Michael B. Kassel takes us back to WKRP In Cincinnati

 

America’s Favorite Radio Station: WKRP In Cincinnati – Michael B. Kassel (1993)

            There are two photographs I keep deep within my wallet.  One is a color photo of my wife Elizabeth when she was a little kid, another is a black and white image of Dr. Johnny Fever at his DJ booth.  Is this significant because these are the two guiding pillars of my life?  No.  Like a talisman, my wife’s photo reminds me of the totality of her, of how she is and always was much more than the person I got to know, of how she carries her inner child with her in all things, and of how fortunate I am that she chose to share her life with me.  Also acting as a talisman, Dr. Johnny Fever’s photo reminds me of my own youth, my love of music, my life-long admiration of anti-establishment figures, and most of all, of WKRP in Cincinnati, one of my favorite television shows ever.

            Because of my admiration for WKRP in Cincinnati, I always seek out any and all information about the show, its creators, writers, and actors.  This has been difficult since the show aired its first-run episodes between 1978 and 1982.  I arrived in the USA in December of 1981, so I missed all the initial screenings.  I discovered WKRP, along with my family, in syndication.  I found the show so funny, the characters so individual and weird, and the topics discussed so alien from the standard 30 minute situation comedies that flood the television landscape, that it soon became one of my favorites, even though I could not have been more than 9-10 years old.  In just four seasons and 90 total shows, WKRP’s creators crafted a television show so fresh, insightful and hilarious that its memory lives on in countless fans such as myself.  Employment at a library affords me access to all the books, so when I searched for and found this specific volume, I freaked.

            Author Michael B. Kassel states it beautifully in his preface, “WKRP in Cincinnati is an example of a program crafted by amazing individuals who were able to transcend the confines of their medium.” Quality stands out among the banal standard fare and desperate copycat shows that flood our television airwaves.  It definitely does so for WKRP.  Starting with the head man, Hugh Wilson, WKRP gathered up a company of people dedicated to creating clever, genuine, honestly funny entertainment mined from Hugh’s experience with working at small market radio stations.  Populated by characters drawn from real life, with all the complexities, beauties, and horrors that come with it, the show was always treated as the bastard son of the MTM (Mary Tyler Moore) production company, leaving the dullard CBS executives to almost ruin WKRP by switching the airtime of the show at least 9 times in 4 seasons.  Ridiculous.  It is a testament to the quality of WKRP that, while suffering such stupid treatment from know-nothing executives, it delivered 90 episodes of comedy gold.

            Michael B. Kassel understands that these characters, and the actors portraying them, are the reason fans tune in.  Because of this Hugh Wilson and the writers all took great care in the initial writing stages, assuring that any new story or joke stayed true to who these fully 3-dimensional people were, without ever relying on the cheap, easy type of formulaic jokes that TV sitcoms continue to foist upon an audience the TV execs consider to be dumber than B-grade dog food. (They only ever care about the commercials).  Kassel mentions how one writer began keeping a WKRP “bible,” detailing any new facts we learned about the characters on WKRP, allowing for easy and efficient continuity from show to show and season to season.  This was a new concept for television sitcoms, something done regularly now, 45 years later.

            Kassel’s best writing comes when he describes the people and the situations that found the amazing cast members hired and working for WKRP.  While I knew many of these stories through my own fandom, my mind exploded at the wealth of new information and details.  One of the tidbits which I understood innately as a child, but which I did not fully grasp until I re-watched WKRP as an adult, was the countless sly and subtle references that Howard Hesseman snuck in concerning his character, Dr. Johnny Fever, and the seemingly constant ingestion of psychedelics and other mood intoxicants, especially of the sticky icky green variety.  As a child the specific details eluded me, but I grokked it all through some sort of superfreak osmosis, and I loved it so much.  I initially also fell in love with both the incredibly vivacious, sexy, smart, and unflappable Loni Anderson, portraying Jennifer Marlowe, the highest paid member of the WKRP staff (a receptionist!), and the effortlessly beautiful, kind, and sweet Jan Smithers, who played the part of Bailey Quarters.  They did not act like the other “women” on TV shows.  They seemed like real people.  Everyone on WKRP did.

            I am now in my early fifties, and it has been nearly 25 years since WKRP aired in regular syndication.  As a TV-watching latch-key kid, I carry a lot of television in my mind, but nothing casts a shadow over my consciousness quite like WKRP in Cincinnati does.  I know all the jokes, all the beats, and I still laugh like a manic child.  I know all the stories, and the heavy shit dealt with in many episodes, and I still get choked up watching these characters navigate through their collective lives.  I still dream of working someplace like WKRP, with a kind and caring boss like Mr. Carlson, someone who truly invests himself in the people around him, or with a supervisor like Andy Travis, an honestly good human being who sees the value in relationships apart from the bottom-line.  I aspire to work with people as cool and complex as Johnny Fever or Venus Flytrap, the nighttime DJ, and with characters as funny and outlandish as Les Nessman or Herb Tarlek. Hell, I wanted to join a work softball team with a cool dude like Bucky Dornster, the station’s engineer who never took no shit from anyone and was a Union man!  Several years ago, I did indeed achieve a life-long dream of being a radio DJ just like Dr. Johnny Fever!  I did a Saturday oldies show called SONIC LIFE on 96.1 FM, Sugar Land TX, from 10am – 1 pm (links to those playlists here).  I played music from the 1950s’ to the 1990’s and always tried to teach the kids about Bo Diddley, because I always remember Johnny Fever crying out to Andy Travis, after being threatened with losing his job, “But who will teach the children about Bo Diddley?”  Hilarious!

            While this is a fairly small book, it took me on a well-needed trip down memory lane.  The second half of this book lists an episode guide, which I found very interesting as well.  Michael B. Kassel did a wonderful job on this book, a true labor of love, and a very real gift to those of us who feel that WKRP may be the very best situation comedy ever.  I put it just a half-notch above Cheers and Seinfeld, but that may be a purely personal matter.  All I know is that I cannot recall my dad, mom, brother, and I ever, EVER, laughing together as hard as we did when we watched WKRP’s “Turkeys Away” episode.  That memory of shared laughter stays with me even after I have forgotten the sound of my father’s voice, but I can remember his face when he laughed.  Great works of art contain the whole of existence within them, and WKRP does so for me.  I highly recommend this to any WKRP fanatic!

            I leave you with the immortal first-episode monologue by Howard Hesseman, as Dr. Johnny Fever switches his radio station’s music in mid-broadcast from “beautiful music” to Rock and Roll!      

“All right, Cincinnati, it is time for this town to get *down*!

Now, you got Johnny... Dr.  Johnny Fever, and I am burnin' up in here! Whoo! Whoo! We all in critical condition, babies, but you can tell me where it hurts, because I got the healing prescription here from the big 'KRP musical medicine cabinet. Now I am talking about your fifty thousand watt intensive care unit, babies! So just sit right down, relax, open your ears real wide and say, "Give it to me straight, Doctor, I can take it!"

            …I almost forgot, fellow babies: "booger!"

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.abebooks.com/9780879725853/Americas-Favorite-Radio-Station-WKRP-0879725850/plp )

Nana Visitor and the Women of Star Trek Take Us on a Beautiful Journey

Star Trek: Open a Channel, A Woman’s Trek – Nana Visitor (2024)

 

            I waited for this book for a while.  Initially, I heard that Nana Visitor, the actor who played the part of Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, intended to write a book about her experiences on the show.  I caught updates from the publishing industry detailing her efforts to get the book made, and how it grew from a personal account into an exploration of what it means to be a woman in Star Trek, from the OG days of the 1960’s to the most current iterations of the franchise.  Hearing about Visitor’s interviews with many of the women from Star Trek increased my desire to read this book.  Thank Mario for the wonderful Inter-Library Loan program, since it allowed me to get this book sent to me from the University of Oklahoma.  I was ecstatic when I received it and instantly devoured it.

            Long-time readers of RXTT’s Book Journey will likely know I am a huge Star Trek fan, especially my single favorite television show of all time, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9).  Nana Visitor is one of the leads on DS9, with her character, Major Kira Nerys, serving as the second-in-command of a large, unwieldy, and chaotic space station. It is through her character that we learn about the horrors suffered by the people of Bajor and how outsiders perceive the United Federation of Planets.  Her character is integral from beginning to end.

            The character of Kira Nerys, alongside that of Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, is critical to understanding the central themes of DS9.  The first theme, and the most prominent throughout the series run, deals with how trauma affects us, how we deal with it, and how we manage to move on and continue living afterwards.  This is evident in Kira, a former freedom fighter/terrorist (depends on who you ask), forced to reckon with a lifetime of degraded living under totalitarian rule and how it affects her and her people during the “peace” that follows.  It, like all trauma, touches every single aspect of her life and being.  The same is true for Capt. Sisko, who we meet just after his wife is killed in a huge space battle, forcing him and his son Jake to escape with their lives.  The repercussions of this loss shape Sisko throughout the series, much like the Cardassian occupation shaped every aspect of Kira Nerys’ character.  It was a groundbreaking role for Visitor, whose career previously found her in steady work playing the girlfriend, the ex-girlfriend, the wife, the bothered secretary, etc., all roles with very little emotional or intellectual heft.

            In an effort to understand the dynamics of being a woman in the world of Star Trek, Nana Visitor explores the original creation of Star Trek, and the ways which the otherwise progressive show existed in a world where casual misogyny, the “casting couch” mentality, and abusive producers still ran the show.  To frame this story, Visitor discusses the person besides Gene Roddenberry most responsible for the very existence of Star Trek, comedy superstar Lucille Ball.  It was her DesiLu studios, which she ran alone after the illness of her husband, that green-lit Star Trek, and it was her efforts to keep it on the air that Visitor explores.  For each series, Visitor devotes a few chapters to exploring the lives and work of the individual actresses, including the most important woman on the original show, Nichelle Nichols.  Nichelle was not only a representational force for African-American women, but for all women.  In a world where women were still expected to serve in very limited and traditional roles, seeing a woman of color serve as the fourth in command of a starship was huge.

            Visitor pulls no punches and allows her subjects the bluntness they need  to describe the uncomfortable and terrifying situations these women endured just to be considered for a television show.  Every single one of them has had to deal with lecherous producers, men forcing themselves on them, sexist writing, overly-familiar co-stars, etc.  Some, with help from their loved ones, navigated these treacherous waters without too much horror, but most did not.  From the endless critiques of your appearance to the implication that if you do not do what is asked of you without questions you would be replaced by another “pretty face,” Hollywood has long been a bastion for asshole men and a trap for many a young woman.  After years of insultingly simplistic roles, the role of Kira Nerys helped Nana Visitor create a very real, very flawed, very human character, a character whose lines and actions do not rely on her femininity to succeed, something which she is rightfully very proud of.

            Visitor not only speaks to the various actresses from Trek, but she also re-watched a lot of the older and current shows.  In doing so she witnessed how, even in an era of feminism and women’s sovereignty, like the late 80’s and early 90’s, strong women characters were still mainly written as tropes.  For example, one of the characters, Keiko Ishikawa, married a minor Next Generation character, Miles O’Brien.  They both subsequently appeared on DS9.  While the character or Keiko was written as a deeply intelligent and forthright botanist, she was rarely, if ever, shown on TNG doing botany.  Instead, she was forced to act out endless “worried wife” or “angry wife” tropes.

On TNG, the Doctor was portrayed by the super-talented Gates McFadden, but whereas the original series’ Doctor McCoy was given license to behave as any doctor does, Dr. Crusher’s character, while initially a groundbreaking representation for women, was often used solely as the "mother” or as a potential love interest of the Captain.  Even in the supposedly progressive shows, the standard misogyny and sexism applied.  This is especially evident in the character of Counselor Troi on Next Generation.  Initially serving as pure eye candy, it took years for the writers room to catch on to what makes the character of Deanna Troi so intriguing.  As detailed by Nana Visitor, once an actress is placed in one of the very few “boxes” allowed for them, it was nearly impossible to escape.  Once a “beauty” always a “beauty.”  Once seen as a plucky and sexless “friend,” it is always thus.  These simplistic tropes continue on television to this day.  Shit don’t change.

While all of this is extremely interesting to me, my favorite parts of this book are where Nana Visitor discusses her own life and career.  She is blunt and honest in describing the many transgressions she endured by either changing herself, altering her mannerisms, or just behaving in the way that male society seemed to expect.  Each time, a little part of her died within her, but she endured it as the costs of the life she chose.  It is impossible to see just how callous and predatory those around you are until you get some distance from it, both emotional and physical.  In one of the most moving and disturbing sections, Nana discusses how she was kidnapped and assaulted sometime between seasons 2 and 3 of DS9, how she forced herself to testify against her attackers even though she was warned that bad publicity would ruin her career, and how it took her over twenty years to come to grips with the events of that horrible night. It is a testament to her willpower and life-force that Nana Visitor rebuilt herself, something many of the women she spoke to have had to do, some more than once. 

It is also a testament to Nana Visitor that, in the decades following the airing of Deep Space Nine, she has become something of a den-mother, or a loving aunt, to many Star Trek fanatics.  This is something that mirrors the character Kira Nerys’ arc on the show.  At the end of DS9, we see Kira Nerys and Jake Sisko staring out of a window at the wormhole outside.  She is left in charge of the station, and life goes on. In the DS9 documentary, What You Leave Behind, the writers posit a future where Kira Nerys grows wiser and becomes a spiritual leader for the Bajoran people, Nana Visitor also grew wiser and became an emotional and spiritual leader for us Trek fanatics.  It is a beautiful thing and I sincerely hope that Nana grasps the amount of care and love people have for her, and for the character she brought to life.  Her care for us, as fans, is evident in this amazing book. 

There is nothing easy about being a woman in this world, which makes it all the more admirable that Nana, and all the women she interviews, created characters and stories which honestly and permanently affected the audience.  Countless women went into science because they saw Lt. Uhura kicking ass on the bridge of the Enterprise.  Countless women saw Dr. Crusher as a great example of how to be a success and a great mother, without sacrificing her ideals.  Countless women saw the strength, resiliency and leadership inherent in Kira Nerys and found a role model for survival.  Even more women saw Captain Janeway lead a crew into and out of the wilderness, and felt inspired by her confidence and capability.  Representation matters.  We believe what we see.  For all the faults a TV show like Star Trek can and does have, the merits are beyond measure.  In 1966, Star Trek showed us a post-cold-war world where Russians and Chinese shared in the adventure, where women served alongside men, where people of color were portrayed as Admirals!  It was and remains one of the finest bits of television out there, showing the world that our shared humanity is a far greater thing than our perceived differences.  Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.  IDIC is the prevailing theme of all Star Trek, and I am very glad that Nana Visitor took the time and effort to craft this great tribute to the women of Star Trek and the characters they brought to life.  It is a beautiful book.

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Star-Trek-Open-a-Channel-A-Womans-Trek/Nana-Visitor/Star-Trek/9798886633016 )

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Mother-load is Mine

Star Trek – The Deep Space Nine Companion – Terry J. Erdman, Paula M. Block (2000)

            From 1993 until 1999, what I consider the greatest science fiction television show ever aired in syndication in the United States.  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) turned the Star Trek formula upside down.  Instead of a ship and crew of high-end achievers exploring the galaxy and encountering a new threat or danger or problem every week, DS9 showed us a flawed Commander and crew who take over a commandeered Cardassian outpost orbiting a small, seemingly inconsequential planet named Bajor.  Whereas, in Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) the entire ship was populated by Starfleet personnel and their families, in DS9 the command crew is composed of a mix of Starfleet officers and staff, Bajoran military and government officials, and a whole slew of civilian shopkeepers and workers, not to mention the constant arrival of travelers seeking refueling, repairs, or just some rest and relaxation after a long voyage.  Because of this, DS9 was able to tell deeper, more involved stories, sometimes taking years to fully understand.

            DS9 began in 1993, as a premium syndication show, meant to be the showpiece of a new network, UPN, now defunct.  It aired for 7 years, and because it was a syndicated show sometimes it was moved, pre-empted, or otherwise ignored by the UPN people.  DS9 always sought to maintain a sense of continuity between its episodes, but once they began to fully explore serialized storytelling, if became a difficult show to follow if you had missed a few episodes.  TNG, on the other hand, told stand-alone episodes, capable of being watched in nearly any order.  Watching DS9 out of order would lead to massive confusion!  It was a good thing that the people in charge of DS9 knew how special the cast and show were and kept this all in mind as they crafted season after season of amazing science fiction television.

            Because of this, Terry Erdman and Paula Block’s book, Star Trek – The Deep Space Nine Companion, is such a favorite among fanatics of DS9. (We call ourselves Niners, BTW)  Not only does this heavy tome detail every single episode’s narrative, but it provides countless piles of data and information about the show, including cast members, trivia from behind the scenes, the production teams, and thoughts about each episode from the pertinent cast or crew members involved.  It is literally the DS9 bible, and it fetches a fair price on the secondary used book market!

            I am a huge fanatic of reference material, and to have such a motherload of data about my all-time favorite television show is so cool.  I enjoy the insight provided to me by the cast and crew as they look back on some of the best work they ever did.  I look forward to a lifetime of curiosity leading me to dig back into the Deep Space Nine Companion.  I highly recommend it, either for yourself if you are a Niner, or as a gift for someone in your life that loves Deep Space Nine.