Goodnight, Mr. Carlson...

[Hugh Casey]

Gordon Jump, the well known character actor who played Arthur Carlson, station manager of WKRP, and until recently was the Maytag Repairman, passed away at age 71 from pulmonary fibrosis.

RIP.

H.

[Balok]

It had to be said:

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"

[Sarge]

Mr Jump, you made us laugh. That's a good legacy.

[D.S.McBride]

That show was one of the touchstones from my (and my sister and brothers) misspent yout'; it's truly unfortunate, as I recall Tim (Venus Flytrap) Reid saying once, that WKRP was never really considered a member of the MTV family, and was unceremoniously cancelled after four seasons despite good ratings.

If I was to name a Favorite Gordon Jump Moment from the show, it would have been that episode where Dr. Bob Halliers (aka Jerry Fallwell) shows up at the station and tries to enforce a more...Christian moral tone to the broadcasts. The confrontation between Art Carlson and Dr. Bob at the climax was, I felt, simultaneously one of the best arguments I've seen against censorship - while remaining very low-key and reasonable - and was done without holding fundamentalist Christians up for ridicule. Good stuff. As the man himself said on that one episode where he ran for mayor - and abdicated after all but winning the election: "My fellow Americans...Goodnight."

[Modem]

That'd be MTM (as in 'Mary Tyler Moore', the lady who started so much).

And; well...another one gone, in time where 'the man in black' is no more (listen to Johnny's rendition in NIN's 'Hurt', or better, watch the video...it's really powerful, saddening, and almost biographic and foreshadowwing).

And 'Jack' will no more grace the apartment he shared with his two lovely roommates...(Ritter's death was a HUGE shock...to me, it was literally a "never saw that coming...")

[D.S.McBride]

Oops. Yes, you're absolutely right - MTM, with that vicious kitten mascot. I had some sort of brain-fart while I was composing that post - I knew it looked wrong but couldn't quite figure out what it was. My bad.

[toadmage]

I loved Mr Carson , a man in the middle of everything and has no idea what is going on .

Someday I feel soo much like that .