In this episode, we pay tribute to the iconic Lonnie Anderson, the legendary blonde bombshell from WKRP in Cincinnati, exploring her impact on television and her fascinating backstory. The conversation takes an intriguing turn as the hosts recount the ensemble cast and memorable moments from one of television’s most beloved sitcoms. As the nostalgia unfolds, listeners are treated to an insider’s look at the life and times of radio personalities during the era. Shifting gears, the episode delves into a gripping discussion about Texas Democrats who have fled to Illinois in response to new political developments. The hosts present
Now, Lonnie Anderson, the great Jennifer Marlowe, the blonde bombshell. She and Farrah Fawcett, I guess, were the blonde bombshells of the 70s. Lonnie Anderson passes away over the weekend, a couple of days shy of her 80th birthday. Were you a big KRP guy, Mike?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, sure I was. And, you know, the back story of her taking the job is fascinating. She was never a blonde. She was a brunette. And they, you know, wanted her to be the platinum blonde, you know, push-up bra. And she didn’t want to do that role. She said, I don’t want to just be kind of a sex object. Well, then they explained to her, well, yeah, but you have to understand the twist on it is you’re the smartest person in the room. You’re the smartest. voice of reason in this radio station full of zanies and loonies and by the way when I watch WKRP I don’t even see a sitcom I see a documentary yeah That’s our business.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s a reality show.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is absolutely our reality show.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’ve got Gary Sandy, who is Andy, what, Travis, the long-suffering program director, with a zoo of staff around him. And this is probably underappreciated. When we talk about the top 10 sitcoms, we talk about ensemble casts like Mary Tyler Moore, like All in the Family, and properly so. But you take Howard Hesselman as Dr. Johnny Fever. Richard Sanders as Les Nesman doing news. As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Frank Bonner as sleazy sales manager Herb Tarlick. Bailey Quarters. I’ve got to tell you, I had as much a crush on her as I did Lonnie Anderson. She was the promotions director. This was 78 to 82, which is like right as I’m getting out of college and getting into actual radio. Now, you were 18 when KRP started.
SPEAKER 03 :
You were already knocking out talk shows in Ohio, weren’t you? In a local station in Ohio. And I swear, Herb Tarlick worked there. Without wearing that jacket. Wearing that jacket. I’m telling you.
SPEAKER 04 :
The great Lonnie Anderson.
SPEAKER 03 :
In fact, where I’m from, Dayton, there was a connection there. As I recall, the guy that played the station manager, what was his name?
SPEAKER 04 :
Gordon Jump. Gordon Jump. Wonderful character actor.
SPEAKER 03 :
Pretty sure he’s from Dayton.
SPEAKER 04 :
Arthur Carlson.
SPEAKER 03 :
If I’m not mistaken, he was from Dayton. But anyway, yeah, that’s sad news about Lonnie Anderson. Rest in peace. Talk about sad. This story with the Texas Democrats. Mark, I don’t. I don’t think you’re as incredulous about this as I am. I’m telling you, the idea that Texas Democrats are going to flee to Illinois, a state where the Democrats have abused gerrymandering to comical levels. It’s almost like a comedy in Illinois, what they’ve done with gerrymandering. And that’s where they go? They go to Chicago? Why don’t you go to Hawaii?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they fled to Oklahoma before for a past controversy because that was like right next door. All they had to do was get out of the state. And they were worried that we’d have state police guys go and drag them back to Austin. I guess they’re farther away in Illinois. But you’re right. Don’t go to a state that is the obvious flip side of the sin that you’re trying to identify. Illinois has been horribly disadvantaging Republicans for years.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Chicago, the murder capital of the world. Right. So that’s good. Make sure you dodge the bullets there, Dems. Look, I think Greg Abbott, I think he’s got the futz around and find out mentality on this. Now, here’s the thing. This could be a setup if Republicans don’t deliver on the promise of accountability. There’s going to be a lot of outrage, Mark. You’ve got to do something. And there’s tons of stuff they can do. I’ve been reading about it over the weekend. They can strip them of all of their committee chairmanships, strip them of their parking privileges, strip them of their – well, hey, that’s a big deal when you go to work. Parking is parking. Parking is parking. That’s big. Their offices, their office locations. But look, how about arresting them? I mean, how about at least that’s what Greg Abbott seems to be alluding to, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think the first notion is that we will consider that they have vacated their office. It is a willful decision that says I am no longer choosing to be a state representative in Texas. So it might be time to go, well, we have a vacancy here, time for some special elections. Maybe that will get their attention.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, you said it best. It’s all they’ve got. But more than that, nothing screams courage. like abandoning your post and hiding in another state like Illinois to block a vote. And they’re bragging about it. I’m popping up on social media.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it’s being identified as courage. The people who love that they’re just, it’s all they’ve got, are identifying it as courage. They are bravely standing up to their speaking truth to power. They’re like the guy in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. Oh, my gosh. Oh, even invoking a Texas courageous from the Battle of Gonzales, saying if that’s what you’re going to do, Governor Abbott, if that’s what you’re going to do, that we have a four-word reply, come and take it, which is from the famous Battle of Gonzales and the cannon that we warned the Mexicans to try to come and take.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s see if you got some Republicans with some cojones there, and we’ll see, because we’re going to find out. They might be finding out. Meanwhile, I was looking at Axios this morning, and Florida Axios was talking about the fact that detainments and deportations of illegals without criminal records, they love to scream about that, right, is rising here in Florida. Nationally, on the average, it’s about 47% right now. And it’s rising to around 30%, 35% here in Florida. And then Axios said something that really got the wheels turning as I was trying to process what they were reporting on. Axios says… You know, being an undocumented immigrant is not a crime on the criminal level. It’s a civil matter. But then what’s fascinating is if you – I thought, wait a minute. Yes, it is. Wait a minute. Well, what they’re saying is – and you’ve got to kind of parse this a little bit. Go ahead. Take us through it. So if you don’t – properly filed documentation and you’re here illegally and you’re not truthful about your immigration process, that is definitely criminal.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
If you’ve been deported and you come back, that is definitely criminal. But here’s the funny thing. When you look at the civil explanation of illegal immigration, just Wikipedia, Google it, right? Every place it says it’s a civil crime or a civil penalty, but that penalty is, wait for it, Deportation. So, I mean, even if you connect the dots, yeah, I mean, I may not be a lawyer here. I’m no Hugh Hewitt. But I’ll tell you one thing I can figure out is if even Wikipedia is saying, well, yeah, but if you do it, you face deportation. Well, that’s what we’re doing. We’re deporting people whether they’ve committed. I mean, let’s face it. There are many people uncomfortable with deportation. Illegals who don’t have a criminal record being deported.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m not.
SPEAKER 03 :
Why would I be uncomfortable with it? Why? Because they feel like they’ve been here for years. They haven’t caused any trouble. And that’s not really what Trump said.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, haven’t set fire to a building or stabbed somebody. It causes trouble to overtax our social services. That’s right. It causes trouble to overtax our health care. And I don’t mean tax with tax money. I mean to overburden the various systems that must take care of these people by virtue of them just being here. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you’re right. You’re totally right. But I’m just acknowledging the way people, and I get it, people with a big heart say, wait a minute, here’s Guadalupe over here. She’s cleaning toilets in a hotel. She’s been here for 30 years, never committed a crime, but she is here illegally. And, you know, I mean, how does that even work? How does she get, when she gets paid, is the hotel paying her under the table? Are they paying her? Are they taking out Social Security taxes? Are they taking out – how does that even play out? You can’t be here illegally. Sorry. Whether you’re – like you said, whether you’re going to shoot somebody or whether you’re doing janitorial work. Meanwhile, Trump is now squeezing states, many of them red states, on allowing this continual scam of in-state college tuition for illegal students. Yep. It’s about time. Mm-hmm. I mean, Mark, why should your kid, if your kid wants to go to school in, God forbid, California, you’ve got to pay out-of-state tuition for Ethan to go to California. Yep. If he’s an illegal from Guadalajara… Living in Los Angeles. Living in Los Angeles, he gets in-state tuition. Okay, that makes sense. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense. And normal… I just see these stories. I mean, all of it makes my head explode. It’s like, why is this so hard for people? Common sense is in short supply right now. There’s no… It’s like giving any tax benefits to illegal… What do you mean you’re going to give benefits to illegal immigrants ahead of American citizens? Stop it! Stop it. So anyway, that’s my rant for the day.
SPEAKER 04 :
There you go. Very good. Hey, on the Culture Beat, did two movies over the weekend. One I didn’t even know I was going to do until like a day ahead of time. But the first one I did, I was anticipating this heavily. Were you a huge fan of the Leslie Nielsen Naked Gun franchise?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Police Squad was the TV show, and they had all those wonderful naked gun movies. Just fantastic. With the great George Kennedy. O.J. Simpson was in some of them. And there’s a comedy throwback to that in the new one. I anticipated the new one with Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, who are romantically involved in the movie and now romantically involved in real life. So that’s very cool. So I went in there with expectations really high, probably too high.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s good.
SPEAKER 04 :
Really? It’s good. It’s really good. It’s silly and stupid and all the right ways. It hits all the right notes. He’s really good. She’s fantastic. But ultimately, it’s a writing problem that keeps it from being. And maybe there is a thing called the fog of memory. Do you think that some of the movies that you loved in the 70s, 80s, even 90s, that’s 30 years ago, that you loved then but we haven’t revisited? Do you think we remember them too fondly? And when you go back and you revisit them, you go, wasn’t that great? I revisited Airplane. Robert Hayes and still, boy, does it still work. Boy, does it still work. The Naked Gun ones, I’m sure, do too. This one, it’s a B. It’s good. Comedy is very subjective. I’m not saying don’t go. It’s not bad. But it’s the other one. So we’re looking at previews, and I see something. Where are you on scary movies, horror movies? Are they appealing? I find that they are appealing to me less, especially the sort of the slasher, the gratuitous nonsense. Yeah. There’s a thing called Together with Dave Franco and his Allison Brie, who they are married in real life. And they better be in view of what they got to do in this movie. And I don’t even mean necessarily graphically sexually, although there is that. It is unbelievably clever. So it’s called Together. And it was wonderful. And it was really, really, really.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know what? Good. But wait a minute, let me say something about the scary movie genre stuff. Yes. There’s a comic, a young comic, who I think is hysterical. I just see clips of him. Have you ever heard of Matt Rife? Oh, genius.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ve seen all of his stand-up specials. Nobody clever. He does one that’s nothing but crowd work, just walks out and interacts with people.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s what he’s great at. He works with the crowd. Absolute genius. So a young guy, and apparently he just sold out Madison Square Garden, so he’s really
SPEAKER 04 :
Comedian Nate Bargatio put 20,000 people in the AAC later this year.
SPEAKER 03 :
So he apparently is a fan of horror movies and scary genre paranormal stuff. He bought the house that houses Annabelle, the supposedly haunted doll… And it’s in Connecticut, all right? And the guy that’s kind of associated with that is a paranormal investigator who mysteriously died a couple of weeks ago while being around the doll, you know, which is kind of scary. So he dies. The house is for sale. Matt Rife, with a business partner of his, goes in and buys the house, and he buys all of these artifacts and paranormal stuff. He’s really into that stuff. But some of that stuff scares me. I think some of that’s demonic.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is. No. That makes me nervous. The devil is real. The enemy is real. But I think all of that is completely nonsense. There’s one other thing I can appreciate in the horror genre, and that’s the ones that have kind of a sense of humor where they’re just having some fun with you. You remember the first Final Destination movie where folks miss a plane and the plane crashes, but they’re supposed to die. So they do anyway in various graphic ways. That was like 20 years ago. I don’t know. They made six of them. I’ve missed all of them. But the most recent was called Final Destination Bloodlines. It was hilarious and horrific and wonderful. I enjoyed that one, too.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s like the scream. The scream genre is like horrifying but funny, you know, bloody and all that, but a little bit of humor. All right, we’ve covered it all. Well, not quite, but we’re ready to go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Happy Monday. We are ready for you, and we are ready to see what is on Mike’s big talk show brain, and that is at 10 as soon as we are done right here on 660 AM The Answer.
SPEAKER 01 :
Americans may not agree on much, but we agree on Social Security. We all pay in. It ought to be there when we need it. Social Security could face a funding gap in less than a decade, and I don’t want to see a pay cut. I’m with AARP in the fight to protect the Social Security we earned.
SPEAKER 04 :
Pledge to protect Social Security at aarp.org slash we earned it. That’s aarp.org slash we earned it. Paid for by AARP.
