NewsRadio

"No. No, I'm at the station right now. Yeah. No, then I got to go to the factory, then I got to go to the building site. Huh? No, that's just for fun. I like to watch the big trucks."
-Jimmy James, owner of radio station WNYX and eccentric billionaire

NewsRadio main cast

NewsRadio starts out kind of slow and out of focus, much like many other half hour comedies. Anyhoo. It doesn't take many episodes to realize they are something different. The main reason they stand out is because they don't always go after the cheap laughs. They trust their audience to see the development in characters and actively seeks out to make us laugh thanks to those changes over time and those understandings of the characters.

NewsRadio is made with love. An ensemble cast obviously enjoying them self while working on it, great characters molded with the actors and the ensemble in mind and with very good scripts as a platform. My only regret is nobody knew to say "Enough is enough.With Phil gone we shouldn't make the fifth season. Let's do a double episode to honor him and wrap up these characters, and then let the show live on in memory along with Phil."

In memory

Phil Hartman

(September 24, 1948 - May 28, 1998)

Rest In Peace

Better shows than NewsRadio have run too many seasons, the final season of Coupling springs to mind, but few if any have as good an excuse as NewsRadio to why it went downhill. The tragic murder of Phil Hartman May 28, 1998, only 16 days after the airing of the fourth season finale of the show, in reality killed the show as well. They tried moving on without the character of Bill McNeil, and their first episode of the fifth season was a moving tribute. How often they had to stop shooting that episode because the cast broke down in tears is something no-one kept count on, but there's no doubt the loss of their colleague and friend affected the cast in ways easily seen on the screen especially in that episode.

If you've never seen the entire NewsRadio I'll give you my advice. Watch only the first episode of the fifth season, and call it quits. The 21 episodes after that one doesn't hold the same quality, even if it's funny enough every so often. The problem is they forgot a couple of important notes on the characters we'd grown to love, they never managed to work them self past the loss of Phil/Bill and in the end they never got an ending the audience can live happily after with the knowledge of.

Dave Foley and Maura Tierney as Dave Nelson and Lisa Miller

The fifth season character of Max Lewis probably didn't stand a chance anyway they played it, but to me Jon Lovitz isn't especially funny either. I didn't even enjoy his two guest appearances in different parts during the first four seasons. Then Max Lewis kept annoying me the entire final season, which obviously is difficult to get past reviewing it.

I got to remind myself to fairly review the show as it was, but the fact is to me, as a TV lover, I feel you should take the time and acknowledge Hartman despite of the biggest reason NewsRadio was so good; It's an ensemble cast.

To me the roles of Dave Foley as Dave Nelson, Phil Hartman as Bill McNeil, Maura Tierney as Lisa Miller and Stephen Root as Jimmy James is the four walls elevating it to the show it was, but Joe Rogan, Vicky Lewis, Andy Dick and Khandi Alexander probably had the same spot with others as some of those four had with me, and even with me they all had important roles in balancing the ensemble. They spent four seasons airing quality comedy, without ever escaping the treat of cancellation. They had Seinfeld and Friends taking all the glory in those days, but NewsRadio is a well kept secret as one of the 90s classic comedies. Maybe they even was a little ahead of its time. The fact remains they didn't ever get as much praise as they deserved, but it's never to late to catch up with golden shows just because they've stopped airing. NewsRadio is four season+one episode of high quality comedy. Enjoy.