Dr. Johnny Fever
Dr. Johnny Fever | |
---|---|
WKRP in Cincinnati character | |
Portrayed by | Howard Hesseman |
In-universe information | |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Disc jockey |
Family | Carrie Caravella (mother) |
Spouse | Paula (divorced) Another ex-wife |
Children | Laurie Caravella |
Relatives | George (uncle) Phoebe (aunt) |
Nationality | American |
Dr. Johnny Fever is a fictional character on the American television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. He was inspired by Skinny Bobby Harper, who previously had been a DJ in Atlanta and on Cincinnati's Top 40 station WSAI.[1] The character was portrayed by Howard Hesseman.[2]
Before and after the format change
Johnny Fever, whose real name is John Caravella, grew up in a broken home. His relationship with his father was poor and his parents eventually separated when he was still young. While he was still a child, a
When
- All right, Cincinnati, it is time for this town to get down! You've got Johnny—Doctor Johnny Fever, and I am burnin' up in here! Whoa! Whoo! We all in critical condition, babies, but you can tell me where it hurts, because I got the healing prescription here from the big 'KRP musical medicine cabinet. Now I am talking about your 50,000 watt intensive care unit, babies! So just sit right down, relax, open your ears real wide and say, "Give it to me straight, Doctor. I can take it!"
He then starts the station's first rock record, before donning his sunglasses and then triumphantly saying, "I almost forgot, fellow babies: BOOGER!"
On the DVD audio commentary track for this episode, series creator Hugh Wilson credits Hesseman for largely improvising this entire speech.
On-air style
The "Doctor" is a great talker to his radio audience when he is in a confident mood. He can jive with the best DJs of his era. He once gives Bailey Quarters, nascent newswoman, this sage advice: "Talk into the microphone as if you were talking to your best friend." Later, in that same episode ("Mike Fright"), he would have to gather the courage to take his own advice.
Never a fan of disco, the new music fad of the era, he is a lover of rock and roll, although he feels he is getting too old to be a DJ in the genre (aside from two episodes on which he adopts a disco persona for a high-paying television job—see below). Tunes like "Hey Jude" are used for bathroom breaks or extended chats with friends.
Though the format of WKRP is
Fever's unorthodox choice of music pays off as the series goes on, and by the final episode he has become the number-one morning DJ in the city. Johnny's views towards his music and his audience were perhaps best summed up when, picking a record, he exclaims "Sacred music...
Personal life
Johnny's early life is not explored in the original show. However, in the sequel series The New WKRP In Cincinnati, it is established that Johnny never knew his father; his mother, Carrie, was a singer who recorded with Buddy Rich. He was left in the care of his straightlaced Uncle George (a minister) and Aunt Phoebe in Indiana, and chafed at their restrictive rules, although he knew his uncle and aunt loved him. He eventually left home at 17.
Johnny's persona is generally one of an aging
He has been married twice, with both of his ex-wives collecting alimony. This places Johnny in a constant state of poverty, despite his $17,500 annual salary ($81,800 today) at WKRP (season 1 "Goodbye, Johnny"), albeit placing him well behind the $24,000 salary ($112,100 today) of receptionist Jennifer Marlowe (season 1 "Mama's Review"). After his first divorce, he lived for two years with a woman named Buffy (Julie Payne); Buffy later tracked him down in Cincinnati, and threatened to sue him for a portion of his income.
Johnny also has a college-age daughter, Laurie (Patrie Allen), who visits him in season two's "The Doctor's Daughter" and briefly moves in with him. He later (season three's "Three Days of the Condo") gives his daughter the majority of his legal settlement – roughly one year's salary – from the Los Angeles station that fired him for saying "booger". There is some suggestion in one episode that he might still be in love with Laurie's mother, his first wife, Paula (Ruth Silveira), though they agree that their relationship is over, and Paula marries another man (Hamilton Camp) (season three's "Till Debt Do Us Part"). Johnny's second wife never makes an appearance. Their parting was not as amicable: she tried to kill Johnny with a Ronco Veg-O-Matic. At the end of an episode of The New WKRP in Cincinnati, Johnny implies to WKRP's new morning host Razor D (French Stewart) that he may be his illegitimate father, having met his mother at a Grateful Dead concert near the speakers.
Beginning in the second season, he becomes on and off romantically involved with fellow employee, Bailey Quarters. Though the staff is usually indifferent, the rumor mills begin humming when Bailey invites Johnny to stay at her apartment while his apartment is being fumigated (he claims it's for lizards). Though Johnny is flattered by the attention at first, he quickly tires of the leering gestures from some of the male staffers and tells Andy that the rumors of him and Bailey shacking up aren't true, and expresses his dissatisfaction of the treatment Bailey has been getting. At another point later in the series, Bailey and Johnny are again implied to be, if not an item, at least very close when Bailey asks Johnny "if I get some cutoffs, want to go with me?", and Johnny's non-verbal reaction clearly indicates they have an intense attraction to each other. In the season three episode "Till Debt Do Us Part", Bailey accepts Johnny's offer to join him on a Caribbean vacation (later cancelled by Herb's actions), though she does say she expects separate rooms. The series left their relationship implied but ambiguous.
Out of all the staff, Johnny appears to be the closest to fellow DJ Venus Flytrap, to the point where Venus gives him financial advice, bets on horses and football games with him, and even knows which seedy bars Johnny spends time at (for his part, Venus once claimed that he came to WKRP specifically "to work with the Doctor").
In the second season episode, "God Talks to Johnny", after hearing a voice he believes to be God Himself, Johnny (and almost everyone else) is convinced he's going crazy; Johnny mentions that the voice said, "I love you, I want you to seek knowledge, and (though he's not certain) I want you to be a golf pro!" When Johnny admits himself into a hospital late at night, he is met by Mr. Carlson, a devoted Christian, who tells Johnny that there is nothing wrong with hearing God's voice, but doubted it was God, saying, "If God had something He wanted to say, you'd hear it."
Johnny has also proven to be a shrewd judge of character. Case in point, in the series finale, "Up And Down The Dial", the latest
Other jobs
In an early episode, Johnny's new persona and his immediate popularity earn him a job offer from another station in Los Angeles with the biggest competitor of the station that fired him. His co-workers at WKRP throw him a party where they try to convince him not to leave; he admits how much he loves and cares about the people he works with. But in a reversal of sitcom conventionality, Johnny actually takes the L.A. job, but in "Johnny Returns", he is almost instantly fired for saying "jive-ass" on the air.
Later in his WKRP career, Johnny Fever is approached by a female television producer (Mary Frann) to be a TV DJ for her disco program Gotta Dance. "Rip Tide," Johnny's TV persona, is money-hungry, disco-loving, chummy with Herb Tarlek, and has a very different voice and personality. In the two-part episode "Dr. Fever and Mr. Tide," Johnny loses control of his personality when his alter-ego takes over while on the radio. He seems to be totally taken over by the Rip Tide persona until Andy Travis decides he would rather have Rip Tide as his morning DJ (causing Johnny to have an existential crisis) and Jennifer Marlowe disowns the sleazy Rip persona. Facing his demons, Johnny, as Rip, goes on TV and defames the industry with accusations of payola and using casting couches, then flips the music to Little Richard, killing off Rip Tide for good.
Dr. Johnny Fever never leaves the WKRP "family" of employees for the duration of the original series, but in the New WKRP in Cincinnati he has moved on to at least two more stations. He admits that the Cincinnati job is a good situation for him, but does occasionally wonder about what he is missing elsewhere by staying. He does return to WKRP for two two-part episodes in Season 1; then, late in the second season, he steps in as temporary overnight DJ when the station's longstanding and never-seen jock, Moss Steiger, dies. Johnny gets a full send-off near the end of the new series when he decides to return to Los Angeles.
Casting
The role of Dr. Johnny Fever was originally intended for