Les Nessman

Les Nessman (Richard Sanders), the fastidious, bow-tied news reporter, who is a "mama's boy" of a man, approaches his job with absurdly earnest seriousness, despite being almost totally incompetent (a fact to which he is oblivious). He and salesman Herb Tarlek refer to themselves and Mr. Carlson as "the suits", compared to "the dungarees" (Andy, Johnny, Bailey and Venus). As a running gag, Les wears a bandage in a different spot each episode, presumably due to attacks from his unseen monstrous dog Phil; the gag was inspired by Sanders bumping his head on a studio light and needing a bandage while making the pilot. Other gags are his fixation on agricultural news ("the hog report"), and putting masking tape on the floor around his desk, which he insists his co-workers treat as the walls of his "office". He is staunchly patriotic and politically conservative, with the discovery that his biological father was a card-carrying Communist making him deeply conflicted. Venus Flytrap ribs him with wordplay by describing WKRP on the air as having "more music and Les Nessman."