Top TV Moments: Gordon Jump

[TMC]

http://comforttv.blogspot.com/2016/1...rdon-jump.html

Before anyone knew him he spent more than a decade playing one-scene guest spots in great shows and forgotten ones. Jump was a staple near the bottom of the credits, often billed as characters not important enough to receive a name – “Bartender” (Bewitched), “Salesman” (Green Acres), “Bum” (McCloud), “Mechanic” (The Brady Bunch) and, in one of the more amusing IMDB credits, “Sailor making fun of Jeremy stuttering” (from an episode of Here Come the Brides).

Gradually, he developed a niche – oblivious authority figures. That probably didn’t seem important at first, but then someone may have remembered how well this affable, round-faced actor fit those parts. That led to the Golden Ticket in television that remains so elusive to thousands of equally talented actors – the chance to play a role that fit in a show that clicked.

Thanks to Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson and WKRP in Cincinnati, all those anonymous early parts are noticed by classic TV fans. Forty years later, we now smile when we spot him as a ticket agent on The Doris Day Show or an engineer on Love, American Style and say, “Cool, there’s Gordon Jump.”

Here are a few other places you've probably spotted him.

WKRP in Cincinnati (1978)
Gordon Jump was one of eight actors, none of whom had then progressed any further than he in the business, who became one of the best situation comedy ensembles of the 1970s. WKRP lasted four seasons and produced one indisputably classic episode that will be part of Thanksgiving celebrations for as long as people still care about television. In his most famous TV moment Jump delivers the show’s perfect final line.