Howard Hesseman, R.I.P.

[Little Garwood]

The man who some of us will remember as Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP in Cincinnati died on January 29, age 81.

Fever and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) were a great duo in what was a tremendous cast on WKRP, a show which was one of the few bright spots in that TV desert of 1978, when the series started.

Tim Reid pays tribute to his WKRP co-star.

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

WKRP, a show which was one of the few bright spots in that TV desert of 1978, when the series started.

Oh, I don't know. THREE'S COMPANY, HAPPY DAYS, ALL IN THE FAMILY, GOOD TIMES, THE JEFFERSONS, DIFF'RENT STROKES, WHAT'S HAPPENING!!

It wasn't all bad.

I've never seen WKRP (aside from a few seconds here and there) but THREE'S COMPANY was da bomb!!!

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

Oh and I only recall Hesseman from that ROCKFORD episode.

[Pahonu]

The man who some of us will remember as Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP in Cincinnati died on January 29, age 81.

Fever and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) were a great duo in what was a tremendous cast on WKRP, a show which was one of the few bright spots in that TV desert of 1978, when the series started.

Tim Reid pays tribute to his WKRP co-star.

Agreed! Thank you for the link.

[Little Garwood]

Anytime I was in a soul-deadening job, I thought of Dr. Johnny Fever’s reaction to the Hallelujah Tabernacle Choir’s “beautiful rendition” of You’re Having My Baby. (starting at the 1:49 mark).


youtu.be/FzgLeC54cqs

[Luther's nephew Dobie]

The man who some of us will remember as Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP in Cincinnati died on January 29, age 81.

Fever and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) were a great duo in what was a tremendous cast on WKRP, a show which was one of the few bright spots in that TV desert of 1978, when the series started.

Tim Reid pays tribute to his WKRP co-star.

Agreed! Thank you for the link.

Thank you so much for posting this.
The Tim Reid tribute was heartfelt and real as opposed to the bogus ones issued by the agents of co-stars when stars pass on.

A young Hesseman with his improv troupe The Committee appeared in Billy Jack(1971). An amazing host of talent
passed thru it's ranks over the years. But the father of both The Committee and Saturday Night Live is Chicago's
Second City. It's comedy club is still going strong and if you are in the Windy City it's well worth checking out.
During the audience interaction bit I was invited by then unknown Tim Meadows to sing the lyrics to the
Bonanza song as he didn't believe there were any.
He then got the audience to sing along, he turned it into a very funny bit, other cast members came out and
improvised riffs on the Cartwrights.
Hesseman got his start at Second City.

RIP Howard, "like goodnight sweet prince and may angels swing thee to thy rest".

[Little Garwood]

A young Hesseman with his improv troupe The Committee appeared in Billy Jack(1971)

Billy Jack and Born Losers (especially the latter) are so-bad-they’re-magnificent! I don’t believe in kitsch, so I take these films at face value which makes them all the better. That committee scene you mentioned is a wannabe cinéma vérité trainwreck…I love it.

The fact that the Billy Jack movies were huge box-office hits reminds me once again of the fleeting nature of fame…sorry if I sounded like General Patton there…it’s as though there are huge swaths of once-popular pop culture that have since become vaguely remembered fragments of a dream. It’s a subject which fascinates me (and will predictably bore everyone else here).

[Luther's nephew Dobie]

A young Hesseman with his improv troupe The Committee appeared in Billy Jack(1971)

Billy Jack and Born Losers (especially the latter) are so-bad-they’re-magnificent! I don’t believe in kitsch, so I take these films at face value which makes them all the better. That committee scene you mentioned is a wannabe cinéma vérité trainwreck…I love it.

The fact that the Billy Jack movies were huge box-office hits reminds me once again of the fleeting nature of fame…sorry if I sounded like General Patton there…it’s as though there are huge swaths of once-popular pop culture that have since become vaguely remembered fragments of a dream. It’s a subject which fascinates me (and will predictably bore everyone else here).

That scene was a train wreck which is why moi as well as you appreciate it. Stuff like that has it's own special magic, I don't think that even Spielberg could replicate it if tasked to do so.
"Vaguely remembered fragments of a dream", right on Garwood. Those were deeply weird times, as Hunter Thompson noted, "when the going gets weird the weird turn pro".

If I was teaching a "1960's" course to high schoolers I would include Billy Jack in the curriculum, along with the famous "Candy Man" 2 part episode of NYPD with James Earl Jones and Dragnet's
immortal "Blue Boy".

[Little Garwood]

Counterculture films, while incredibly popular up to about 1971, dropped off precipitously afterwards. It’s fascinating to me how one generation’s interests seemingly give way overnight to the completely different interest of another’s. The 1960s, culturally speaking, were a distant…and I mean distant memory by 1976. The same could be said for the early 1970s, which were as far off to yours truly in 1978 as WWII must have been to a Boomer coming of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We have nowhere near that kind of immediate distance between era these days.