WNYX Piloting Success: The Pilot

"Pick it up Dave."

 

These are just words and words cannot make up for seeing the actual episodes…especially an episode on a show where we see nobody actually doing their jobs.

    Dave Foley almost wasn’t Dave. Joe Rogan almost wasn’t Joe. Stephen Root almost wasn’t Mr. Jimmy James! NewsRadio almost wasn’t the WNYX we know and love. Stephen Root created a new “bent guy” for Zbornak & Simms for the Jimmy James character. Then there’s Rick…and the actor who was NOT cast (I will leave you to do a touch of research as to what big actor it was)…it just seems that Joe was perfect as the Rick/Joe character...I dunno, maybe that's just me. Once you find out who the actor was to be 'Rick' you can almost see an entirely different show slowly develop around them…kind of a bizarro world. The characters each handpicked, what some may see as happenstance or accident, or chance, I think ended up painting a great five season portrait.

    When we meet Dave, he is trying to get to work exactly on time...(GPS here anybody?) He arrives at WNYX as a frantic squirrel; or a deer in the headlights only to spaz-out in front of the current soon-to-be fired news director, Ed, whose position Dave is there to fill. Dave tries to “jokingly” convince Ed to trade jobs while Ed unknowingly is guilting Dave with his note about the job giving him “full medical” and the job taking his mind off of the pain. We get Rick’s foresight about Dave & Lisa’s relationship with his crack about the production booth (“well hello young lovers”) and Lisa’s foresight about her managerial position change…although her timing is way off. We get to see Dave as a fresh-faced, mild-mannered, thrown into the deep-end-of-the-pool kind of guy. When we meet Bill, he is shown to be manipulative and a ready liar (“I’ve heard good things about you…I heard your demo tape…clean delivery”) and the fact that he has an excellent ear and eerie insight into Dave. Jimmy is enjoyably flippant with his wealth (“Buying a sports store, or rather buying the whole chain”, “I own a lot of Euro-Disney”) and comes back with various sports equipment through the episode.

"Do the pandas make any kind of noise that would be interesting on the radio?"

    As the pilot moves on, Dave happily takes the smooth way out as Ed gets fed up and “quits,” instead of Dave firing him as ordered. Mr. James continues to exercise his goofy nature with a tennis racket and Matthew his emotional instability and inability to keep secrets. (Dave tries to build confidence in his new staff by telling Matthew about the coming regime change and covering for Lisa) Beth’s few words show her carelessness and as one with some sort of odd “street smarts” in the neighborhood of acting crazy and beating prisoners with chairs (personal favorite of mine). Bill’s attempts to help Dave while he's in the booth are the bare minimum--and probably only to keep his talent at top key and in the spotlight. The great hilarity and “power of Dave” come to show when Dave gets “fired” by Ed and enters his office to explain “the meaning of irony.”   (Network notes stated that the “kid’s gotta have a victory” at the end of each episode—which we get to see here—and in further Dave/Jimmy, Dave/Lisa moments.)   We can always count on Matthew to break tension with what should be made a common day “–ism” (Matthewisms/being a "SPAZ") when he states that it is always sad when a member of the family has to be terminated… a way that only a character like Matthew could formulate thoughts. It seems that they appear in every episode and have kept me laughing for years. After Dave gets pelted with a paper ball, the previously silent place-holder for Catherine Duke says her one and only not so memorable line for this episode. Bill now shows himself to be willing to do anything to keep his job, from “sucking up to backstabbing” (as he puts it). Even with his lack of lines in this episode, his confident acting spills over with comic genius. Ed exits the office and shows his complete lack of knowledge of radio as Matthew and even Rick know more about what’s going on!

 "Hiring, firing...…what have you."

    As the pilot comes to a close, Mr. James comes to speak to Dave and of course Dave sees the world through rose colored glasses (for now), but Mr. James seems to see it as more of a wacky game he is playing with his little puppets. Lisa enters and overflowing with confidence in her future as WNYX’s next news director, she and Dave have their first of many awkward moments (a Dave Foley addition). Last of all, things come full circle as a new employee introduces himself to Dave—the newly settled news director—and introduces himself as Jeff Adams, “the new guy, sports,” Dave’s previous cover job to take Ed’s place. An ending to a pilot recorded roughly 3 months AFTER the rest of the pilot, yet executed with seamless hilarity as Dave Nelson can only imagine his entire day looping over again with him as the firee! More news after this!

God bless the year 1995 and the staff of WNYX, a living memorial to Phil Hartman!

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