10 episodes of screwball hilarity and social commentary from WKRP In Cincinnati

With so many new series popping up on streaming services and DVD, it gets harder and harder to keep up with new shows, much less the all-time classics. With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. If you watch these 10, you’ll have a better idea of what that series was about, without having to watch the whole thing. These are not meant to be the 10 best episodes, but rather the 10 most representative episodes.
In the 1970s, MTM Enterprises, the legendary studio run by Mary Tyler Moore and then-husband Grant Tinker (the latter of whom would go on to preside over NBC’s early-’80s golden age), was synonymous with quality television. Starting with Moore’s eponymous sitcom, the studio had a remarkable run of beloved, critically lauded hits including The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, Hill Street Blues, and St. Elsewhere. By comparison, WKRP In Cincinnati was the black sheep of the MTM family, a mixed ratings success, plagued by network interference, and bounced from one time slot to another by CBS. (By its final season, several of the cast members admitted they didn’t know when the show actually aired.) But despite falling short of the 100 episodes usually required for syndication, the show became a bona fide hit in its second run, outperforming all of MTM’s other shows in syndication, even ones that had topped the ratings the first time around.
What was the secret of WKRP’s lasting appeal? Like Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart, the show was a workplace comedy with clever writing and a cast of memorable characters. Unlike those shows, WKRP wasn’t built around a star. While the show was originally intended as a vehicle for up-and-coming soap actor Gary Sandy, Sandy quickly became just another member of the ensemble, as his character, program director Andy Travis, became the hole at the center of the show—a likable but somewhat bland straight man to the outsized personalities around him. As a result, WKRP became one of TV’s great hangout shows. Instead of following Moore or Newhart through their home and work life, the less-focused WKRP let viewers feel they were simply part of the gang at the Midwest’s most dysfunctional radio station.
Series creator Hugh Wilson and head writer Bill Dial had both worked in radio, and drew on specific events and former co-workers when writing the show. Breakout star Howard Hesseman (frenetic morning man Dr. Johnny Fever) had done a stint as a DJ before being cast on the show. The early episodes focused on the business of running a radio station, interviewing bands and doing remote broadcasts, with high jinks sure to follow. Many of the early stories—including the infamous “Turkeys Away”—were based on actual events. (In real life, the turkeys were thrown from the back of a truck, not a helicopter.)
But after eight episodes in a tough time slot, the low-rated show was taken off the air for retooling. Wilson and Dial decided their show was good, and refused to change anything. The two claim they turned in some already-written scripts, and told the network it was a new direction for the show, and continued on as they were. But there were two important changes. First, CBS gave the show a plum time slot, following M*A*S*H. Second, the show added one set—a bullpen, where the station’s staff could sit at their desks and interact. And while the show’s creators insisted they didn’t need to change the show, the writers started moving away from strictly radio-based storylines, and started to build stories around the characters and use serious material as a foundation for the show’s comedy. As TV in general was moving away from the issue-oriented sitcoms of the ’70s, WKRP did a surprising amount of drama for what could be a very silly show. Tweaking the formula worked, as the show became a critical success, and started making its mark on the culture—Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” was a hit in large part because Johnny Fever played it on WKRP. The band’s label even gave the show a gold record, which can be seen hanging up in the station in later seasons.
The ensemble was set up around rock ’n’ roll’s time-honored source of conflict: the generation gap. Representing the old guard was paranoid reactionary newscaster Les Nessman (Richard Sanders), sleazy salesman Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner), flirty receptionist Jennifer (Loni Anderson), and befuddled boss Arthur “The Big Guy” Carlson (Gordon Jump), who were content when WKRP was a failing easy-listening station. When new program director Travis (Sandy) changes the format to rock ’n’ roll in the pilot episode, he rallies hipper staff members like ’60s holdover Fever (Hesseman), laid-back evening DJ Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid), and wide-eyed assistant Bailey (Jan Smithers). While the squares hold more power and seniority at the station, the show stacks the deck against them, as Nessman, Tarlek, and Carlson are uniformly, hilariously, awful at their jobs. (Nessman’s news reports are always a highlight, whether he’s ignoring world events for a juicy pig-related story, or pronouncing the name of a tiny dog breed as “Chi-hoo-ah-hoo-ah.”) However, while the premise could have set up an All In the Family-type culture clash every week, the show went more in the direction of The Office, embracing the flawed humanity of even its least competent characters.
The show also succeeded at creating memorable characters by setting up and then knocking down some of TV’s favorite stereotypes. One running joke was that buxom Jennifer was the station’s highest-paid employee, “for obvious reasons,” wink wink, nudge nudge, but the show was quick to reveal that she was in fact the brains of the operation, keeping the station running smoothly while keeping the boss distracted and out of everyone’s hair. Shy assistant Bailey isn’t taken seriously by her older, male co-workers until she eventually proves herself a better newscaster than Les, and better at promoting the station than Herb. The two women were essentially the Joan Harris and Peggy Olson of their day—each taking different roads to earn respect in a male-dominated, Scotch-free office. As the show’s only non-white cast member (which in 1978 was one more than nearly any other sitcom had), Tim Reid worried from the start that he’d be stuck with a “token black guy” role. In the early going, it does seem like Venus mainly exists to show up his white co-workers as either painfully unhip or (mildly) racist buffoons. But Reid pushed the writers to give him a stronger character, and wrote three Venus-centered episodes himself, giving his character and the show more depth in the process.
While WKRP was a success in syndication, the show has all but disappeared in recent years. (The less said about 1991’s The New WKRP In Cincinnati, the better.) The same music that was a strong part of the show’s appeal has prevented any comprehensive home video release (though one is reportedly in the works, courtesy of Shout! Factory), as too many of the songs used on the show are now prohibitively expensive. (Wilson sprung for several Beatles songs in the show’s original run, a pricey proposition then, but a nearly unthinkable one now). For a season-one DVD release, Wilson personally hand-picked replacement tracks for the original music—some similar songs from the era, some generic filler music. In some cases, scenes featuring unavailable music are truncated, and replaced by previously unaired deleted scenes, and in some cases lines spoken over music were re-recorded. The strategy has mixed results at best—several episodes include references to songs that the viewer can no longer hear—but it was the only way for the show to see any kind of legal release. Alongside the DVD, season one is also available on Hulu and Amazon, but subsequent seasons haven’t been released and may never be, although nearly every episode can be seen on YouTube and other sites.
Here are 10 episodes that span WKRP’s surprising range from comedy to drama and back.