nod to the closing theme, a character performs the song in the film Ready to Rumble.

Wow, that's really interesting. This was a fantastic show.

i love this show and if it ever gets on cable again with the original music i'm taping every episode.

did "spap oop" from from WKRP?

WGN is now airing WKRP on Sundays (7pm eastern, 4 pacific)!

dammit, wgn america has a different broadcast schedule than local wgn.

If you get the "American Life" network, they show it sometimes, including tonight at 10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8uH76COzk8

^^^ USEFUL

holy shit thats amazing

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

Probably. Apparently Hesseman and Reid quickly became responsible for whatever their respective characters played on the show, with Dr. Fever hitting with an interesting mix of '50s Oldies (Bo Diddley, Elvis), Hippie Faves (Van Morrison, Grateful Dead, Hendrix), and most surprisingly, a good bit of New Wave (Pretenders, Blondie). He even plays the odd Rock-Disco track, despite being vehemently anti-Disco.

There's a funny moment in one ep where Andy Travis tells Johnny that he'll "shoot him if he plays that song again"; said song is not named, but it's implied that it's something from the first B-52's album, which we saw him cue up in the previous scene.

The Decades HD channel will be showing 24 Fever-centric episodes tommorow starting at 12:00 PM EST.

Here's today's schedule: https://www.decades.com/schedule/

Nicely picked, even though with 24 episodes we don't get the Rip Tide ep, the station bombing two-parter (PHONE COPS!), or the series finale, where Johnny saves the day and the station from a format change.

Also, for some reason the last one they're showing has the wrong title or episode description.

If you care more about musical cues than picture quality, Internet Archive has VHS rips with all the original music—albeit, two episodes per file, which makes it annoying to add to Plex or other home media servers.

was Dr. Johnny Fever the first rockist character in popular culture?

I might go with Paul LeMat/John Milner in American Graffiti, when "Surfin' Safari" comes over the car radio: "I don't like that surfing shit. Rock'n Roll's been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died."

(Which only makes sense in the context of 1962--the Beach Boys, obviously, ended up on the other side of that divide.)

Milner is a good one, and taking it back to TV, I imagine Fonzie or Richie Cunningham was pretty '50s Rockist on Happy Days, which predates WKRP.

Ick, they're using the old syndication versions, and whoo-boy those replacement cues are awful!

One neat thing about this though is that the version of "The Contest Nobody Could Win" has the original, lighter ending with Vincent Schiavelli as the scammer who attempts to steal the prize money before getting found out by Johnny. This version wasn't included in the box set.

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

One last thought on the "first rockist" question. I really don't want to detour the WKRP thread--actually looked for an "origins of rockism" thread, and even though there are five screens of rockism threads, none are on the origins.

Anyway, a drunk David Proval/Tony in Mean Streets, same year as American Graffiti: "Play only old ones tonight...only old ones." I think there's sort of an implied rockism there. (His request is followed by the Chips' "Rubber Biscuit," vintage doo-wop.)

Had no idea there were two endings to The Contest!

I don’t know whose hand she’s holding but I invite you to join me in imagining it’s Herb Tarlek’s. pic.twitter.com/mrkQiVuFFv

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) March 7, 2022

https://i.imgur.com/2Nja7Vb.jpg

Well, it's not Herb Tarlek, but ... one of the Waltons?

(Hi, Lou.)

Good catch--it was Judy Norton Taylor, a/k/a Mary Ellen Walton.

This was from the "Battle of the Network Stars," memorably sent up by SNL as "Battle of the Network Ts and As."

Well, that's not a nice way to refer to Ed Asner!

Don't devalue Asner's tits!

Anyone know what this shirt was about? Looks like it said "Firme" or something, very glittery.

https://i.imgur.com/P5Wvpmj.jpg

This eBay store is selling off Howard Hesseman's record collection: https://www.ebay.com/str/bananalouiestore

Some rad shit in there... hardly any bids, either

wow he really was johnny fever eh?

Got my eye on that August 1979 Trouser Press.

May and September 1979 too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPibSwtZhzw

i die every time

the classic-est

They've started showing it on Decades, but they're the ones with the soundalikes. That episode was on tonight, with <the moment> now soundtracked by a similar riff and an ott cock rock vocal singing on the nose lyrics about how "You got style!"

Terrible, but still funny.

yeah foreigner makes it extra-funny

https://super70ssports.com/arcade/turkey-drop/

Jan Smithers was a singer in a group called Hot Cup of Friends in 1973. She was the girlfriend of the band leader, who was Henry Mancini’s son

This was posted on fb, including a link to a Midnight Special in which this group appears (at about 37:00 if this link doesn't go the correct spot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR_XNR6QwMg

OK, may have to rewind a bit.