Actor-writer Bill Dial died on June 2 from a heart attack. He was 66 and had most recently been working on 18 Wheels of Justice, a TV series on Spike. In earlier days, he wrote for (and occasionally acted on) Harper Valley P.T.A., Simon and Simon, Code Name: Foxfire, various permutations of Star Trek and many other shows. I never met Mr. Dial but I admired his work, especially on WKRP in Cincinnati, a wonderful and underrated series.
In fact, he wrote the best episode of WKRP — the famous Thanksgiving episode where Mr. Carlson had an odd promotional idea involving turkeys. Here, with limited commercial interruption, is the entirety of that episode…
