Dr. Johnny Fever - On-air Style

On-air Style

The "Doctor" is a great talker to his radio audience when he is in a confident mood. He can jive with the best D.J.s of his era. He once gives Bailey Quarters, nascent newswoman, this sage advice: "Talk into the microphone as if you were talking to your best friend." Later, in that same episode ("Mike Fright"), he would have to gather the courage to take his own advice.

Never a fan of disco, the new music fad of the era, he is a lover of rock and roll, although he feels he is getting too old to be a DJ in the genre (aside from two episodes on which he adopts a disco persona for a high-paying television job--see below). Tunes like "Hey Jude" are used for bathroom breaks or extended chats with friends.

Though the format of WKRP is Top 40, Johnny frequently refuses to play any songs off the station playlist, choosing instead to highlight album-oriented rock and old R&B favorites on his own show. A consultant hired by Mrs. Carlson at one point describes Johnny as being "stuck in 1962". Andy frequently pleads with Johnny to stick to the playlist, to play just one disco song, only to have Johnny threaten to "throw himself in front of Donna Summer's tour bus". Andy actually goes into a state of hysteria when he hears Johnny playing "The Long Run" by The Eagles: "That's a hit! He's playing a hit!"

Fever's unorthodox choice of music pays off as the series goes on, and by the final episode he has become the number-one morning DJ in the city. Johnny's views towards his music and his audience were perhaps best summed up when, picking a record, he exclaims "Sacred music...B.B. King!" Once, during a bomb threat, he remarked "If I die, who will teach the children about Bo Diddley?"

Herb Tarlek, the account executive, can never land the big accounts. As a result, Fever and the other DJs on WKRP have to do voiceovers (done live in that era) for spots for funeral homes and Red Wigglers, the "Cadillac" of worms (to which Fever adds the tag line "available at finer worm stores everywhere!"). However, Johnny has his scruples, as when he walks out of a recording session for sports aids when he realized his dialogue is laced with euphemisms for dangerous drug effects. While it is strongly implied that Johnny is a frequent user of marijuana, he doesn't go in for harder drugs, and leads a campaign to shut down a businessman who is trying to sell speed to teenagers. He also discovers his brief successor, Doug Winner (Philip Charles MacKenzie) has been accepting cocaine for airplay under a payola scheme with a sleazy record promoter. Johnny doesn't rat Doug out, but cautions him about the dangers of cocaine abuse, knowing he'll eventually hang himself with his own noose, which subsequently happens and Johnny gets his old job back.