Friday, September 19, 2008

WKRP Episodes: "Pilot" and "The Creation of Venus"

This week was the 30th anniversary of the debut of WKRP in Cincinnati (it premiered on Monday, September 18, 1978). So the appropriate thing is to post the pilot, with the original music, "Queen of the Forest" by Ted Nugent.

And after that, I'm going to post one of the last episodes of the series, "The Creation of Venus," a flashback episode that ret-cons the pilot in light of what we've learned about the characters since then. The writer of "Creation," Blake Hunter, who later created "Who's the Boss?," was a continuity obsessive, and he was bothered at the fact that Venus in the pilot had a different personality and a different backstory than later, so he wrote this episode to reconcile the two. (Though it's been pointed out that in trying to fix all the continuity gaps in the show, he may have created a continuity error by saying that Andy knew Venus's real name; in the first season, it was implied that he didn't.) All the scenes from the pilot are newly-taped -- they had to be, because they had a different Mama Carlson -- but more importantly, the pilot's story is re-interpreted so we see what was going on behind-the-scenes.

So, here's the pilot, act 1 (unfortunately I didn't have room to upload the main title).




Pilot, Act 2:





And here's "The Creation of Venus," teaser and Act 1:





The Creation of Venus, Act 2:




8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blake Hunter created WHO'S THE BOSS? I wish you hadn't mentioned that. It'll make it hard for me to ever think of him in exactly the same way.

Talk about bad sitcoms. Maybe not SHE'S THE SHERIFF bad or THE MUNSTERS TODAY bad, but still bad.

mstove said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mstove said...

Thank you so much for restoring and uploading all of these. It is almost a crime that they are just sitting in some vault and not getting a real release.

Anonymous said...

This Christopher Is Music Is Missing Senses By Songs They Found Of Van Morrison By Wavelingth Of Break It Records It Massing Ground Look At Window Las, Venus! Thanks Christopher And Don't Skip It Video Or Don't Cut Video! WKRP.

Anonymous said...

The "You're Having Our Baby" moment? Pure genuis!!

Anonymous said...

The transformation of Johnny Sunshine, the sleepy DJ, into Dr.Johnny Fever, the hot rock n/roll DJ in town is PRICELESS TV comedy! Thanks for posting!

Anonymous said...

"Queen of the Forest" by Ted Nugent, was that the first rock and roll song that was played by Dr.Johnny Fever when the show changed format? Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I've said it before and I'm saying it again. Gary Sandy is the male version of Farrah Fawcett, i.e. in terms of hair style! He's a nice person playing a nice guy in this show where everyone is upstaging each other in acting real crazy! I love this show, I grew up with it. Thanks!