The time dilation between actors and their characters is always interesting. Carol Bruce was born in 1919 and was just 60 when she first appeared as Lillian Carlson. Gordon Jump was born in 1932 and was only 13 years younger although he looked older than his late 40s and I believe Arthur Carlson was supposed to be a WWII vet.
I was very, very fortunate to work at a family owned station, well actually, group of stationd, which has been number one in our market for at least 30 years.a wonderful atmosphere.
A horse with No Name tell me about it! I can think of one particular St. Louis station that had a proud history...now just a memory. They had a noteworthy T.V. station as well which suffered a similar zombification.
When this series came on I was 13 and the next year I was 14 and in a local (medium at the time market) AM radio station (860 on the dial) doing a once the week gig. I loved this show and one time I called them on the telephone to tell them they were not doing something right as DJs do it differently and what stuck with me since then is they answered the phone as WKRP in Cincinnati. Good show at the time before syndication made them (due to costs) remove the real music and replace them with nonsense.
As a DJ in the 70s & 80s,I totally got this show.It was right on,created by a guy that was in the business.Most stations were owned by people with bigger companies & used radio as a tax write off & didn't care about ratings or the incomes of the people that worked there,so they either changed the format or closed them.That's how I lost my last radio job.I went through a lot of the situations they did in this show & applaud the creators for showing what radio stations were like then(and probably now).
Interesting. I was a DJ from 1973 until 2020, and my experiences were nothing like this show. None of the companies used them as tax write offs. Every job depended on ratings and billing. And I can’t think of a single example anywhere of stations changing formats, simply to keep losing money. Not one. You can only write off losses for a period of time. Although some of the jocks I worked with were similar.
Scenes like this are why I purchased the entire 4 years of the original WKRP on DVD’s. I wanted to be able to physically hold all 80 plus episodes of this gem of a series. The cast will live with me until the day I die.
Likewise, bought the box set on DVD years ago. I've only ever bought one other box set of a TV series - Kolchak Night Stalker...and WKRP. They don't make shows like these anymore.
Nothing nearly like this can be found anymore on broadcast TV. The characters, dialog, situations and imagination were matchless. Touching, funny, personal, and outlandish as well. One of my all time favorites. Rip WKRP.
This is a wonderful scene. The connection between Fever and Mrs Carlson, the subtle reaction to his threat to divulge her true intentions...symbolic of the program's quality.
I have been in radio broadcasting over 30 years. I have been at stations in several states and formats. Live local radio has and will always be the way to go.
Tell us why, radio stations play the same songs, over and over, daily..even ones who play the oldies??? It's no wonder people make their own playlists.
@@janetduncan87 As a former radio broadcaster at a small, live/local station hub, I can tell you that it's because of money. Sure, payola is illegal, but commercials are king. And people don't want to pay for commercials when no one is listening. So, how do you get them to listen? Pay for the right to play the "most popular" songs and play them every hour and make sure that people who listen to that garbage also hear the advertisements so that they, in turn, go buy that crap so the people buying advertisement time have to pay more to have their ads played because people are buying their crap. Management isn't going to pay for the right to play a song that won't help the sales department sell air time so you hear the same songs played over and over again every day.
@@Drakijy I have to "like" your comment, that doesn't equate to my wanting it to be true : ( Remember when people used to listen to the radio to hear the new stuff? The same people that would sit with their cassette players on pause until AFTER the DJ ceased talking & then played it back for friends? Even here in Japan it was the same. I miss the old days of radio
@@janetduncan87 Don't get me started on that! LOL There's an "independent" station in Utica, NY, that prides itself on that. But they sound exactly like the rest of the FM stations anywhere you go. I'll turn FM off and put on AM, even with the static.
Hirsch, played by the veteran character actor Ian Wolfe (who appeared twice in Star Trek, more famously as Mr. Atoz the librarian in "All Our Yesterdays") and one of those figures in movies and television who always seems to be somewhere between 50 and 200 in age going back even to the 1940s.
Hirsch - "A very interesting turn, don't you think..." I loved the character Hirsch. (Ian Wolfe) The writing was brilliant, and the delivery could not be better.
"Mr. Atoz" the librarian from Star Trek... Mr A To Z! (Also Septimus from "Bread And Circuses.") After this video cuts off, I believe he comes back to discuss his next raise.
She was also very right about the direction AM radio was taking. Now if she wanted her son to feel like a success she could have split WKRP into two: WKRP-FM for the rock music, WKRP-AM for the talk format
It was a huge shock when WKRP got canceled. No one saw it coming. I was 16 in 1982 and everyone I knew watched this show: all my friends, parents, grandparents, teachers and on and on. It really was a show that had something for everyone. It could be really hilarious, and be really hard hitting. The show stands out in my mind was when Venus Flytrap refused to have his picture taken for promotional purposes, and it seemed bizarre because you would think he’d love that. It turned out he had run away from the military because he was so traumatized by what he’d seen and done in Vietnam.
@@bostonrailfan2427 The ratings tumbled because CBS kept moving its timeslot to help as a lead-in to less popular sitcoms. In fact I recall reading an interview with one of the cast members and they noted that by the last season even they didn't know what day the show was on. Unfortunately WKRP was a victim of its success.
WKRP was always my favorite. That scene where Less Nessman, the weather man had the turkeys thrown out of the helicopter thinking they could fly was perhaps the funniest scene ever in any series. The looks on everyone's faces standing on the ground were priceless as the turkeys fell and slammed into the pavement.
Johnny: "Hello Les? Les! Les, are you there? Les Isn't there... Thanks for that on the spot report, Les. Folks if you're just tuning in, the Pines Dale Shopping center has just been bombed with live turkeys. Film at eleven..."
So Johnny Caravella - who was 'saved' by WKRP - ends up saving WKRP. This - to me - was WKRP at it's best...both serious and funny at the same time. For those who don't know, this was the second last scene in the last episode of the series.
Then came the two seasons in the nineties of the syndicated *The New WKRP in Cincinnati* series. It wasn't as good as the original. But it didn't suck either until they got desperate for ratings. And brought in the old cast as guest stars.
Ah. Part of why it was cancelled. I had heard that 'Dr. Johnny Fever' or Howard Hessman had expressed some views that got TV execs panties in a bunch, so they dropped the show. It never recovered. Sad.
For four years, it was a cold war between Andy and Mama Carlson, with Andy managing to outmanoeuver Mama at nearly every turn when she tried to interfere with the station. Even when Andy managed to derail the unionisation effort, at Mama's behest, his cooperation came at a heavy price to put in improvements and better the working conditions. At last, at long last, she had Andy right where she wanted him, was about to screw up the station so it could become a huge tax write-off, and here it's Johnny who gets Mama over a barrel by threatening to expose the old bat to her son. One of my favourite Johnny Fever scenes in the whole series.
These have always been the best kind of series finales...not ones where every single person’s whole life is tied up with a bow, but ones that make us believe those people and places are going on.
Which is why this show's cancellation remains unforgivable. I remember the announcement, up there with the Hindenburg. It was the same week ABC promoted Loni Anderson in two of their Saturday evening shows. See the irony?
Hirsch was comedic gold. Only a few appearances, he wasn't even introduced until late Season 3 I believe, but he made the absolute most of every moment he was given.
1. I love that the actress playing Mrs. Carlson leaves space for the “number six?” joke to breathe. 2. The randomness of the pointillism painting on the wall.
Damndest thing is that Mrs C. here is about ten years ahead of 24 hour CNN, FOX, and even most of the news-esque opinion radio shows like Rush or Hannity. It really was a good market to emerge into during the early 80's. AM is no good for music, especially rock and roll, as it's transmitted mono, while FM can send stereo broadcasts. Had she gone ahead and been the FIRST AM news/talk/opinion station in the freaking OHIO/KENTUCKY market during the Reagan era, she would have been a trendsetter.
The problem back in the 1970s and early 1980s was an FCC rule called the 'Fairness Doctrine'. 'It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.' It was repealed in 1987 by Reagan's FCC. Congress passed a bill to reinstate the fairness doctrine but Reagan vetoed it. Almost immediately saw the rise of AM stations centered around right wing politics most notably, Rush Limbaugh. The country lost something with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine been its time was limited. The FCC's rule pertained to broadcasts over the public airways on TV and radio. It had no control over cable or the internet since these are 'broadcast' over private networks people pay money to view/hear.
@@njebei Excellent history lesson. "mainstream" media continues to "show both sides", even when one side is abjectly lying, leading to "the Trump era".
The saddest part is that Ted Turner who was an absolute Visionary and created CNN end the concept of a 24-hour live news report Network is absolutely ashamed to even have his name in some kind of connection with it because of what it has become. He had a vision and it ended up getting s*** on
I was fortunate to work for a radio station that was locally owned. I started in radio in the late 80's, and can say that I was one of the last group of announcers that spun vinyl.
I got to spin vinyl for a college station back in the 80s. Got back into the game about ten years ago as a sales rep, but quit two years later because closing sales just isn't my thing. A lot had changed. Damn, I miss this show.
agree....spontanaety (sp) was an important part of radio. Voices are now pre-recorded which means you have the chance to go over if you don't like what you said or how it sounded.
Love Gordon Jump and all. What a show. I was 17 then and think I took this show for granted. Man, there is nothing like this anymore. What a loss. RIP Gordon, Howard, and Frank.
@@OptimusWombat That is because Toronto fans support the nonsense. Just like Detroit Lions fans do! Though I am done watching sports due to the pandering for Black Lives Matter. Let them kneel for criminals and pander to Marxists all they want! I refuse to support woken BS.
Frank Bonner died last month and I only found out because I looked it up today. But still, the main cast has done a great job of staying alive. Gordon Jump died long ago but he was older than the others, and of course Carol Bruce (Mama Carlson), who was already in her sixties when this show aired. But there are six members of the main cast still living. That's pretty good for a show that started over 40 years ago.
Buy the box set, with most of the correct music cues (just a few they couldn't negotiate on, darn it, but they worked their tails off to get this as right as it could be!) from the wonderful folks at Shout! Factory. That's where I got mine, fellow babies!
"It's not the plus and minuses that count, it's the plus and plus, IF the minuses are placed correctly" That's actually great advice in both business and life., take a couple of minuses and place them to equal a plus. One of the things I loved about WKRP, it was a comedy, yes. But it was intelligent as well.
I'm guessing you had zero idea how Dan Schneider would turn out...I'm still stunned. Did you also work with Billy Connolly? He seemed to be an interesting guy as well.
I didn't appreciate at the time ,but, I had the rare opportunity to work at a family owned Country music station in Penticton,BC, Canada in the early 1990's. It was the last of the independent commercial radio stations. It's now owned by Stingray Music (?), which means all the quirky local character has been sucked out of it. That's why I volunteer at a community/listener-sponsored station like Co-op Radio in Vancouver. I get to play what I want and be my usual offbeat self. Not a robot shill for an industry which gave up on music ages ago. I even resurrected the warped fairy tales of 'The Story Lady' for my Radio Bandcouver show. A segment I used to include on my late night 'Night Owl Sessions' at Great Valleys Radio at around 1:30 in the morning.
I go to country when I want to play 2 chord songs on guitar. Allll my exes live in Texas...and Texas is a place, I'd really love. To. Be...but alllll my exes live in Texas, therefore I reside in Tennessee...! Ok, I lied. That one has...let's see. A E (IOU? no...chords) a diminished A7 in the chorus...a differently fingered A an A6. And the weird bar chords at the end. 3 of those. So...8, then. Lol
Brother I concur 100%. Community radio is all that is left. Best days of my radio life was 4am shift at KVMR-FM in Nevada City, Ca. playing whatever came into my head and dancing in the dark studio with the music cranked up. Total freedom and complete joy!
Hessman was just brilliant in every scene he was in. WKRP was a great example of just how good tv used to be back then- shows that developed characters over time and got their audiences invested in them, who they were and what they did. They got their audiences the best way there is- through good writing, good casting and faith in both. Now if something isn’t an instant hit, it’s gone. WKRP, Cheers, Seinfeld, Taxi- all iconic groundbreaking shows that are remembered and quoted and totally unable to be duplicated today because they wouldn’t have had a decent chance today.
yeah, this was the series finale. WKRP was finally gonna be a success, and she needed a tax shelter that would lose money. I really wish they would have done more seasons, this show was awesome..
Can you explain the tax shelter? I get a business can write off losses, but wouldn't it be cheaper never to buy the company in the first place? How would a company net a profit from writing off losses?
@@mattm7798 It works when said company is part of a larger conglomerate owning multiple businesses. Assuming that the net losses from the "loser" divisions of the conglomerate do not exceed to a great extent the profits from the "winner" divisions, the resulting losses can be claimed for deductions that in the end add up to a larger overall post-tax profit, either through the writeoffs or by pushing the conglomerate into a slightly lower bracket as a result.
@@jumblejumbo Except it is not fraud. The law does not require that you run a business to guarantee a profit from its operation, and it does not disallow changes in how a business is run. To establish fraud, it would be necessary to produce evidence that assets were being deliberately hidden, that false records were being kept to mask asset concealment, that false tax deductions were being claimed, that the business was not delivering the product promised to its customers or the general public. You would have to establish intent, which is in itself extraordinarily difficult, particularly if the decisions and actions of the business owners can be explained as perfectly legal operations and logical consequences of said operations --- such as changing the broadcast format of a radio station, for example. Now, a grey area can be said to exist when one or more divisions of a conglomerate are being used in a scheme to lower the conglomerate's overall tax burden or to garner windfalls from losses. But so long as tax law (which itself is ever changing and is the reason why whole armies of tax lawyers are perpetually kept on retainer) allows loopholes, allows the recovery of business losses through the tax code, and nothing which is actually illegal is being committed, then the actions of, say, Carlson Industries are held to be above-board and in compliance with the law.
Ah the days when radio meant something. To me, it WAS the social media of our times...live DJ, music, requests, telephone party lines (talking to friends while listening to the latest hits on the radio) etc. "You had your time; you had the power; you've yet to have your finest hour; Radio" And now because of social media, internet, smartphones, ipods, satellite etc. etc. etc. Radio will NEVER get to have "...it's finest hour..." because today on radio: "All we hear is radio ga ga; Radio goo goo"
Hey what can I say? She's a HOTTIE N a half!!!!! Just watch the episode "Rumors" when Fever moves in with her. Damn, she even looks good in the morning!!! lol
Biff Roberts How did you score the music. I heard the Dvd was lacking music due to copyrights. Something about elevator music or free use crap in place of original.
You would have to ask my cousin that one. She's the one who bought it for me on her 2nd honeymoon after she & her hubby flew back on one of his planes from Germany. Lets just say we had an understanding of don't ask, don't know, & we just left it at that. She did the same thing with BJ & The Bear. I have a complete dvd set of that show Ala bootleg. And I don't even wanna know how she scored that one. Guess she has some connections. lol But thanks to her, I now have Jan Smithers aka Bailey Quarters 24/7 as she's all MINE!!!!!!!!!! She is a real HOTTIE!!!!! lol
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm so freaking sick of these cookie-cutter corporate stations with hack DJs who laugh at their own jokes, play the same 300-400 songs over and over again, and bombard you endlessly with little blue pill commercials where they repeat the phone number six times. With the exception of a few local radio stations that are real gems, radio today is a vast wasteland of mediocrity.
Have you not seen Trading Places, then...? Or Back to school, where Rodney Dangerfield takes a business class when he's HAD a very successful business for many years. So, he's arguing with the professor on the realities of business. Lol.
@@htos1av I have a friend who was in the radio industry from 1984 to the 2000's and I remember us having the conversation back in the 90's about radio de-regulation and how he predicted the industry would fall. He was 100% right.
@phosphorescent wave Completely depends on their record deals. Look up "360 deals". You'll see that plenty of bands don't get much of their concerts or youtube revenue either. You simply can't make generalizations like that. In the end though people like to complain about the big bad record industry, but nobody put a gun to the artist's heads and made them sign a bad deal. If bands are getting ripped off by their labels it's mostly likely because they were too stupid to hire a lawyer to read their contracts before they signed them.
My Wife's Brother worked for a radio station in Jackson, Ohio. So I can relate to this show. It would have been on longer if they had left in one time slot.
Hey, Fever was in a GREAT movie with Rainn Wilson called The Rocker. He plays a bus driver. Took me only 5 times watching it to catch it in the credits.
It’s one of the very few shows that never jumped the shark. It was brilliant its entire four year run. Its cancellation was a travesty then and it still baffles me.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Carol Bruce played mama Carlson. She was a good friend of mine. She was a star on stage and screen. Wonderful singer too.
That is very cool! Turns out Howard and I were distant cousins.
The time dilation between actors and their characters is always interesting. Carol Bruce was born in 1919 and was just 60 when she first appeared as Lillian Carlson. Gordon Jump was born in 1932 and was only 13 years younger although he looked older than his late 40s and I believe Arthur Carlson was supposed to be a WWII vet.
I miss the days when a radio station was locally owned and employed local DJ’s that cared about the music and the community.
It was a joyous day when iHeartMedia declared bankruptcy.
I was very, very fortunate to work at a family owned station, well actually, group of stationd, which has been number one in our market for at least 30 years.a wonderful atmosphere.
Yeah, before the age of "playlists."
A horse with No Name tell me about it! I can think of one particular St. Louis station that had a proud history...now just a memory. They had a noteworthy T.V. station as well which suffered a similar zombification.
When this series came on I was 13 and the next year I was 14 and in a local (medium at the time market) AM radio station (860 on the dial) doing a once the week gig. I loved this show and one time I called them on the telephone to tell them they were not doing something right as DJs do it differently and what stuck with me since then is they answered the phone as WKRP in Cincinnati. Good show at the time before syndication made them (due to costs) remove the real music and replace them with nonsense.
RIP Johnny...2022...All that kinetic energy!!!!!!!!!!!! Miss him already...
Gordon Jump was a treasure. What a brilliant performance on that show.
I never missed it. WKRP was one of the best shows ever written.
And what's funny is all the classic ones were from season 1
Gary Sandy in those jeans! The hair!
Excuse me, I need a moment...
Atticus it was real like the movie FM.
And perfectly cast. =^..^=
Beats Green Acres. I mean, really Green F Acres :(
That is one of my all-time favorite lines when Johnny says that "this is so warped that even I get it".
Show was so brilliantly written, with actors that delivered things perfectly. Amazing program.
As a DJ in the 70s & 80s,I totally got this show.It was right on,created by a guy that was in the business.Most stations were owned by people with bigger companies & used radio as a tax write off & didn't care about ratings or the incomes of the people that worked there,so they either changed the format or closed them.That's how I lost my last radio job.I went through a lot of the situations they did in this show & applaud the creators for showing what radio stations were like then(and probably now).
"used radio as a tax write off..." like major league sports teams
Town to town, up and down the dial ... you didn't get into breeding guard dogs, though, did ya?
Interesting. I was a DJ from 1973 until 2020, and my experiences were nothing like this show. None of the companies used them as tax write offs. Every job depended on ratings and billing. And I can’t think of a single example anywhere of stations changing formats, simply to keep losing money. Not one. You can only write off losses for a period of time.
Although some of the jocks I worked with were similar.
Moral of the story is: Don't f*ck with someone who has nothing to lose. Proud of ya' Johnny!
Lol..WTF is WRONG with you? It's just a TV show
@@BAKER22-l4u You mean this wasn't a documentary??? I never knew!
@@BAKER22-l4uIt was a documentary with a laugh track.
Scenes like this are why I purchased the entire 4 years of the original WKRP on DVD’s. I wanted to be able to physically hold all 80 plus episodes of this gem of a series. The cast will live with me until the day I die.
Jc, does the library have it? You can request they buy it, just for the record. So to speak. Lol
I too have the entire seasons, love this show!
Likewise, bought the box set on DVD years ago. I've only ever bought one other box set of a TV series - Kolchak Night Stalker...and WKRP. They don't make shows like these anymore.
You too, Michael?
;)
This was the end of the series. Shame.
Nothing nearly like this can be found anymore on broadcast TV. The characters, dialog, situations and imagination were matchless. Touching, funny, personal, and outlandish as well. One of my all time favorites. Rip WKRP.
I know a lot of people go on and on about "Cheers" and "Taxi" but I never liked them, much preferred "WKRP" and "Wings".😁🎭🛩
@@jerikropp6394 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...for me, all 3 are great memories. Not so much for Wings.
Today's TV shows suck...
Carol Bruce was wonderful as Carlson's mother. She had quite the career over the years! RIP Howard Hesseman, he's so great in this scene.
This is a wonderful scene. The connection between Fever and Mrs Carlson, the subtle reaction to his threat to divulge her true intentions...symbolic of the program's quality.
Carol Bruce was an absolute knockout in her younger days. Stunningly gorgeous with a sultry voice. Yowza yowza yowza
Can't have Carol Bruce without Ian Wolfe as Hirsch!
RiP Hessman 2022
Carol Bruce was not the original mother of Carlson. I don’t know who it was but I remember I shorter lady.
I have been in radio broadcasting over 30 years. I have been at stations in several states and formats. Live local radio has and will always be the way to go.
Tell us why, radio stations play the same songs, over and over, daily..even ones who play the oldies??? It's no wonder people make their own playlists.
@@janetduncan87 As a former radio broadcaster at a small, live/local station hub, I can tell you that it's because of money. Sure, payola is illegal, but commercials are king. And people don't want to pay for commercials when no one is listening. So, how do you get them to listen? Pay for the right to play the "most popular" songs and play them every hour and make sure that people who listen to that garbage also hear the advertisements so that they, in turn, go buy that crap so the people buying advertisement time have to pay more to have their ads played because people are buying their crap. Management isn't going to pay for the right to play a song that won't help the sales department sell air time so you hear the same songs played over and over again every day.
@@Drakijy I have to "like" your comment, that doesn't equate to my wanting it to be true : (
Remember when people used to listen to the radio to hear the new stuff? The same people that would sit with their cassette players on pause until AFTER the DJ ceased talking & then played it back for friends? Even here in Japan it was the same. I miss the old days of radio
@@janetduncan87 Don't get me started on that! LOL There's an "independent" station in Utica, NY, that prides itself on that. But they sound exactly like the rest of the FM stations anywhere you go. I'll turn FM off and put on AM, even with the static.
Too bad it's on it's way out. And I also was in the biz...the best days are behind us.
Howard Hessman stole every scene he was in on "WKRP in Cincinnati."
He was the best. Love him in this and Head Of the Class. Right after this.
I don't know - that cast was made up of scene stealers.
@@jaywilson4520 Less, Herb, Bailey, Venus, Mr. Carlson, Andy were all great.
@@jaywilson4520 I understand why u say that. The characters in this show and the actors that played them were brilliant.
Hersch the Butler was pretty good too.
RIP HOWARD HESSMAN you will be missed
The butler killed me every time, he was never afraid of her
RJ 1999 he was so awesome. Made me love the show even more when someone had to go visit Mother Carlson. 😂
Hirsch, played by the veteran character actor Ian Wolfe (who appeared twice in Star Trek, more famously as Mr. Atoz the librarian in "All Our Yesterdays") and one of those figures in movies and television who always seems to be somewhere between 50 and 200 in age going back even to the 1940s.
Like Robert Guillaume as Benson on Soap.
Mr. Atoz.
Hirsch was a Genius. Late Actor Ian Wolfe
Oh, if we we were only allowed to be funny again!!! Think how much happier we would all be, despite the way the world is today!
I miss these shows
Sadly for the bulk of this clip we see 3 people who are now gone. Mama Carlson, The Big Guy and Johnny Fever.
Don't forget Herb!!!!
Rest in peace: Dr.Johnny Fever. Booger
Hirsch - "A very interesting turn, don't you think..." I loved the character Hirsch. (Ian Wolfe) The writing was brilliant, and the delivery could not be better.
"Mr. Atoz" the librarian from Star Trek... Mr A To Z! (Also Septimus from "Bread And Circuses.") After this video cuts off, I believe he comes back to discuss his next raise.
Doctor Johnny Fever has left the booth. Rest in peace.
She was also very right about the direction AM radio was taking. Now if she wanted her son to feel like a success she could have split WKRP into two: WKRP-FM for the rock music, WKRP-AM for the talk format
It was a huge shock when WKRP got canceled. No one saw it coming. I was 16 in 1982 and everyone I knew watched this show: all my friends, parents, grandparents, teachers and on and on. It really was a show that had something for everyone. It could be really hilarious, and be really hard hitting. The show stands out in my mind was when Venus Flytrap refused to have his picture taken for promotional purposes, and it seemed bizarre because you would think he’d love that. It turned out he had run away from the military because he was so traumatized by what he’d seen and done in Vietnam.
I loved this show and was very disappointed when it was canceled.
@night rider No, they were live turkeys until they hit the ground.
nobody saw it coming…except anyone who saw the ratings tumble
@@bostonrailfan2427 The ratings tumbled because CBS kept moving its timeslot to help as a lead-in to less popular sitcoms. In fact I recall reading an interview with one of the cast members and they noted that by the last season even they didn't know what day the show was on. Unfortunately WKRP was a victim of its success.
I can understand why he did that. Even if his "father " didnt....😂
WKRP was always my favorite. That scene where Less Nessman, the weather man had the turkeys thrown out of the helicopter thinking they could fly was perhaps the funniest scene ever in any series. The looks on everyone's faces standing on the ground were priceless as the turkeys fell and slammed into the pavement.
Johnny: "Hello Les? Les! Les, are you there? Les Isn't there... Thanks for that on the spot report, Les. Folks if you're just tuning in, the Pines Dale Shopping center has just been bombed with live turkeys. Film at eleven..."
I can never hear "Hot Blooded" without thinking of Les putting on his ascot and wig.
A class act!
"As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly."
"Oh, the humanity!"
So Johnny Caravella - who was 'saved' by WKRP - ends up saving WKRP.
This - to me - was WKRP at it's best...both serious and funny at the same time.
For those who don't know, this was the second last scene in the last episode of the series.
Booger...
Then came the two seasons in the nineties of the syndicated *The New WKRP in Cincinnati* series. It wasn't as good as the original. But it didn't suck either until they got desperate for ratings. And brought in the old cast as guest stars.
Ah. Part of why it was cancelled. I had heard that 'Dr. Johnny Fever' or Howard Hessman had expressed some views that got TV execs panties in a bunch, so they dropped the show. It never recovered. Sad.
Really. Thanks for the information. She was awful.
RIP Howard Hesseman - aka Johnny Caravella
Mama Carlson's butler was totally formidable! Talk about "holding the Pimp hand!"
The best series ending ever. Classic stuff, no vulgarities needed, just good clean comedy.
Nothing beats Newhart, but this was excellent. Also Mary Tyler Moore finale was right up there.
I loved this show and never missed an episode, what a wonderful mixture of actors and writers and directors.
WKRP was an example of life imitating art. The Network treated the TV show the way Carlson''s mom treated the station.
I saw an interview with Frank Bonner and he said him and the cast didn't even know what night the show was on thank to CBS
I believe WKRP would've been better without CBS
For four years, it was a cold war between Andy and Mama Carlson, with Andy managing to outmanoeuver Mama at nearly every turn when she tried to interfere with the station. Even when Andy managed to derail the unionisation effort, at Mama's behest, his cooperation came at a heavy price to put in improvements and better the working conditions. At last, at long last, she had Andy right where she wanted him, was about to screw up the station so it could become a huge tax write-off, and here it's Johnny who gets Mama over a barrel by threatening to expose the old bat to her son. One of my favourite Johnny Fever scenes in the whole series.
I’m tired of your crud
@@greedyd5524 "I've got four things to say to you. Number two..."
R.I.P. Dr. Johnny Fever. Rock on wherever you are.
I don’t think this was intentionality designed as a series finale, but it worked as one perfectly.
Sadly, much the fictional station, the show cracked the Nielsen Top 10 at #7 but CBS cancelled it.
These have always been the best kind of series finales...not ones where every single person’s whole life is tied up with a bow, but ones that make us believe those people and places are going on.
@@ssjjggjj5561 Sometimes living to fight another day is victory enough.
Sadly, this ended up serving as the finale of the entire series... but what a great episode to go out on.
Which is why this show's cancellation remains unforgivable. I remember the announcement, up there with the Hindenburg. It was the same week ABC promoted Loni Anderson in two of their Saturday evening shows. See the irony?
It was a great series and a great episode.
It's spelled "finale."
@@ApartmentKing66 Thank you, I corrected it :)
Finally 😱
Hirsch is one of the best WKRP Minor recurring characters.
Hirsch was comedic gold. Only a few appearances, he wasn't even introduced until late Season 3 I believe, but he made the absolute most of every moment he was given.
He steals the show every time!
I just realized that Hirsch may have been the inspiration for the character Woodhouse on Archer!
@@rogermurph101 Good call!
Ian Wolfe and Carol Bruce were a great comedic duo in this show.
1. I love that the actress playing Mrs. Carlson leaves space for the “number six?” joke to breathe.
2. The randomness of the pointillism painting on the wall.
I bet it was ad-libbed!
And 2:32-2:38 Johnny trying not to laugh.
Damndest thing is that Mrs C. here is about ten years ahead of 24 hour CNN, FOX, and even most of the news-esque opinion radio shows like Rush or Hannity. It really was a good market to emerge into during the early 80's. AM is no good for music, especially rock and roll, as it's transmitted mono, while FM can send stereo broadcasts. Had she gone ahead and been the FIRST AM news/talk/opinion station in the freaking OHIO/KENTUCKY market during the Reagan era, she would have been a trendsetter.
Especially once they deregulated how many stations you could own and then spew forth profitable propaganda to the gullible.
The problem back in the 1970s and early 1980s was an FCC rule called the 'Fairness Doctrine'. 'It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.' It was repealed in 1987 by Reagan's FCC. Congress passed a bill to reinstate the fairness doctrine but Reagan vetoed it.
Almost immediately saw the rise of AM stations centered around right wing politics most notably, Rush Limbaugh.
The country lost something with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine been its time was limited. The FCC's rule pertained to broadcasts over the public airways on TV and radio. It had no control over cable or the internet since these are 'broadcast' over private networks people pay money to view/hear.
@@njebei Excellent history lesson. "mainstream" media continues to "show both sides", even when one side is abjectly lying, leading to "the Trump era".
The saddest part is that Ted Turner who was an absolute Visionary and created CNN end the concept of a 24-hour live news report Network is absolutely ashamed to even have his name in some kind of connection with it because of what it has become.
He had a vision and it ended up getting s*** on
I was fortunate to work for a radio station that was locally owned. I started in radio in the late 80's, and can say that I was one of the last group of announcers that spun vinyl.
I miss the human touch in modern radio
@@hauntedhouse7827 Radio lost their special touch when they took away that.
I got to spin vinyl for a college station back in the 80s. Got back into the game about ten years ago as a sales rep, but quit two years later because closing sales just isn't my thing. A lot had changed.
Damn, I miss this show.
agree....spontanaety (sp) was an important part of radio. Voices are now pre-recorded which means you have the chance to go over if you don't like what you said or how it sounded.
Love Gordon Jump and all. What a show. I was 17 then and think I took this show for granted. Man, there is nothing like this anymore. What a loss. RIP Gordon, Howard, and Frank.
I swear this is how the Toronto Maple Leafs are run.
Detroit Lions are run the same way.
Cleveland Browns for sure.
The Leafs suck on the ice, but they're one of the most profitable NHL franchises.
@@OptimusWombat That is because Toronto fans support the nonsense. Just like Detroit Lions fans do! Though I am done watching sports due to the pandering for Black Lives Matter. Let them kneel for criminals and pander to Marxists all they want! I refuse to support woken BS.
@@mrg8581 edgy.
c. 1:15 Gotta love Hirsch. Ian Wolfe was such a great character actor.
Frank Bonner died last month and I only found out because I looked it up today. But still, the main cast has done a great job of staying alive. Gordon Jump died long ago but he was older than the others, and of course Carol Bruce (Mama Carlson), who was already in her sixties when this show aired. But there are six members of the main cast still living. That's pretty good for a show that started over 40 years ago.
Don't forget the original Mrs. Carson in the first 2 episodes
And we lost another a couple days ago. The Doctor is out. 😢
😍 Loved the show. RIP Dr. Fever. 😢
Buy the box set, with most of the correct music cues (just a few they couldn't negotiate on, darn it, but they worked their tails off to get this as right as it could be!) from the wonderful folks at Shout! Factory. That's where I got mine, fellow babies!
"It's not the plus and minuses that count, it's the plus and plus, IF the minuses are placed correctly"
That's actually great advice in both business and life., take a couple of minuses and place them to equal a plus. One of the things I loved about WKRP, it was a comedy, yes. But it was intelligent as well.
Not a bad description for an unintuitive concept.
The earliest finance lesson I ever received.
This scene is one of my absolute favorites of this show.
I STILL remember it clearly even before I watched the video.
Such pleasant nostalgia.
The greatest moment in television explaining the truth about profit and loss in big business.
Missed the best part of the scene Hirsch" it is Dr Johnny Fever isn't it?" Johnny "yes" Hirsch " madam your physician is here"
I remember that, "oh Fever its you?"
🤣🤣
HIRSCH! Phone!
_marches in, twists phone around, marches out_
Hearst was one of my favorite characters on the show. And I like the way he stood to Mother Carlson.
I still remember looking forward to watching this show as a kid.
The casting of this show was brilliant
The laid-back Dr. can be a hardball fighter when necessary!😀
Gordon Jump had such timing. Dead pan. Fantastic.
RIP Dr. Johnny Fever🙏🏿🕊️
I worked with Howard for 4 years on "Head of the Class". He is and will be missed.
I'm guessing you had zero idea how Dan Schneider would turn out...I'm still stunned. Did you also work with Billy Connolly? He seemed to be an interesting guy as well.
I loved this show. The characters were the best.
I have the WKRP First Annual Turkey Toss t-shirt. One of my favorite episodes!
Gordon Jump was so great! The entire cast was perfect.
Gordon Jump played Arthur Carlson perfectly. It is so funny to watch his fuddled ways as the head of the station.
Damn...seeing this makes me wanna cry... for this generation
I didn't appreciate at the time ,but, I had the rare opportunity to work at a family owned Country music station in Penticton,BC, Canada in the early 1990's. It was the last of the independent commercial radio stations. It's now owned by Stingray Music (?), which means all the quirky local character has been sucked out of it. That's why I volunteer at a community/listener-sponsored station like Co-op Radio in Vancouver. I get to play what I want and be my usual offbeat self. Not a robot shill for an industry which gave up on music ages ago. I even resurrected the warped fairy tales of 'The Story Lady' for my Radio Bandcouver show. A segment I used to include on my late night 'Night Owl Sessions' at Great Valleys Radio at around 1:30 in the morning.
There is a new stn.in Penticton " the fuzz" , it has an independent_alternative vibe to it. CFUZ peach city radio
I go to country when I want to play 2 chord songs on guitar. Allll my exes live in Texas...and Texas is a place, I'd really love. To. Be...but alllll my exes live in Texas, therefore I reside in Tennessee...!
Ok, I lied. That one has...let's see. A E (IOU? no...chords) a diminished A7 in the chorus...a differently fingered A an A6. And the weird bar chords at the end. 3 of those. So...8, then. Lol
Brother I concur 100%. Community radio is all that is left. Best days of my radio life was 4am shift at KVMR-FM in Nevada City, Ca. playing whatever came into my head and dancing in the dark studio with the music cranked up. Total freedom and complete joy!
Hessman was just brilliant in every scene he was in. WKRP was a great example of just how good tv used to be back then- shows that developed characters over time and got their audiences invested in them, who they were and what they did. They got their audiences the best way there is- through good writing, good casting and faith in both. Now if something isn’t an instant hit, it’s gone. WKRP, Cheers, Seinfeld, Taxi- all iconic groundbreaking shows that are remembered and quoted and totally unable to be duplicated today because they wouldn’t have had a decent chance today.
johnny fever is so smart even though he never looks it
You had to figure that he had been in multiple markets and figured out how everything worked.
@@pauljohnson3340 He's been there, done that. Real world experience can beat college education many times.
@@JrGoonior Johnny went through Princeton once. In a car. A police car ....
I remember the quote, "More news... with Les Nessman."
Who is this 'Ness' guy that nobody wants much to do with?
kenneth gomberg how about when Less mispronounced Chi Chi Rodriguez,s name.?
@@lilorbielilorbie2496 Terry howute
@Ken Lompart I think it was WKRP with more music and Les nessman
kenneth gomberg He won the Buck eye News Hawk Award and the Sliver Sow and invented eye witness weather
Smartest thing Johnny ever did!
thanks for the upload. this show was so awesome back in the days of when real sitcoms were funny.
yeah, this was the series finale. WKRP was finally gonna be a success, and she needed a tax shelter that would lose money. I really wish they would have done more seasons, this show was awesome..
Can you explain the tax shelter? I get a business can write off losses, but wouldn't it be cheaper never to buy the company in the first place? How would a company net a profit from writing off losses?
@@mattm7798 It works when said company is part of a larger conglomerate owning multiple businesses. Assuming that the net losses from the "loser" divisions of the conglomerate do not exceed to a great extent the profits from the "winner" divisions, the resulting losses can be claimed for deductions that in the end add up to a larger overall post-tax profit, either through the writeoffs or by pushing the conglomerate into a slightly lower bracket as a result.
@@jumblejumbo Except it is not fraud. The law does not require that you run a business to guarantee a profit from its operation, and it does not disallow changes in how a business is run.
To establish fraud, it would be necessary to produce evidence that assets were being deliberately hidden, that false records were being kept to mask asset concealment, that false tax deductions were being claimed, that the business was not delivering the product promised to its customers or the general public. You would have to establish intent, which is in itself extraordinarily difficult, particularly if the decisions and actions of the business owners can be explained as perfectly legal operations and logical consequences of said operations --- such as changing the broadcast format of a radio station, for example.
Now, a grey area can be said to exist when one or more divisions of a conglomerate are being used in a scheme to lower the conglomerate's overall tax burden or to garner windfalls from losses. But so long as tax law (which itself is ever changing and is the reason why whole armies of tax lawyers are perpetually kept on retainer) allows loopholes, allows the recovery of business losses through the tax code, and nothing which is actually illegal is being committed, then the actions of, say, Carlson Industries are held to be above-board and in compliance with the law.
@@jumblejumbo You can write off 100% of your losses. When you make money you only get to keep about 50%.
Ah the days when radio meant something. To me, it WAS the social media of our times...live DJ, music, requests, telephone party lines (talking to friends while listening to the latest hits on the radio) etc. "You had your time; you had the power; you've yet to have your finest hour; Radio" And now because of social media, internet, smartphones, ipods, satellite etc. etc. etc. Radio will NEVER get to have "...it's finest hour..." because today on radio: "All we hear is radio ga ga; Radio goo goo"
Great show, very funny. I loved watching it.
That Episode was to Priceless. 👌👌
Johnny Fever, ",BOOGER!!!".
Peter K 😂😂😂😂
Yeah, when I saw ‘Format change ‘ I thought it would be that episode.
"And by the way, fellow babies...... BOOOGER!" That was a ringtone on my phone for over a year.
It's the phone cops!
This was a great show. Does anyone recall the episode where they dropped frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving.
I trusthe Doors are doing well...probably the best line from a show that was full of 'em
Similar plot point of "Slapshot" with Paul Newman. Good stuff.
Glad I have the complete series with all original music on dvd. And Jan Smithers, eeeYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Biff Roberts
Understatement of the millennia dude...
Hey what can I say? She's a HOTTIE N a half!!!!! Just watch the episode "Rumors" when Fever moves in with her. Damn, she even looks good in the morning!!! lol
Biff Roberts How did you score the music. I heard the Dvd was lacking music due to copyrights. Something about elevator music or free use crap in place of original.
You would have to ask my cousin that one. She's the one who bought it for me on her 2nd honeymoon after she & her hubby flew back on one of his planes from Germany. Lets just say we had an understanding of don't ask, don't know, & we just left it at that. She did the same thing with BJ & The Bear. I have a complete dvd set of that show Ala bootleg. And I don't even wanna know how she scored that one. Guess she has some connections. lol But thanks to her, I now have Jan Smithers aka Bailey Quarters 24/7 as she's all MINE!!!!!!!!!! She is a real HOTTIE!!!!! lol
Biff Roberts no need to ask, I am familiar with outside sources. Enjoy
Local radio used to rule the day. I wish it still did.
When you could hear things like 'the Top 7 at 4'
That was a great Show. There were several great shows from that Era, unlike the crap that floods the market these days
WKRP,Taxi,MASH and many other great shows of that era good times even if I was too young to remember.
I counted myself fortunate to have ridden out the 'good old days' of radio before it got the Corporate America Enema ('92-'02).
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm so freaking sick of these cookie-cutter corporate stations with hack DJs who laugh at their own jokes, play the same 300-400 songs over and over again, and bombard you endlessly with little blue pill commercials where they repeat the phone number six times. With the exception of a few local radio stations that are real gems, radio today is a vast wasteland of mediocrity.
@@pcbacklash_3261 Exactly!
I love this scene, especially the conversation between Johnny and Mrs. Carlson. Fantastic.
This was the best lesson on economics I ever had.
Have you not seen Trading Places, then...?
Or Back to school, where Rodney Dangerfield takes a business class when he's HAD a very successful business for many years. So, he's arguing with the professor on the realities of business. Lol.
this is the last show. a pretty good episode
"I almost forgot fellow babies - BOOGER!"
Pay attention kids, this is what killed our music industry.
Yep! When digital recording went from costing $50k/channel to $0.50 overnight. We were toast.
@@htos1av I have a friend who was in the radio industry from 1984 to the 2000's and I remember us having the conversation back in the 90's about radio de-regulation and how he predicted the industry would fall. He was 100% right.
@ and streaming killed the video star.
yep wkrp predicted a lot of stuff....
@phosphorescent wave Completely depends on their record deals. Look up "360 deals". You'll see that plenty of bands don't get much of their concerts or youtube revenue either. You simply can't make generalizations like that. In the end though people like to complain about the big bad record industry, but nobody put a gun to the artist's heads and made them sign a bad deal. If bands are getting ripped off by their labels it's mostly likely because they were too stupid to hire a lawyer to read their contracts before they signed them.
My Wife's Brother worked for a radio station in Jackson, Ohio. So I can relate to this show. It would have been on longer if they had left in one time slot.
that was smart tv. i miss those days. it's amazing how much things have changed.
I think _30 Rock_ had some of it.
We didn't get to see enough of Mrs. Carlson's butler. I'll bet the stress of working for that woman aged him so much he looked 80 but was actually 40.
Johnny Fever wasn't afraid of her. Love it!
And then she went on to own the Cleveland Indians in Major League.
Margaret Whitton owned the team in Major League. Carol Bruce was Mama (Lillian) Carlson
Gordon Go The OP was referring to the fact that both entities were supposed to lose money.
Giada_De_Low_Rent_Tits nailed it.
@@boataxe4605 With different motives though.
The acting is spectacular in this scene.
I agree. Mrs. Carlson knows that if her son finds out that she set him up to fail, he will cut her out of his life.
I loved that show. What a great cast!!
She looked pissed when she heard a mother's love. LOL
Sad that the last episode was the best ever in the series, it was EPIC!!!
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!
So deeply warped even I understand
I just realized that Mrs Carlson is Mom from Futurama
Lol your right
Hey, Fever was in a GREAT movie with Rainn Wilson called The Rocker. He plays a bus driver. Took me only 5 times watching it to catch it in the credits.
The doctor ruled.
Such a great show.
This show was lightning in a bottle from day one. How good was it? The Thanksgiving episode was season one, episode _six_ ...
This was an awesome show back in the day.
It still is. Totally great show.
It’s one of the very few shows that never jumped the shark. It was brilliant its entire four year run. Its cancellation was a travesty then and it still baffles me.