Techtite Feature Article!

<<<(back to title page)

(Episode 53, 12/20/1980)

If there's poignancy in this holiday-themed episode of the original WKRP series, it's that this would turn out to be the last holiday episode for our favorite radio station in Cincinnati. True, it was hardly an uncommon idea; salute a classic Charles Dickens holiday tale, with the series' lead characters as Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Future, and so on. Yet for some reason, WKRP seemed to give the concept that little something extra, which "squeaks in" at #10 on this list.

To make a half hour story short: Carlson is "Scrooge" for the holidays, only to foolishly eat one of Venus Flytrap's (ahem) "special brownies" for a snack. The resulting dream sequence is filled with Scrooge parodies galore, all played riotously by the actors of the series. See WKRP as it looks in the past, present, and future! See Venus as the "hip" ghost of Christmas past, while Jennifer (Loni Anderson) is the buxom ghost of Christmas Present. Particularly amusing, however, is the view of a "high tech" future WKRP, completely run by computer, which is unintentionally funny due to the wall-sized box of flashing lights posing as a "computer" back in 1980; the typical way a 1980's sitcom viewed computers of the future. Ha!

But the real reason this Scrooge parody makes this top ten list, is how much fun the actors obviously had making this episode. When the series' resident bombshell Jennifer (Loni Anderson) comes prancing into Carlson's office, spotlights aglow, she says with a very girly-girl flourish "I am the ghost of Christmas Present." When Carlson begins to chuckle at the sight, Jennifer promptly puts her hands on her hips and insists with a deeper voice, like a grade school teacher, "I am the ghost of Christmas Present!" It loses a little in the translation, though it was one of many moments that makes this episode a holiday favorite every time it aired.

Onward to Number 9: Cal-i-for-niaaaaaa!!!!