TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

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 mult...

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....

TVC 734.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with m usic 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 sc...

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 ugl...

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 Gilli...

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...

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 eclec...

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 M...

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 th...

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...

TVC 731.1: TV Confidential commemorates the recent passing of Chuck Norris by bringing you an encore of our conversation with Wayne Péré, the actor known to fans of Walker: Texas Ranger as the villainous Victor LaRue. At the time we spoke to Wayne in November 2018, he was starring as Dr. Emerson in the hit Sony/Marvel feature Venom , while his many other film and television credits include Friends...

TVC 731.2: From November 2018: Actor and director Wayne Péré talks to Ed about his approach to playing villains in movies and on television (including a few more memories of playing Victor LaRue on Walker: Texas Ranger ); his approach to playing characters movies that are based in the Marvel Comics universe; and how he became a director.

TVC 731.3: From November 2018: Actor and director Wayne Péré talks to Ed about how he sometimes creates his own back story for the characters as he prepares to play them; and the difference between playing a fictional character and a character based on a real person.

TVC 731.4: TV Confidential commemorates the recent passing of Chuck Norris by bringing you an encore of our conversation with actress and producer Sheree J. Wilson ( Dallas, Walker: Texas Ranger ). At the time we spoke to Sheree in September 2013, she had just produced and starred Easy Rider: The Ride Back , a sequel (and prequel) to the groundbreaking cult classic that explores the lineage of Wya...

TVC 731.5: From September 2013: Sheree J. Wilson shares a few memories of starring with Chuck Norris on Walker: Texas Ranger , including how the series had struggled to find its footing early on, including several changes in production staff and crew, until Sheree convinced Norris to hire Michael Preece ( Dallas, The Streets of San Francisco ) as Walker 's regular director . Easy Rider: The Ride B...

TVC 731.6: From September 2013: Sheree J. Wilson talks to Ed about her close friendship with Larry Hagman in the twenty years after Dallas left the air, including traveling with Hagman and his family on many occasions, and spending quality time with Hagman just a few days before he died in November 2012 . Easy Rider: The Ride Back is available for viewing on demand through Amazon Prime. Photo of S...

TVC 731.7: TV Confidential concludes its remembrance of Chuck Norris by bringing you a clip of our 2012 conversation with longtime television director Michael Preece (Dallas, Walker: Texas Ranger, The Streets of San Francisco, MacGyver ). Preece directed about eighty episodes of Walker ; prior to that, he helmed more episodes of Dallas than any other director. Topics this segment include how Preec...

TVC 730.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with two-time Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Robert Illes ( The Carol Burnett Show, Sanford and Son, Fernwood Tonight, Lily, Silver Spoons, Sister, Sister ). Bob's memoir, Funny is Money , is a humorous, irreverent, deeply personal, and often moving look at his forty-two-year career writing and producing comedy for network television...

TVC 730.5: Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Robert Illes talks to Ed about working with producer Alan Thicke behind the scenes of Fernwood Tonight ; writing for Toni Tennille, Daryl Dragon, and John Byner on the Captain and Tennille variety series; and writing for Dick Van Dyke on what turned out to be the final season of The Carol Burnett Show . Bob's memoir, Funny is Money , is available i...

TVC 730.6: Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Robert Illes talks to Ed about meeting and sometimes writing for many of the iconic performers that he grew up watching on TV as a kid; working on his own for the first time after a twenty-five year partnership with James Stein; and how Bob's solo career began with Sister, Sister and continued for another seventeen years. Bob's memoir, Funny is Mon...

TVC 729.1:  Ed welcomes two-time Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Robert Illes ( The Carol Burnett Show, Sanford and Son, Fernwood Tonight, Lily, Silver Spoons, Sister, Sister ). Bob's memoir, Funny is Money , is a humorous, irreverent, deeply personal, and often moving look at his forty-two-year career writing and producing comedy for network television—a career that not only included such...