Poker in the Media: NewsRadio

by Bodog Poker | Jan 18 2011

This week’s “Poker in the Media” takes a look at a favorite episode of the nineties sitcom NewsRadio where your favorite game was the focus of a high-stakes battle between station owners.

Ready to play online poker? Head over to Bodog now!

The poker-game-as-plot device is as old as the television sitcom, usually involving a husband getting in over his head and trying to keep his wife from finding out, but one of (and some would say the) best sitcoms of the Nineties, NewsRadio did more than have someone in trouble because they played the game: they made the stakes bigger than any comedy had ever done before after station owner Jimmy James (brilliant played by Stephen Root) loses their star anchor, Bill McNeal (the late, great Phil Hartman) in an annual poker game that takes place between AM radio station owners from around the country.  If he can’t get Bill back, the deadpan New Yorker will find himself in Atlanta, handling the news below the Mason-Dixon line.

If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s an ensemble-driven comedy with multiple storylines and this is one of the very few occasions where the majority of the cast was wrapped up in the “A” storyline.  While Lisa (Maura Tierney) and Dave (Dave Foley) sit down to play poker against the other station owners, Joe (Joe Rogan, who is one of those actors that will forever be named “Joe” in each of his rolls), Catherine and Beth are attempting to help the duo with a Boba Fett action figure with a camera set up inside of it that reads marked cards that were prepared earlier.  Unfortunately, they’ve not devised a way to communicate the others’ cards to Dave and Lisa, so they end up frolicking in the hotel room next door, ordering room service and taking advantage of a company credit card.

The episode is rife with some of the best dialogue of the series, with a particularly great bit occurring early on when Bill confronts Jimmy James about the fact that he’s been lost to another radio station because of a poker game.  He whips out his contract (after noting that the paranoia that leads him to carry it everywhere doesn’t seem so stupid now) and begins reading aloud: “Loss of job can be a result of termination, merger and/or act of god. It doesn’t say anything about poker!” Jimmy responds, “Read your ‘Act of God’ clause” and Bill’s face falls as he reads out “Mr. James will hereafter, and for the sole purpose of this contract only, be referred to as God.”

What’s interesting about this episode is the that not only does it do a pretty good job of featuring the gameplay (Five Card Stud) with just a bit of comedic exaggeration, but it also allows the math  and psychological aspects of the game to be shown very well.  Interestingly, Maura Tierney won on Celebrity Poker Showdown and Dave Foley, of course, hosted the series.

A high point in a series that had many of them, “Presence” is definitely an episode to check out on Netflix Watch Instantly or on DVD.

Do you like Five Card Stud? Play your favorite poker game at Bodog’s online poker room.

| | |