Herman's Head FAQ
HERMAN'S HEAD
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
By Stephen Hill
(Currently steve.d.hill@gmail.com)
Started : 16th November 1994
QUESTIONS:
1. What is `Herman's Head'?
1a. Where's has this programme appeared?
1b. What's the programme about?
2. What makes it different from other sitcoms?
3. How many episodes have been made so far?
4. Is it still being made?
5. Who are the cast?
6. What other roles have they played/other things they have done?
7. What other things are around on the net related to this programme?
ANSWERS
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Q1. What is `Herman's Head'?
Q1a. Where has this programme appeared?
A. `Herman's Head' is an American situation comedy created by Touchstone
Television and was broadcast in the USA by the FOX network. It has been
shown in many other countries (Denmark, Australia and the UK at least.) In
my home country, England, it is currently being shown by Channel 4 as part of
the Saturday night 'Late Licence' section.
Q1b. What's the programme about?
A. `Herman's Head' primarily focuses on the lives of 5 people within a
publishing company in New York, called `Waterton Publishing'. 4 of the 5
characters work within the research department (Herman, Heddy, Louise and
their boss Mr Paul Bracken) while the other character (Jay) works as a writer.
Herman is the main character in the programme (hence the name) and is a nice,
kind, considerate person (most of the time). He aspires to be a writer, like
his best friend, Jay.
Heddy is a women who wants money in her life, and is prepared to sink to all
kinds of depths in order to get it. She feels that her job is pretty much
dead-end and therefore tries to avoid doing work by all kinds means. She is
very attractive, and she knows this. She uses her body to get people to do
things for her.
Louise is best described as `a little strange'. She doesn't go for one-night
stands and meaningless relationships (like Heddy does), preferring romance,
tenderness and compassion. Because of this, she doesn't get much luck with men,
and remains a virgin for most of the episodes. By the way, she is irresistably
cute! ;)
Mr.Bracken is the head of the research department and is Herman, Heddy and
Louise's boss. He has been working at Waterton for over 25 years, and loves his
work. Because of his job, he has a great wealth of knowledge. This can make him
boring at times.
Jay is a writer within Waterton, and is also Herman's best friend. One word
would sum Jay up : Sex. He lives for sex. Almost every episode he has a new
girlfriend. He rarely wants to get involved with a woman, and stays around just
long enough to sleep with them.
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Q2. What makes it different from other sitcoms?
A. The attribute that this program has over other sitcoms is that the programme
regularly `looks inside' Herman's head and sees how is brain is working and
coping with the current situation. His brain is `made up' of four characters
who represent different aspects of his thought. These four characters are
constantly in debate about what to do next and make for some hilarious moments:
`Angel' represents compassion, tenderness, honesty. She is just like, well,
an angel really.
`Animal' is basically the opposite. He represents the fun things in life, such
as food, women, sex and Tetris :) He's kind of like the devil in the
`angel/devil' scenario seen in many cartoons.
`Wimp' is the neurotic side of Herman's brain and represents all his hang-ups
and pessimism, who always thinks the worst of every situation.
`Genius' represents Herman's intellect and brains. He deals with logic and is
the side of Herman that reads books and so on.
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Q3. How many episodes have been made so far?
A. To date, 72 episodes have been made, spanning over 3 seasons.
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Q4. Is it still being made?
A. No - unfortunately not. As of April 1994, Fox network in the USA stopped
production of the programme. I personally sent an email to them asking why it
had been stopped, and I was informed that it had stopped production due to poor
viewing figures in the third season. Some people say this probably stemmed from
the fact that the time slot the programme occupied was less popular than
previous time-slots.
For your information, the third season of HH shown in the USA attracted an
average of 5.8 million viewers. When I wrote to Channel 4, they told me that
HH receives a ratings share of around 21%, which, seeing as Saturday night is
`party night', represents around 350,000 viewers (for those that don't know, a
rating share figure represents the percentage of all people watching TV that
are watching that particular programme - that is to say that 21% of all people
watching TV on a Saturday night watch HH.)
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Q5. Who are the cast?
A. The following people play the listed characters:
Main characters
Herman ........ William Ragsdale
Heddy ......... Jane Sibbett
Louise ........ Yeardley Smith
Mr.Bracken .... Jason Bernard
Jay ........... Hank Azaria
Brain characters:
Angel ......... Molly Hagan
Animal ........ Ken Hudson Campbell
Wimp .......... Rick Lawless
Genius ........ Peter MacKenzie
Two other characters, Mr.Waterton and Mr.Crawford make occasional appearances.
These two characters are played by George O.Petrie and Ed Winter respectively.
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Q6. What other roles have they played/other things they have done?
A. Following is a shorter version of the Other-Roles file that I created
especially for the cast of this programme. I suggest you obtain a copy of this
if you wish to know more information than is listed below - it contains more
information on the films/programmes, and also (in most cases) the name of the
character that the actor/actress played.
William Ragsdale.
MOVIES : Fright Night Part 1, Fright Night Part 2, Mannequin On The Move.
TV MOVIES : Frankenstien: The College Years.
TV APPEARANCES : None known.
Jane Sibbett:
MOVIES : The Resurrected
TV MOVIES : Fear, Going To The Chapel (AKA Wedding Day), Miracle At Beekman's
Place, One Terrific Guy, Promises To Keep.
TV APPEARANCES : Burke's Law (guest), The Famous Teddy Z, Santa Barbara,
Adventures Of Brisco County Jr (guest), Quantum Leap (guest.)
Yeardley Smith: - Commonly known as the voice of Lisa Simpson in `The Simpsons'
MOVIES : City Slickers, Ginger Ale Afternoon, Heaven Help us (AKA Catholic
Boys), The Legend Of Billie Jean, Listen To Me, Maximum Overdrive,
Silence Like Glass, Three 'O Clock High, Toys, We're Back! A Dinosaur's
Story (voice.)
TV MOVIES : None known.
TV APPEARANCES : Brothers, 1992 Emmy Awards, Empty Nest (guest), Murphy Brown
(guest), Momma's Family (guest), The Simpsons (voice of Lisa),
Sydney, Square One (guest.)
Jason Bernard:
MOVIES : All Of Me, Blue Thunder, Car Wash, No Way Out, Paint It Black, The
Star Chamber, Uncle Joe Shannon, WarGames.
TV MOVIES : The Children Of Times Square, I Was A Mail Order Bride, The Night
The City Screamed, City Killer, Original Sin, Perry Mason - The Case
Of The Murdered Madam, Police Story - Gladiator School, Pray TV
(AKA Mixed Blessings), The Rape Of Richard Beck, V.
TV APPEARANCES : Cagney & Lacey, Days Of Our Lives, High Performance, The White
Shadow.
Molly Hagan:
MOVIES : Code Of Silence, Fresh Horses, Some Kind Of Wonderful.
TV MOVIES : Columbo - Butterfly In Shades Of Grey, Dallas - The Early years,
First Steps, Justin Case, Late Flight Out, Perry Mason Mystery -
The Case Of The Lethal Lifestyle, Shootdown.
TV APPEARANCES : Deep Space 9 (guest), The Nutt House, Sienfeld (guest.)
Ken Hudson Campbell:
MOVIES : Groundhog Day, Home Alone 2.
TV MOVIES : None known.
TV APPEARANCES : FOX announcer.
Rick Lawless:
No known other film/TV appearances.
Peter MacKenzie:
MOVIES : Good Morning Vietnam, Torch Song Trilogy, Lorenzo's Oil.
TV MOVIES : None known.
TV APPEARANCES : None known.
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Q7. What other things are around on the net related to this programme?
There are quite a few things around, I'm pleased to say:
a/. Dean Adams' episode guide - Until I started creating documents for this
programme, this was the only HH related information existing on the net
as far as I know. It is a very good document, with full episode titles,
ratings/rating shares of each episode (where known), dates show
aired. Order of production/broadcast, episode sypnopsis, crew information
and so on. A good place to start reading about the programme.
Available from : Dean Adam's FTP area : ftp.netcom.com in pub/guides. The
file is called "hermans-head.Z"
b/. Other-Roles file. Created by myself, it lists all the other roles that
the cast of HH have done apart from this programme. Where known, it also
has the name of the character they played in the production. Includes the
production date of the film/programme (where known). This file is
regularly updated.
Available from : An old version of the file is easily obtained via FTP
to src.doc.ic.ac.uk in pub/media/tv/collections/tardis/us/
comedy/HermansHead/other-roles. The file is called "film_tv2.doc.gz"
NOTE : This file was last modified on June 11th. It is way out of date.
To receive the latest version, please email me.
c/. Scripts (transcriptions). Created by myself, these are transcriptions of
episodes that I found specially funny. There isn't all that many, they take
a long time to transcribe! So far, I have done the following:
"HERMAN AU NATURAL" (episode 18), "SWEET OBSESSIONS" (episode 20),
"STOP ME BEFORE I HELP AGAIN" (episode 27), "THE 'C' WORD" (episode 34),
and "OPEN ALL NIGHT" (episode 40)
Available from : Three of the above episode transcriptions ("Herman Au
Natural", "Sweet Obsessions" and "Stop Me Before I Help Again") are
available via FTP from src.doc.ic.ac.uk in pub/media/tv/collections/
tardis/us/comedy/HermansHead/scripts, under the names "natural.asc.gz",
"sweet.asc.gz" and "stop_me.asc.gz". Again, these are old versions.
To get the newer versions (with less spelling mistakes and typos :) ) and the other
2 transcriptions, email me.
d/. A 'Favourite Quotes' file, again, created by myself. This file simply
contains my favourite lines of an episode. I have managed to work through
about 30 episodes to date.
Available from : An *old* version of the file is available via FTP to
src.doc.ic.ac.uk in pub/media/tv/collections/tardis/us/comedy/HermansHead/
quotes, but I would advise you to email me for the latest version (it is
updated just about every week.)
e/. Pictures. Yup - you guessed it - I did these as well :) To date I have
digitised 21 pictures from this programme. Unfortunately I don't have a
great digitiser, so they are all in 16 greyscales (apart from
"title_cl.gif") - all pictures are 320x200 pixels in size. They are again,
available from src.doc.ic.ac.uk in directory "pub/media/tv/collections/
tardis/us/comedy/HermansHead/pictures" or you can email me for them.
There are some more pictures around that I know of. A friend of mine
(Chris Dent) has done some more, but they are not available via FTP
at the time of writing. There are also a couple of pictures at the WWW
home page (more on that later).
Here is a list of the pictures at src.doc.ic.ac.uk:
Picture Name Size Description
angel.gif ..... 13K .. Angel taken from season 1 opening credits.
animal.gif .... 16K .. Animal taken from season 1 opening credits.
bracken.gif ... 16K .. Mr.Bracken in MacAnally's.
genius.gif .... 15K .. Genius from season 1 opening credits.
group.gif ..... 16K .. Herman, Heddy, Louise and Bracken upset in MacAnally's.
h_l.gif ....... 17K .. Herman and Louise standing and smiling.
hed_lou.gif ... 16K .. Heddy and Louise with heads bowed in shame.
hed_loui.gif .. 16K .. Heddy and Louise midway through shouting "YAAAYYY!"
heddy.gif ..... 19K .. Heddy on her own.
heddy1.gif .... 18K .. Heddy in a revealing dress #1.
heddy_2.gif ... 20K .. Heddy in a revealing dress #2.
herman.gif .... 15K .. Herman on his own, smiling.
jane.gif ...... 17K .. Picture of Jane Sibbett as she appears in season 2
opening credits
jane_2.gif .... 18K .. Heddy talking to Jay.
jay.gif ....... 14K .. Jay on his own.
louise.gif .... 15K .. Louise talking to someone out of shot.
punch.gif ..... 22K .. Animal just after he's punched Wimp.
title.gif ..... 11K .. Advert lead out/lead in.
title_cl.gif .. 8K ... Colourised version of "title.gif".
wimp.gif ...... 13K .. Wimp from season 1 opening credits.
yeardley.gif .. 17K .. Yeardley Smith pictured in seasons 2/3 opening credits.
f/. There is also a WWW home page for those of you with WWW access. The URL
is at "http://pmwww.cs.vu.nl/service/sitcoms/HermansHead/" and contains
links to the relevent directories at src.doc.ic.ac.uk, as well as a
little information about the program, a SunSPARC .au format sound file
of the opening tune and a couple of colour pictures.
Back to the HH page.