when TV started dragging back actors from the golden age of Hollywood to do guest shots on sitcoms and such, it was a pretty sad thing really ... seeing such legends on the 'love boat' and such was well, sad ... it's the only word that fits ... it's not bad enough that the 'young' stars trying to make a name are on these crap-o-ramas but to tarnish the names of legends, well, that's sad ...
i hope they made a lot of money for these usually one-time shots on these shows that lasted much too long ... how many of these shows ever made it to air is really beyond me and in the end finally resulted in me not wasting my time or money owning a TV ...
but every once in a while on a rare and consistently clever and high-quality show, one of these classic film stars would make a guest appearance that resulted in a truly classic episode ...
such is the case of "Jennifer and the Will", perhaps the best episode of the final season of the short-lived and maltreated sitcom WKRP ... Pat O'Brien, a name as big as any during the '30s, '40s, and '50s, perhaps his best known personae on-screen was the tough-talking, tough-minded, and ultimately golden-hearted priest assigned to a run-down and soon-to-be-closed parish in a low-income and no-hope inner city area which he of course saves thru what these days might still be referred to as 'tough-love' ... it's what us old-timers used to call 'common sense' :P and so being a fan of ate-night movies when i was young and having seen many of O'Brien's films, it was rather a shock when i saw him pop-up on my then favorite-sitcom as one of Jennifer Marlow's 'older gentlemen friends' ... and then to die in the first two minutes of the show lol ...
and so the story revolves around the problems of Jennifer having been named as executrix of the rich gentleman's will since he trusted none of his money-grubbing relatives ... of course the family portrays Jennifer in the media as a gold-digger, etc, and the subsequent stress of the media hounding Jennifer at the funeral and so forth, not to mention the lack of tact any of the employees around 'KRP have in expressing any kind of appropriate consolation to their friend ... tho of course Herb tops them all with "Hey Jenny, I didn't get a chance to tell you how sorry I am that that Colonel guy bought the farm. Hey, he had a long life, a lot of dough, he got to go out with you, caught the big bus while he was eating in the best joint in town. Not bad, if you ask me!" much to the delight of Jennifer ... sometimes Herb did the right thing ... not often but sometimes ...
and so O'Brien pops back up in a classic video will shown for Jennifer and his deadbeat relatives at the attorney's office with some genuine laugh out loud laughs ... and in the end, you know that Jennifer followed his final wishes to the enth-degree and that is a heart-warming finale that has none of the saccharine-sweet-carcinogenic-standard-additive nearly every other episode of every other sitcom ever produced has injected to lethal doses thinking they have accomplished the same effect ... the difference is so clear in this episode when you set it side-by-side with the other 99.9999999 percent of the other 'like' episodes ...
i've never really seen a fan-based top ten list of 'krp episodes but i'd think this one would be in the group ... of course 'turkey's away' has to come in number one ... there is just no better half hour in sitcom history, period ... and there are lots of 'krp's that are just side-splitting ... but while this one isn't am all out laugh riot, it has that very special quality that 'krp could muster when appropriate ... 'in concert', dealing with the tragedy outside riverfront stadium when 11 who fans were trampled to death is another, and it was handled appropriately, not a maudlin pompous self-righteous preachy show typical of these types of events but spotted the problem and dealt with that, not blaming the who which seemed to be the most popular thing to do after those deaths ... the 'Secrets of Dayton Heights' is another show handled with a deft touch as Les Nessman finds out that the father he thought was his biological one, the father than raised him, etc, was not his father ... that his father was a 'card-carrying-communist' in the days of the self-invented 'red scare' of the McCarthy era ... and les goes to confront him, in a manner of speaking ... there's no sappy reunion, a moment realization that only excludes the light-bulb actually appearing over the main character's head as he comes to terms with the situation as most other sitcoms would be more than happy to do ... but simply a point in a life that brings about an understanding of many other things in a life but not without beating a dead and already well-beaten horse ...
so i'm done rambling this time ;) don't miss this episode ... it's one of the best ...
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