On the Air

Season

1992

USA

7.1

In the 1950s, a group of television performers attempt to put together a live variety program and often find disastrous results.

Episode List

S1 • E1

The Lester Guy Show

It is hours before the debut of "The Lester Guy Show" and the cast and crew are frantically putting the final touches on the show, including rehearsing the dramatic centerpiece, the Kitchen Scene. All goes well in rehearsal but a comical head injury to Lester Guy (Ian Buchanan) during the live open, a sound board mishap that leads to every sound cue being wrong and a warped floorboard that topples a camera causing the broadcast to go out sideways threaten to doom the show. Betty Hudson (Marla Rubinoff) redeems the episode with an impromptu monologue and a sweet rendition of the song "The Bird In the Tree" accompanied by the tiny music box she always carries with her for luck. ZBC owner Mr. Zoblotnick calls the control room and joyously declares, "Wah hoov eh hut en uhr hoonds!" (We have a hit on our hands)

S1 • E2

Episode #1.2

Betty Hudson (Marla Rubinoff) is an overnight sensation, receiving gifts and telegrams from across the country while all Lester Guy (Ian Buchanan) receives is a cactus from Mr. Zoblotnick (Sydney Lassick). Sensing his meal ticket slipping away, Bud Budwaller (Miguel Ferrer) conspires with his assistant Nicole (Kim McGuire) and Lester to destroy Betty. Upon learning Mr. Zoblotnick has invited Betty to dinner that evening, the trio decide this is a perfect opportunity for a first strike. First impersonating Mr. Z's driver, Lester shakes Betty's confidence with warnings of Mr Z's lecherous intent. Then at the restaurant he impersonates a waiter to further disrupt the meal. Betty's flustered responses and Lester's bungling utterly charm Mr. Zoblotnick, reducing Lester to tears.

S1 • E3

Episode #1.3

Lester (Ian Buchanan) plots to humiliate Betty (Marla Rubinoff) in a quiz show segment, both by rigging the game and by pitting her and her grade school teach Mrs. Thissle (Diana Bellamy) against Professor Answer (Charles Tyner), the man with the highest IQ ever measured. Mrs. Thissle dominates the game until, during a commercial break, she realizes that she is live on the air and comes down with instant crushing stage fright. Producer Mr. McGonigle (Marvin Kaplan), suffering an overdose of allergy medication, steps in. They win the game but are about to forfeit their winnings until they accidentally hit upon the answer to the final mystery question.

S1 • E4

Episode #1.4

Guest star Stan Tailings (Freddie Jones) is Lester's (Ian Buchanan) shot at wresting the show away from Betty (Marla Rubinoff). There are two big scenes tonight, one in which Lester dreams of hunting. He shoots a duck and wounds an angel. The other is a re-creation of the climax of Tailings's greatest screen triumph, "An Almost Innocent Man". For once rehearsal does not go smoothly, with Stan having trouble with his voice and the duck for the hunting scene, whom Betty names Doodles, is roasted in a prop electric chair and eaten by stage hands. On the air is no better, with Lester sustaining no fewer than three head injuries and Snaps the dog interfering with the film re-creation causing Lester to sustain yet another injury, this time electrocution.

S1 • E5

Episode #1.5

Betty (Marla Rubinoff) is intimidated by the presence of guest star Sylvia Hudson (Anne Bloom), former Queen of Hollywood and the original female television superstar, also Betty's sister. A successful guest spot with her would bring the cream of Hollywood lining up to appear on the show. Also guest starring this week, Mister Peanuts, the puppet star of ZBC's morning show voiced by Wally Walters (Chuck McCann). A mishap with Sylvia's entrance leaves the star dazed from a head injury and unable to play her love scene with Lester, so Mister Peanuts pinch hits in a tiny dress and wig. Sylvia's head clears and she unleashes a vicious verbal assault on Mister Peanuts, leaving the puppet suicidal. Betty rallies the cast and crew and then the nation behind Mister Peanuts, exhorting everyone to sing along with her "The Mister Peanuts Song". Even Bud Budwaller (Miguel Ferrer) is moved, slamming a set of prop doors on Sylvia.

S1 • E6

Episode #1.6

Mr. Zoblotnick has booked his favorite magician, The Great Presidio (I.M. Hobson), to perform his greatest illusion on the show, The Gypsy Traveler. However, Presidio is having an existential crisis that he believes will only be resolved when he sees the "Dog of Transformation". Lester (Ian Buchanan) and Nicole (Kim McGuire) decide Lester will learn magic and steal the show. Lester is unable to perform the simplest of tricks. When Presidio spots Snaps dressed as the Dog of Transformation, he regains his powers. He transforms Nicole into a lizard and teleports Lester to Akron, Ohio,

S1 • E7

Episode #1.7

Despite this week's show being a "Salute to Summer" Lester (Ian Buchanan) insists that Bud Budwaller (Miguel Ferrer) book The Woman With No Name (Bellina Logan) to appear. She is the leader of a group of beatniks known as "the Voids". But he still wants to destroy Betty (Marla Rubinoff) so he and Nicole plot with a scientist to subject Betty to a "voice destroyer" which will prevent her from singing on the show. They need a sample of her voice but Betty has vowed not to speak until she can remember her mother's name. The show begins and Lester and Betty perform a duet but Lester manages to subject himself to the voice destroyer, leaving him croaking and bleating. Budwaller cues the Woman With No Name, who performs an interpretive dance involving shoes. In the midst of this Betty begins singing a song featuring the name "Mary" and is overjoyed to realize that Mary is her mother's name. She exhorts everyone in America to call their mothers. Mr. Zoblotnick (Sydney Lassick) and Valdja, (David L. Lander) enamored of the Woman With No Name because in their language "beatnik" means "bootmaker", join her and her crew in the dance. Budwaller, bending to the will of the people, joins in.