August 8, 2025 • 10 mins
Dr. Bob Thompson has the latest entertainment news including remembering Loni Anderson who passed a day before her 80th birthday
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, and the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line.
(00:02):
Let's say good morning to our professor of pop culture.
It is doctor Bob Thompson from Syracuse University. Doctor Bob,
good morning. We got to start again with a celebrity death.
I think it was late last weekend, maybe early this week,
the death of Lonnie Anderson, of course, most well known
for her work on WKRP in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, and I'd forgotten until I saw those, you know,
the pictures and the tributes. She was really a huge
star for a while. W KRP was never a blockbuster
hit it you know, it did well, especially in terms
of what ratings were back then, but she was an
enormous star. She was popping up on all the talk shows.
(00:46):
We followed that relationship with Burt Reynolds, from courtship to
marriage to the intense breakup for what a couple of years.
I think that story was all over the place. I
guess the character she played on WKRP was kind of breakthrough.
She played this traditionally kind of beautiful by all the
(01:08):
traditional standards, blonde American woman, but completely against type. She
was the smartest person in that entire w KRP office.
And that was kind of interesting. By the way, that
show came from the same people, same studio that brought
us the Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show,
and shortly after w KARP they brought us Hill Street Blues.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, we mentioned that, I think it was earlier this
week when we talked about her passing that. You know,
they could have very easily you know, they put her
in short skirts, in high heels, and she was blonde
and all of that, as you point out, and they
could have very easily written her as a you know,
a stereotypical blonde, where you know, she would be the
paunch line of a bunch of jokes that you probably
(01:54):
couldn't make on TV anymore. But she they didn't. They
made her smart, you know, and they all the men,
all the guys, the DJs and the station management, they
were all the dophices. It was kind of interesting, Yeah,
it was.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And of course by the time we get to KRP
kind of as early for that, because as we were
moving into the nineteen eighties, we would start seeing shows
like Cagney and Lacey and the number of other programs
that were beginning to reverse that as well. But Yeah,
that was a fairly unusual character for television back then.
(02:29):
She then went on to do and this is interesting
now only because because it wasn't a very good movie,
but she did that TV movie Themes Jane Manfields Men's
Field Story, and she of course was cast with both
Jane Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. Images kind of in the
minds of the people who did it. And now, of
course there's that Mariska hargatea documentary My Mom Jane Mansfield,
(02:52):
which is out now, So Jane Mansfield is now in
the news again. But w KRP is certainly what Lonnie
Anderson will be remembered.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, no doubt. And it was only on I think
for four or five seasons, right in the late seventies
early eighties.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, four year run, and again it was never a
monster hit, although it did have some kind of cultural attention,
But yeah, four seasons, which back then was not too good.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Probably bigger and later in syndication than it was in
when it was running live.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
You're right, a lot of people saw in syndication for
the first time. Unfortunately, they didn't get the music clearances,
so in some cases if you saw it home video,
you saw a totally different show because it was about
a rock and roll station. The music was kind of important.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, No Town. Speaking with doctor Bob Thompson, professor of
Pop Culture at Syracuse.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You know, it was a radio show, so it's got
to be one of your favorites.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It was I Love w KRP, And you know, we
were talking again on Monday about how a lot of
those characters we still deal with, by the way in
today world at a radio station. It's really kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Trying to figure out which one is. Can't be your producer's.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
He's probably he's looking at me like you better say
the right thing. He's looking at me with with the
one eye going, Doctor Bob Thompson, Cherrakese University. So what's
the story with ESPN buying the NFL network there?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, well this is a this is a big story,
and of course NFL and ESPN have been at bed
in a whole bunch of ways for a long time.
But so ESPN is going to get the red Zone channel,
NFL networks seven game telecasts, the fantasy football business, which
(04:41):
is kind of two operations, and in return, the NFL
is going to get a ten equity stake in ESPN,
which might not sound like anything. What's equity, what's this?
But that's probably worth from two to three billion dollars.
And this is going to be great for ESPN because
(05:02):
they're about to launch any day now, what is it,
the twenty first of this month, their new streaming service
at thirty bucks per month, twenty nine to ninety nine
per month, and this is going to be a lot
of stuff that they've got for that. However, some people
still believe that ESPN covers sports, sometimes in a journalistic
(05:27):
sort of way, and that's pretty much off the table
anymore because if the NFL, which is one of sport,
which is sports biggest story period is now a ten
percent owner of ESPN, how that's a conflict of interest
of monumental proportions. And the NFL, of course, has traditionally
(05:50):
been a place which generates some really important news, all
that concussion stuff, all of that punishing players for taking
a knee, the names of uh, you know, the teams,
I mean, the NFL, the domestic abuse I mean, NFL
(06:11):
has been a place where important news coverage is needed,
and I don't think we're gonna be able to look
to ESPN for that, not that we have been able
to for the last one.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
All right, yeah, yeah, ESPN. It's it's kind of like
MTV when MTV stopped playing videos and ESPN stopped got
ring sports the way we were kind of used to
them called ring sports. I just hope they don't spin
off the NFL network into its own stream. Are they
going to make us subscribe to another streaming platform to
get NFL content?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Well, now I think they're They're desperately wanting to have
a big splash when they launched this new thing this month,
the end of this month, so I think that's where
their content concentrating on. But you know, like anything else,
they get you into the tent. And remember those golden
days when we subscribe to a couple of services. Wow,
(06:57):
this is great. No no big cable bill, no advertisements
and all of that kind of stuff. And now suddenly
the bill is as big as the cable bill was,
and there's advertisements on everything.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Well, and that's that kind of leads me into the
next topic, is some of the ad placement and streaming services.
I mean, it's if you do watch a show that
is supported by commercials, they just kind of chop up
and pop in there randomly, and it's kind of annoying.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, you know, I'm glad you brought that up, because
it's something I've been complaining about a lot, and I
think I've tried to complain about it with you every
now and again and everybody. I mean, there are still
these places where you can pay extra for you know,
no ads, right, Fewer people are doing that. It seems
like streaming is for most people getting more and more
moving toward the old ads supported system. However, most of
(07:48):
those streaming shows weren't designed for ads, so there aren't
the places where you can break them up like they
were in the network shows. And even if you're watching
old network shows, which a lot of people are on streaming,
they're not putting me as in where they originally were.
I don't know about you, but I have oftentimes been
watching and in the middle of a monologue and sometimes
(08:09):
a very moving part of the show, the AD will
drop in literally mid sentence. And this isn't some fly
by night local station. These are big national streaming operations.
The other thing is there's repetitions. You'll see the same
thing over and over and over again, which you didn't
they didn't schedule them that way, in the old advertising way,
(08:31):
which is, I guess one thing, if you're watching one
episode of a show, but if you're doing like a
lot of people do with binging, and you're watching eight
episodes in a row and each episode has seven plays
of the exact same ads, that gets really tiresome. And frankly,
if I were the company that ad was four, I
would think that was doing more harm than good.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I think you're right. And the ads are always some
weird prescription drug that you've never heard of, and it's
got a weird name, and it treats a very specific symptom,
and the side effects are always longer than the actual
initial malady. Fair right, And then it's back to the
very moving monologue so big.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So that's that's a perfect description. You're absolutely right. So
you you're in the middle of you know, someone say
I have a dream, and then you get you know,
there's seventy five different things that can happen if you
take this drug, and then the big song about the drug,
and then you get to what the dream was the
second half of that sentence.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, yeah, you get the happy guy on the beach,
you know, because he's taking this prescription drug and it's
everything's just fine, and it's got it's always got a
funny name, Rizzyskuy, Rizzy Mizzy, and it's just like these
prescription drugs are just Who would have thought that you'd
see commercials for prescription drugs these days, But.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, they needed something to take the place of all
the tobacco ads when they made those aks, right.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
That's exactly right. A couple of new projects before we
let you fly Bob, star Wars. He's got some Star
Wars projects coming out. What's the latest hit.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Of course, Comic Con happened and George Lucas showed up,
but alas for Star Wars fans, he didn't show up.
He didn't talk about Star Wars. You talked about his
new museum. But we got to look at the new
Darth Maul series, which comes out in twenty twenty six,
and I think that animated Star Wars vision is that's
(10:27):
October twenty ninth of this year. So lots of Star
Wars stuff coming out, and the level of detail in
which it's analyzed, even by you know, more traditional journalist
is starting to make Marvel seem like, you know, a
beginner's game.
All right, and the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line.
(00:02):
Let's say good morning to our professor of pop culture.
It is doctor Bob Thompson from Syracuse University. Doctor Bob,
good morning. We got to start again with a celebrity death.
I think it was late last weekend, maybe early this week,
the death of Lonnie Anderson, of course, most well known
for her work on WKRP in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, and I'd forgotten until I saw those, you know,
the pictures and the tributes. She was really a huge
star for a while. W KRP was never a blockbuster
hit it you know, it did well, especially in terms
of what ratings were back then, but she was an
enormous star. She was popping up on all the talk shows.
(00:46):
We followed that relationship with Burt Reynolds, from courtship to
marriage to the intense breakup for what a couple of years.
I think that story was all over the place. I
guess the character she played on WKRP was kind of breakthrough.
She played this traditionally kind of beautiful by all the
(01:08):
traditional standards, blonde American woman, but completely against type. She
was the smartest person in that entire w KRP office.
And that was kind of interesting. By the way, that
show came from the same people, same studio that brought
us the Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show,
and shortly after w KARP they brought us Hill Street Blues.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, we mentioned that, I think it was earlier this
week when we talked about her passing that. You know,
they could have very easily you know, they put her
in short skirts, in high heels, and she was blonde
and all of that, as you point out, and they
could have very easily written her as a you know,
a stereotypical blonde, where you know, she would be the
paunch line of a bunch of jokes that you probably
(01:54):
couldn't make on TV anymore. But she they didn't. They
made her smart, you know, and they all the men,
all the guys, the DJs and the station management, they
were all the dophices. It was kind of interesting, Yeah,
it was.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And of course by the time we get to KRP
kind of as early for that, because as we were
moving into the nineteen eighties, we would start seeing shows
like Cagney and Lacey and the number of other programs
that were beginning to reverse that as well. But Yeah,
that was a fairly unusual character for television back then.
(02:29):
She then went on to do and this is interesting
now only because because it wasn't a very good movie,
but she did that TV movie Themes Jane Manfields Men's
Field Story, and she of course was cast with both
Jane Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. Images kind of in the
minds of the people who did it. And now, of
course there's that Mariska hargatea documentary My Mom Jane Mansfield,
(02:52):
which is out now, So Jane Mansfield is now in
the news again. But w KRP is certainly what Lonnie
Anderson will be remembered.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, no doubt. And it was only on I think
for four or five seasons, right in the late seventies
early eighties.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, four year run, and again it was never a
monster hit, although it did have some kind of cultural attention,
But yeah, four seasons, which back then was not too good.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Probably bigger and later in syndication than it was in
when it was running live.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
You're right, a lot of people saw in syndication for
the first time. Unfortunately, they didn't get the music clearances,
so in some cases if you saw it home video,
you saw a totally different show because it was about
a rock and roll station. The music was kind of important.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, No Town. Speaking with doctor Bob Thompson, professor of
Pop Culture at Syracuse.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You know, it was a radio show, so it's got
to be one of your favorites.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It was I Love w KRP, And you know, we
were talking again on Monday about how a lot of
those characters we still deal with, by the way in
today world at a radio station. It's really kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Trying to figure out which one is. Can't be your producer's.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
He's probably he's looking at me like you better say
the right thing. He's looking at me with with the
one eye going, Doctor Bob Thompson, Cherrakese University. So what's
the story with ESPN buying the NFL network there?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, well this is a this is a big story,
and of course NFL and ESPN have been at bed
in a whole bunch of ways for a long time.
But so ESPN is going to get the red Zone channel,
NFL networks seven game telecasts, the fantasy football business, which
(04:41):
is kind of two operations, and in return, the NFL
is going to get a ten equity stake in ESPN,
which might not sound like anything. What's equity, what's this?
But that's probably worth from two to three billion dollars.
And this is going to be great for ESPN because
(05:02):
they're about to launch any day now, what is it,
the twenty first of this month, their new streaming service
at thirty bucks per month, twenty nine to ninety nine
per month, and this is going to be a lot
of stuff that they've got for that. However, some people
still believe that ESPN covers sports, sometimes in a journalistic
(05:27):
sort of way, and that's pretty much off the table
anymore because if the NFL, which is one of sport,
which is sports biggest story period is now a ten
percent owner of ESPN, how that's a conflict of interest
of monumental proportions. And the NFL, of course, has traditionally
(05:50):
been a place which generates some really important news, all
that concussion stuff, all of that punishing players for taking
a knee, the names of uh, you know, the teams,
I mean, the NFL, the domestic abuse I mean, NFL
(06:11):
has been a place where important news coverage is needed,
and I don't think we're gonna be able to look
to ESPN for that, not that we have been able
to for the last one.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
All right, yeah, yeah, ESPN. It's it's kind of like
MTV when MTV stopped playing videos and ESPN stopped got
ring sports the way we were kind of used to
them called ring sports. I just hope they don't spin
off the NFL network into its own stream. Are they
going to make us subscribe to another streaming platform to
get NFL content?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Well, now I think they're They're desperately wanting to have
a big splash when they launched this new thing this month,
the end of this month, so I think that's where
their content concentrating on. But you know, like anything else,
they get you into the tent. And remember those golden
days when we subscribe to a couple of services. Wow,
(06:57):
this is great. No no big cable bill, no advertisements
and all of that kind of stuff. And now suddenly
the bill is as big as the cable bill was,
and there's advertisements on everything.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Well, and that's that kind of leads me into the
next topic, is some of the ad placement and streaming services.
I mean, it's if you do watch a show that
is supported by commercials, they just kind of chop up
and pop in there randomly, and it's kind of annoying.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, you know, I'm glad you brought that up, because
it's something I've been complaining about a lot, and I
think I've tried to complain about it with you every
now and again and everybody. I mean, there are still
these places where you can pay extra for you know,
no ads, right, Fewer people are doing that. It seems
like streaming is for most people getting more and more
moving toward the old ads supported system. However, most of
(07:48):
those streaming shows weren't designed for ads, so there aren't
the places where you can break them up like they
were in the network shows. And even if you're watching
old network shows, which a lot of people are on streaming,
they're not putting me as in where they originally were.
I don't know about you, but I have oftentimes been
watching and in the middle of a monologue and sometimes
(08:09):
a very moving part of the show, the AD will
drop in literally mid sentence. And this isn't some fly
by night local station. These are big national streaming operations.
The other thing is there's repetitions. You'll see the same
thing over and over and over again, which you didn't
they didn't schedule them that way, in the old advertising way,
(08:31):
which is, I guess one thing, if you're watching one
episode of a show, but if you're doing like a
lot of people do with binging, and you're watching eight
episodes in a row and each episode has seven plays
of the exact same ads, that gets really tiresome. And frankly,
if I were the company that ad was four, I
would think that was doing more harm than good.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I think you're right. And the ads are always some
weird prescription drug that you've never heard of, and it's
got a weird name, and it treats a very specific symptom,
and the side effects are always longer than the actual
initial malady. Fair right, And then it's back to the
very moving monologue so big.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So that's that's a perfect description. You're absolutely right. So
you you're in the middle of you know, someone say
I have a dream, and then you get you know,
there's seventy five different things that can happen if you
take this drug, and then the big song about the drug,
and then you get to what the dream was the
second half of that sentence.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, yeah, you get the happy guy on the beach,
you know, because he's taking this prescription drug and it's
everything's just fine, and it's got it's always got a
funny name, Rizzyskuy, Rizzy Mizzy, and it's just like these
prescription drugs are just Who would have thought that you'd
see commercials for prescription drugs these days, But.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, they needed something to take the place of all
the tobacco ads when they made those aks, right.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
That's exactly right. A couple of new projects before we
let you fly Bob, star Wars. He's got some Star
Wars projects coming out. What's the latest hit.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Of course, Comic Con happened and George Lucas showed up,
but alas for Star Wars fans, he didn't show up.
He didn't talk about Star Wars. You talked about his
new museum. But we got to look at the new
Darth Maul series, which comes out in twenty twenty six,
and I think that animated Star Wars vision is that's
(10:27):
October twenty ninth of this year. So lots of Star
Wars stuff coming out, and the level of detail in
which it's analyzed, even by you know, more traditional journalist
is starting to make Marvel seem like, you know, a
beginner's game.
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