The 10 Best "WKRP in Cincinnati" Episodes

WKRP in Cincinnati is both an enormously engaging and an undeniably frustrating series. Even during its initial run, it was an easy show to love, but a challenging one to stay friends with. Something always seemed to get in the way of it being as consistently funny as it should’ve been. The characters were fresh; the actors were splendid. And the writing had so much potential — potential that too often was squandered. From the start, there were tensions between creator Hugh Wilson, who wanted to do a sophisticated ensemble comedy, and the network, CBS, who wanted more kid-friendly programming. There was an influx of new writers in Season 2, a few of whom were more suited to sketch comedy than the sitcom format. And Wilson himself suffered burnout in Season 3 that led to a string of strangely downbeat “special episodes,” because — in his exhausted state — he found it easier to write drama than comedy. It wasn’t really until the show's fourth and final season that the quality managed to stabilize, and because Wilson was more hands off that season — turning over headwriting chores to PJ Torokvei, who, from the evidence, was not as skilled at polishing scripts — those episodes often felt scrappier than the best ones that preceded them.

And yet.

Blake Hunter, of WKRP in Cincinnati

Decades after his heyday, Blake Hunter remains one of my favorite sitcom writers, and like so many of my favorites (e.g., Bernard Slade on Bewitched, Charlotte Brown on Rhoda, David Pollock and Elias Davis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bud Wiser on One Day at a Time, Bob Bendetson on Newhart, Tucker Cawley on Everybody Loves Raymond), I love him for the scripts he wrote for a single show, in this case WKRP in Cincinnati. Hugh Wilson created WKRP, but Hunter was there all four seasons, and his scripts are the ones I still marvel at.

WKRP in Cincinnati season 4

We remember WKRP in Cincinnati, the sitcom that aired on CBS from 1978 to 1982, as being better than it was. We remember "Turkeys Away," the ultimate in promotional-stunts-gone-wrong, as live turkeys are dropped from a helicopter, "hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement"; we remember the show that (rightly) made stars of supporting players Howard Hesseman and Loni Anderson; we remember its subversive tone and its striking characters -- we remember all that, and we think of it as an instant classic. But from the start, it was an erratic show, and among its 90 episodes are nearly as many misfires as triumphs. It was a show CBS desperately needed, but never knew what to do with. It was a show designed for two actors that ended up being about two others. It had a control freak at the helm who, judging from the evidence, did his best work when he let others do their jobs. If it holds up after 35 years (and it does), it starts with the original casting director Bob Manahan: the characters themselves were well-conceived (and if they weren't, they grew into characters who were well-developed), but the actors made them memorable. It's one of the best matches of character and casting we've had on American television.