Venus Flytrap Explains the Atom in a Classic WKRP in Cincinnati Episode

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In a feature spotlighting the best pop culture has to offer, Brian examines an iconic episode of WKRP in Cincinnati that is best known as "Venus explains the Atom in two minutes".



Today, we look at an iconic episode of WKRP in Cincinnati that is best known as “Venus explains the Atom in two minutes”

This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.

This is a Year of Great TV Episodes, where every day this year, we’ll take a look at great TV episodes. Note that I’m not talking about “Very Special Episodes” or episodes built around gimmicks, but just “normal” episodes of TV shows that are notable only because of how good they are.

All this month, I’ll be spotlighting great Black-centric TV episodes.

There are certain scenes that just stick in people’s heads, decades after the fact. One of those scenes is the “Venus teaches the atom” scene in WKRP in Cincinnati‘s Season 3 episode in 1981, “Venus and the Man.”

The setup for the scene (in an episode written by the show’s creator, Hugh Wilson, and directed by prolific TV director, Rod Daniel) is that Venus (Tim Reid) is talking with the station’s cleaning lady, Cora (Veronica Redd), and she is asking Venus about whether he graduated from school. We learn, for the first time, that Venus actually graduated from a teachers college. Cora asks if Venus can talk her 16-year-old son, Arnold, out of dropping out of school.

Venus agrees, but when Arnold shows up the next day, Venus is shocked to see that Arnold (Keny Long) is an imposing gang member, complete with a number of his gang members with him. There’s a number of great bits showing how the various White employees at WKRP respond to Arnold’s presence (Richard Sanders’ Les giving Arnold a long speech about the positive impact that Black culture has had on American society is a particularly funny bit).

But it all boils down to Venus and Arnold, talking in the storeroom, with Venus trying to convince Arnold not to drop out of school. He correctly begs the fact that Arnold is the type of person who wants to “conquer,” and in school, he feels like HE’S the one being conquered. Venus explains that Arnold is not stupid, and the issue is that the teachers aren’t teaching him the right way, and he can’t just let them NOT give him the education is owed. After being full of bluster, we see Arnold’s vulnerabilities where he begins to argue that he really IS too stupid for school. Venus asks him which classes he has the toughest time with, and Arnold singles out chemistry. Venus then bets him that if Venus can teach him the composition of the atom in two minutes, that Arnold has to remain in school for the rest of the schoolyear. Arnold agrees.

What follows is one of the most memorable sitcom sequences of the 1980s, to the point where there are, like, six or seven different clips of this scene on YouTube…



Venus uses gang metaphors and invented Swahili words to “trick” Arnold into learning about the composition of an Atom. He takes closer to four minutes to do so, but whatever, it’s still a very impressive scene, and you can tell why people still remember it to this day who saw it as a kid.

Arnold agrees to remain in school, and the best part of the scene to me, really, is how much the scene meant to Venus and the fact that he dropped out of teaching. You can see it as HIS redemption. It’s such a great bit.

The episode ends with Arnold’s thankful mother praising Venus, but he has to admit that he doesn’t know if Arnold will stick around for longer than just this year, but hey, at least he has a shot now.

Great episode, and one that my pal Garth had been recommending I use since the start of the year!