History Series / WKRPInCincinnati

* StepfordSuburbia: Landersville, the blissful suburb Jennifer moves to at the beginning of season 3. Her next-door neighbors' marriage is breaking up, there's a sex pervert in the neighborhood, and all building and planning is controlled by corrupt politicians. No wonder she moves back to her city apartment the following season.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: After selling air time to a sports supplement store, Herb has a crisis of conscience when a high school student dies from using them, as the "supplements" may have been [[DrugsAreBad something much more illicit]], and he eventually makes an on-air apology.

* IDoNotLikeGreenEggsAndHam: Arthur Carlson runs a rock-and-roll radio station, but prefers older music and is reluctant to listen to his [=DJ=]s. However, when maintaining the station's public image eventually demands that he attend a rock-and-roll concert they're promoting, Carlson enjoys the band's music.

* MultipleEndings: Season One episode "The Contest Nobody Could Win" had two endings made, changing the last few scenes. The primary difference was whether or not Johnny shows up at the climax and stops the con artist. If he does, he returns the money and asks for his $7.50 back. If he doesn't, the last scene reveals that he was docked $5000 to pay Don Pesola and that the grand prize in the station's next contest is just a tube of lipstick. (This version is on the Shout! Factory DVD release.)

* MultipleEndings: Season One episode "The Contest Nobody Could Win" had two endings made, changing the last few scenes. The primary difference was whether or not Johnny shows up at the climax and stops the con artist. If he does, he returns the money and asks for his $7.50 back. If he doesn't, the last scene reveals that he was docked $5000 to pay Don Pesola and that the grand prize in the station's next contest is just a tube of lipstick.

* InherentlyFunnyWords: In ''The New WKRP'', the producer of Johnny's 'KRP-inspired sitcom pilot changes Les's taped out walls to a taped out desk, because desk has a "k" in it.
** Supposedly, the scientific idea behind this is that words with the letter "k" are more prone to cause laughter due to the way saying the word moves the facial muscles, so this joke actually makes some sense

* MultipleEndings: Season One episode ''The Contest Nobody Could Win'' had two endings made, changing the last few scenes. The primary difference was whether or not Johnny shows up at the climax and stops the con artist. If he does, he returns the money and asks for his $7.50 back. If he doesn't, the last scene reveals that he was docked $5000 to pay Don Pesola and that the grand prize in the station's next contest is just a tube of lipstick.

The year is 1978. Hotshot program director Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) arrives for his first day of work at WKRP, a small Cincinnati radio station whose "soothing sounds for senior citizens" format (''aka'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_music Beautiful Music]], a Muzak-esque concept actually popular at the time) has "catapulted" it to a permanent position at the very bottom of the UsefulNotes/{{ratings}}. After encountering the requisite cast of oddballs working at the station, Andy immediately -- as in mid-song -- throws out the old format and replaces it with Top 40 music, then hires an oddball or two of his own to add to the mix.

** It was even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Venus was offered a job at another station, but turned it down because he was offered the job for his color over his talents, whereas at WKRP, no one seems to care about his race, except for the occasional [[UnfortunateImplications idiotic]] [[YouAreACreditToYourRace remarks]] from Les and Herb.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Dr. Johnny Fever.

* RichSuitorPoorSuitor: Jennifer considers giving up her rich boyfriends for a young, handsome and poor repairman named [[AwesomeMcCoolname Steel]]. Unfortunately, Steel turns out to be more of a GoldDigger than she is.

* SassySecretary

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Series/NewsRadio''.
** The show itself was also considered a SpiritualSuccessor to MTM's ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow''; Grant Tinker called it "a radio station cousin to Mary's show," and critic Tom Shales called Gary Sandy "Gary Tyler Moore". The Magazine/{{MAD}} parody ''WKRAP in Cincinati'' even ends with Mama Carlson firing all the station employees (including her son) and replacing them with the recently fired WJM staff.

* WelcomeEpisode

* YouLookFamiliar:
** Sam Anderson appeared as a different guest character every season.
** Michael Des Barres plays a member of the British post-Punk band "Scum of the Earth" in an early episode. In ''The New WKRP'' he plays morning drive time host Jack Allen.

%%* {{Meganekko}}: Bailey.

* Jennifer Elizabeth Marlowe (Loni Anderson) -- Carlson's [[HypercompetentSidekick highly skilled]] receptionist, blonde but in no way dumb, with a wicked wit and an appetite for rich men. The highest-paid employee at the station.

** "That moment of silence was brought to you in honor of the hearing-impaired listeners of this station.."

** There wasn't as much of this as on some network shows, but in early episodes, Jennifer is shown objecting to anything that feels like real work, such as answering three calls in one day, taking dictation and getting coffee. Later episodes showed her capable of handling just about anything; one could write off her disinterest in dictation and coffee-fetching as considering it's beneath her.

** Very early on, although she's presented as smart and not ditzy, Jennifer openly loathes the idea of doing any sort of actual work, and basically refuses to do anything. In later episodes, though she would have very firm boundaries about the sorts of work she would do, she's not merely a decorative appendage in the lobby. Jennifer also expresses near-contempt for Mr. Carlson ("the jerk who runs this place") in the pilot, something she would ''never'' do in the subsequent series.

** Venus was more of a jive turkey and dressed like a pimp ("I've got suits I can't even get parts for!"). While his dress style remained somewhat flamboyant, he definitely toned it down, and in personality revealed that he was actually a bit of a nerd. Actually dealt with in a late-running episode, where it was revelead Venus' initially over-the-top flamboyant personality was a ruse cooked up by Venus and Andy. He was <i>always</i> a slightly nerdy type, but Andy wanted to ensure that new hire Venus would make an unforgettable impression on WKRP management, really driving home the format change he had in mind. So they created the utra-smooth, flashy persona of 'Venus Rising' -- except Andy forgot the name, and introduced him to management as "Venus Flytrap".

** Johnny would doze off mid-thought and acted like getting up early was a chore. Later, while he always acted kind of tired, he had no trouble with the hours he kept and never had a "dozing off" moment or confused wake-up.
** Venus was more of a jive turkey and dressed like a pimp ("I've got suits I can't even get parts for!"). While his dress style remained somewhat flamboyant, he definitely toned it down, and in personality revealed that he was actually a bit of a nerd.

* MultipleChoicePast: Venus had one of these for much of the series, with several seemingly incompatible facts given about his past before he came to WKRP: He was said to be a successful New Orleans disc jockey, a Vietnam deserter on the run, ''and'' a former schoolteacher.
** "The Creation of Venus," one of the last episodes, was a writer's attempt to reconcile these different parts of Venus's backstory, although in doing so, he created a small new ContinuitySnarl by making it seem like Andy knew Venus's real name all along.

* Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson (Gordon Jump) -- The sweet and well-meaning but totally ineffectual station manager, son of WKRP's formidable owner. Usually happy to remain clueless, but occasionally got the urge to be more hands-on, with predictably disastrous consequences.

* Johnny "Dr. Johnny Fever" Caravella (Howard Hesseman) -- Once legendary, now a down-at-the-heels rock DJ (he got kicked off the air in LA for saying "booger") whose entire life is reinvigorated when Andy changes the station's format. Smart, cynical, but cannot function without coffee. Also, vulnerable to random irrational neuroses, as for instance his terror of the "phone cops" coming to get him for breaking a phone.

* DiscoSucks: Johnny once gave away tickets to a rock concert for someone who could complete a sentence. The sentence: "Disco is hell".

** Averted in an early episode, "Les On a Ledge," when someone pranks Les by calling him gay. Les is so distraught that he considers jumping from a window in a tall building.

** In "Hoodlum Rock," Andy experiences this after an encounter with a punk rock group, complaining that in his day, bands would just come out and play without attacking the audience. It's a moment when he and Mr. Carlson realize they're NotSoDifferent.

* OldFriendNewGender: Herb and his {{Transgender}} high school classmate.

** Since the show only follows two of the DJs, the airstaff would appear to be too small. In fact, the station has several on-air personalities that are mentioned but never seen, including the late night DJ Moss Steiger, afternoon DJ Dean the Dream and mid-morning DJ Rex Erhart. In the season 4 episode "The Union," all of the on-air staff is in the room at once. Johnny and Venus also frequently fill in for the other DJ's, explaining why they are around the station outside of their normal times. A lot of conversations about the other staff were cut in the syndicated episodes.

** The air staff is too small. Even a dawn-to-dusk station (one that has a broadcast day limited to daylight hours), which WKRP clearly isn't, since Venus is the night DJ, would have more than two [=DJs=].
*** The station has several on-air personalities that are mentioned but never seen, including the late night DJ Moss Steiger, afternoon DJ Dean the Dream and mid-morning DJ Rex Erhart. In the season 4 episode "The Union," all of the on-air staff is in the room at once. Johnny and Venus also frequently fill in for the other DJ's, explaining why they are around the station outside of their normal times. A lot of conversations about the other staff were cut in the syndicated episodes.