Baby, if you’ve never wondered

As I mentioned, I’ve been sick this week, so in between trying to keep up with my paid job — because capitalism, that’s why — I’ve been mostly looking for low-impact time-wasters. The Internet is great for wasting time.

Occasionally, I’ll just bop over to Internet Archive or YouTube, type in some keywords, and see what I find.

What I found this week had me convinced that I was having a fever-induced hallucination. (Or should it be a “Fever” induced hallucination?)

But it was real. All-too-real. Horribly, horribly real.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of “WKRP in Cincinnati,” the CBS-TV sitcom that aired from 1978 to 1982. In fact, a lot of radio people are. If you know the show at all, it may be from the famous Thanksgiving-themed episode, “Turkeys Away,” which is often cited as one of the best Thanksgiving related episode of any TV show, as well as one of the funniest half-hours of American TV, period.

“WKRP in Cincinnati” was produced by the same MTM Enterprises quality-TV factory that produced “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Lou Grant,” “Hill Street Blues” and other video classics. It was set at a failing AM radio station (supposedly No. 16 in a 18-station market) in the Ohio city.

Like those other MTM shows, “WKRP in Cincinnati” debuted to almost universal praise from TV critics — and why wouldn’t it? A true ensemble cast filled out most of the roles you would have found at a radio station in the 1970s, including program director Andy Travis (Gary Sandy), traffic (commercial scheduling) director Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers), morning DJ “Dr. Johnny Fever” (Howard Hesseman), overnight DJ “Venus Flytrap” (Tim Reid), news director Les Nessman (Richard Sanders), and sales manager Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner).

Rounding out the cast were Gordon Jump as station manager Arthur Carlson Jr., possessing one of the world’s greatest Oedipus complexes (the station was owned by his wealthy widowed mother, who hounded him at every opportunity), and Loni Anderson as the real brains behind Carlson, the station’s receptionist, Jennifer Marlowe. (A running gag was that Marlowe dated so many high-profile playboys, she didn’t really need the income from her receptionist job — but that she was still the highest-paid employee of the station.)

In a somewhat unusual move for 1970s TV sitcoms, there was a kind of continuity to “WKRP in Cincinnati,” where characters evolved, and plot lines continued from episode to episode.

In the pilot episode, Travis has been hired as program director as a sort of “sacrificial lamb.” Program directors have come and gone at low-rated WKRP; Mrs. Carlson is running the station as a tax-loss to offset profits at her other businesses. As a result, WKRP has been reduced to running remakes of cover versions of elevator-music re-recordings of pop standards. Its biggest advertisers include the Hutchins Community Hospital (“Where malpractice is rapidly becoming a thing of the past”) and Shady Hills Rest Home (“Many people ask this age-old question: What happens when I can no longer feed myself?”).

Travis quickly sums up the situation, meets with the demoralized staff, realizes that he’s on a suicide mission, and decides to go for broke anyway — he orders Fever to switch the format to rock ‘n roll, and recruits jive-talking Flytrap to host an R&B show. The fictional WKRP begins a slow climb in the ratings in Cincinnati — helped by news coverage of its ridiculous stunts (such as the aforementioned turkey-drop) and a boycott organized by a group of far-right Christian pastors.

By the end of the fourth season, the fictional WKRP had risen to become the sixth-highest rated radio station in Cincinnati …

… and we never got to see what happened next.

CBS-TV, in its infinite wisdom, pulled the plug on “WKRP.”

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There are many theories as to why CBS cancelled “WKRP.” After the first season, the network bounced it around the schedule to the point where no one knew exactly when it would be on.

But there’s another angle. Much of the humor in “WKRP” comes from the realism of the situations being depicted — especially for people who have worked in broadcasting. “WKRP” satirized drug use and alcoholism by disc jockeys, pay-offs by corrupt record promoters, rigged on-air concerts, sleazy radio commercials, made-up news stories, and other problems that continue to plague broadcasting to this day. One show — “The Concert” — was based on a real-life incident in Cincinnati in 1979, in which 11 fans died in a stampede at a Who concert at Riverfront Stadium.*

One of my favorite conspiracy theories has to do with the fact that CBS, at the time, still owned a network of radio stations, and speculates that CBS Radio executives didn’t appreciate being mocked by CBS-TV. I suppose that’s a possibility, but it’s equally likely that CBS-TV was run by a group of dunderheads who wouldn’t know funny if it bit them in the underpants. One year after cancelling “WKRP in Cincinnati,” CBS gave the green-light to a disastrous spinoff of “M*A*S*H” called “AfterM*A*S*H.” Other sitcoms that debuted on CBS for 1983 included “Goodnight Beantown,” “Domestic Life,” “Empire” and “Mama Malone.” Most of them didn’t make it past the first 13 weeks.

But a funny thing happened after “WKRP” was cancelled. The show went into syndication on local TV stations around the country and became a smash hit. In Pittsburgh, it aired on WTAE-TV (4) just before the 6 o’clock news. In market after market, people fell in love with “WKRP” (now that they could finally find it at a reliable place on the dial).

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After a few years, that naturally begged the question: Why not reboot the show? So in 1991, many of the original behind-the-scenes people returned to present “The New WKRP in Cincinnati.” Jump, Bonner and Sanders also returned. And that … was it.

It would have been like rebooting “Seinfeld” with only Kramer and George. (Or, for that matter, rebooting “M*A*S*H” without Hawkeye, B.J. and Hot-Lips Houlihan, which was more or less what “AfterM*A*S*H” did.)

In place of the other regular cast members were British pop singer Michael Des Barres, soft-core porno actress Tawny Kitaen, and Mykelti Williamson (who later went onto much bigger, and better, things).

Initial reviews were … tepid. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ron Weiskind was cautiously optimistic. “Radio is such a ripe medium for satirization that ‘WKRP’ will never lack for funny stories,” Weiskind wrote. “Fortunately, the new cast members look like they’re up to the task.”

The cast may have been up to the task, but the story-telling wasn’t. Even from 1978 to 1982, the radio station depicted on “WKRP in Cincinnati” was an anachronism. The DJs picked their own music (that almost never happened in commercial radio in the late 1970s). The format of WKRP (as depicted) would swing wildly from oldies in the mornings, to smooth background music in midday, to talk-shows in the afternoons, to soul and R&B in the evenings. Although a few commercial stations in the 1970s did try to be “all things to all people” most tried to settle on one or two key elements.

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If the business model of the fictional WKRP seemed a little bit suspect in the early 1980s, it was downright comical (but not intentionally) in 1991. On “The New WKRP,” the station was carrying on the same way it had when the original show was cancelled. In real life, WKRP-AM Radio in 1991 would probably have been heavily formatted (probably with talk shows or oldies, since it was on the AM dial) and using computers.

On “The New WKRP,” the station was staffed by shock-jocks who were playing alternative-rock music, all interrupted by Les Nessman’s farm reports. It just didn’t make a lot of sense.

Unrooted from satirizing the real radio industry, “The New WKRP” frequently found itself out in the wilderness. (In one episode, Mr. Carlson is accidentally hypnotized and thinks he’s a chicken. That is literally one of the oldest comedy plots in existence. It wasn’t funny in vaudeville in 1920, and trust me, it wasn’t funny on TV in 1991.)

In Pittsburgh, “The New WKRP” was originally scheduled on WPXI-TV (11) at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday nights, which shows how much confidence the station had in the comedy. That’s pretty much a death time-slot.

It got worse: Once WPXI had seen several episodes of the show, they moved it to 3 a.m.

Somehow, “The New WKRP” survived into a second season (possibly for contractual reasons) and the creators made a valiant attempt to regroup and revamp. Several of the auxiliary characters were eliminated. More of the shows started to focus on the radio business. French Stewart (not yet famous from his role on “3rd Rock from the Sun”) was hired as a young DJ trying to make a name for himself. Significantly, the creators convinced Hesseman to return for 11 episodes. Hesseman — who had a relatively successful sitcom on ABC-TV for four seasons, “Head of the Class” — also directed a few episodes of “The New WKRP.”

But it wasn’t enough. Devoid of meaningful satire, “The New WKRP” went for pratfalls and slapstick, and the investors pulled the plug in 1993.

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And that brings me to what I hoped was a fever-induced nightmare this week — but, no, my fever has gone down, and it appears that what I watched was very real.

In two episodes of “The New WKRP,” Johnny Fever broadcast his show from atop a billboard in an attempt to attract publicity for the station. (Broadcasting from billboards as a ratings stunt was attempted by more than a few real radio stations in the 1980s and 1990s, so that’s at least a little bit rooted in reality.)

In a subsequent episode, news coverage of Fever’s stunt has been seen by a Hollywood producer (that seems unlikely), who calls him in Cincinnati and tells him he wants to create a sitcom based on Fever’s radio career (that seems extremely unlikely).

In an episode entitled “Johnny Goes Hollywood,” Fever takes the offer and flies to Los Angeles to tape a pilot of a TV show called … “WKRP in Cincinnati.”

We then see clips of the fictional “show-within-a-show” during the episode. First, there’s a parody of the famous “WKRP” theme song. William Christopher — Father Mulcahy on “M*A*S*H” — has been cast in the Les Nessman part. Mr. Carlson is portrayed as a gun-toting maniac. Les is portrayed as having won two Nobel Peace Prizes.

Fever starts to complain about the show — “it’s not realistic,” he says, echoing what real critics were saying about “The New WKRP” — and gets fired as a result.

I’m honestly not sure if the people behind the scenes were taking a shot at people who were criticizing “The New WKRP” (in the same way writers on “The Simpsons” have mocked that show’s more obsessive fans) or if the creators of “The New WKRP” were simply confessing, “Yes, we know this sucks.”

None of this crosses into “so-bad-it’s-good” territory. It’s just not funny. The jokes hit the stage with a thud — much like turkeys dropped from a helicopter into a parking lot at the Pinedale Shopping Mall.

The really bizarre stuff in “Johnny Goes Hollywood” happens away from the fake “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Several members of the Cincinnati crew fly to Los Angeles to see the taping of the pilot, where they interact with Burt Reynolds and Jerry Seinfeld, and no, I am not making that up. Burt has a cameo with Herb Tarlek and Jerry flirts with Tawny Kitaen. (Well, at least that seems realistic.)

IMDB tells me, by the way, that not only did Burt Reynolds make a cameo in “The New WKRP,” he also directed an episode, “Jennifer and the Prince,” in which his then-wife — Loni Anderson — made a guest appearance. Loni may have had questionable choices in love interests, but Burt sure had questionable choices in comedy projects.

There were only five more episodes of “The New WKRP in Cincinnati” after “Johnny Goes Hollywood.” Hesseman, wisely, didn’t return for any of them.

Hesseman had the right idea. After watching “Johnny Goes Hollywood,” I am neither not sick enough to want to watch those five episodes, nor well enough to be able to stand them. Instead, I’m going to dose myself with more cough medicine, and with any luck, I’ll fall asleep and hallucinate a funnier episode of “WKRP” than anything dreamed up by the writers of “The New WKRP.”