TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 737.3: Ed welcomes Hall of Fame radio broadcaster Don Sainte-Johnn. For more than twenty years, Don was one of the voices heard every day on KFRC, The Big 610 in San Francisco, the powerhouse station that not only shaped a generation of listeners in the San Francisco Bay Area, but was one of the most successful radio stations anywhere in the U.S. throughout the 1970s. Don's memoir, San Francis...

TVC 737.4: Hall of Fame radio broadcaster Don Sainte-Johnn, author of San Francisco's Last Top 40 Disc Jockey, talks to Ed about how he came to choose his radio name; the importance of show prep in the course of a daily broadcast; and the role that Joe Adams, Ray Charles' manager, played early in Don's career. San Francisco's Last Top 40 Disc Jockey is available through Amazon.com.

TVC 737.5: Hall of Fame radio broadcaster Don Sainte-Johnn, author of San Francisco's Last Top 40 Disc Jockey, shares a few of the crazier moments that went on behind the scenes and on the air at KFRC-AM, The Big 610. San Francisco's Last Top 40 Disc Jockey is available through Amazon.com.

Please enjoy this special preview of our upcoming conversation with Cindy Mitchum, youngest daughter of legendary character actor John Mitchum and the niece of screen legend Robert Mitchum. Cindy has just rereleased Them Ornery Mitchum Boys: The Adventures of Robert and John Mitchum, a rollicking look at the lives and careers of her famous dad and famous uncle as they move through decades of adven...

From December 2021, via remote from the Hollywood Museum: Five-time Emmy Award-winning writer and producer John Barbour, creator of NBC's Real People, tells Ed the story of how he acquired the moniker "The Godfather of Reality TV." John Barbour passed away Sunday, May 10, 2026 at the age of ninety-three. Please join us the weekend of May 29 for a special program length tribute to John Barbour that...

TVC 736.1: Ed welcomes David Spencer, award-winning musical dramatist, author, critic, musical theatre teacher, and the author of The Novelizers: An Affectionate History of Media Adaptations and Originals, Their Astonishing Authors, and the Art of the Craft, a deep dive into the world of media tie-in writing—novels that are not only based on existing movies, TV series, made for TV movies, and TV m...

TVC 736.2: David Spencer, author of The Novelizers, uses Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962), the 1984 made-for-TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott, and Harry Sinclair Drago's novelization of The Champ (1932) as examples of the kind of choices that an adapting writer will make when presenting characters from the source material in a way that is unique to prose. The Noveli...

TVC 736.3: David Spencer, author of The Novelizers, talks to Ed about how writing, in some respects, is another form of acting, insofar as novelists or screenwriters will often inhabit the lives of the characters they create. The Novelizers: An Affectionate History of Media Adaptations and Originals, Their Astonishing Authors, and the Art of the Craft is available through Bear Manor Media as well...

TVC 736.4: While we're on the subject of TV tie-in novels, we thought we'd bring you an encore presentation of our August 2011 conversation with New York Times bestselling novelist and Edgar Award-nominated television writer and producer Lee Goldberg (Spenser: For Hire, Diagnosis Murder, Monk). Lee's latest novel, Murder by Design, becomes available in bookstores everywhere on Monday, June 1 and h...

TVC 736.5: From August 2011: New York Times bestselling novelist Lee Goldberg talks to Ed and Tony about the popularity of his Monk novel series; why he ended the Diagnosis Murder novel series after eight books; and how he and William Rabkin came to write Successful Television Writing. Lee's latest novel, Murder by Design, becomes available in bookstores everywhere on Monday, June 1 and has been d...

TVC 735.3: From May 2014: Tony, Donna, and Ed take us back to May 6, 1959, the night on which Raymond Burr won his first Emmy Award as Best Dramatic Actor in Perry Mason (CBS, 1957-1966).

TVC 735.4: Ed welcomes Emmy Award-winning producer Charles Floyd Johnson (The Rockford Files, Magnum, p.i., Quantum Leap, JAG, NCIS, Red Tails, John Lewis: Get in the Way). Charles is also one of the six authors whose work is featured in A Gathering of Voices: The Longwood Writers Workshop, an anthology of vibrant, introspective, lyrical, and personal stories that provide a full, rich, and multidi...

TVC 735.5: Emmy Award-winning producer Charles Floyd Johnson talks to Ed about his successful battle against cancer in 2020, and how his journey, in many ways, makes him a "poster child" for early detection. He also discusses the importance of learning how to allow himself to become vulnerable on the page when writing about other difficult moments in his life (which he does in each of the six stor...

TVC 735.6: Emmy Award-winning producer Charles Floyd Johnson talks to Ed about how he came to work on the groundbreaking PBS documentary John Lewis: Get in the Way; why Red Tails, the award-winning feature motion picture about the Tuskegee Airmen (which Charles produced, along with George Lucas), took twenty-three years to make; and why Stephen J. Cannell remains a seminal influence in his life. P...

TVC 734.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with music journalist A. Scott Galloway about the life and legacy of producer, composer, arranger, and musician Quincy Jones. Scott not only interviewed Jones at the time of the release of Jones' album Q's Jook Joint, but also wrote the liner notes for three other Jones music releases (including The Reel Quincy Jones, a compilation of scores...

TVC 734.2: From May 2012: An encore presentation of our conversation with Mike Pingel, author of Channel Surfing: Wonder Woman, everything you wanted to know about the classic TV series starring Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner. April 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Wonder Woman (ABC/CBS, 1976-1979).

TVC 734.4: Ed welcomes back Kathleen Bradley, the first African-American model to join ranks with Barker's Beauties on The Price is Right, and the actress known around the world as the voluptuous Mrs. Parker in the 1995 cult comedy Friday. Kathleen can currently be seen in the highly anticipated two-part episode of E!'s Dirty Rotten Scandals that not only explores the good, the bad, and the ugly b...

TVC 734.5: Kathleen Bradley shares a few memories with Ed about performing all over the world with The Love Machine, the popular female soul group of the 1970s (including the night when she experienced a wardrobe malfunction on live TV while performing the song "Rock Steady"). She also talks about how difficult it really is to sing and dance at the same time, plus she shares a few of her personal...

TVC 733.1: From March 2014: Kimberly Johnson, daughter of Russell Johnson, joins Ed, Tony, Donna, and guest co-host Bill Funt as TV Confidential remembers the life and career of the actor known around the world as The Professor on Gilligan's Island. Kim shares a few memories of her dad, plus she talks about her dad's favorite episodes, her favorite episodes, and her dad's take on the whole Gilliga...

From March 2014: Kimberly Johnson, daughter of Russell Johnson, joins Ed, Tony, Donna, and guest co-host Bill Funt as TV Confidential remembers the life and career of the actor known around the world as The Professor on Gilligan's Island. Kim shares a few memories of her dad, plus she talks about her dad's favorite episodes, her favorite episodes, and her dad's take on the whole Gilligan's Island...

TVC 733.4: Music journalist A. Scott Galloway joins Ed for a special appreciation of the life and legacy of Grammy Award-winning, Emmy Award-winning, and Tony Award-winning producer, composer, arranger, musician, and Renaissance man Quincy Jones. Scott interviewed Jones at least once (at the time of the release of Jones' album Q's Jook Joint). He also wrote the liner notes for three other Jones mu...

TVC 733.5: Music journalist A. Scott Galloway talks to Ed about the collaboration between Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson on the film score for The Pawnbroker, the first film for which Jones composed music (the conversation particularly focuses on the piece "Rack 'em Up");  the circumstances that led Jones to produce Off the Wall and Thriller for Michael Jackson; and how Jones developed his eclecti...

TVC 732.4: Ed welcomes Denise Nicholas, the Golden Globe-nominated actress known to television audiences for her starring roles in Room 222 and In the Heat of the Night, and the author of Freshwater Road, the critically acclaimed novel that was largely drawn from Denise's experience as a working actress with the Free Southern Theater in the Deep South in 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Mov...

TVC 732.5: Actress and novelist Denise Nicholas (Room 222, In the Heat of the Night, Freshwater Road) talks to Ed about working with Sidney Poitier as a director three times (and how she particularly relished the comedic roles she played opposite Poitier and Bill Cosby in Let's Do It Again and A Piece of the Action); how she first met Carroll O'Connor long before they starred together in In the He...

TVC 732.6: Ed welcomes director and producer Nick Leisure. Known for crafting grounded, character-driven thrillers with strong visual language with performance-driven storytelling, Nick developed his cinematic style combines from his experience directing hundreds of commercials for such major brands as Toyota, Nike, Ray-Ban, and the Sacramento Kings, as well as many music videos for such artists a...