I woke up one morning thinking I’d had dinner with my pals Greg and Stacy. They just got back from three weeks in France and we were to see them shortly. Greg was kind of showing off, ordering in (very fluent) French, in the dream. Then somehow we all started discussing the recently broadcast 2-hour “NewsRadio” reunion special. Such a show has not ever existed, to my knowledge.

It turns out that Maura Tierney, so excellent as Lisa on the actual show, was unavailable for the reunion production, and so instead, a role which in this conversation was characterized as “Dave’s girlfriend” was played by an actress who had previously portrayed Austin Powers’ girlfriend, and yet was neither Heather Graham or Elizabeth Hurley. I assume that this actress must be the actress portraying the International Man of Mystery’s paramour in the upcoming Austin Powers movie.

When I explained this to my wife after awakening, she exclaimed, “She’s a dwarf!”

]]>This perturbed me, and she then explained that it was her impression that the upcoming film will, in fact, be an all-dwarf-and-midget production. I believe this prognostication is based on the recent trailers for the film, which do indeed feature an all-dwarf-and-midget cast.

The featured guest performer in the 2 hour “NewsRadio” reunion special was, it turns out, Gary Sandy, the actor who portrayed Andy, the program director on the excellently silly television series “WKRP in Cincinnati”, a clear precursor of “NewsRadio”. He played a bad guy, possibly someone who was going to take over the “NewsRadio” station.

I have a muddled recollection of an outdoor scene in which Beth (Vicki Lewis), the redhead girl, has driven to a tattoo and piercing emporium located, interestingly, in the shadow of Seattle’s I-5 ship canal bridge. As I recall, she had decided that she was going to get in ahead of the curve on the next body-modification fad, which in this case, was headshrinking, a procedure whereby your physical headsize is reduced by about sixty percent. I’m pretty sure that the procedure exists only in my dream, but it makes a handy satirical plot device. I do not know if Beth completed the procedure.

Finally, since I’ve been watching lots of old Star Trek: the Next Generation thanks to TNN’s daily airings of the show, and Stephen Root, who played Jimmy James on NewsRadio was an occasional bit player in various Star Trek episodes, I suspect that the plot of my dream is based loosely on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and that Gary Sandy’s appearance is some sort of dream-time attempt to impose geek-like fantasy-world unity on TV land.

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NewsRadio (comprehensive)
http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/wkrp/