Mr. Carlson has signed off for good.
Television fixture Gordon Jump, best known for playing WKRP in Cincinnati's bemused radio station manager Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson, died on Monday. He was 71.
Jump's cousin, Katherine Jump Wagner, confirmed news of his death to the Associated Press, saying the actor had been suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that leaves the lungs scarred, choking off oxygen to tissue in the body and eventually causing heart or respiratory failure.
Jump, whose career on the tube spanned more than three decades, appeared in many of TV land's most popular comedies of the '70s, including The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
But it was the befuddled Mr. Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati that cemented Jump's pace in the tube pantheon.
Costarring Howard Hesseman, Loni Anderson, Tim Reid, Gary Sandy and Richard Sanders, WKRP debuted on CBS in the fall of 1978. The show aired behind the Eye's ratings monster M*A*S*H, assuring WKRP of insta-hit status for its first two seasons.
Time-slot changes led to declining ratings, though, and CBS pulled the plug on the show in 1982 after four seasons. But WKRP survived--and thrived--in syndication, with its 90 episodes in regular rotation on TV in the intervening years.
Jump also moonlighted in commercials, famously portraying the ever-lonely Maytag Repairman from 1989 up through his retirement two months ago. "Gordon was an incredibly talented actor and a remarkable human being," Ralph Hake, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
The steady advertising gig also freed up Jump to pursue his true passion: theater.
Born on Apr. 1, 1932, in Dayton, Ohio, Jump's first show-biz work was, aptly enough, as a producer in radio and then TV in Kansas and Ohio. His biggest early break was playing a clown on a children's show in Topeka, Kansas.
He eventually trekked to Hollywood in 1963 to pursue an acting career, landing bit parts in Daniel Boone, Green Acres and Get Smart. In the '70s, he had recurring roles as police officers on both Soap and That's My Mama, before he landed WKRP.
After that sitcom's demise, Jump continued to work steadily in the 1980s with guest turns on Love Boat, Night Court, Growing Pains and Murder She Wrote.
Jump also did the occasional dramatic turn in series like Starsky and Hutch, Rockford Files, The Bionic Woman and The Incredible Hulk. He starred on a very special two-part Diff'rent Strokes as a local merchant dealing with child molestation.
Other credits included Ruby and Oswald, a telefilm dramatizing the assassination of President Kennedy, and the movie Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
In 1991, he reprised his role as Mr. Carlson for The New WKRP in Cincinnati, a syndicated update of the show that brought together original castmembers and newbies. The series failed to click with viewers and was canceled after two seasons.
Jump worked steadily through the '90s, including appearances on Baywatch, Empty Nest, Married...with Children, Caroline in the City and Seinfeld.
He is survived by his wife, four daughters and a son, as well as a brother and his father, also named Gordon Jump.