WKRP Episode: "I Want To Keep My Baby"

This was the episode made the week before "Fish Story," also written by Hugh Wilson and directed by Asaad Kelada. Like I said, it is a bit short on big laughs (though a lot better than the episode produced the week before, "Love Returns") , though in terms of chronology it was a big step forward toward pushing the show toward pure ensemble comedy, instead of focusing on Andy and Mr. Carlson as originally envisioned in the pilot.

The main reason I wanted to post this is that it's one of the most musically-compromised episodes on Hulu/DVD. Restoring the music was a time-consuming job because there's a lot of it, and almost all of it was stripped out over the years. In these early episodes, Hugh Wilson picked most of the songs himself (later that season Howard Hesseman and Tim Reid would start choosing their own songs, which would continue to the end of the series), and most of the song choices have titles that reflect in some way on the theme of the scene, sort of like a cartoon score. They include but are not limited to "Rock n' Roll Fantasy" by the Kinks, "B-A-B-Y" by Carla Thomas, "Lively Up Yourself" by Bob Marley (the only song preserved on the Hulu version), "Teach Your Children" by CSN&Y, "Return To Sender" by Elvis Presley, "Your Prayers Are Answered" by Randy Newman, "Your Smiling Face" by James Taylor.

Part 1

Part 2