That was such a great show. I'm sad that I didn't start watching it until after it had already been canceled. Such a great ensemble cast highlighted by Hartman, Andy Dick, Stephen Root, and David Foley. It just couldn't survive after Hartman died, and NBC did the show no favors either. Definitely a top 10 sitcom of all-time. It's the best post Kids in the Hall show with the exception of Scott Thompson's work on Larry Sanders. That is my favorite sitcom of all-time, but Scott had a much lesser role than Foley did in News Radio.
it's hard to underrate a show for yourself since you're doing the ratings, but i probably do underrate newsradio. whenever i'm thinking of good sitcoms from the past i always end up forgetting about how good this show was. and jimmy james is probably one of my favorite characters ever. it really was a good cast. it's kind of crazy that as good as the show was, practically all of the actors are probably more well known from something else, which is pretty hard to do for a show that airs for any length of time. most supporting characters on tv shows are never heard from again. hartman had snl, root has been in a bunch of stuff since then, tierney had ER, rogan had fear factor, the black chick has csi:miami, andy dick is seemingly more well known for being andy dick (not really sure what he's done to be so well known) than from newsradio, i don't really know anything about "kids in the hall" but foley seems to be more well known from that, and even kathy griffin went on to have a career just by being a clone of the secretary from this show.
I had/have such a crush on Maura Tierney throughout the show. She was one of the few ladies on a sitcom that could handle physical comedy just as well as the verbal comedy. And she was so damn cute. And the stupid crap Matthew would always go through. The hallucination episode with the guy dressed as a hamburglar breaking coffee pots had me in stitches.
God, I remember trying to find that show in its last few years when they kept switching the timeslots, like Mad About You. Stephen Root and Dave Foley both probably did their best mainstream work, in fact they did a pretty good job grouping each of the characters off into normal/crazy pairings. Vicki Lewis was a pasty goblin but she and Khandi Alexander had nice bodies. All in all the show had pretty solid cast. Just pored through seasons 1 - 3 on Netflix On Demand, kind of puts the American Office in its place; despite the latter show kind of saving the modern broadcast sitcom, and News Radio's pretty weak ratings.
I'm trying to wrap my mind around Jon Lovitz beating someone up, even a basketcase like Andy Dick. Easily the two most annoying actors in my opinion, even though Lovitz was pretty solid on SNL.
