Dr. Johnny Fever - Before and After The Format Change

Before and After The Format Change

Johnny Fever, whose real name is John Caravella, grew up in a broken home. His relationship with his father was poor his and parents eventually separated when he was still young. While still a child a tornado struck the mobile home community where he and his mother were living leaving him with an almost paranoid fear of windstorms. He was a hippie in the 1960s, 10-12 years before the show's time frame. Johnny began working his way up in the radio business and became a highly popular and successful DJ. At the height of his career he was a star at a major station in Los Angeles, where he worked under the name "Johnny Sunshine" and did a popular show called "Johnny Sunshine, Boss Jock." After he said the word "booger" on the air, he was fired with a year left on his contract. (He sued the station for wrongful dismissal and received a large cash settlement after a few years.) After being forced out of L.A. his career took a nosedive. For several years he led a nomadic existence, going from town to town taking a series of unsatisfying and low paying jobs at low-rated stations including a job hosting a garden show in Amarillo. He has used many on-air names, including Johnny Duke, Johnny Style, Johnny Cool, Johnny Midnight, and even Heavy Early. (Most of these names appear on the side of Johnny's coffee cup.) He finally hit "rock bottom," in his own words, when he landed in Cincinnati at the worst radio station in town, WKRP -- the only station that would hire him. He found himself hosting a "beautiful music" show in the morning, so obviously bored with the music that he didn't even bother to make up a new name or on-air persona.

When Andy Travis takes over as program director of WKRP and changes the format to rock n' roll, Johnny is initially doubtful that he can succeed as the morning man in the new format; conscious of his own age, Johnny advises Andy to find someone "about fifteen years younger," but Andy insists that he can handle it- and even gives him permission to say "booger" on the air. When he gets on the air the first time after the format change, Johnny comes alive, signaling the change with a loud drag on the playing record (a fictional cover of "(You're) Having My Baby" by the Hallelujah Tabernacle Choir) and literally folding the record album in half. He immediately adopts the new, hyper-excited persona of "Dr. Johnny Fever," by playing the first record, and telling his listeners:

All right, Cincinnati, it is time for this town to get down! You've got Johnny... Doctor Johnny Fever, and I am burnin' up in here! Whoa! Whoo! We all in critical condition, babies, but you can tell me where it hurts, because I got the healing prescription here from the big 'KRP musical medicine cabinet. Now I am talking about your 50,000 watt intensive care unit, babies! So just sit right down, relax, open your ears real wide and say, "Give it to me straight, Doctor. I can take it!"

He then starts the station's first rock record, and then triumphantly says, "I almost forgot, fellow babies: BOOGER!"

On the DVD audio commentary track for this episode, series creator Hugh Wilson credits Hesseman for largely improvising this entire speech.