The Good

A very well put together set that does this first season proud.

The Bad

It would have been cool if more of the cast would have been involved in the commentary tracks.

WKRP in Cincinnati: The Complete First Season is yet another release of a stalwart show from the late 1970s to the early 1980s that managed to leave it's mark on the world of TV. Perhaps its because this name ended up sticking in people's minds, but this show about a struggling radio station that gets a new lease on life when it's format is changed to rock music really touched a chord with fans. Led by Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump) we see a radio station that tries everything it can to stay on the air. What is really impressive about this show is how little it pandered to it's audience or played like the other sitcoms of the day. With Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman), Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson), Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) and others on the staff, this show was genuinely funny without being simplistic in how that was put across.

Some of the standout episodes in this set are "Bailey's Show" in which this character (played by Jan Smithers), gets her own show and ends up turning the station upside down. "Johnny Comes Back" sees one of the more fun loving characters brought down to earth by the complexities of his life. Lastly, "Fish Story" is a send up of the usual sitcom antics but done WKRP style.

Features

Commentary Tracks

Frank Bonner (Herb Tarlek on the show), Loni Anderson and creator Hugh Wilson do the honors for the "Pilot" and "Turkeys Away" episodes. Overall, these are fun. There aren't too many pregnant pauses or times where it seems like the participants don't know what they should say. They talk about shooting in Cincinnati, how Loni Anderson's looks basically kept them on the air, and how at the time they were shooting there Jerry Springer was the mayor. Wilson discusses other actors who were offered certain roles, but basically those opportunities were killed by the actor's agents (Eugene Roche being one of the actors that lost out). Interestingly, Wilson is very candid about how they had to change to the music for this DVD release (it was too pricey), how minutes from the show were jettisoned in reruns, and that honesty alone is enough to make listening to these tracks worth your time.

"Do My Eyes Say Yes?" Featurette

In this featurette Loni Anderson is the subject. We find out how Hugh Wilson wanted her to be in the show because she was beautiful, but he wasn't going to have her play the role as a dumb blonde. They discuss how she was a mother hen to the other characters on the show and how she never had anybody make a pass at her in the movie business. When asked "Why?," creator Hugh Wilson explains that it's because her eyes say "No."

"A Fish Story" Featurette

Apparently, this show wasn't expected to do much and the network was always hounding the creators and the writers for more jokes. Finally, they just got sick of it so they created the "Fish Story" episode which was supposed to be one big cliche after another. I loved hearing how this came about because it truly shows how great things can come when somebody is honestly pissed off about something. The writers and the actors completely put everything back in the network's face, and the results were a show that was bitingly satirical.

Video

Full Frame. Aspect Ratio. Aside from all the colors looking extremely muted, these episodes appear to have gotten a nice clean up job from 20th Century Fox. That said, it still doesn't seem like these shows were kept up all that well, but they certainly look nice enough. I just couldn't help thinking, as I was watching these, that I was going to run into some video hits. That never happened and for the most part these things played very solidly. Every so often, it seemed like I would get a little color noise from the lighting scheme employed on the show, but I think that was probably there when these episodes originally aired.

Audio

Dolby Digital. English Mono. Subtitled in English and Spanish. Close Captioned. The audio on these discs was good. I found that I had to turn the audio up a little higher than I thought I would. It wasn't like I was maxing out the volume, I just remember being surprised when I put the discs in that everything was so low. The sound remained fine over the all three discs, but I really remember being surprised again when I heard the audio on my regular TV. It was so much louder than how it sounded on these DVDs. I guess it all depends on your system, the kind of player you have, and how things are configured.

Package

The cast is all present and accounted for on this front cover which also features a glittering WKRP logo. The back has a record on a turntable, a 1970s rainbow going across the top, a description of this show, a Features list and some technical specs. The three discs are stored in two slim covers one of which features a microphone and the other has a headset. The back portion lists out the episodes and offers a logline of each one.

Final Word

This is one of those shows I had watched a little bit in reruns but truthfully, I didn't start thinking about until Tim Reid made his movie Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored. I know that that's a weird way to come to this material, but that's how it happened. He was so committed to his film and I started looking into this show but I never really watched it. Getting to sit back now and soak in all the stories, the performances and the vibe that this show put off was really cool. I loved getting to see this show from the beginning. All too often I come into shows late and then find myself piecing things together. It was not only great to start fresh with this dynamic of characters, but to also see a show that wasn't going for typical sitcom humor. Make no mistake, I like that too, but it's nice to see TV that pushes the envelope of what is acceptable and yet doesn't seem like its encumbered by factors like the studio or the network.

Filled with hilarity, WKRP in Cincinnati: The Complete First Season is pitch perfect in it's approach to humor, television and, for the most part, it's DVD release.

WKRP in Cincinnati was released .