Sat 15 Jun 2019
Saturday, February 14.
WKRP IN CINCINNATI. “Dr. Fever and Mr. Tide, Parts 1 and 2.” CBS, series. Season 3, episodes 13 and 14. Originally telecast on 07 February 1981. Gary Sandy, Gordon Jump, Loni Anderson , Howard Hesseman, Richard Sanders, Frank Bonner, Tim Reid, Jan Smithers. Guest star: Mary Frann. Director: Rod Daniel.
If you watch this show regularly, you will have seen this special one-hour episode one week before I did. The local CBS station runs them on tape, delayed week, and a half hour later. To me, it’s like wearing hand-me-down clothes, and I don’t usually watch, and there are two good reasons why that surprises me.
Tonight Dr. Johnny Fever tackled TV, and he lost. Even though he signed a contract to do a live dance party for a local station, the doctor “does not do disco.” The producer did not rock and roll, and the doctor was the one who wound up wearing the funny clothes.
The writers of the show had a chance here to say some witty things, about how doing things for television always ends up doing them television’s way. Instead, the story line veered off and became an instant analysis of Johnny’s incipient schizophrenic crisis. It turned out to be not nearly as funny as it must have sounded on the drawing board.
The result was an hour show, all right, but as far as I was concerned, there was considerably less than a half-hour’s worth of laughs. And I was forcing myself, at that.
June 15th, 2019 at 7:46 am
There was a lot of talent / a lot of potential in that show that only got fitfully realized.
June 15th, 2019 at 11:09 am
WKRP will forever be remembered for the lesson that turkeys can’t fly. Every Thanksgiving WKRP’s icon episode is discussed and fondly remembered.
WKRP was a comedy about the characters. Issues were not what the show was about. For example, Johnny had an identity problem caused by his work. As a DJ who went from town to town and had different names and personality wherever he went, it left Johnny unsure of who he really was. You would be amazed at the number of actors (Henry Fonda was one) who would say they knew who their characters were but not as sure who they were. The writers would set up the situation and let Hesseman go crazy. Fever was my favorite character though I had a crush on Bailey.
The first season is near genius (the episode where Johnny is doing a remote show and gets held hostage is another favorite of mine), but the show faded in humor over the years. It held on because of the audience love for the characters. And the less said about THE NEW WKRP IN CINCINNATI the better.
June 15th, 2019 at 1:37 pm
Some thoughts I had after reading my own review.
I thought I watched all of the episodes as they aired, but apparently this was not so. What probably happened is that I eventually watched them all in syndication, which from what I read about the show now is when the show really took of in popularity.
I followed the current IMDb practice of calling this particular episode two separate episodes, Parts 1 and 2, but I think it was shown the first time as a one hour special. Again it was not until it went into syndication that it was broken up into convenient two 30 minute episodes.
No one who has watched the Turkey episode will ever forget it. Another favorite is the one in which Johnny Fever was broadcasting live from some local retail store and was held hostage by thieves. (I hope I have that right!)
Michael, you were not the only one to have a crush on Bailey. She did not appear in any episode long enough to please me.
I think now, looking back, that in this series, it was a case of all the players having a “career year” as they call it in baseball, in which everyone on a World Series championship team has their one outstanding season at the same time. I don’t think that any of the cast member had careers that amounted to much, including Loni Anderson, before or after WKRP, but as part of an ensemble cast each actor was absolutely perfect for the part.
June 15th, 2019 at 2:08 pm
I’m more of a fan of WKRP than you, Steve; I found the episodes funny enough, and was a little disappointed when the MeTV network dropped the weeknight repeats a month or so back (GOMER PYLE was a poor lead-in; GREEN ACRES more compatible, but also something I don’t need to see again).
Hesseman always had a career going, before and after, but he might well’ve done his best a/v work on WKRP … his seasons on HEAD OF THE CLASS were amiable, and I would’ve liked to see his sketch comedy work more (I believe he was a founding member of The Committee, but should check). Tim Reid and Hugh Wilson, the creator/producer, did even beer with their next series, FRANK’S PLACE, which CBS gave even less support, so we saw only a single season.
And who could resist Jan Smithers?
June 15th, 2019 at 2:09 pm
Why was your station (where?) running them on delay? Content concerns? Local programming?
June 15th, 2019 at 2:52 pm
Hartford CT, and I have no idea, then or now.
June 15th, 2019 at 2:11 pm
Mary Frann on this episode much better than she had a chance to be on NEWHART.
June 15th, 2019 at 4:42 pm
Dr Fever and Mr Tide aired Saturday Feb 7th. Part One aired at 8pm and Part Two aired at 8:30pm. The series ran opposite of ABC’s CHARLIE’S ANGELS and NBC’s BARBARA MANDRELL.
The hostage episode was called Hold Up. An out of work DJ tries to hijack Johnny’s live remote at a electronic store. Johnny encourages the DJ and helps him get away with it.
June 15th, 2019 at 8:20 pm
Fitful seems a fair description of a show than could be brilliant when everything gelled, but too often after its opening season got lost.
June 16th, 2019 at 4:19 am
Saw this ep on MeTV last time it played there.
First time I saw it was the original CBS network broadcast.
What I didn’t understand then –
– and what I don’t understand now –
– why was everybody back then so savagely down on disco?
Here in Chicago we just commemorated (if that’s the word) Disco Demolition Night, which basically brought down Bill Veeck’s ownership of the Chicago White Sox … and for what?
I’ve never been much of a music man; disco vs. all other forms of music was a matter of profound indifference to me.
On WKRP, the characters seem to attach an almost religious significance to the evils of disco – huh?
Disco was a fad; it came and it went.
“Dr. Fever And Mr. Tide” plays these days as the ultimate period piece, like a WWII propaganda movie.
I’m guessing that Millennials (whatever the hell they are) probably require a glossary to explain the whole ridiculous situation to them (like I still need an explanation at the age of 68 …)
For the record, I still believe that WKRP‘s best episode was its final one: the confrontation between Johnny and Mother Carlson about the format change (with asides from the great Ian Wolfe as MC’s houseboy).
After all these years, still timely (and timeless, comes to that … ).
And by the bye –
– Jan Smithers.
Always Jan Smithers.
June 16th, 2019 at 12:51 pm
10. Mike, I think you answered your question when you admitted not being that interested in music. There are things in this world some people are passionate about and music is one of them.
That is why there is such hate from some for rock and roll, country, rap, smooth jazz, fusion jazz, opera, and an endless forms that have come and gone.
I am into most music but the sounds of Porter Wagoner and the TV series HEE HAW still give me nightmares.
June 21st, 2019 at 11:48 pm
Disco got a bad rap (koff) entirely too often from those who felt alienated from the culture, but rock programmers on radio were also extremely threatened by the efflorescence of disco format changes driven by the newly block-programmed stations (a subject of another episode of WKRP) which were a clumsy stampede toward what seemed like the The Sure Moneymaker, a trend which has not ceased since…not that radio before that time was any kind of charity ball (hello, Fanny), but it wasn’t yet to the homogenized state of current Clear Channel and iheartradio standards…disco of the late ’70s definitely influenced the development of rap music, house music, techno and other EDM or electronic dance music which is among the most popular music today…at least a few musicians liked to note that late ’70s disco was essentially congruent to “New Wave” music, the more pop expression of more radical developments in the earlier ’70s in rock and rhythm and blues music.
June 21st, 2019 at 11:49 pm
For me, the music of HEE HAW was the only part of it which wasn’t narcotic, in the worst sense, when not simply annoying.
June 21st, 2019 at 11:49 pm
And Porter Wagoner’s show does get and deserve some credit for helping Dolly Parton find her career.