TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 641.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Josh Mills, son of Edie Adams and the curator of the estates of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams, and Pat Thomas, author of Invitation to Openness: the Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann, Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg, and Did It! Jerry Rubin: An American Revolutionary. Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland: Writings, Drawings, and Photographs from Television’s Original Genius, a marvelously conceived book that not only gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs, but shows the many media outlets for Ernie’s creativity that went beyond television. Topics this segment include the back story of Zoomar, the satirical novel about advertising and television that Ernie published in 1957, but which is still timely today; Take a Good Look, the “anti-game show” that Ernie hosted (ABC, 1959-1961) that, in many respects, is also the essence of Ernie Kovacs; and the perforated, three-page foldout in Ernie in Kovacsland that pays homage to Ernie’s long association with MAD magazine. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 641.2: Josh Mills and Pat Thomas talk to Ed about Ernie Kovacs’ many collaborations and longtime friendship with Jack Lemmon; how the format for Ernie’s successful morning show in Philadelphia inspired NBC to develop The Today Show; how Kovacs was the first to understand that television was an intimate form; and how Ernie’s influence can be seen in the antics of comedian Soupy Sales. Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland, a marvelously conceived book that not only gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs, but shows the many media outlets for Ernie’s creativity that went beyond television. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.1: Ed welcomes Josh Mills, son of Edie Adams and the curator of the estates of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams, and author Pat Thomas (Invitation to Openness: the Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann, Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg, Did It! Jerry Rubin: An American Revolutionary). Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland: Writings, Drawings, and Photographs from Television’s Original Genius, a marvelously conceived, non-linear book that gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs. Topics this segment include how, in many ways, Ernie in Kovacsland is an outgrowth of Edie’s tireless preservation of all things Ernie Kovacs; how she recognized that Ernie was doing something special before anyone else did; and how Kovacs’ influence extends to such counter-cultural figures as Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Alice Cooper, and the original writers and performers of Saturday Night Live. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.2: Josh Mills and Pat Thomas talk to Ed about The Silent Show, the iconic NBC special from January 1957 that is the only Ernie Kovacs television show to be broadcast in color. Other topics this segment include how Kovacs was a constant presence on television from 1950 until his death in January 1962 (even though he never had a “long-running” series, per se); his incredible knack for generating publicity; and how the Percy Dovetonsils poem “Thoughts While Falling Off the Empire State Building” is one example of how Kovacs came to influence the Yippies and the Beat generation. Josh and Pat are two of the co-authors, along with Ben Model, of Ernie in Kovacsland, a marvelously conceived book that not only gives readers a true glimpse into the mind of Ernie Kovacs, but shows the many media outlets for Ernie’s creativity that went beyond television. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.3: Ed welcomes back Michael Learned, the four-time Emmy Award-winning actress known around the world as Olivia Walton on The Waltons and, more recently, Catherine Dahmer on the popular Netflix series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Michael shares a few memories of working with James Arness on Gunsmoke, Robert Reed on Nurse, and Paul Sorvino in It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.4: Ed welcomes Charles Agron, the writer, producer, and star of Altered Reality, a supernatural thriller that explores greed, family, and redemption, while also putting a modern take on the old adage “Be careful what you wish for.” Altered Reality not only pays homage to Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone (two of Charles’ influences as a storyteller), but marks one of the final screen appearances of Ed Asner. Altered Reality is now playing in select theaters across the country. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 640.5: A special preview of our upcoming conversation with five-time Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, talk show host, and cultural critic John Barbour (Real People) and Carol Hoenig, the collaborator on John’s memoir, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin. Carol’s latest book, The Greatest Reviews I’ve Ever Read, is a collection of some of John’s many film reviews for Los Angeles magazine and KNBC-TV Los Angeles from the 1970s that also includes an ongoing, My Dinner with Andre-like conversation between John and Carol about how movies continue to shape and influence our culture. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.1: Ed welcomes Harvey Lisberg, the legendary music manager who not only shaped the careers of such iconic artists as Herman’s Hermits, 10cc, and Tony Christie, but paved the way for Neil Sedaka’s comeback as a songwriter and recording artist in the mid 1970s, and was one of the first people in the music industry to recognize the talent and potential of the songwriting duo of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Harvey’s memoir, I’m Into Something Good, a captivating journey through the golden era of music, is available wherever books are sold. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.2: Music legend Harvey Lisberg talks to Ed about his gift for recognizing the hit potential of any given song; the art of matching a song to a particular artist; and the great compliment that music impresario Don Kirshner once paid him. Harvey’s memoir, I’m Into Something Good, is available wherever books are sold. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.3: Greg Ehrbar talks to Ed about the Kino Lorber Blu-ray release of The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), the British horror movie starring Brian Donlevy that is also known to U.S. audiences as The Creeping Unknown. An important title in British film history, The Quatermass Xperiment is the movie that put Hammer Studios on the map. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.3a: Greg and Ed discuss the Kino Lorber special edition Blu-ray release of The Questor Tapes (1974), the made-for-TV movie starring Robert Foxworth, Mike Farrell, John Vernon, Walter Koenig, and Dana Wynter that is also known among Gene Roddenberry aficionados as one of the best pilots that Roddenberry ever made, but which never went to series. Topics this segment include how the Questor character served as a prototype for Data, the android that Brent Spiner eventually played on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.3b: Greg and Ed discuss the Kino Lorber special edition Blu-ray release of House of the Long Shadows (1983), the remake of Seven Keys to Baldpate starring Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, John Carradine, and Desi Arnaz Jr. that Greg describes as “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, done for horror.” Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.4: Ed welcomes Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, actress, and music icon Melissa Manchester. Melissa’s new album, RE:VIEW, not only celebrates Melissa’s fifty-year career as a solo artist, but revisits several of her charted hits with such guest artists as Kenny Loggins, Gerald Albright, Dave Koz, and Dolly Parton. RE:VIEW is available wherever music is sold, while three of the tracks on the album—“Whenever I Call You Friend” (featuring Kenny Loggins and Dave Koz), “Midnight Blue” (a duet with Dolly Parton), and “Confide in Me,” a song that Melissa originally wrote for Diana Ross—are also available as digital singles. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 639.5: Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, actress, and music icon Melissa Manchester talks to Ed about why Ella Fitzgerald is one of her musical godmothers; “They Never Met,” the duet that Melissa recorded with Martin Mull around the time that she and Mull toured together; and why every artist needs to learn how to listen slowly. Melissa’s new album, RE:VIEW, is available wherever music is sold. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 638.1: From February 2018: Phil Gries joins us to discuss Harlem School 1970, an original documentary that provides an inside look at a typical day at Community School No. 30M in Harlem, New York, where Phil taught for three years before embarking on his long career as an award-winning cinematographer for film and television. Filmed, produced and directed by Phil Gries, Harlem School 1970 is an early example of “direct cinema,” a form of documentary storytelling that allows viewers to watch the narrative unfold and shape their own meaning without narration or outside interviews. For our listeners on the East Coast, Harlem School 1970 will be shown at the Maysles Documentary Center in New York City on Thursday, Mar. 14 beginning at 7pm. For tickets and more information, go to Maysles.org Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices