Les Nessman
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Les Nessman is a fictional character on the television situation comedy WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82). He was played by Richard Sanders. He reprised his role in the sequel series, The New WKRP in Cincinnati.
Les is the ludicrously incompetent news director. Knowing next to nothing about sports, he makes several glaring errors, for example mispronouncing golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez's name as "Chy Chy Rod-ri-gweeze" and calling a swimming event "breast stroking". Les is forever trying to win the fictitious Ohio radio news trophy, the "Buckeye Newshawk Award" and the coveted "Silver Sow Award" (for excellence in farm news, particularly hog reports). His finest moment in newscasting occurs in the episode "Turkeys Away", where he reports on a disastrous station promotion using many of the same phrases as Herbert Morrison describing the 1937 Hindenburg disaster.
The small, balding, bespectacled man always wears a bow tie and always has a bandage somewhere on his person, a running gag that began with his first appearance (when he actually needed it).
Les works in the WKRP bullpen, a big room with desks for several of the employees. Les believes that as the news director, he should have his own private office, so he puts masking tape on the floor around his desk indicating where walls would be if he had his own office. He insists that anyone who approaches his desk must knock at an imaginary door and wait for permission to come in. He mimes opening and closing a door whenever he sits down at or leaves his desk; once he even took out a set of keys to lock the nonexistent door. All of his colleagues respect his insistence on maintaining his own private space, and play along with his "walls" charade. Mr. Carlson even "knocks" by clicking his heels together. In one episode, Les dates a pushy news "groupie" who moves into his apartment and takes over his life. He only gets the nerve to break up with her when she dares to call his walls "silly" and removes the masking tape from the floor — Les can put up with a lot of abuse, but he will not stand for someone disrespecting his walls.
Les is virulently anti-Communist. Therefore, it comes as a great shock to him when he learns that the person he though was his father was really his stepfather, and that his real father was a member of the Communist party. It turns out Les' attitude was instilled in him by his embittered mother (also played by Sanders).
