When The Whistle Blows

1 9 8 0 (USA)
10 x 60 minute episodes

This short-lived ABC comedy featured a gang of young Los Angeles construction workers out to have a good time, on the job and off.

Lucy (Susan Buckner) was the only woman on the crew, and just “one of the guys”. Randy (Philip Brown) was the college graduate; Buzz (Doug Barr), the complete extrovert; and Martin “Hunk” Kincaid (Tim Rossovich), the . .  er . . resident hunk.

Others around the construction site were Norm Jenkins (Dolph Sweet), the older guy whose wife, Dottie (Alice Hirson), wished he would slow down; Bulldog (Noble Willingham); Hanrahan (Gary Allen), the foreman; and Darlene (Sue Ane Langdon), the buxom owner of the gang’s favourite hangout, imaginatively named “Darlene’s Place”.

Just about everything about the series was either predictable – such as the plots and dialogue – or incomprehensible, such as the locations, plots and dialogue. To make matters worse, it was an hour long.

When The Whistle Blows was one of the first US comedies to film with a single camera and no laugh track.

Buzz Dillard
Doug Barr
Randy Hanford
Philip Brown
Lucy Davis
Susan Buckner
Martin “Hunk” Kincaid
Tim Rossovich
Norm Jenkins
Dolph Sweet
Dottie Jenkins
Alice Hirson
Ted Hanrahan
Gary Allen
Bulldog
Noble Willingham
Darlene Ridgeway
Sue Ane Langdon