why was Venus hired for a ROCK station?
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happipuppi13 — 13 years ago(July 21, 2012 02:53 PM)
Andy may have said that WKRP is a "rock & roll station" but (as the other poster indicated) stations back were more so Top 40/Pop than anything else.
Whatever made the Billboard Hot 100 chart betwen #40 to #1,would get
regular play. Didn;t matter if it was Rock,pop,R&B,Disco or Country or even some silly novelty hit lie Ray Stevens "The Streak" (#1 hit)
or Steve Martin's "King Tut" (Top 20 hit).
I liked that Johnny played both the older songs and the current,that's a nice mix. "Oldies" then (1978) were between 1955 to 1969 or even 1970.
I know,I used to listen to (forgot the call letters)96 FM in San Diego between 1977-1980. Newest song I heard (that I recall) was (oddly enough) "Venus" by The Shocking Blue,from 1970.
Last thing,I know some were pretty bummed out when this show got cancelled in 1982 but honestly. I don;t see Johnny staying for the "New Wave" onslaught,that began only weeks later in the summer of 1982.With Disco gone & lighter R &B and early Rap,I can't imagine Venus sticking around either.
I think the show went off at the right time,despite there being no "finale".
happipuppi13
arf,man!! -
profh-1 — 13 years ago(September 14, 2012 07:22 PM)
Rebound4July:
"While Andy was often frustrated with Johnny's habit of playing older rock music instead of the current top hits, he never really forced Johnny to play anything."
I like the episode where Carlson is practicing a speech while everyone else daydreams. Andy's daydream has himself in a "Godfather" role, letting Johnny know he wants him to "play the playlist". A frightened Johnny begs Venus for help, but Venus just turns away. After Johnny leaves, Venus tells Andy, "I'll take care of it." Andy replies, "You do it tonight after the speech!" -
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JohnQ1127 — 13 years ago(September 17, 2012 09:39 AM)
It was trying to emulate an Album Oriented Rock (AOR) station which was a popular format during the late 1960's to mid 1980's predominately on F.M. radio stations. Afterwards that format devolved into a generic homogenized form of programing was called "Classic Rock".
Occasionally D.J's would play a some older black artists from the 50's but that was usually quite rare. Rarely a contemporary black artist might get some cross-over appeal but those instances like Grace Jones or Bob Marley were very limited.
Essentially the programing was dominated by White British Rock bands from the mid-60's-mid-70's like The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and Queen.
Venus had a 1970's Free form program of R&B, Soul and Disco music that wouldn't have never been played on a 70's (AOR) rock station.
The show wasn't very realistic to begin with so they just added Venus as a token minority character. Again this was quite common in the 70's. Shows would add a token minority character in order to broaden the appeal of the show. You could also have shows revolving racial issues or feel comfortable making a race related joke. Producers could also feel they were being progressive and inclusive.
Venus was actually a pretty well-rounded individual for a token character.
Think of Kinch from Hogan's Heroes or Gordy the Weather Man from Mary Tyler Moore, Hawthorne from the Waltons, Garrett Morris & Eddie Murphy on SNL, Isaac the Bartender from The Love Boat, Benson on Soap, -
rebound4july — 13 years ago(September 17, 2012 07:02 PM)
Well as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the local AOR station that I listened to in the early-to-mid-80s did have a blues program every Sunday evening, so it certainly wasn't unheard of to play music outside of one narrow format.
As far as the "token minority character" argument, I don't know where you're going with that. You're just naming random black characters from TV and implying that they were only there because of their skin colour. If anything, minorities were underrepresented on TV at the time, at least in comparison to their ratio of the population.
Eddie Murphy was a token minority on SNL???? He was practically carrying the show by himself for a couple of seasons. -
Catnip86 — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 09:24 AM)
Well as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the local AOR station that I listened to in the early-to-mid-80s did have a blues program every Sunday evening, so it certainly wasn't unheard of to play music outside of one narrow format.
Sort of like on a rap/hip-hop station where you would never hear a rock/hard rock or metal song? Or a southern rock or country song? -
rebound4july — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 02:26 PM)
I also think there's too many assumptions about WKRP's format. They called themselves a rock station, but it may have been leaning more to pop than AOR. In one episode Andy says he keeps begging Johnny to play a disco song, something no AOR station at the time would've done. "YMCA", a song that was loathed by most rock fans, was one of the songs in the stations $5,000 contest.
And it's not specifically stated that Venus only played soul or R&B. In one episode he even played a Kenny Loggins song, which certainly wouldn't fit into any "black music" stereotype. -
JohnQ1127 — 13 years ago(September 19, 2012 07:55 AM)
Well I think it's hardly analogous to compare a 3-4 hours weekly Sunday blues program to a full-time 4-5 hour nightly Freeform R&B/Soul/Disco program.
AOR stations would often change formats on Sunday night because listenership was often fairly low. We used to have a station that played a Dr. Demento program or sometimes they would just to a local radio call in show on Sundays.
WKRP wasn't very realistic so Venus was just another part that didn't make much sense.
I not sure you're familiar with the concept of "tokenism." There's a wikepedia entry that covers it quite fully.
T.V. shows starting in the mid 60's started adding a single black character for a variety of reasons that I stated previously. One, there was a demand from civil rights groups for more inclusiveness on t.v. so as a from of appeasement shows started adding minority candidates. Two, shows could deal with racially related subjects or make race-related jokes by adding a black character. Three, shows could broaden their appeal by adding a black character, four, producers felt progressive by adding a black or minority character to an all white cast. South Park actually made fun of the practice and called their black character "Token".
RE: You're just naming random black characters from TV and implying that they were only there because of their skin colour. If anything,"
That was exactly my point, they were only added because they were black. You could add Ron Glass from Barney Miller or Freddie Boom-Boom Washington from Welcome Back Kotter or Franklin from Charlie Brown & Peanuts or Valarie from Josie and the Pussy Cats to the list.
It didn't matter if Eddie Murphy was carrying the show, he was the only minority cast member on SNL at the time. Robert Townshend was initially supposed to be hired by SNL but was dropped once they found Eddie Murphy. I guess the thought of having "TWO" black cast members was out of the question. -
PillowRock — 13 years ago(September 20, 2012 08:52 AM)
Lots of rock stations, including a fair number AOR ones, got significantly mellower and / or outside their normal format in the late-night time slot (which was always portrayed as the time slot that Venus worked). And not just on Sundays. During the time period when
WKRP
was on the air, WRIF in Detroit had a nightly show (originally 2:00 - 4:00 AM, but later expanded to a 3 or 4 hour slot) called "The Rif Rock Cafe"; and nothing that you ever heard on that show would ever be played on that station in any other time slot (though that particular example was sliding off in a different direction than what Venus played; the Cafe tended more toward Laurie Anderson).
That part never struck me as much of a stretch. The part that did seem odd was a generally low rated station having a DJ that was always talked about in terms of being a top ratings draw, and keeping him perpetually hidden in that late-night slot where his earning potential (for the station) is so limited. -
JohnQ1127 — 13 years ago(September 20, 2012 10:10 AM)
Well there's a big difference in Laurie Anderson type program to a free form Black R&B/Soul/Disco show.
It's really not that big a deal because the show wasn't very realistic in the first place. Hardly any of those 70's Sit-coms were very realistic.
How about Taxi? Not one minority cab driver in NYC during the 1970's?? LOL. -
hariseldon59 — 13 years ago(March 04, 2013 09:39 AM)
How about Taxi? Not one minority cab driver in NYC during the 1970's?? LOL.
To be fair, there were minority cab drivers who worked for Sunshine Cab. (I seem to recall an episode where some young black female cab driver had a crush on Alex.) We just didn't see them regularly because they weren't part of Alex Rieger's circle of friends. -
activista — 11 years ago(April 07, 2014 12:11 AM)
@JohnQ
You do realize that there were other shows on the air in the era like What's Happening, That's My Mama, Sanford and Son,Good Times, which were,in fact, written and produced by black writers/directors, and had mostly black casts? So,no, the whole era wasn't just putting actor of color in "token minority" roles. And, yeah, shows were beginning to get more diversified, due to black folks demanding that black people be represented not only in front of the camera, but behind the scenes,too. When you look at the fact that black folks were barely even cast in "token" roles on TV in the '60's, the '70's were a huge step forward in improvement.
And another thingI used to listen to an oldies rock station out of Ohio back in the late '80's which actually had an early Sunday morning jazz show, of all things. Like another poster said, radio formats in the '70's weren't always as rigid,timid, and limited as they are now. Heck, radio in the early '80's,looking back, seems to have been a little more adventurous that any of these music stations today. And,BTW, black people pretty much invented rock n' roll, so there wasn't anything really strange about Venus being therehe should have been able to play it,too,or whatever the hell else he wantedand not just R&B. -
trollomatic — 12 years ago(March 30, 2014 09:19 PM)
He was obviously just used as a token black character which was common for shows from the mid 1960's-1980's.
yes, The shows from the 1970's had only token black characters: "Sanford & Son", "The Jeffersons", "Good Times", "What's Happenin'", "The Jackson 5ive", "The Harlem Globetrotters", "Diff'rent Strokes", etcetera.
1980's and after "The Cosby Show", "A Different World", "Family Matters",
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Homeboys in Outer Space", "Livin' Single", etcetera. -
Ariane1998 — 11 years ago(November 07, 2014 10:51 AM)
In the season 4 episode "The Consultant", the consultant Mrs. Carlson has hired tells Andy that the sound of the station is "all over the road" and Andy makes it clear that he lets the deejays program some of their own music.
You can see it here:
The Consultant
http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2008/10/wkrp-episode-consultant.html
This is the episode with the famous Bailey "M & Ms" scene with her Nestle commercial spoof. (Nestles makes the very best chocolate).