TV Quote of the Day (‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ As Jennifer Shows Which Opening Line Works Best)

Waiter [played by Jim Begg] [placing down the next round of drinks sent by strangers to Jennifer, who has been receiving such all night, the waiter stating from whom they were sent]: “Little Guy with Bowtie, Tall Black Man, Cowboy and Longshoreman.”

Jennifer Marlowe [played by Loni Anderson] [seeing that the waiter was referring to Les Nessman, Venus Flytrap, Andy Travis and Johnny Fever, who approach her table]: “Hi, guys!”

Andy Travis [played by Gary Sandy]: “Oh, what's your sign?”

Venus Flytrap [played by Tim Reid]: “You live around here, Mama?”

Dr. Johnny Fever [played by Howard Hesseman]: “Want a little action, sugar?”

Jennifer: “Well, Les, don't you have an opening line?”

Les Nessman [played by Richard Sanders] [looking uneasy, then sits down and picks up a drink]: “Hi, I'm extremely wealthy.”

Jennifer [as Jennifer and Les clink glasses together, cooing]: “Ooh!!!!”—WKRP in Cincinnati, Season 1, Episode 15, “Never Leave Me, Lucille,” original air date Mar. 5, 1979, teleplay by Bill Dial, directed by Asaad Kelada

If you don’t see an actor for years and then learn he or she is dead, the image you retain is still of them from the height of their celebrity. And so it was for Loni Anderson.

Her obituaries this past week said she’d died at age 79, just short of her 80th birthday, but in the mind’s eye of so many of us, she was still Jennifer Marlowe—glamorous, but smarter than all the besotted males at that struggling Midwestern radio station. 

“I’ve done six other series but I’ve stayed closest to my ‘WKRP’ family,” Ms. Anderson said of her castmates in a September 2018 interview on the “Baltimore Media Blog.” “If you’re lucky to have a family like that, cherish it.”