7 thoughts on “Sunday Morning Video: WKRP- Les’s Groupie”

  1. My brother was working as a DJ at the time the show was on, and while he liked the show, he had trouble watching it… because of what they would do just like in that opening sequence.
    Johnny puts on a song, then turns down the monitor sound for TWO FULL MINUTES. After a minute or so, my brother Mike – who could tell you how long a given song was, what label it was on and what color, etc the label was (’cause you have to know) – would be getting more and more agitated, saying “your record is running out… YOUR RECORD IS RUNNING OUT!”

  2. I was working asd an electrician on the NYC subways when the movie “Money Train” came out. We had a similar response. “Shit, that would never happen!”
    The first “Taking of Pelham 123” was pretty accurate, though.
    Never watch a show in which your profession is portrayed. It makes you NUTS!

  3. Love WKRP.
    If you remember the episode with falling turkeys, the inspiration for that event supposedly came from an Atlanta radio station (a fairly large rock station at the time, my older sister listened to it all the time). A few years before the WKRP schtick, this station had announced plans to do similar at Greenbriar Mall in south-west Atlanta (about 2 or 3 miles from my home). Fortunately, someone called them and let them know it wasn’t a good idea (I’m wanting to say from a distant memory that the problem wasn’t the flight characteristics of domestic turkeys versus “natural” turkeys where the breast is dark meat, but that they were planning to use frozen turkeys).

  4. My Dad worked at WUBE in Cincinnati during the heyday of WKRP (He was the News Director…;). He had a similar reaction as robertearl’s brother. But we watched anyways, because fuck, it was about our lil town!

  5. It was a sitcom, not a documentary…if it isn’t directed by Ken Burns, just enjoy the references. And damned funny most of their shows except the touching one about the general admission tragedy at The Who concert.

  6. I was a jock during part of the time this show was on the air. And, no, the studio parts weren’t always realistic. But focusing on the studio craft in that show would be like focusing on brake linings in “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

  7. Wow. On the Wikipedia Article for WKRP in Cincinatti:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKRP_in_Cincinnati
    “The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI (AM) in Atlanta”
    Found this as I started getting curious about the Turkey episode (and especially trying to remember if WQXI had planned to use live or frozen turkeys. Not to mention the debate on whether WQXI really planned to do it, or if they just started saying they were going to do it as a publicity stunt and never really intended to. (Note: WQXI for a short period also had a sister station on FM). Simple web searches have everything from it actually happened at a station in Texas, WQXI threw turkeys out the back of a parked semi at an un-nammed mall in Atlanta, WQXI threw a few turkeys out the back of a semi on I-75/I-85 Atlanta (heavey traffic area where two freeways merge to pass through downtown Atlanta), or WQXI had a gag where they played the sound of opening a window and pushing a Turkey to its death. So like most good stories, the truth seems obscurred by the internet rumor machine.

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