Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A WKRP Podcast? Really?

Hell, yes! WKRP in Cincinnati was one of the great American sitcoms, underappreciated in its own time but kept alive in syndication and deeply loved by the kids and teenagers who grew up with it in the 1970s and 80s. The recent release of the entire series on DVD—in a great package from Shout Factory, cleaned up and carefully restored with virtually all the original music intact—is the perfect opportunity to rewatch the show and/or (re)discover it (again) for the first to third time.

Mike and I are your genial hosts. In each episode of the podcast, we’ll discuss two episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati, returning to our childhoods—not without trepidation—to see what holds up, what’s aged poorly, and what has changed since the days of Linda Ronstadt and the KISS Army.

You can watch along with us, but you don’t need to watch to enjoy the podcast. Each episode is really just a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging discussion of TV and radio history, the politics and culture of the Carter to Reagan years, Bailey’s unfortunate fashion choices, and whether Johnny was high. Not to mention the occult conspiratorial weirdness that seems to crackle just beneath the surface of the show. And besides loving WKRP, Mike and I are both Professional Historians with advanced degrees from Snooty Schools*, so you know our pop history riffs and rants are the real deal.

*This podcast is in no way endorsed by any Snooty Schools, though I occasionally borrow audio equipment from Western University’s world-class digital history lab.

So check out an episode or subscribe to our RSS feed. We'll be launching on iTunes and all the other fine podcast aggregating services once we have a few more episodes in the can. A new episode will come out every other Wednesday, with show notes, errata, and apologies on Friday. (That means our “Turkeys Away” episode comes out on April 22. Mark your calendars!)

Hold My Order, Terrible Dresser is a labor of love—nerdy, nostalgic, misguided love—so it’s unsponsored and absolutely free. But we do need you to boost the signal! I apologize in advance for the hustling we’re going to be doing for links, likes, tweets, and those all-important iTunes reviews. That’s how it goes in the Economy of Clicks. I don’t think we have any illusions about how many people are out there waiting for a WKRP in Cincinnati podcast, but we want to make sure that everyone who IS out there waiting for a WKRP in Cincinnati podcast gets a chance to discover HMOTD. So please let them know.

And yes, at some point we’ll explain our inane title.

3 comments:

  1. I just discovered your podcast and started with the classic Turkey episode. I have to say I am more than impressed with your analysis (and Frightenstein clip). I'll be listening to every episode. Keep up the good work. BOOGER!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Found your Podcast a couple weeks ago. I'm up to the one with Jennifer's crush on Steele.
    One piece of advice: Stay on topic. In every episode I've heard, you two drift waaaaaaay off the subject. Somehow you went from how hunky Steele is drifting faaaaaar off the road into Burt Reynolds, parodies of Cosmo, masculinity during Viet Nam, Boy George, and women's fashions of the '80s.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for listening & for posting! I'm afraid you'll find that we LIKE going off topic - one thing we love about WKRP is the window it opens on so many different subjects. But there's plenty of WKRP-specific content in each podcast too.

      Delete