WKRP in Cincinnati: The Complete Series DVD review

Cult classic sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, now making its complete series DVD debut, takes viewers to a much different time – before iPods and Sirius, when AM radio was still a very real thing that people listened to and relied on for news and entertainment. Yes, radio had character, and helped dictate and define our culture, pop and otherwise. Running for four seasons on CBS, from 1978 to ‘82 – a period of major transition in America – WKRP was a wacky workplace comedy that helped pave the way for shows like The Office, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation today. To discuss what makes the series tick, one must first understand its lunatic cast of characters, who are at the root of every episode, every laugh and every plot development. There are eight principles that can be broken down into three categories.

Management: Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump) is WKRP’s sometimes bumbling but always good-hearted station manager, also known affectionately as “The Big Guy.” Though from time to time he appears to possess a modicum of business acumen, for the most part, he’d rather not be bothered with the day-to-day operations of the station, instead focusing on his hobbies, which include fishing and model trains. The series kicks off with Carlson’s hiring of Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) as the station’s new program director. The level-headed center of the bunch, Travis has been living town to town, up and down the dial, and doesn’t see WKRP as anything more than another stop in his career of rebranding stations and making them profitable. Soon enough, he’ll discover there’s something special about this station that keeps him from moving on to the next one. Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson), Carlson’s bombshell-with-brains secretary, shouldn’t technically fit under management, and yet as the series progresses, it becomes all too clear that without the glue that is Jennifer, the entire enterprise would fall to pieces.

The Disc Jockeys: Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) is the station’s morning drive man. Like Travis, Johnny’s worked at more stations than he can remember, though that may have more to do with years of drug and alcohol use, which is more hinted at than ever explored. Fever is the show’s wild card, and WKRP never shies away from throwing bizarre, unpredictable plotlines in his path. Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) is Andy’s first move upon changing the station’s format to rock and roll, hiring the jock “away from a station in New Orleans.” Shrouded in a mysterious past, Venus takes care of the evening shift, playing soothing, laid-back tunes for the greater Cincinnati area. WKRP peels away the Venus onion, giving him a little more backstory every season, and one of the show’s very last episodes (“The Creation of Venus”) brilliantly redefines his introduction way back in the two-part pilot.

Read the rest of the character breakdown, as well as the entire review, by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

WKRP in Cincinnati on DVD – The Verdict

Well it had to happen sooner or later, right? I had to weigh in, especially given my mildly schizophrenic attitude toward the DVD release, which is somewhat inaccurately labeled “The Complete First Season”. It is not, but it's more complete than the WKRP in Cincinnati I owned before, which was nothing.

The internet’s run rampant for weeks now with all the painful details of the many song cuts and in the weeks leading up to the release, a lot of people posted to Amazon about intentions of canceling preorders and so forth – which they were perfectly entitled to do. Since I never preordered the set I wasn’t one of them, but neither did I rush out on day one and pick up the set as planned. I wonder how many of those people still haven’t picked up the set, and if so, I also wonder if they’d react to it as I have?:

It’s a fantastic collection that comes very close to preserving the bulk of what made the series so special.

This whole music-tied-to-classic-moments stuff is rooted in either nostalgia or familiarity. It’s easy to say WKRP was/is as much about the music as everything else (I know because I’ve said it), but this DVD set for the most part proves that the songs were actually a pretty small part of a bigger, crazier and more rewarding picture. Admittedly, there are some exceptions – the biggest one being a scene between Carlson and Johnny in “Turkeys Away” in which Pink Floyd’s Dogs was originally used and Floyd was central to the dialogue. Not only is the song gone on the DVD, but so is most of the scene and what remains is mostly just a sight gag. It’s a huge shame that such a major cut was made to the episode that’s considered one the greatest half hours of TV ever created. (It's worth noting that my love of Floyd undoubtedly plays into my feelings about that particular cut.)

Fox, however, has done a bang up job of finding replacement material that mostly conveys the vibes of the original tunes for the majority of the DVD set and it seems there was more thought put into this release than many are saying. I can picture a release that would be both far less satisfying and far more offensive. (Indeed, I’d pictured it before viewing this set.)

Probably the most bemoaned replacement is the classic “Les puts on a wig to Foreigner” scene in “A Date with Jennifer”. Of course Foreigner is missed, and the tune taking its place desperately wants to be Hot Blooded -- yet the tone of the gag remains blissfully intact. (Has the omission of Foreigner from anything ever aroused this much contempt?) What used to be Johnny spinning James Taylor’s Your Smiling Face at the close of “I Want to Keep My Baby” plays similarly. My hat really goes off to Fox for doing their best with a bad situation and I’d be interested to find out how the replacement music came to be. Where did it come from? Who recorded it? Was it made especially for this set? It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before and yet it’s clearly inspired by the music it replaces.

A friend loaned me a set of WKRP bootlegs a few months ago. I watched a handful of those and was disheartened by the fact they were the syndicated versions with 22 minute running times, but even more so by the video and sound quality. Sure, the new set's never going to snag a THX seal of approval, but it's 25 years old and shot on video; all things considered, the sound and vid quality are perfectly acceptable. Despite Floyd, Foreigner and James Taylor all being intact, the problems with the bootlegs outweigh the few positives -- I can't imagine any fan finding them preferable, not to mention the difficulty most would have in obtaining them in the first place. Overall, the Fox set comes up far superior and certainly anyone previously unfamiliar with this material would be hard-pressed to notice anything’s “wrong” with the new DVD at all. Indeed, if certain fans already have their minds made up, then perhaps I'm speaking to the uninitiated.

WKRP is such landmark television that the DVD set’s problems can’t keep it from shining. I was reminded of its strengths when watching the infamous turkey drop. The sequence violates one of the cardinal rules of filmed drama: Don’t tell me, show me. All the scene does is tell. Amazing is that never do we once see a turkey onscreen. Or a helicopter…or a banner waving behind it reading WKRP…or a parking lot bombed by live turkeys. Regardless, those images are burned into our memories forever.

All we see is Les (Richard Sanders), standing outside a store with a microphone, looking past the invisible camera in front of him and up into the sky as some extras walk past him now and then. As the scene -- and Sanders' performance -- crescendos, the extras move a little bit faster. Back at the station, Johnny, Andy, Bailey and Venus add another layer by reacting to Les’ report. It’s a glorious example of the sitcom format at its finest – an ideal dance of acting, writing, editing, directing and above all else, perfect comedic timing from Sanders. Sans his inexplicably “believable” performance, the entire thing would’ve crashed like those imaginary turkeys.

One of Les’ great lines in that scene is “Oh the humanity!” which could be the tagline for WKRP itself. Probably the only other sitcom that ever managed to blend farce and drama as successfully as WKRP was Soap (another 4 season series), however the Soap dynamic crumbled beneath its own weight early in its third season. WKRP trumped it by delivering four full seasons of great television – it never ceased to amuse and/or move and never went bad.

WKRP’s First Season features many classic episodes. Aside from “Turkeys Away”, “Fish Story”, “Hoodlum Rock”, “Tornado”, and the season ender “The Preacher” all rank as highlights (other fans would no doubt pick other standouts). But this stuff was only the beginning of the ‘KRP line. A handful of samplings from the later seasons:

“Baseball” (2.3) -- Les’ childhood fears of inadequacy rear their ugly head at a softball game against WPIG. For a guy who hated team sports as a kid, this one always meant something to me.

“In Concert” (2.19) – A Who concert ticket giveaway by the station leaves the staff feeling guilty after the show’s general seating arrangement results in the trampling and death of 11 fans. This one was inspired by and centered around a true incident that occurred at a Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979.

“Real Families” (3.3) – A bizarre satire of reality TV long before it was central to our viewing habits. Herb and his family agree to have their lives documented by the series Real Families, hosted by Peter Marshall(!). The show was more interested in picking apart the Tarleks and exposing their weaknesses than showing anything positive or nice. Mostly shot in a documentary style and without a laugh track, this ranks amongst WKRP’s bravest -- and strangest -- installments.

“Bah Humbug” (3.7) – Carlson eats one of Johnny’s “special” brownies at a holiday Christmas party and has a Dickensian dream where three ghosts visit him. In the future, Herb Tarlek remains the sole employee of a cold, automated WKRP. (Again, automated radio wasn’t nearly as rampant in the early '80s as it is today.)

“The Consultant” (4.9) – Mama Carlson (Carol Bruce) hires a consultant for the station. The staff joins forces to pull a fast one on him to hilarious effect. This episode also features some priceless moments with Ian Wolfe, who played Mama Carlson’s aged butler Hirsch.

Mama: “Hirsch, where have you been?”
Hirsch: “Mardi Gras, Madam.”

“Fire” (4.17) – A fire in the building traps Herb and Jennifer in an elevator together in what was a defining episode for both characters.

There's almost no way to do justice to the series without running through nearly every installment and pointing out each priceless gem after another. It's one of the few sitcoms that warrants such a dissection and hopefully someday someone will do just that. (Hell, I should write the book about WKRP.)

I said before and I reiterate: Fans should pick up this set regardless of any misgivings. Fox needs to know there’s interest and that money will be spent on future seasons. Given the problematic nature of this material, they already put more care into rejiggering it into something much tighter than expected. I doubt Fox foresaw the blowup that would ensue over this release or exactly how outraged people would be over some of the changes – and many of the outraged have yet to even see the finished product.

My hope is that it sells well, and Fox puts even more care and thought into the following seasons. Even though it’d be far off, it’s also possible that if the series as a whole sells well, Fox might decide a “double-dip” is in order and re-release the First Season in something closer to its original form. This was a big test for a TV on DVD release and I applaud those involved for just getting the damn thing out there and letting people decide for themselves, which less than a year ago seemed an impossibility.

WKRP - Round Three

Sometime this week I will buy the Season One box set of WKRP in Cincinnati. It’s important that's understood as you read the rest of this entry.

A year ago I made much hay over the fact WKRP wasn’t on DVD due to the music licensing issues. Then in December the first season was announced – with rumors that “some” music would be replaced and that Fox had hired someone to find “appropriate” substitutions. I claimed I’d give it a shot regardless. A few weeks ago Jaime Weinman at Something Old, Something New received a press copy of the set and dropped the bomb: Not only had some of the music been replaced, but nearly all of it had and there were even some edits as well as three of the episodes being the shorter, syndicated versions. So much for The “Complete” First Season (as the set is labeled). I announced I'd likely have no part of it.

WKRP has a rabid following and with good reason. It’s dramatically and comedically stood the test of time more than many sitcoms that lasted longer, got higher ratings, and are generally thought of as cornerstones of American TV (I’m talking to you The Cosby Show). WKRP is one of the greats and why Fox didn’t see fit to honor it properly by going the distance remains a mystery. TVShowsonDVD recently ran a piece that was enlightening on numerous levels but still smacked of bullshit rationalizations (um, the guy at Fox). Yes, we (the fans) understand the music would have been expensive (and most of us would've paid double to get the real deal). Yet Universal has somehow managed to release Miami Vice season sets -- chock full of ‘80s music -- without too much problem. Same goes for Saturday Night Live Season One, which retains all the music performances (one can only imagine how much it cost to include ABBA!). As Jaime Weinman pointed out, if Fox had even paid for a handful of tunes from key scenes -- such as Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” and Pink Floyd’s “Dogs” (the latter omission actually resulted in dialogue edits to the scene!) – fans probably wouldn’t have made such a fuss.

Yet what’s done is done, right? The other night I started reading reviews on Amazon and was swayed. Why? Because person after person who’d actually bought the set said that even though they noticed what’s missing, what remains is far more valuable. I thought about that -- I might not get to see Les Nessman putting on a toupee to Foreigner, but if I don’t buy it I certainly won’t be seeing Herb in a fish costume fighting with the WPIG pig in the men’s room. Or Johnny threatening the elderly in the DJ booth. Or Les reporting that the shopping mall is currently being bombed by live turkeys. Yeah, the music was a big part of WKRP, but not nearly as big as Gary Sandy, Gordon Jump, Howard Hesseman, Frank Bonner, Loni Anderson, Richard Sanders, Tim Reid, Jan Smithers & Hugh Wilson and all the other people who brought the show to life.

I wanna share WKRP with my kid – who’ll never notice the changes because he’s never seen it before. Sure, I’ll silently grumble every now and then, but I’ll probably laugh my ass off a hell of a lot more often. WKRP is an MTM production, and Fox has already had numerous problems with Mary Tyler Moore (another of my faves) and there are rumors that, due to poor sales, there isn’t going to be a Season Five set for that series. I’d like to own as much WKRP as possible, and maybe if Fox sees that it sells, they’ll work harder and spend a few more dollars on Season Two. But if it doesn’t sell at all, maybe there’ll never even be a Season Two DVD.

So if you’re against this DVD on principle (which believe me, I understand), I ask that you reconsider based on another principle: WKRP rocks without Foreigner making it rock a tad more. And if you've never seen WKRP at all, get thee to a DVD retailer pronto because none of this crap will make a difference.

Be sure and check out the Morgue WKRP DVD review as well as the other articles I've written on 'KRP by clicking here.

WKRP on DVD...Finally

UPDATED - Apr.1st (Not an April Fools Joke to the best of my knowledge.)

Something Old, Something New reports on the music changes made to the WKRP First Season Box set...and it ain't pretty, folks. Assuming the report is correct, it pretty much negates the rest of this entry (which was written several months ago), and I doubt I'll be picking up the set as a result.

Yes, ladies and gents, the moment is right around the corner. Check out the official press release at TVShows on DVD.com. "The Complete First Season" set has been on the drawing boards since early December, but I didn't want to write an entry until it was officially confirmed by Fox.

My love for all things WKRP in Cincinnati has been evident for quite some time (well...maybe not all things). Last year I ranted and raved and pleaded to the unnamed powers that be to sort out the problems surrounding a theoretical DVD release -- namely the music licensing issues.

Certainly any WKRP DVD set has got to better than no WKRP DVD set, and yet I'm forced to reserve total judgment and/or utter excitement until sitting down and view it on April 24th. The one issue conspicuously absent from the press release is any mention of the dreaded music licensing issues. Even the usually meticulous Gord Lacey of TVShowsonDVD has only addressed the issue once, and that was back on 12/11, when the site reported: "...there will be music substitutions...the studio has spent a lot of time with a music supervisor to ensure that the replaced songs fit the show. [WKRP creator] Hugh Wilson...thought Fox did a good job."

Additionally, the Wikipedia entry on WKRP gives the situation a considerably more positive spin: "While the DVD set will include the original music that the current syndicated version lacked, there will be some musical substitutions, but Fox has tried hard to keep the music within the spirit of the original song used in the scenes where music must be replaced."

I haven't been able to find any more information on the issue, and I'm starting to believe fans won't know anything for sure until April 24th. If any reader finds something more detailed, please post a link in the comments section of this article or e-mail me at lynchnut at gmail dot com.

Regardless, I'm more than willing to give this set a chance and will be the first in line to buy a copy, as it's something I'd pretty much given up on ever happening. At least Fox isn't just trotting out the atrociously edited syndicated versions. If you are a WKRP fan, I urge you to support this release so the other three seasons can also see the light of day. If you've never seen WKRP, buy it anyway. You're in for a treat. What other series features dialogue like this?:

(after an elderly couple has broken into the DJ booth)

Dr. Johnny Fever: "All right you two - up against the wall! I don't know what you want here but I think you should know I've killed a lot of old people in my time...and I'm not above doing it again."

Self Explanatory

As God is my witness...

UPDATED!!

In this day and age of the glorious availability of TV on DVD, fans desiring to amass collections of their favorite series have it so easy. Up until just a few years ago, this wasn’t the case.

In order to collect your favorite series, one had to stick with a program - night after night - through erratic rerun schedules, accept that cuts were made to the episodes due to more time being made for commercials, and make a huge amount of space on your shelves for VHS tapes that only held two-to-six hours max per tape. Indeed, if anything likely kept entire TV series commercially unavailable to the general public for so long, it was the cumbersome VHS format, which was simply an impractical way to store a hundred hours worth of a show and hardly an easy thing to market to the consumer.

Now I can store four seasons of Soap in the same amount of space as only 4 VHS tapes. Had I stored the same material on VHS, I’d have had to devote no less than 25 VHS tapes to it! (I was never one for recording in EP mode.)

And yet amidst all of this pig-in-cloverdom, there is a gaping hole in my TV on DVD collection:

WKRP in Cincinnati, the greatest American sitcom ever created, at this time unfortunately seems destined to play in a state of perfection in my mind only. Expensive music rights have kept it from being released on DVD and there doesn’t appear to be a break on the horizon. Does it really matter if the tunes played by Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap are carried over to a DVD release?

I think it does. The show was as much about the music of the late '70s & early ‘80s as it was the insane people working at the radio station, and the songs used in the series often keyed directly into plot points and dialogue:

(Mr. Carlson enters the DJ booth. Floyd's "Dogs" plays throughout the scene.)
Johnny: Gripping music, huh?
Mr. Carlson: Yeah, that's good all right. What's the name of that orchestra?
Johnny: Pink Floyd.
Mr. Carlson: Oooh, is that Pink Floyd? Do I hear dogs barking on that thing?
Johnny: I do.

What if it was suddenly announced that the music rights for Goodfellas had expired, and something besides Donovan’s “Atlantis” would now be used for the scene where Tommy stabs Billy Batts to death for saying “Now go home and get your fuckin’ shinebox”? Sometimes a tune played on WKRP was just the perfect song for the moment.

There’s a great scene that exists solely in my memory, but it was moving, and it occurred after something emotional had (or perhaps hadn’t?) happened between Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers) and Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman). Bailey stood alone, in a darkened hallway at the station, as Earth, Wind and Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone” soothed her damaged ego into the night. I haven’t seen that scene in probably 20 years, but if I saw it today without that song, I’d feel cheated in a big way. Similarly, I vividly recall an episode that ended with Johnny playing James Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face” for someone special in the listening audience. Again, if I saw that with another tune, I’d throw my remote at the TV.

So the debate rages on. Should WKRP be released on DVD without the proper music in place? Or should the series just sit, locked away in a vault somewhere, because of this issue. Clearly, the powers that be realize that this isn’t a case of “Let’s just go ahead and throw it out there and maybe nobody will notice”. Would I buy it if they did? Well, I’d at least buy the first season, and see how I felt about it – but if it stung enough that multiple viewings of the set weren’t even in the cards, you can bet I wouldn’t pick up season two.

If it’s truly just a money issue, I’d easily pay at least 50 or 60 bucks (maybe even more) a season if that would get it out there (for most of these older sitcoms, $20-30 is the going rate per season). I wonder if other WKRP fans would do the same? Pay twice as much to make sure they’re getting the show they want? Or would a pricetag of twice as much still not be enough to justify a DVD release of the series?

I found this site, which features a huge number of quotes from the series, arranged in an episode by episode manner.

A link on the same site, features this page full of WAV file sound bites from WKRP such as this and this and this.

UPDATE:

Be sure and check out the recent Rued Morgue entry, WKRP on DVD...Finally.