Tim Reid

WKRP flips a Cincinnati station to rock and becomes a zoo: Hesseman’s Fever, Loni Anderson’s Jennifer, management disasters, a theme the syndication music-rights wars later complicated. Reid’s Venus Flytrap is the night-man cool in that ensemble — a DJ as a character, not a cameo. He plays the booth as a life. Watch it as cult-to-classic radio comedy that still sounds live.

Start the WKRP in Cincinnati stack (CBS, 1978–1982) when you want Venus Flytrap without a clip-farm tour. File s01e01 as ignition: Pilot (1) flips the Cincinnati station to rock. Hesseman's Johnny Fever, Anderson's Jennifer, management disaster already the weather: Hugh Wilson workplace sitcom with a playlist. s02e24 is later weather: Most Improved Station is the title as a ratings gag. Cult-to-classic radio comedy still about the zoo, not a makeover: sales pirates and on-air wreckage as the actual improvement. Reid is already the reason the title has a pulse.

Sister, Sister put Tia and Tamera in two households: switch gags, mid-nineties youth multi-cam, Black twin leads as mainstream family comedy. Reid is the dad-side gravity that keeps the sparkle a household. On TV Flash he is two-decade craft — the playlist and the twins, the zoo and the switch. Watch Venus for the cool. Watch the later title for the rhythm that hopped networks without losing the bit.

1994–1999 on ABC/The WB: Sister, Sister as the room, Ray Campbell as Reid's job, 1990s as the tag. File s01e01 as ignition: The Meeting: reunion-premise comfort, Black twin leads as mainstream family comedy, switch gags already the voltage. s05e01 is later weather: Designer Genes: later-run identity joke in a title, WB hop already in the blood without losing the bit. The catalog wants temperature. Cue the hour. Skip the merch still.