Herman's Head ran from September 1991 June 1994 on FOX.
Herman Brooks ( William Ragsdale), was a wavy-haired young guy working as a fact checker in the research department of The Waterton Publishing Company in New York. To all outward appearances he seemed perfectly normal but, whenever he was faced with making a decision, viewers were shown the workings inside the room in his brain. It was their that the 4 conflicting aspects of his personality-compassion ( Angel played by Molly Hagen), Lust ( Animal played by Ken Hudson Campbell), anxiety ( Wimp played by Rick Lawless), and reason ( Genius played by Peter Mackenzie)-debated, argued and sometimes fought over what course of action Herman should take. Working with Herman were his boss Mr. Bracken ( Jason Bernard), a humorless man with encyclopediac knowledge and total commitment to accuracy; Louise ( Yeardley Smith), Bracken's sardonic secretary; and Heddy ( Jane Sibbett), an obnoxious, ambitious fellow researcher who took great pleasure in putting Herman down. Also working for the publisher was Herman's best friend Jay ( Hank Azaria), a womanizer whose dalliances somehow always seemed to get Herman into trouble.
Seen from time to time was Mr. Crawford ( Edward Winter), an inept executive at Waterton who, despite taking advantage of Herman, had a penchant for forgetting his first name. Over the years Herman had a number of romantic relationships, including a short-lived affair with Heddy, who ultimately rejected him because his finacial prospects weren't up to her standards. Even Jay, despite his attraction to flashy women, developed an on-again, off-again relationship with Louise.
A Review from The New York Times
A Head Full Of People
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: October 10, 1991
In "Herman's Head," Herman Brooks, played appealingly by William Ragsdale, lives alone in a small Manhattan apartment and works, temporarily he hopes, in the small research department of a large magazine. At the office, run by the fierce Mr. Bracken (Jason Bernard), Herman absorbs arcane facts like, among others, the rectal temperature of a three-toed sloth. Outside work, he searches for meaningful relationships. All the while, he gets advice, usually conflicting, from the stereotypes inside his head: Animal, or lust (Ken Hudson Campbell), Angel, or sensitivity (Molly Hagan), Genius, or intellect (Peter MacKenzie), and Wimp, or anxiety (Rick Lawless).
The result is probably the clunkiest concept of the season, with the scene shifting from hapless Herman to the odd one-note characters frantically sending him signals that are generally ignored anyway. Herman and the little people just get in each other's way, and that's unfortunate because Herman on his own can whip up considerable charm, whether drinking too much and making a fool of himself at an office party for his boss, or being genuinely solicitous about Louise, the mousey office secretary, when her date fails to show. Louise, by the way, is giving Yeardley Smith a long-deserved chance to shine in a prominent role.
At its best, "Herman's Head" is now harmless fluff. Overhauling a concept that is pointless might help considerably.
A Review from Entertainment Weekly
TV Review
Herman's Head (1991)
Reviewed by Ken Tucker | Sep 06, 1991
Sometimes you wonder how these things get past the drawing-board stage. Herman's Head is a new sitcom about an ordinary Joe named Herman (William Ragsdale) and four aspects of his personality: Animal (Ken Hudson Campbell), who represents lust and general John Belushi-like behavior; Genius (Peter Mackenzie), who is Herman's intellect; Angel (Molly Hagan), who stands for compassion; and Wimp (Rick Lawless), who personifies anxiety. They all stroll around in what is supposed to be the inside of — you got it — Herman's head.
You can guess every obvious joke in this series debut. Upon meeting an attractive woman, Animal urges Herman to jump her bones, Wimp leads him to think she hates him, Angel wants him to consider the woman's feelings, and Genius is ashamed to be having carnal thoughts in the first place.
The show is a claustrophobic disaster. Because they are confined to the inside of Herman's head, the actors stalk around their little set as if trapped in a nightmare play that crosses Our Town with Waiting for Godot. And because he is essentially just a vessel for a quartet of wildly conflicting reactions, Ragsdale's Herman is little more than a quivering lump of indecision. What a bad idea for a show. D-
An Article from USA TODAY
Published on November 18, 1993
A very Brady visitor on 'Herman's Head'
Like many boys in the '70s, William Ragsdale , 30 , was into " the Marcia thing"-that's Marcia as in The Brady Bunch.
" But if anyone would have told me 20 years ago I'd get the chance to kiss her I'd have believed it impossible," says the star of Herman's Head.
Tonight at 9:30, Ragsdale gets his chance when Maureen McCormick appears on the Fox sitcom as herself.
For Ragsdale, the kiss was " as close to a dream come true as it gets."
For his real-life girlfriend, actress Barbara Alyn Woods, it was a mini-nightmare.
" She went through that whole ' Jan' thing"( the middle Brady lass). " But once she met Maureen she was OK."
" I play myself but...they take a lot of liberties," says McCormick married for nine years to Michael Cummings, with a daughter, Natalie, 4 1/2.
" When we kissed, the audience went C-R-A-Z-Y," she says. " It was so cool."
Also " cool": A country Western album due next spring; a possible TV show; and a series of children's videos.
In her spare time, McCormick speaks out about birth control options, " a subject we'd never have discussed on The Brady Bunch."
Brady co-star Robert Reed died of AIDS-related illness in May 1992. " He was a beautiful man. I really miss him."
" Sexually transmitted diseases and contraceptives were taboo topics then but they need to be discussed today.
" Hey, can you hold on a see?" ( She takes another call.) " Hi!" she squeals clicking back. " Call waiting is so cool!"
A little known fact about the former Brady beauty: McCormick provided the voice of Mattel's Chatty Cathy doll.
It's sometimes hard to tell where Marcia leaves off and Maureen begins. But she doesn't mind the Brady tie.
" You know ,it was a great family sitcom and there's not a lot of them on TV today."
Ragsdale says the which-came-first debate is moot.
" I don't know how much of Marcia is in Maureen or vice versa," he says. " But if Marcia turned out anything like Maureen she'd have nothing to complain about."
A Review from Variety
Published on December 15, 1993
Herman's Head a Decent Proposal
((Thurs. (16), 9:30-10 p.m., Fox))
By RICHARD S. GINELL
Filmed in Hollywood at Sunset Gower Studios by Witt/Thomas Prods. for Touchstone Pictures & Television. Executive producers, Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas, David Babcock; producers, Adam Markowitz, Bill Freiberger; co-executive producers, Mark Ganzel, Nina Feinberg; supervising producer, Michael B. Kaplan; director, Greg Antonacci; writer, Ganzel; production designer, Edward Stephenson; sound, William Kennedy III.
Cast: William Ragsdale, Hank Azaria, Jane Sibbett, Yeardley Smith, Molly Hagan, Ken Hudson Campbell, Rick Lawless, Peter MacKenzie, Jason Bernard, Andrea Parker, Kirsten Holmquist.
Though it looked like a dopey idea in the beginning, "Herman's Head" has developed into a sharp, funny exploration of a universal condition -- what goes on in our minds. Besides the above-average writing, credit the chemistry of two separate casts that seem to get tighter with each season.
Herman (William Ragsdale), despite several near-promotions, remains an underpaid, single, twentysomething Manhattan researcher in a constant state of flux as one girl after another passes into, out of and back into his life.
He is surrounded at work by career-stalled cohorts -- his compulsively womanizing best friend, Jay (Hank Azaria); the demanding yet avuncular boss, Mr. Bracken (Jason Bernard); gold-digging Heddy (played with relish by Jane Sibbett); and Louise (Yeardley Smith), one of the looniest space cases on TV.
Yet the show really takes off whenever it enters Herman's brain, where his pompous Intellect (Peter MacKenzie), goody-goody Sensitivity (Molly Hagan), nerdish Anxiety (Rick Lawless) and Belushi-esque Lust (Ken Hudson Campbell) argue, scheme and shift alliances in a never-ending struggle for power.
But "A Decent Proposal" isn't one of the sharper episodes, as writer/co-executive producer Mark Ganzel and director Greg Antonacci dust off an old premise -- two people pretending they're married in order to impress someone.
Heddy ropes Herman into the act so that she can one-up an old high school rival (Andrea Parker), with a predictably chaotic effect upon Herman's social life. It's the same old posing and lying that not even Herman's inventive brain can enliven much.
What remains interesting is the simmering tension between Herman and Heddy.
Here is Jason Bernard's Obituary from The New York Times
Jason Bernard, 58, an Actor In Television Films and Series
By ERIC PACE
Published: October 21, 1996
Jason Bernard, an actor who performed in several television series and had recently been nominated for a Cable Ace acting award, died on Friday at Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. He was 58.
He died, apparently of a heart attack suffered while he was driving in Hollywood, where his car was involved in a rear-end accident on Cahuenga Boulevard, reported the City News Service of Los Angeles. Mr. Bernard was nominated for one of the 18th Annual Cable Ace awards, for a supporting actor in a movie or miniseries. The nominations were announced last month by the National Academy of Cable Programming. His was for his acting in the movie ''Sophie and the Moonhanger,'' shown on the Lifetime cable channel in January.
The New York Times critic Janet Maslin said that Mr. Bernard was ''especially solid'' in the supporting role of the heroine's ever-patient boss in the 1995 romantic comedy film ''While You Were Sleeping,'' starring Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman.
Another critic said that Mr. Bernard was ''soft looking, even stuffy, yet immovable in his faith'' in the role of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in ''The Meeting,'' an American Playhouse adaptation of a 1987 one-act play about a fictional meeting between Dr. King and Malcolm X. The adaptation was broadcast on PBS stations in 1989.
Mr. Bernard had the parts of Deputy Inspector Marquette on the police-drama television series ''Cagney and Lacey'' in 1982 and 1983 and of Fletch in a 1983 adventure series, ''High Performance.''
He also acted in ''Wilma'' -- starring Cicely Tyson as the Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph, a 1977 made-for-TV movie.
No information on surviving family members was available.
This photo gallery contains pictures for sitcoms of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and today, as well as dramas, soaps, reality shows, cartoons, game shows, variety shows, talk shows and late night tv photo galleries.
Please note that all pictures uploaded between August 6-31, 2009 were lost in a database crash. While the photos are still on the server, the information (title, description, number of views, who uploaded them, etc.) attached to each photo was lost. In addition, any photo edits, moves or any other account changes from this period were lost. Our apologies to all members who are missing photos and for the downtime. We appreciate you taking the time to share them with us. Click here for archived files by category which are no longer in the database. We would appreciate it if the original uploaders could re-upload them when they have the opportunity. Thank you.
To upload photos, please choose the appropriate category and login with your existing
message board username and password. If you are new, you will need to
register before
uploading any photos. Only ".jpg" files will upload - ".jpeg", ".gif", ".png" or any other image
format will not work. You will need to convert them to ".jpg". Please upload only sitcom
and tv related photos.
To request any photos be removed, please use the "Report Photo" link that is the bottom of
every photo if you are registered and logged in. This is the quickest and easiest method. You can also
send an e-mail with the url of the photo(s). We will also gladly credit or
link to any site that is the original source of any photos.
If you have any questions, comments, requests for new categories, etc. - please contact us.
All images, logos, and other materials are copyright their respective owners. No rights
are given or implied.
Powered by: PhotoPost PHP Copyright 2004-2012 All Enthusiast, Inc.
