Let us now praise Bill McNeal. Yes, of course Phil Hartman plays him with singular genius — we'll get to that. But this week's two episodes provide an unusually clear portrait of a truly multi-faceted character. If he were just a blowhard, well, we've seen plenty of those on television. If he were just an egotist, or a horndog, or a sociopath with a sense of entitlement, ditto. But Bill McNeal is a chameleon. He prides himself on his ability to be whatever the marketplace wants him to be. And so all those other aspects of his personality get filtered through his infinite flexibility. Glop some insecurity on top, watch it ooze out over the whole mess, and you've got yourself a delicious treat.
Bill the Market-Driven Chameleon drives the premise of "Office Feud," aka "Get on the Rocket and see the stars, Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor, DAAAMMMMMNN!" Catherine challenges his live commercial endorsement of a product that (a) he clearly does not personally use, and (b) involves pandering to offensive stereotypes. (One wonders whether the Arbitron people mixed up the reports for WNYX and some urban station; does the Rocket Fuel demo really listen to news talk radio?) When Bill insists that he stands behind the product, Catherine assures him that his street patois is outdated — "strictly VH-1," as she puts it. Not only does she give him fake black slang to belt out during his spots ("Get with the crizappy taste of Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor! It's got that upstate prison flavor that will keep you ugly all night long! Gazizza, my dillsnoofus!"), but she gets him hammered on the stuff. When the (very white) Rocket Fuel exec shows up to pull the plug, Bill can only mutter, "Whaasssuuup … daaammmnnn."
See, it's the insecurity that drives him to adopt any persona that will bring him a buck and keep him on the air. It's the insecurity that makes him a chameleon. But in radio, being the Man of a Thousand Voices is a good thing. It means you're adaptable, a utility man, able to stay on air in any format, under any conditions. So Bill has redefined his insecurity as a strength. And that means he's rarely forced to confront it as a dysfunction. Instead he can ride the ego train all the way to the end of the line. When NewsRadio strips away that triumphalism from his affect — but gently, without malice — it can sprinkle just the right amount of righteous poignancy on top of the Bill McNeal sundae. And what makes that work is not just the way Phil plays it, but the writing that gives him all those notes to hit and a story structure that highlights them.
The Bill McNeal character-trait circus plays out far differently in "Our Fiftieth Episode," a much-maligned but actually quite winning half-hour in which Bill is put in a mental institution after losing his temper over a parking ticket. (NewsRadio returns to the pantomime pioneered in "Christmas" by having this scene play out in a long shot, obscured by traffic noise, and culminating in a double run-through-the-frame in the cold open. Pure genius.) Jon Lovitz plays a fellow patient who shows Bill the ropes and eventually convinces him that the institution is the perfect cure for what really ails him. What could be better for people with stressful jobs (or just stressful lives) where they are called upon to make important decisions all the time? A place where all the decisions are made for you. Lovitz (an air traffic controller) and the rest of the stress-vacation inmates ("we've got a heart surgeon, a guy who designs bridges, a member of a SWAT team") elect Bill Prime Minister, and naturally he doesn't want to leave when Dave and Catherine come for him. "I'll tell you what I'm high on — freedom!" he insists when they question whether he's been medicated.
I don't think this premise should work, but it does — and it does because of what we've established (and what is on display here) about the character Bill McNeal. He is stressed. Insecurity is horribly stressful. Add to that the necessity of making snap decisions all the time about who to be at any given moment — chameleon stress — and you've got a person who would very much appreciate simply being told who he is. In this case, he's Mike, a very sick person with a laundry list of fancy diagnoses. In a moment of honesty, he admits that he's unable to control his life, the one aim that all his shape-shifting had been designed to accomplish. (Not for nothing does he tell Lovitz the bedtime story about Urkel getting the job because after coming clean about his Urkel-bot screw-up, the company was impressed by his honesty.)
But that honesty is padded with a thick layer of egotism. He's special now because he's seen the light. He's free, and that makes him better than his poor slob of a boss who comes to "rescue" him. That very pride is his downfall (or his savior?) when he realizes what has become of his show in his absence. Even though he's acquired a new splint for his broken psyche, he can't let go of the crutch that's been holding him up all these years: being famous and being good at what he does. And back to the stress he goes.
Naturally it takes a fabulous actor to give us all those little nuances. Bill McNeal the character would have been nothing — in fact, probably never would have developed all those little nuances that then the writers began incorporating into scripts — without Phil Hartman the actor. Phil, we all still miss you terribly.
Grade: "Office Feud," A-, "Our Fiftieth Episode," B+
Stray observations: