Friday, January 23, 2009

WKRP Episode: "Straight From The Heart"

In this episode (episode 5 of season 4), written by Dan Gunzelman (who also directed), Herb secretly goes to the hospital for heart tests, which leads to him and most of the rest of the cast watching a movie in a 3-D porn theatre. (This was from 1981, when 3-D was making a comeback in theatres.) The scene of the characters wearing 3-D glasses, and trying to dodge whatever's coming at them from the screen, is one of the scenes that people especially seem to remember from watching WKRP in syndication. The guy in the theatre is the late John Brent, yet another guy from The Committee.









5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why are they watching a porno in a theater? Bunch of guys sitting all together watching one of those...that's just gross.

Rigby said...

Believe it or not, before the advent of home video and (especially) the Internet, pornos were pretty much exclusively consumed in public theaters. In the '70s, adult movie theaters were very much an accepted (if sometimes frowned upon) aspect of society.

Albert Giesbrecht said...

Except in Cincinnati, hence the police raid. It was touches like this that made WKRP a very funny and relevant show.

Greg said...

Yes, except in Cincinnati. I love it when the theater is raided and Johnny quickly stands up and empties his pockets of pills before the police arrive. That's a joke that would almost surely never fly today.

annalisa said...

As a total season, the 4th was my favorite. In this episode I liked the way Johnny is all concerned for Bailey at the theater. I think Johnny and Bailey had great chemistry. When I originally watched the show I always thought Bailey and Travis, but after I read Gary Sandy and Loni had a real thing going that sort of changed it for me.