Baby, if you've ever wonderedBeing a Midwesterner, I have no excuse for such confusion. Then again, it's not like being in a city's airport is really like being in a city, except that it counts for my tally of States From Which I've Blogged (22!). I've actually been through Ohio before--Cincinnati or Cleveland, I can't remember--and did not post from there, so this post is like casting a Buckeye monkeye off my back.
Wondered, whatever became of me
I'm sitting in an airport in Cincinnati
Cincinnati--er, um, actually Cleveland
Regarding WKRP in Cincinnati, an interesting phenomenon that has occurred every single time I have been in a nostalgic conversation with other straight men involving WKRP, sooner or later someone will offer--as if they were about to voice a heterodox opinion--that they always found the woman who played Bailey Quarters more appealing than Loni Anderson, and no one will disagree. Seriously, every single time, as lawlike as the tendency of an apple going to down rather than up when you drop it. Now, an obvious first hypothesis for explaining this would be that I am continually the one who voices this opinion, but, in fact, I am confident I have never been the one to introduce this angle to the conversation. (Talking about one's comparative assessment of the sex appeal of different television characters is really not my thing, unless it's the perennial debate about Daphne vs. Thelma on Scooby Doo.) How you have someone on a television series defined as the "sex symbol" when really seemingly every man (except for, at least during that period, Burt Reynolds) prefers another woman in the show would seem an interesting sociological question, and so perhaps something I can ask Dr. Ruth if she takes questions from the floor during her upcoming appearance at the upcoming American Sociological Association meetings.
Update, after midnight: A commenter posted a link to a site celebrating Bailey Quarters, where a guy takes the idea of her being a heterodox preference and celebrates it to the point of being--and yes! I know I overuse the word--creeptastically creepy. The guy is just so earnest in his affection.
Meanwhile, the updated list of states:
| Alabama | Alaska | Arizona |
| Arkansas | California | Colorado |
| Connecticut | Delaware | Florida |
| Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho |
| Illinois | Indiana | Iowa |
| Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana |
| Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts |
| Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi |
| Missouri | Montana | Nebraska |
| Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey |
| New Mexico | New York | North Carolina |
| North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma |
| Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island |
| South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee |
| Texas | Utah | Vermont |
| Virginia | Washington | Washington, D.C. |
| West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming |
13 comments:
It's Velma, not Thelma.
Also, don't most men say they like Mary Ann over Ginger? I don't even want to go into why I think that's the case.
jeremy definitely likes ginger over mary ann. for the same reason he likes daphne over velma.
well, i mean, i'm guessing he likes ginger over mary ann.
jeremy just called me from a runway in cleveland (or wherever the heck he is) to tell me that, contrary to what i predicted, he prefers mary ann to ginger. weirdly, he also prefers mr. howell to mrs. howell.
and he thinks the professor is full of himself. oh, no, that's what i think. about professors. in general.
Why Bailey (Jan Smithers) vs. Jennifer (Loni Anderson), from the guy who played boss Carlson on WKRP:
“We’re fortunate,” observes Gordon Jump (Carlson), “to have two women of the vastly different appeals of Loni and Jan. Men look at Loni’s character in an animal-type way; they look at Jan’s in a more reverent woman-on-a-pedestal way.”
But maybe Bailey was seen as vulnerable & in need of protection; from Loni Anderson:
"But men who won’t go near me will walk right up to Jan, like she’s a waif and needs someone to take care of her.”
Both quotes from a website dedicated to Jan Smithers:
http://www.clothmonkey.com/smithers.htm
I must interject here and say that I wouldn't be so quick to count yourself and your cronies as having average taste. I'm not saying you're weird necessarily, but, you know, I'd just be leery about the assumption that a few conversations with, say, academics means that "seemingly every man" agreed on this choice.
ah, but how many WKRP characters have had rock bands named in their honor? I am a fan of http://www.lessnessman.com/
The main reason I was calling Dorotha, for the record, is to wish her a happy birthday since I didn't reach her Wednesday.
Dorotha should have extended her logic puzzle "for the same reason he likes Ariel from the Little Mermaid more than Belle from Beauty and the Beast; for the same reason he likes Ralph Malph more than Potsie Weber; for the same reason he likes Beaker from the Muppet Show more than Fozzy Bear."
Potsie was the Buddy Lembeck of he '50s.
Are you posting from the Cincinnati airport? Because that's actually in Northern Kentucky, not Ohio.
I was actually posting from the Cleveland airport.
I had forgotten who Buddy Lembeck was and had to look it up on Wikipedia. O, Wikipedia is a wonderful thing.
I noticed that North Carolina is not in blue. Perhaps you should come visit two Kathryns and a Wes... none of whom has red hair.
-TOK
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