TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 725.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Harvey Lisberg , the legendary music manager who shaped the careers of such iconic artists as Herman's Hermits, 10cc, and Tony Christie. Topics this segment include why Herman's Hermits did not tour the United States during the last three years when they were together; how changing trends in the music industry ultimately played a role i...

TVC 725.2: Harvey Lisberg , manager of Herman's Hermits, talks to Ed and guest co-host Chuck Harter about the important role that radio played in the band's rise to the top of the charts; Harvey's favorite songs of Herman's Hermits; and why Peter Noone continues to be a true showman to this day. Harvey's memoir, I'm Into Something Good , is available wherever books are sold through Omnibus Press.

TVC 725.3: From January 2012: Award-winning television writer/producer Larry Brody talks to Ed about some of the ways in which television has changed since he first broke in as a writer in the late 1960s; Larry's experience working on Barnaby Jones , The Streets of San Francisco , and other shows produced by Quinn Martin; and why the medical drama House also serves as an illustration for how the t...

TVC 725.4: Ed welcomes Hal Eisner , the multiple award-winning broadcast journalist who covered the news every day for fifty-eight years, including fifteen years at various radio stations in Texas and Louisiana and the last forty-three years on television in Los Angeles, primarily as a field reporter for FOX 11, but also for KCOP (Channel 13) and, for a few years, as a reporter for the L.A. bureau...

TVC 725.5: Award-winning broadcast journalist Hal Eisner talks to Ed about the day in March 2021 when he was nearly killed after being struck by a drunk driver while covering a story in Hollywood — and the remarkable role that social media played in helping him get back on his feet. Hal's memoir, An Accidental Career , is available through Amazon.com. For our listeners in the Greater L.A. Metro ar...

TVC 724.1: Ed welcomes back Harvey Lisberg , the legendary music manager who shaped the careers of such iconic artists as Herman's Hermits, 10cc, and Tony Christie. Harvey's memoir, I'm Into Something Good , a captivating journey through the golden era of music, is available wherever books are sold. Topics this segment include what made Herman's Hermits different from most other British bands of t...

TVC 724.2: Harvey Lisberg , manager of Herman's Hermits, talks to Ed and guest co-host Chuck Harter about the band's brief foray into motion pictures in the mid 1960s (including  Where The Boys Meet the Girls and Hold On! ), and why the band's voices, particularly on the harmonies of their songs, was critical to their success. Harvey's memoir, I'm Into Something Go od: My Life Managing 10cc, Herma...

TVC 724.3: Harvey Lisberg , manager of Herman's Hermits, talks to Ed and guest co-host Chuck Harter about why Hold On! (1966), the first movie starring Herman's Hermits, is "a poor man's A Hard Day's Night ; how frontman Peter Noone handled the band's sudden burst to fame when he was just sixteen; and why the music of Herman's Hermits was never as respected in England as it was in the United State...

We took a few days off, but we'll be back with a brand new edition of TV Confidentia l later this week. In the meantime, please enjoy this Blast from the Past clip from February 2016 in which Tony, Donna, and Ed discuss the television career of Sandy Duncan ( Funny Face, The Hogan Family ) as part of This Week in TV History. Sandy Duncan was born on Feb. 20, 1946.

TVC 723.6: From July 2020: Actor, author and acting teacher  Basil Hoffman  ( Acting and How to Be Good at It ,  Cold Reading and How to Be Good at It ) talks to Ed about how Jim Hutton and James Garner were two of the many actors he worked with who happened to be tall; how Richard Benjamin and Alan J. Pakula are examples of "actor first" directors (and how Steven Spielberg and the Coen Brothers e...

TVC 723.1: Ed welcomes Glenn Stewart, an adjunct professor at Westfield State University (Westfield, Massachusetts) whose background in media includes twenty-five years in radio, both as an on-air personality and as a station programmer for many stations across the United States. Glenn's new book, Columbo Explains the Seventies: A TV Cop's Pop Culture Journey , asks the question, "If you sealed al...

TVC 723.2: Glenn Stewart, author of Columbo Explains the Seventies , discusses some of the differences between the original Columbo (NBC, 1971-1978) and the revival of Columbo in the 1990s (ABC, 1989-2003), and how one of his goals for the book is to get readers to revisit the NBC series. Columbo Explains the Seventies is available through Bonaventure Press and Amazon.com.

TVC 723.3: Glenn Stewart, author of Columbo Explains the Seventies , talks to Ed about Patrick McGoohan's peculiar relationship with Columbo as an actor, writer, and director. While McGoohan starred in two of the very best episodes of the original Columbo ("By Dawn's Early Light," "Identity Crisis") and one of the better episodes of the ABC series ("Agenda for Murder"), he also contributed to some...

TVC 723.4 : Ed welcomes Barry Pearl, the award-winning actor, director, and producer known to musical lovers around the world as "Doody" in Paramount's iconic film Grease (1978), although Barry's association with Grease dates back to the early 1970s (and continues to this day). Barry is getting ready to direct a new stage production of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change , a witty, honest and a...

TVC 723.5: Actor, director, and producer Barry Pearl talks to Ed about teaching improv to special needs students at Inclusion Films (the film company, run by Joey Travolta, that teaches and employs people in the film industry who have developmental and physical disabilities); how actor and director Jerry Paris mentored Barry when Barry first came out to Los Angeles in the mid 1970s; Barry's experi...

TVC 722.1: From January 2016: James Bigwood joins Ed for a look at the life and career of Alan Napier (1903-1988) , the British actor best known to three generations of TV viewers as Alfred the butler on Batman . Jim is co-author of Not Just Batman's Butler: The Autobiography of Alan Napier , a combination memoir, biography and filmography that is largely based on a manuscript that Napier wrote hi...

TVC 722.2: James Bigwood , co-author of Not Just Batman's Butler: The Autobiography of Alan Napier , talks to Ed about what an eloquent writer Alan Napier was; the variety of characters that Napier played in his stage and film career; and how Napier was often cast as older men (even when he was young) because of his height. Not Just Batman's Butler is available through McFarlandPub.com . You can a...

TVC 722.3: James Bigwood , co-author of Not Just Batman's Butler: The Autobiography of Alan Napier , talks to Ed about how Alan Napier overcame a stammer when he was a child; why he likely enjoyed wearing the Batsuit on Batman when asked to do so; and Napier's various collaborations with John Houseman and Orson Welles for radio, film, and television. Not Just Batman's Butler is available through M...

TVC 722.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Mark Malkoff , host of the award-winning Carson Podcast and the author of Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan's Journey to Find The Genius Behind the Legend , a deep dive into Johnny Carson's thirty-year reign as host of The Tonight Show . Topics this segment include why the act of Carson inviting young comedians to join him on the co...

TVC 722.5: Ed welcomes Cam Clarke , one of the youngest members of The King Family , and one of the busiest voice actors in the entertainment industry today. Cam's new book, Now They're All Here: The King Family, Over 100 Years of Entertainment From America's First Family of Song is an oral history that not only traces The King Family's imprint on entertainment over the past century (spanning the...

TVC 722.6: Voice actor Cam Clarke , author of Now They're All Here: The King Family, Over 100 Years of Entertainment From America's First Family of Song , talks to Ed about his accidental path to becoming a voice actor; how he was mentored as a voice artist by Michael Bell ; and why a voice actor should "never audition with something you can't sustain." Now They're All Here is available through Ra...

TVC 720.3: From December 2015: Tony, Donna, and Ed commemorate the premiere of Magnum, p.i. (CBS, 1980-1988) and the birthday of TV talk show legend Phil Donahue as part of This Week in TV History.

TVC 721.2: Ed welcomes  Mark Malkoff , host of the award-winning Carson Podcast and the author of Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan's Journey to Find The Genius Behind the Legend , a deep dive into Johnny Carson's thirty-year reign as host of The Tonight Show that includes interviews with more than four hundred Tonight Show personnel, including staff members, production people, writers, friend...

TVC 720.3: Mark Malkoff , host of the award-winning Carson Podcast and the author of Love Johnny Carson , talks to Ed about why Johnny Carson often had a "surprise guest" during the early years of hosting The Tonight Show ; how Carson's writers often approached writing the monologue differently whenever a guest host hosted the show in Johnny's absence; Carson's secret philanthropy; and his legenda...

TVC 721.4: Ed welcomes back Lindsay Wagner , the Emmy Award-winning actress known around the world as Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman. Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of The Bionic Woman (ABC/NBC, 1976-1978). Topics this segment include how Lindsay accepted the part of Jaime after some prodding from both her mother and her younger sister; how the developmen...