It's been a long time since I've been able to see WKRP in Cincinnati. I remember growing up watching the episodes with my parents who were huge fans of the show during its first run, and I remember videotaping the episodes when it aired on WGN in the afternoons.It was a spectacular show with entertaining and well-rounded characters like the nebbish newsman Les Nessman, the smarmy advertising manager Herb Tarlek, bookish Baily Quarters, station manager Andy Travis, rock jock Johnny Fever, smooth night DJ Venus Flytrap, station general manager Art Carlson, and gorgeous receptionist Jennifer Marlowe. And those characters got into all sorts of sit-com situations that were wackier than the rest of the things that happened on other lesser sit-coms.
The whole thing comes down to the fact that the show was absolutely hilarious, and the characters were well enough written that you were actually able to care about them along the way. And it appears that it'll be a sever long shot that it'll ever appear on DVD because of the problems of getting licenses for all the various songs that were played throught the show's various intro and outtros.
Luckily there are dozens of tribute websites as well as episode guides on the web as well as freakish music videos out there.
Plus there are a whole bunch of clips available on YouTube:
- The classic Thanksgiving episode
- The affects of alcohol test
- The entire punk concert episode
- Les tries on a wig
- The staff tries to sell Vicki von Vicki some advertising time
- Les's classic pronounciation of Chi Chi Rodriguez
- Everyone's greatest fear: the phone cops
- WKRP's initial format change to a rock station
- One of my all time favorites: Venus explains the atom
- Art Carlson tries cocaine - in an odd way
- Bailey finally gets her own show
- Art tries to surprise Johnny
- The employees meet the new consultant
- Johnny and Venus get in their last shots
- The classic Red Wigglers jingle
- WKRP deals with the Who concert tragedy
- The whole WKRP stuff on YouTube
Thankfully they never tried to remake the show in a more modern setting.
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