Max Lewis

Max Lewis (Jon Lovitz) is Bill McNeal's replacement in season five. He is eccentric, socially inept, very insecure and completely unprofessional. Max has a penchant for redheads, and Beth in particular, but she quickly ends up disliking him. He says that Max Louis is not his true identity, because he uses a different persona every time he gets a new job. Max gets the job at WNYX because he is an old colleague of Bill's, a plot point that reflects the real-life fact that Jon Lovitz took the role in NewsRadio out of friendship with Phil Hartman. When asked why he joined NewsRadio, Lovitz said that he's "doing this for Phil. There's nothing more to say." Lovitz first appeared on "Our Fiftieth Episode" when Bill meets him in a mental ward going by the name Fred. Fred later admits he is really an air traffic controller who periodically and voluntarily "flips out" and goes into the mental ward for a vacation from making decisions. Lovitz returned a second time in the fourth season opener "Jumper". Lovitz played Mike Johnson, a disgruntled former employee that had been fired and was threatening to commit suicide by jumping from the ledge outside Dave's office.