Category: Uncle Jay’s TV Watching Club

Baby, if you’ve never wondered

As God as my witness, “The New WKRP” was a turkey that wouldn’t fly, but that didn’t stop Burt Reynolds and Jerry Seinfeld from risking cameos

“WKRP” deserved a better send-off than this. Hell, “My Mother The Car” deserved a better send-off than this

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.

There are a ton of funny moments in “Turkeys Away” beyond the closing scene, so as God as my witness, the next person who says “I thought turkeys could fly” to me and thinks it’s the height of comedy is going to get pasted in the puss.

“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).

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We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past dawn

I’m not surprised to see that all of the streaming video services are cutting back on their offerings and downsizing to some extent.

Unlike the narrator in Bruce Springsteen’s song, for a few years now, it’s seemed like there were more than 57 channels, and something was always on. I found it literally impossible to keep up.

Of course, it didn’t help that I kept delving into old TV shows. I’m not a huge “Star Trek” fan, but I subscribed to Paramount+ to see “Picard” with Patrick Stewart — and instead, I found myself watching “Hawaii Five-O.” (The original one. Don’t talk to me about the reboot.) Lately I’ve been re-watching “Cheers” from the beginning.

I’m paying $5.99 per month to watch 40-year-old TV shows that used to run for free? What a world, what a world.

Like I said, I’m not a huge “Star Trek” fan, but as a Gen-X’er, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” hit me right at an impressionable age for a young nerd, so I was looking forward to “Picard.” I was … disappointed. I found the first season … OK, but ponderous. The second season didn’t click with me at all.

I’m told the third season of “Picard” was the best so far, but I haven’t checked it out yet.

You know what two “Star Trek” spinoffs I am liking? “Lower Decks” — the animated cartoon — and “Strange New Worlds.”

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