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Stuff that didn't suck in 2017 (3 in a series).

Arthur Carlson, not running for office

Hold My Order, Terrible Dresser is a WKRP podcast. And if you're of a certain age, that's all you need to know. For the rest of you, here's a couple more paragraphs on why this is an excellent podcast.

The two hosts of this podcast are people from the academic world, and they apply a surprising amount of research and analysis to this silly sitcom from the 1970s. They're able to tease out a lot of surprising symbolism, especially in the early episodes when they apply the legend of the Fisher King to the story of Arthur ("King Arthur") Carlson, the station manager who loves to fish. Whether or not that was an intentional reference by series creator Hugh Wilson, the comparison does have some surprising overlapping points.

There's a whole lot of information about the time and era that WKRP was part of, from "In Search Of" to the popular music of the era that's played on the show (and which songs were taken out when the show was released on DVD). There's even a couple of shout-outs to Wingy Manone!

Well, Herb, what do you think?

This week, HMOTD is publishing its last episode, after discussing every episode from the original run (and a couple from the 1991 revival that sound atrocious). If you remember the series, this is a podcast that you will definitely enjoy.

(The title comes from one of the edited shows where they had to cut out a recitation of the Elton John lyric "Hold me closer, tiny dancer", and the fact that this was completely unknown to me tells me that the hosts were more familiar with the edited shows than I am. I haven't revisited the series since the releases on DVD, but the series is up on Hulu, so I will be revisiting the better episodes to see if it's as good as I remember.)

This article is my 79th oldest. It is 308 words long