The 15 Best Episodes Of NewsRadio, Ranked

In the 1990s, NBC produced a slew of hit sitcoms as part of their "Must See TV" primetime lineup. Some of the biggest shows of the era, like "Seinfeld" and "Friends," have gained new generations of fans thanks to streaming platforms, but many others have languished in the memories of Gen-Xers and geriatric millennials due to incomplete or inconsistent streaming availability. One of the best of those semi-forgotten shows was "NewsRadio," which ran on NBC for five seasons from 1995 to 1999.

Chronicling the wacky adventures of a New York City AM radio station, "NewsRadio" was both old-fashioned and ahead of its time, using cinematic techniques that would become the norm with the rise of single-camera comedies in the following decade while also thriving on screwball comedy rhythms and the energy of a live studio audience. However, despite critical acclaim, the show was neither a popular hit nor an awards magnet like "Seinfeld," and NBC constantly shuffled it around the weeknight schedule. That lack of institutional support frustrated creator Paul Simms, who vented to Rolling Stone in a bracingly honest 1997 interview – which was then turned into a storyline for the show. 

Since its 1999 cancellation, the show aired in syndication and was released on DVD, but had never had all five seasons available to stream at the same time until 2022. Now available in its entirety on Amazon Prime and the Roku Channel, let's take a look at the best 15 episodes of this hidden '90s gem.

One wonders if NBC might have been more supportive of the show had creator Paul Simms not thumbed his nose at every network suggestion. Case in point — in 1995, NBC dedicated a night of shows to a "Four Weddings and a Funeral" theme, promoting the broadcast premiere of the Hugh Grant comedy hit. According to the episode's DVD commentary, the "NewsRadio" writing staff bristled at the network mandate and dedicated its "funeral" slot to the story of Mike, WNYX's previously-unmentioned unofficial pet rat. When the building installs new rat traps in the office, Mike quickly falls victim to one, and the entire staff is devastated — everyone except the stoic midwesterner Dave, that is.

The conflict of the episode is less about Mike the Rat and more about the ways Dave still feels like an outsider to the rest of the staff. He is genuinely hurt when blowhard broadcaster Bill McNeal (the late, great Phil Hartman) accuses him of being heartless, but that lack of sentimental attachment to Mike soon comes in handy. It turns out that "Mike" wasn't just one friendly rat but likely dozens of rats that had infested the office. Character actor Mike Starr appears as the building superintendent and ends the episode with an all-time classic twist.

Khandi Alexander played broadcaster Catherine Duke starting in the series' second episode, taking over for Ella Joyce, who had originated the role. Alexander started as a dancer and choreographer in the 1980s before branching out into acting, but after three seasons on "NewsRadio" she feared that her status as a sitcom actress was keeping her from being considered for more substantial roles (via Reuters), and made the decision to leave.

Alexander's farewell came in Season 4's "Catherine Moves On." At the morning meeting, Catherine announces she is leaving WNYX immediately, leaving the staff stunned. As Jimmy tries to figure out what might have caused Catherine to quit, the episode takes on a "Rashomon" structure, with everyone's theories revealing more about themselves than Catherine. Dave blames Bill's chewing, Lisa blames her failures as a news director, Joe blames his constant flirting, and Matthew naturally thinks it has something to do with a Hamburglar-like gremlin who only he can see. 

The truth, of course, has nothing to do with any of that. Catherine has accepted a job overseas and Alexander gets a quiet, graceful, and funny exit from the show. In the decades since, Alexander has made good on her desire to not get pigeonholed, with acclaimed stints on "ER," "CSI: Miami," and the David Simon series "The Corner" and "Treme." In 2021 she even reunited with Paul Simms on an episode of FX's "What We Do in the Shadows," where he serves as showrunner.

A man is standing on the ledge outside WNYX and threatening to jump in the Season 4 premiere "Jumper," and Bill McNeal has the scoop. As a media circus develops around the story, WNYX's coverage hits a snag when it turns out that the jumper (Jon Lovitz) is an aggrieved former employee of a company owned by Jimmy. 

This is a big episode by "NewsRadio" standards, with special effects shots, on-location filming in Manhattan, and a reunion of "Saturday Night Live" all-stars Hartman and Lovitz, who spend the episode harnessed together high above New York City. It's also a very cynical episode, even for "NewsRadio," with nearly everyone concerned more with the prestige (Bill), the adventure (Joe), the ratings (Lisa), and the publicity (Jimmy) of the situation than the human lives at stake.

Lovitz had appeared on the show in the previous season's "Our Fiftieth Episode," playing a fellow patient when Bill's outburst over a parking ticket lands him in a mental hospital. He would join the cast permanently in Season 5 as Max Lewis, WNYX's new broadcaster after the tragic death of Phil Hartman was written into the show. Sadly, he never had the same crackerjack energy with the rest of the cast as he has here with Hartman.

One of the show's most reliable sources of comedy is the way in which Bill becomes fixated on some new activity or object, annoying Dave to the point of madness. This sort of dynamic plays out in the next three episodes on this list, starting with Season 2's "The Cane," in which Bill buys an antique cane at lunch and struts around the office with it. Dave is put off by Bill's affectation of walking around with a cane he doesn't need, but his annoyance turns into hostility between the two when the cane mysteriously goes missing.

Despite being the episode's namesake, Bill's cane isn't actually the main plotline, which concerns the way a professional clash between Dave and Lisa affects their personal relationship. However, the plot itself is fairly straightforward and unmemorable. What sets the episode apart are individual scenes like Bill using his cane as a conductor's baton when giving directions, the staff messing with a post-fight Dave and Lisa by making them open increasingly ridiculous items in the breakroom ("What does Matthew need with two tins of beans?"), and, of course, the final scene in which Dave and Bill's cane conflict comes to a head. The timing alone of Dave plopping down on his office couch at the exact moment that Bill barges in shows the craft and energy the show had at its best moments.

However, Dave isn't always the reasonable one driven to madness by everyone else — sometimes he has obsessions of his own, as in Season 3's "Arcade." Beth has the office's old sandwich machine replaced by the 1980s arcade game Stargate Defender, which puts both Dave and Bill into a panic. Bill is distraught because the moldy, stale sandwiches from the vending machine remind him of the ones his mother used to make (Bill's fond remembrances of an abusive childhood are a dark running joke throughout the series), and Dave because he was addicted to playing Stargate Defender as a teenager. "Stargate Defender kept me out of Stanford," he rues to Lisa.

Lisa, meanwhile, has a fixation of her own. When she's unable to solve the newspaper jumble she fears that she is losing her intelligence and decides to take the SATs over again, dragging Dave along, and her intensity over the importance of the test traumatizes a high school student played by Leelee Sobieski. While her SAT score remains the same excellent one she got in high school, Dave bombs his test after playing Stargate Defender all night — just as he did as a teenager. 

The episode is full of great sight gags, from a disheveled Jimmy who becomes obsessed with the game as well to a gray-haired Bill who claims that his body is rapidly aging without the preservative-filled vending machine sandwiches.

"NewsRadio" rarely got sentimental. With one major exception, there were no "very special episodes." Still, the show that took its characters' feelings seriously, and "B***h Session" from Season 2 is a great example of that. As Dave fiddles with a broken phone cord under his desk, he accidentally overhears the staff, including Lisa, making fun of him. With hurt feelings, he turns first to his mother and then to Jimmy for a three-martini lunch to comfort him. However, when he returns to the station to confront them over what they said (mostly jokes about him being short and from Wisconsin), the staff turns on him for eavesdropping.

Later, Jimmy calls the staff together in his office and delivers the news — he's firing Dave. He's heard their complaints and will start looking for a new station director the next day. The staff, stunned, jumps to Dave's defense — literally, in Matthew's case. "Dave is quite simply the best news director I've ever worked with," Bill says in all sincerity. Jimmy relents and agrees to keep Dave on as long as the staff is more careful about where they hold their "b***h sessions." 

The whole thing, of course, is a ruse so that Dave, hiding behind a curtain, could hear what everyone really thought of him. Dave is heartened, but still hurt that Lisa made fun of him along with everyone else — much to the disappointment of Lisa, who is also hiding behind a curtain.

In May 1998, between the fourth and fifth seasons of "NewsRadio," Phil Hartman's wife Brynn shot him to death before turning the gun on herself, per Variety. It was an unspeakable tragedy for Hartman's family and friends, as well as for comedy fans the world over. Hartman was a singular talent and, in many ways, the heart of "NewsRadio." The Season 5 premiere "Bill Moves On" writes Hartman's death into the series, as the staff returns from the funeral of Bill McNeal, who suffered a heart attack. Each has been grieving in their own way: Dave delivered a rambling eulogy, Lisa has been drunk for a week, and Matthew clings to the belief that Bill faked his death.

Most of the episode takes place in Dave's office, as the staff (including Catherine) reads goodbye letters from Bill, giving Paul Simms and the writers one last chance to write in Bill's inimitable voice. The tears shed by the cast are obviously real as they mourn their friend, both in real life and in character, and the episode's few moments of humor are warm and cathartic. The show would struggle to find its voice in Season 5, which would be its last. Bringing in Jon Lovitz as a replacement was a nice gesture toward his and Hartman's real-life friendship but changed the show's dynamic. As Stephen Root put it in a 2015 oral history for Uproxx, "It was not really 'NewsRadio.' It was 'NewsRadio' with Jon Lovitz."