Remember When?

Remember these people?


They make up the cast of one of my favorite TV shows from yesterday - and I've never seen rerun CD's advertised. The program: "WKRP in Cincinnati"


I think most people would remember the show as one of those clever comedy shows from way back. For me, it became personal because it reminded me of radio stations I worked for WAY WAY WAY back. Every station I worked for had at least one of the WKRP cast members and some of them had several. One station had a remarkable receptionists - but definitely NOT a Loni Anderson. She wore huge glasses, was crosseyed, and stumbled over her own feet. I can't describe her telephone voice - but Ma Kettle had a mellow voice compared to this girl. However, she was a very nice person and was the General Manager's daughter. What more could one ask for?


I think Herb was the salesman for WKRP and he had a counterpart at a station I worked for. Wore loud jackets and was a local swinger - always after the ladies. And one of the announcers was a bitter old man who was known to tear up a commercial script on the air if there was one typographical error on it. I had to retype a lot of scripts -- I was lousy typist - and it was a challenge because we used carbon copies - we had no copy machines in those days.


At another station the announcing staff played tricks on other announcers while they were on the air doing news. Things like balancing a large recording on the announcers head while he's got his hands full of scripts. Or setting scripts on fire five minutes before the end of a show so that the last few minutes were ad libbed. Or tying shoe laces locking shoes together in the middle of a newscast so he has to fight terrible knots when the show was over.



The picture above, one way or another represents real people I have known and worked with in my radio years. And who was I?


Probably Les Nesman - The WKRP news/weatherman who was so often the victim of staff shenanigans. And had so many off the wall failures of special events. Naive? Yep.Fall guy? Yep. But as a memory I wouldn't have it any other way.