The men loved Jennifer on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” but no man loved her more than my mother did.
The half-hour television sitcom, which ran from 1978 to 1980, was set in a radio station. Each of the characters was a full-out stereotype: the naïve, bumbling station manager Mr. Carlson, who always wore a three-piece suit; program director Andy Travis, with longish flipped back hair and tight jeans and a tight plaid shirt halfway unbuttoned; smooth R&B DJ Venus Flytrap, who dressed with colorful flair; laid-back and probably high rock DJ Dr. Johnny Fever; earnest glasses-wearing intern Baily Quarters; neurotic and excitable news reporter Les Nessman; and polyester-wearing slick and sleezy salesman Herb Tarlek.
Jennifer Marlowe, played by blond bombshell Loni Anderson, was the station’s receptionist. She was cool, calm and collected. Men’s jaws dropped when they saw her, but she just went right on about her way, taking the lead with everyone falling in line. She was sensible, and the men ate right out of her hands as she led them to do what was right for the station, for the moment.
Normally, my mother (and she probably never realized this, or at least, never realized it was obvious) hated beautiful women. Oh! She particularly despised and resented Charo, that flamboyant Latina actress and dancer. Charo always acted sexy on purpose, and would shake her goods and flirt with whatever male anchor was interviewing her, or the lead of a TV show. The difference was Charo so obviously wanted male attention, but Jennifer just brushed off male attention. Mom loved how Jennifer brushed off the male attention.
When Loni Anderson died on Sunday, I mentioned it to my sister: “Do you remember how much Mom loved her on ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’?”
“Yes, it was a good show,” my sister replied, “but crazy inappropriate for nowadays.”
True. Those character stereotypes alone would be protested now. How times have changed in our lifetimes. I suppose they always do, though, and each generation notices.
Other iconic female characters from that time period (and this is just as seen through the filter of my mother’s eyes) included Mary Richards from the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Erica from “All My Children” and the queen of them all, Carol Burnett.
From 1970 to 1977, the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” was one of the first to show an independent woman living on her own and working. Mary Richards was divorced around the same time my mother was, and my mother idolized her and her lifestyle. She saw in Mary Richards what she could be – what life should be. Unlike Jennifer, Mary Richards was no bombshell. She was cute and little and stylish and wore her heart on her sleeves.
My mother didn’t watch soap operas, but she certainly knew who Erica, who went through too many last names to pick one, was. The petite, beautiful melodramatic character was played by Susan Lucci from 1970 until the show ended in 2011. I found this list of her husbands on Wikipedia: Adam Chandler, Dimitri Marick, Jackson Montgomery, Jeff Martin, Travis Montgomery, Tom Cudahy, Mike Roy; and though she seemed to never be pregnant, she had five children, some of whom just appeared as teenagers claiming she had given them away years ago. Erica could really tell someone off, with flair.
But saving the best for last – the one and only Carol Burnette. In “The Carol Burnett Show,” which ran from 1967 to 1978, she was not beautiful in the conventional sense, like those other actresses were. But she was hilarious. The night and time of her show was the special time in our household, and our mother sat her girls around her to watch it. Much of the humor was lost on us. Mom would laugh uproariously at the scene in which Carol was dressed in a pair of green curtains, with the rod still on them, a parody of a scene from “Gone With the Wind.” Between snorts of laughter, she’d explain to my sister and me why it was funny, and what it made fun of, but we had not seen “Gone With the Wind” and didn’t get it.
Our dearly departed mother would be surprised to know that people now can watch “WKRP in Cincinnati,” and many of those other shows, very easily now thanks to the internet. Since the news of Loni Anderson’s death, I’ve watched a few episodes of “WKRP.” The experience both brought the past to life, with the feeling of my late mother, and my sister as a child, nearby watching with me, yet also with shocking clarity showed how much time has passed, and how far away we are now from where we were then.
