Herman's Head

1991 - 1994

Herman Brooks is a young, single guy who dreams of being a writer but has to settle for fact-checking. This edgy early Fox offering follows Herman's daily life as he tries to get ahead in his career and his love life while four quirky characters who live in his head bicker over all of his decisions.

Stars: William Ragsdale, Hank Azaria, Yeardley Smith, Jane Sibbett, Jason Bernard, Peter Mackenzie, Molly Hagan, Ken Hudson Campbell, Rick Lawless
Created by: Andrew Guerdat, Steve Kreinberg
Tags: quirky, singles
See: "Dream On is basically Herman's Head with tits. Prove me wrong." on the Rerun Rewind Blog.

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Episode Tropes

Season 1

Assertiveness Training: Episode 5, "Fatal Distraction" (1991). Louise takes an assertiveness training class because she "walked into the wrong room and didn't have the nerve to leave," and the next day, she walks into the office barking insults at Heddy, but she loses her nerve again when she tries to tell Mr. Bracken to get his own coffee.
Obsession: Episode 5, "Fatal Distraction" (1991). Herman spends the night with an amiable woman he met at a bar, and she instantly becomes obsessed with him and won't leave him alone.
Jumper: Episode 5, "Fatal Distraction" (1991). When Herman rebuffs an obsessed woman, she climbs onto the ledge of the Waterton Publishing building and threatens to jump.
World Record: Episode 10, "Near Death Wish" (1991). After a co-worker suddenly dies, Herman decides to make his mark on the world by breaking the world record for doing the most work in one sitting. He falls short, but since he stayed awake the whole time, he ended up setting a record for going the longest without sleep.
The Odd Couple: Episode 14, "That's What Friends Aren't For" (1992). Herman and Jay decide to become roommates so they can afford a swanky apartment, but they start driving each other nuts almost immediately.
Jump: Episode 16, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying" (1992). Jay talks Herman into going skydiving to impress Mr. Crawford, but he and Jay both chicken out at the last minute. Unfortunately, in a panic, Jay accidentally pushes Herman off the plane. Mr. Crawford assigns Herman a skydiving article for "Thrill-seeker Magazine," and he's so impressed by Herman's work that he insists they go skydiving together again.
Limp Willy: Episode 17, "Hard Times" (1992). A beautiful model asks Herman out and goes back to his place, but when they start kissing, Animal notices that he's "not working."
Sugar Mama: Episode 18, "A Kept Herman" (1992). Herman spends a few days working for Victoria Stark, a powerful and beautiful magazine executive who promises him an assistant editor job, then seduces him. It soon becomes clear that Victoria won't give him the job unless Herman continues sleeping with her.
Giving Things Up Competition: Episode 20, "Sweet Obsessions" (1992). To help Mr. Bracken stop smoking, Herman stops eating sweets, Heddy tries to quit men, and Louise struggles to find something to give up.
Ashes to Ashes: Episode 20, "Sweet Obsessions" (1992). Everyone in the office is having a giving things up competition, and Louise feels left out because she has no addictions, so she decides to start chewing tobacco so she can give it up. While meeting with Mr. Waterton, Louise continually spits in a brass container she thinks is a spittoon, but it turns out to be the ashes of Mr. Waterton's mother.
Home Sweet Office: Episode 22, "Bracken Up is Hard to Do" (1992). Mr. Bracken is sleeping in his office because his wife kicked him out.
We Were Robbed: Episode 23, "Guns 'n' Neurosis" (1992). Herman comes home from working out to find that his apartment was robbed. The robbers even took all of his clothes, so he's stuck wearing his athletic gear to work.
Giving Up the Gun: Episode 23, "Guns 'n' Neurosis" (1992). After Herman's apartment gets robbed, Mr. Crawford talks him into buying a gun. In the middle of the night, Herman hears someone breaking into his apartment and shoots him. It turns out to be Mr. Crawford trying to "test" him. Herman's so disturbed by the incident that he gets rid of the gun.
Not with My Sister You Don't: Episode 25, "Twisted Sister" (1992). Herman's younger sister, Susan, visits him in New York, and since Herman's busy, Jay takes her out on the town, and she ends up spending the night with him.

Season 2

Baby Daddy: Episode 1, "Sperm 'n' Herman" (1992). An old flame of Herman's comes to New York to ask Herman to donate his sperm so she can have a baby.
Ugly Bridesmaid Dress: Episode 3, "Herman's Heddy" (1992). Heddy is getting married, and she asks Louise to be a bridesmaid because she's the only woman Heddy knows, and her dress is so ugly it makes Louise cry through the whole wedding.
Sham Wedding: Episode 3, "Herman's Heddy" (1992). A wealthy businessman proposes to Heddy, and she rushes to plan a wedding so she can quit her job and be the trophy wife she's always wanted to be, but Herman tries to talk her out of it because he thinks she's had feelings for him ever since they slept together in Mr. Bracken's office.
Worthless Worker: Episode 4, "Intern-al Affairs" (1992). Mr. Bracken gives Herman the job of hiring an intern, and Louise guilts him into hiring a friend of hers, who turns out to be so incompetent that she destroys the office and sets Mr. Bracken's chair on fire, so Herman has to fire her.
Surprise Prostitute: Episode 5, "Brackenhooker" (1992). Mr. Bracken has been keeping everyone at work late every night since his wife left him, so Herman decides to try to set him up with a woman, but it proves to be an impossible task, so he asks Jay for help. Jay finds Mr. Bracken the perfect date, but she turns out to be a prostitute, whom Jay paid with Herman's credit card.
Game Show: Episode 9, "Friends and Lovers" (1992). Jay is going undercover on a dating game show for an article, and he convinces Herman to go with him.
Hyp-NO-sis: Episode 12, "Feardom of Speech" (1992). Herman is nervous about giving a speech to impress Mr. Crawford, so Jay talks him into getting hypnotized, and he joins him because he has the hots for the hypnotist, who ends up hypnotizing both Herman and Jay at the same time.
I Won't Be Home for Christmas: Episode 13, "A Charlie Brown Fitzer" (1992). Herman is driving himself and Mr. Bracken to Ohio to spend Christmas with his family, and he agrees to drop off Heddy and Louise at their respective family homes on the way. While they're dropping Louise off, her crazy cousin steals Herman's car with Mr. Bracken asleep in the back seat, so Herman and Heddy have to spend Christmas with the Fitzers, and Mr. Bracken spends it involved a high-speed police chase with Louise's crazy cousin.
Clip Show: Episode 23, "I Wanna Go Home" (1993). Herman's brother wants him to move back home to Ohio and take a junior executive job with his company, and as the head gang are deciding whether or not to do it, they recall clips from previous episodes.
The Bad Seed: Episode 25, "Love and the Single Parent" (1993). Herman picks up a woman at a single parents' support group, and her son hates him so much he shoots him in the arm with a bow and arrow.
Family Man: Episode 25, "Love and the Single Parent" (1993). Herman dates a single mother named Carin and gets to love her son, Brad, while his feelings for Carin quickly diminish. Eventually, Herman realizes he only wants to spend time with Brad and not Carin.

Season 3

What a Dummy: Episode 2, "There's a Fly Girl in My Soup" (1993). Herman discovers that Mr. Bracken's dream was to become a ventriloquist and reminds him by bringing his old dummy to the office.
Painting Party: Episode 5, "Over Herman's Head" (1993). Herman invites the gang over to help him paint his apartment, and he orders a bunch of pizzas for the occasion.
Drop Dead: Episode 5, "Over Herman's Head" (1993). The old woman who lives above Herman constantly complains yells at him for making any little bit of noise, so he bangs on the ceiling with a golf club and screams at her to shut up. The next day, he finds out she dropped dead of a heart attack on the very spot where he was banging on the ceiling.
Assertiveness Training: Episode 7, "Hermo-tivated" (1993). Herman attends a motivational seminar and comes back acting like a douchebag with slicked back and a pushy attitude.
Method Actor: Episode 11, "An Actor Prepares" (1993). A famous actor follows Herman around and imitates him for a movie role where he plays a fact checker.
Pretend We're a Couple: Episode 12, "A Decent Proposal" (1993). Heddy talks Herman into pretending to be her husband to impress her old friend, and she agrees to clean his apartment for two weeks in exchange.
Jumper: Episode 14, "Three on a Match" (1994). Herman gets turned down for another writing job, so he goes up to the roof of the Waterton building to get some air and meets a man standing on the ledge, planning to jump.
Between Floors: Episode 14, "Three on a Match" (1994). Electrical troubles cause Heddy and Jay to get stuck in the elevator together.
On Fire: Episode 14, "Three on a Match" (1994). On a night when Louise is working late, Herman is on the roof trying to talk a man out of jumping, and Heddy and Jay are trapped in the elevator, the building catches fire.
Annie Hall: Episode 15, "You Say Tomato" (1994). Herman fantasizes about "Miss February," whose profile claims her favorite movie is Annie Hall, and he imagines himself and her in a scene from the movie. Unfortunately, reality is nothing like the movies, and Miss February has never even seen Annie Hall.
Unnecessary Makeover: Episode 15, "You Say Tomato" (1994). Herman gets hung up on the fact that his new girlfriend, Lauren, doesn't look like "Miss February," so he talks her into changing her look for him. She shows up at his apartment in a skimpy dress and thigh-high boots with poofy hair and piles of makeup, but Herman keeps pushing it, and she gets mad and dumps him.
I Bought the Bar and the Bar Won: Episode 17, "The Herm from Ipanema" (1994). While attending a seminar in the Caribbean, Herman spends his life savings to buy a bar on a whim, but his island fantasy turns out to be a nightmare.

Character Tropes

Frenemy: Jay Nichols - Played by Hank Azaria.
Swinging Bachelor: Jay Nichols - Played by Hank Azaria.
Gold Digger: Heddy Newman - Played by Jane Sibbett.
The Magnificent Bickersons: Jay Nichols & Elizabeth Dennehy - Played by Hank Azaria & Julia Campbell