Herb Tarlek - Personal Life

Personal Life

Herb is married to Lucille (Edie McClurg), a slightly overweight and feisty brunette with a high-pitched voice, and has two children: Bunny, a smart girl with an interest in animals and the environment, and Herb III, a shy boy who likes to play with dolls, much to Herb's chagrin. In the episode Real Families, Herb's family is profiled on a network TV reality show. Herb tries to convey the impression that he is a hard working, clean-living all-American guy, but as the episode goes on, the TV hosts systematically expose his incompetence as a worker and as a family man. At the end, Herb throws the camera crew out of his house, but still remains so desperate to be on television that he accepts an invitation to fly out to Hollywood and meet the hosts. In Never Leave Me, Lucille, Herb and Lucille briefly split up, while in Frog Story, he causes the death of his daughter's pet frog by accidentally spray-painting it. When asked (in "Real Families") what she sees in Herb, Lucille smiles and replies "he's got a great body."

Herb's widowed father, Herbert R. Tarlek Sr. (Bert Parks) was himself a traveling salesman, with a similar wardrobe and outlook on life to that of Herb. However, he is more charming than his son, and more successful at his trade, as proven when he sells an entire collection of knockoff Indian jewelry to Carlson in the episode "Herb's Dad". It is eventually revealed that Herb and his father came to an arrangement; his dad retired and went into the Shady Hills rest home, and in return Herb cut the rest home a deal for commercials on WKRP. However, Herb Sr. grew restless and went to see his son at the station. Initially fooling Herb into thinking he was dying, Herb Sr. eventually admits to his son that he still feels he has a few good traveling years in him (along with a blonde female nurse for company) and wants to go to California. Herb initially resisted his father's wishes (which also caused some resentment among Herb's co-workers, particularly Bailey and Jennifer who had been charmed by Herb Sr.), but eventually came around to his dad's way of thinking and even gave Herb Sr. $1000 for traveling money (which he earned by illegally raffling off his paycheck to other tenants in the Flimm Building).

Herb constantly hits on the station's receptionist, Jennifer Marlowe, and tells every man he meets that he and Jennifer are a couple (a fact he admits to her in the episode "Fire", when the two are trapped in an elevator during a fire). Jennifer finally agrees to go on a date with him in the episode Put Up or Shut Up, in order to call Herb's bluff; however, Herb is so nervous at even the remotest thought of his fantasies finally coming true that he begins to hyperventilate (an act he repeats in later episodes when under stress), as well as admitting to Jennifer that he feels guilty over the possibility of cheating on his wife. However, there were moments prior to this when Herb showed concern for Jennifer beyond her sexual appeal, such as when he tried to comfort her after a blow-up with her childhood sweetheart (in the episode "I Do, I Do...For Now").

Though he doesn't like to admit it publicly, he is faithful to Lucille; the closest he ever came to adultery was during the episode Hotel Oceanview, where he got drunk and began kissing a woman he vaguely recognized from high school, but couldn't place...who turned out to be a man who had undergone sex reassignment surgery (when she informed Herb of this, Herb's initial response was to curl up in the fetal position, and then protest to everyone that "just because I kissed him, that doesn't make me gay.").

Herb also tends to drink too much, and at one point, his three-martini lunches with clients leads him to the brink of full-blown alcoholism. In the episode "Out to Lunch", Herb's reliance on alcohol to try to land customers causes him to blow a deal with a small record store, while he tries to lock down a deal with a representative from a large ad agency (Craig T. Nelson). Eventually, the rep admits that he was fired from the agency weeks ago; Herb realizes that due to his own inebriation, he was unable to see that the rep was just stringing him along for free food and drink. Despondent, Herb is eventually forced to face up to his issues by station manager Arthur Carlson, who convinces him to get the problem under control before it is too late.

He has a fondness for pornographic movies with titles like Kick Me, Kiss Me, and in one episode he sneaks out of the hospital (where he has been admitted for heart tests) to take Les Nessman to a theater where they show adult films in 3-D. He sometimes writes letters to Penthouse magazine, though they are never published. He is once arrested on a morals charge, though he maintains that "it's a complete lie -- I don't even know the names of those girls!"

Out of his co-workers at the station, Herb tends to be the closest to Les Nessman. Les and Herb tend to have a love-hate relationship, as Herb routinely insults and derides Les. At one point, a jealous Herb tried to have Les' date with Jennifer for an awards banquet broken by manipulating Mr. Carlson, and at another time even goosed Les' mother, thinking she was Les in drag (as they strongly resembled each other), only to be confronted by an infuriated Les moments afterward. In turn, Les seriously injured Herb when pulling him along on a hang glider for a promotional stunt (Les had stopped at a stoplight, causing the glider to plummet to the ground). However, Les and Herb have also shown signs of strong friendship. When Herb's wife threw him out, Les pleaded Herb's case to the others at the station so he could have a place to stay. In the episode "Les on a Ledge", when Les was considering suicide (due to rumors that he was homosexual) by jumping off a ledge outside Mr. Carlson's office, Herb eventually went out on the ledge himself to get Les to come back in (and ended up falling onto the firemen's nets several stories below, incurring yet another serious injury). Les summed up their relationship by saying "I hate him, but he is my best friend."