Dr. Johnny Fever was my inspiration when I deejayed at a bar in my hometown for two years. Now he has left us to go deejay in a better place. R.I.P. Howard Hesseman, you will be missed!
There is not one single radio DJ, Host, or Personality from my generation ( X ) that didn't grow up idolizing Dr. Johnny Fever. This was one of the last, genuine, "rolling on the floor in pain with tears and snot bubbles shooting out of my nose"- TV shows that my parents and I could watch together and just flip out.
The Who never even knew it happened and were criticized for continuing the concert. This show pointed out the fact that they weren't told about it until after the show. That was very cool of them to do that.
"There's been a lot of talk about setting up a commission to look into what happened here. It isn't going to be just talk, this town's going to do it."
Jan Smithers really was hot. They had her downplay it in the first few episodes of the first season and then it really began to manifest when she started dressing differently in the later seasons. Much, much prettier than Loni Anderson.
Old friend of mine was a DJ in the 1970s. He guaranteed me that if he didn't live a WKRP script, he knew people at the station that did. I just did college radio, but even I recognized its realness from that alone.
Dr. Fever is so FM lol. I miss this era so much. Me and my sis were kids during this time. We all sit around the radio and phone while our babysitter would call in requests to the local station. My parents would be out partying with friends lol. This was a time when parents actually had lives and interests outside of the kid's every comfort.
Yeah, I think that was why the next generation decided that after being neglected by their parents, maybe they should spend some time with their kids. Great show, though. It was high on the list of the many, many shows that stood in for my parents.
@@Doggeslife The world changes. It HAS to. But it is remarkable how many good things we've thrown away for the sake of 'change'.... and the change is not always for the better. In fact, it's SELDOM for the better. A lot of people are convinced it's 'better', but in the end, it's just 'different'.... not 'better'.
That’s why I am involved with a pirate FM station 150:watts of pure digital sound with two servers a mixer and a dozen external hard drives we use a compressor to avoid over driving the audio section plus we have a really nice 150 watt transmitter in true stereo been at it for 5 years even the local police listen to us LOL have a burn phone from the hood as out request line with a mic on it for on the air talk and a kill switch if some one drops a F bomb but we tell people that they have to watch their mouth on air We dot play rap or and other crap I think thats why we dont get hassled we keep it clean and pro sounding we cover about 13 miles with a 50 ft tower and .95 wave antenna we involve local schools and churches with programming like ball games and services live with the China virus A lot of people tune in to hear Sunday services Good PR !
Ever look at the TV schedule for the '78-79 season? For every WKRP there's a Who's Watching the Kids, plus most of those 'great' shows weren't as good as you remember¹. Reality TV also isn't a new thing, it existed back then as well. Although the smaller size of the overall schedule meant that what would now be a series would be a single episode in a show like Real People². 1: This will be a combination of you being younger when you watched them and from you remembering, (or only ever seeing if you watched in syndication), the better episodes. 2: "Look at these people/jobs" style reality TV is about the only kind where the average quality has dropped over the past few decades. As I implied, this is mostly due to simply having more programming hours to fill, (in 1978, most US markets had somewhere between 80-120 hours of TV a day, now it isn't strange for there to be that much _per hour_ available).
@@psyberian Shows like Real People _weren't_ scripted. They were like the various "look at these people do their job" shows except what is a multi-season show now would have been a single episode then.
Remember that first attempt to have it on DVD, but with almost every song changed around? The song done was something that sounded similar but they sang, "You're too much. You're much too much."
We invested in the complete set of DVDs. I think we've been through the whole series at least three times. Well worth the investment. Heck, the turkey episode alone is worth the price...
First question I heard in a college radio broadcasting course was how two DJ's could run an entire radio station like on WKRP. Without batting an eye, my teacher responded "the real trick is having a station that apparently only has one salesman who's not that good."
Loved watching this back in the day. I still remember when they did the moment of silence at the end of one episode for those that died at The Who concert.
This show was an absolute trailblazer during its run. WKRP went against all the establishment norms and the comedy was historic. But it also had the guts to take on some of the most important issues within the music industry. Such as Fiesta seating at concerts. But overall, my vote goes to Bailey and Mary Ann.
urban renewal, the payola scandal, cold war politics (defection), race relations, treatment of the handicapped, education - how many of us learned about the atom from Gordon "Venus Flytrap" Simms? The show was not afraid to shy away from current topics
I loved WKRP during its original run--CBS moved it around so much that it was often hard for viewers to find it--ultimately when it was cancelled and went into syndication the show became one of the most popular shows on the air (more so than Mary Tyler Moore show etc etc)
Except in syndication they couldn't use the original versions of the songs, because they didn't want to pay for the copyrights. So to me the show lost a lot of it's charm when it went indication
david graham Too many old geezers at CBS trying to kill it by constantly moving slots.... it worked.... too bad, it probably had at least three more solid seasons left in it....
@@Rick_Sanchez_C137_ once a show passes 100 episodes the network will often kill off the show as it can now take the show to syndication-and that's where the money is--nevertheless CBS/MTM productions were "floored" by how popular WKRP became in syndication--if they had continued making new episodes they would have had more shows to sell and more profit. Interestingly they tried to revive WKRP as the "New WKRP" a few years later but it wasn't as well received at all
It's not that anyone rates WKRP down, but that such ubiquitous schlock is overrated nowadays. Not that there wasn't always schlock around, just not to the degree that there is now.
Just stumbled across this again. My cheeks hurt from smiling and tears of some kind filling my eyes. Giggly glad I can still see it here and sad it is gone. God what a show!
Even back in the broadcast TV days with a fuzzy picture I noticed this. The second turntable obviously didn't have a stylus, but props to Howard Hesseman for not breaking character and saving the take - it was a good one 😊
That is why we were never allowed to dance, play air guitar or air drums, or drum on the control board in studio. Hell, walking around too much in the studio was seriously frowned upon at my station back in the day.
It is impossible to separate this show from its era. The reason this show can never be remade is because the late seventies/early eighties will never happen again.
I remember that all anybody would talk about was the fact that Dr. Johnny Fever was based on a local DJ named "Skinny" Bobby Harper who later worked for an AM station in Atlanta with the call sign WSB 750 AM...
@@gregorywhitten2824 yeah...I think that I listened to him at one point or another at every station he worked at...used to love listening to both Boortz and the Kimmer tell Skinny Bobby Harper stories whenever they got a caller that said something that reminded them of Bobby...
Yes, I hate when these classic shows are too cheap to purchase the license for the original music. Younger people seeing them for the first time don’t realize how awesome the sound track for some of those shows were, rather than the generic, license free crap they replaced that great music with. Wonder Years also was completely ruined in syndication with the crappiest license free music they could find.
Truth...but a mind-numbingly complex legal labyrinth to get all the original music. Different artists, different labels, all with different agendas. That’s why it took decades to get right for the Wonder Years boxed set. Similar situation here, where the music was “another character” in the storyline.
devtrash I think you’re exaggerating a bit. $600.00 a DVD my ass. How come Scrubs kept about 90% of the original music in their DVDs and it’s not quite $600.00 a DVD? Freaks and Geeks has kept 99% of the original music and I haven’t bought any DVDs of the show yet, but I looked it up and it’s somewhat less than the $600.00 per DVD and selling for about $24.99. They want to make more profit is all. It’s altering art. Might as well paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa. What good is it? I can’t even watch the Wonder Years DVDs because of the garbage license free music they replace the original with. The sound is a big part of the art in some of those classics. There are always going to be one or two artists who want way too much for their work, but fuck them, most of the artist have agreeable licenses. I’m sure that’s why Scrubs had about 10% they couldn’t agree on, but were able to get the rest. Some of these shows, like WKRP and Wonder Years trashed the entire sound track. Fine, if they can’t stay with most the original music, I don’t need to watch it. Like I said, it’s ruined art at that point. Besides, how do you know I’m cheap? Maybe I will pay $600.00 for a DVD, you judgmental asshole troll? Do know how I know you’re a troll? Because you can’t write a fucking comment without an ad hominem fallacy. A troll is incapable of making any reply without an unnecessary insult, one which is completely unsolicited. Don’t even write back, because I refuse to converse with trolls. The day you can write a comment without tacking on an ad hominem assault, maybe I’ll read what you have to say. In the meantime, start packing away some money, so you can eventually get out of your parent’s basement.
60sTeen Edit Didn’t realize WKRP was AM. But to my knowledge AM never played Album Oriented Rock like a lot FM became in mid 70s. I recall am music in the early 70s. A lot of “Rose Garden” “ I am woman” “Billie Dont be a hero”. Theme from SWAT, Disco Duck. Don’t get me wrong, I loved me some AM radio back in the day.
@@Changesonemack WKRC was an actual station in Cincinnati (still is). Was talk format, as were most others (or else oldies/easy listening). But there was ONE rock and roll AM station at the time in Cincy - WSAI, iirc. I assumed the show took its inspiration from WSAI's format and WKRC's name. WSAI - "The station ended up becoming Cincinnati's AM Top 40 powerhouse during the 1960s and 1970s" [Wikipedia]. Yep... that matches my memory.
I always picture all the old people listening to the station and having heart attacks or going for the phone to make angry calls. Well, assuming anyone was listening...
That episode where The Who had come to town the radio station gave away free tickets and all those fans died at the arena when the stampede started was real heavy.
Yeah, it was a memorably serious episode with some side humor that was one of the best they had ever done. Based, as you said, on the real-life tragedy of a fatal stampede at The Who concert in Cincinnati.
WKRP reminds us of how great broadcast radio was in the 60s and 70s. Makes one wonder why anyone would even bother with it today after having been so completely destroyed by corporate America.
I talked to one of the deejays at a local all rock college radio station. He was completely unaware of WKRP in Cincinnati. Never heard of it. Kids these days...
Ahh! The days when radio would play the entire album with no commercial interruptions or DJ announcements so you could tape them off the air. The RIAA didn't like that even if the artists were getting paid.
04:16 i like how the needle is on the center label of the record. He was one of those fm DJ's in the 70's and 80's who would talk over the cool intro of every song. Babies!
