Nearly 50 years after WKRP in Cincinnati first aired, listeners were greeted with a familiar voice when The Oasis flipped the switch to become the very real WKRP in Cincinnati on Monday morning: Gary Sandy, or, as the show’s legion of fans know him, Andy Travis.
Sandy sat down with Radio Ink to talk through how it happened, what almost didn’t, and why a show about a rock station in Ohio still commands the kind of attention that makes national news almost a half-century later.
Radio Ink: When it was first revealed that the WKRP call letters would be coming to Cincinnati for real, what was your reaction?
Gary Sandy: You know, the weird thing about it was I became hip to the fact that those call letters were possibly up for sale, and I started thinking about trying to secure the rights. I made a phone call to the guy in North Carolina, and he didn’t answer the phone. Had the guy answered, I might have been the guy who had the call letters.
Radio Ink: Now that is one of the great what-might-have-beens.
Sandy: Right? But I’m tickled that the Oasis is WKRP now. They put on a fantastic product.
Radio Ink: And it’s not just Cincinnati. It’s on two other signals spanning Dayton and Northern Kentucky, too. As a Dayton native, how do you feel about having WKRP extend into your hometown?
Sandy: You know, Gordon Jump was from Dayton, too. For both of us to be on a show about Cincinnati, being from 50 miles north of Cincinnati, was great. He was the nicest man in the world. I just loved him. He was a great man.
Radio Ink: The station launch made national news. There’s a real excitement because people still love the show. You’ve talked with us before about why the show resonates with radio people, which makes sense. But there are so many shows that have faded from the public consciousness. What do you think makes WKRP endure with the general public, going on almost 50 years after the pilot aired?
Sandy: Well, first of all, I think what I used to say, which I thought was kind of comical, but it was true. It was about something, you know.
I started off, and as in my 20s, you know, I did a bunch of soap operas in New York, and I was always the heavy. I was the bad guy. So when I came to California at 30, I was on the lookout for something that was going to change this bad guy image, and I was out to find a script that was really going to be something. When I read ‘KRP, I knew it was going to work. I was positive it would work.
For me, being a fan of music, acting, and radio for all of my life, this was the whole thing wrapped up into one. I wanted that part, man, so it was scary for me because about 10 other guys auditioned on camera, and we screen tested twice. As a matter of fact, I had screen tests twice, and the CBS and MTM people were going to pick somebody else, but Mary Tyler Moore stood up and said, “Sandy’s the guy. I think he’s sexy. And if I do, so will millions of other women,” and walked out of the room.
Everybody looked at each other and said, “Well, I guess that’s it.” That is just one of my favorite things to be able to say.
Radio Ink: That’s one heck of a stamp of approval. Of course, Andy Travis really is an iconic character. We talked with station owners Randy Michaels and Jeff Ziesmann about the station launch earlier this week and asked them which ‘KRP character they most relate to. They both said Andy. You were a great Program Director in a real nut-house of a radio station.
Sandy: I think that was also because of the soap operas. I would just chew the scenery and everything on the soaps. So when it came to ‘KRP, I remember saying to myself from day one, don’t pull focus. Just do the job. Be low-key; go about your business. And I was always pretty proud of myself that I was able to do that. So I think that’s probably one of the reasons that character worked because I didn’t try to do anything other than just do my job.
Radio Ink: In an alternate universe where that fellow picked up the phone, maybe you own WKRP – but you still are on the station, voicing some of the imaging. How is it working with Randy and Jeff on the project? How did that come about?
Sandy: They have been terrific. I haven’t done any kind of interview, per se, but Randy got in touch with me and said, look, I got some, you know, one-liners and stuff like that. Would you record that? I said, absolutely. Do what you want me to do. You know, so I just laid out a bunch of stuff that apparently they’re using at different times of the day or whenever, or I’m assuming they used from day one on the fourth. I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything yet. But, so I just laid out a bunch of stuff that I recorded for them and sent it to them. And so, however they’re using it is the way they’re doing it.
Radio Ink: When the station went live on Monday morning, you were the first voice that got heard on the real-life WKRP in Cincinnati. Not a soundstage; on the actual air in the actual city. What does that moment mean to you?
Sandy: Oh, it’s absolutely just terrific. You know, with my love for radio and my love for, or what happened when we did the series, come on, a real feather in my cap here that there is such a thing and that they’re making me a part of it.
Radio Ink: I know the station has been flooded with calls since the switch on Monday. I’m sure you’ve probably gotten a lot of responses, too. What have you been hearing?
Sandy: Oh yeah, man. It’s amazing, you know? My Facebook account just blew up. People are writing me left and right and asking all kinds of questions. Everybody, everybody is really tickled. It’s really interesting to see how people love that this really happened. It’s just really, very special.
