Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine

It's the Roger Maris version of the TVTM podcasts. People afraid of the sun in Seattle e-mail us. "Bars" revisited (of course). The art of "laying down" a fine podcast. Also, "the promise of an answer." Benny considers getting Mista Evangelista sewn onto the back of his shorty robe. He also has another dream that goes nowhere. A message from College Park, Maryland. The Ol' Collie P. We talk about...

We take a semi-long-lost letter from Israel, then various e-mails from around the country. We keep it tight and bright (if you've listened before, you know that's not actually true, nor will happen, but I add it here to lure new listeners). Boy, isn't life bountiful?

We at the TVTM podcast -- including me and, yes, our Question Boy Joe Garofoli -- admit that we didn't listen to TVTM 59. Maybe Benny did because he had to really do a LOT of editing on it, but if we assume that Benny was actually paying attention it only makes an ass out of us and Benny. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was at the Chronicle that day and about to be interviewed right next to the...

Tight. Bright. Angry. Obsequious. Oh, we've got it all in this podcast. We bring it. Our arsenal (read: something akin to the U.S. military instead of the British football club) is now vast. For example: "Bars." It's now a staple. Almost like Walton. But we bust out a lot of high-quality stuff this time. For example, Question Boy (Chronicle Media writer Joe Garofoli) does Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'...

The TVTM podcast: Making America great again, one unanswered question at a time. Oh, how we kid. First, this is an International podcast. We don't skew local. We even got a letter from Israel. Of course, Benny found it after the podcast, so that will get read next week. Secondly, we answered lots of questions. Oh yes we did. Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) was even reasonably ar...

We reach out and touch people in this podcast -- and they like it. Well, OK, we only called out of the podcave to one person, but you never know when your phone will ring! All across the globe, but strangely enough not Central America or China or India (what is wrong with you people -- get on the horn!) we field television questions and, in a dramatic change, actually answer them. Another big-time...

After Question Boy, Joe Garofoli, ruined everything last week by spending quality time with his family, we are finally back with a TVTM podcast that more than makes up for what you missed last week -- in length. We tried to improve the quality as well, then got interrupted and went to lunch. That might have messed things up. And it will surely ruin Part 2, coming Thursday, which will also be bloat...

In this podcast, we make a vow: No more lies! Total transparency! "We don't know what we're doing...It's Benny's fault." We bust open the lie behind this two-part podcast fraud. Which is that we record one super-bloated podcast and then we hack it into bits. And Benny puts it back together, re-animator style. So it's not two. It's one. Filled with lies. And, as you'd expect, lameness. Chronicle me...

Quick out of the gate with few stumbles, a new (okay, partially "borrowed" theme song from a listener), a call for more such creativity (you want to make us a theme song? -- go for it), more Bill Walton (in fact, we break new ground with him), lots of Angry Regis, some talk about sports announcing, swear words and tons and tons of questions answered! No, really. We do. In fact, we are "efficient."...

Sorrys for all my friends! Sorrys on sale! Sorry for the sorrys. But of course, we'll take it all back later. Sorrys are for sissies!

We are known for being all over the map, and even all over the world, but on this podcast we ponder why we're popular in Britain when they have to pay for the call. We discuss the fact that our 888-prefix hotline actually blocks Canadians from calling. (Maybe they don't want to pay for the call?) Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) wants people in China to break out to freedom and g...

We take a ton of calls in this, our second of two podcasts this week, including a call from London where a guy named Will tells us, definitively, that our international toll-free number is not, in fact, free. In turn, we offer Will a couple of pints and a ticket to the Giants if he ever comes to visit. On the other hand, paying to call the TVTM hasn't stopped our international domination from grow...

We've got a two-part TV Talk Machine podcast this week and I would have had the first part up earlier, but as it turned out the Diamondbacks were in town having a day-game tilt with my beloved G-Men and, well, you can probably guess what happened. We decided to get right into this one (or, "right into this one" in theory, because we're incapable of actually moving forward in a brisk, informative m...

Joe Garofoli and I were trying to lock down this TV Talk Machine podcast as quickly as possible so that we could walk down and watch the Giants home opener (we didn't know at the time that the G-Men would get pounded, though we did have our suspicions). Opening Day still means something to us because we're proud American baseball fans. So, doing only one podcast this week, we were anxious to make...

A fast-paced, answer-filled TVTM. No two-parter this time. Also: no quality. Well, that's not exactly true. We did good work here. Me, Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) and Benny Evangelista. I mean, not as good as listening to Eddie Izzard. But we answered a lot of mail, and took a lot of calls. There was a theme running through it (anger) and we only swore five or six times and...

Eddie Izzard flew into San Francisco last week and came to the Chronicle (and our sad little podcasting "cave") to tout his superb FX series, "The Riches". But as expected, we went on all kinds of tangents. Izzard is brilliant at letting his imagination take flight in often spectacularly funny ways but also in being serious and analytical about any number of topics. Unfortunately, much of the dela...

So we had a lot of fun talking about the BBC discovering -- probably to its horror -- our little show that can't (or won't), your TVTM. But now we get back to actual questions. Which means Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) stumbles all over his reading of the questions and I provide almost no information. For his part, Benny is asleep. Just a reminder to newbies who stumble upon us and don't get it: If...

It's true. BBC Radio 5, or Five Live, as they like to call it across the pond, interviewed me about what can only be described as the awesome power of -- third person alert -- Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine podcast. Of course, I played along and didn't tell them that our podcast was incredibly lame and that our goal at TVTM is to be as unprepared as possible and do bad impressions. Colin Murray, a...

Not that improving is our goal, mind you. We are much more Zen about it than that. Or lazy. Pick your religion. And this one has been up on the SFGate.com front for, what, two days? Anyway, it's our gift to the world, set sail on the breeze of indifference.

We're making Benny, who once again is "manning the knobs" here, truly suffer for implementing the split podcast. You may remember this was to cut down on The Podfather's workload -- wait, "work" load -- and edit our unwieldy (but oh so user-friendly if not actually educational) podcast from 45 minutes into two 'casts of roughly 22 minutes. Yeah, that was the idea. A kind of Tuesday/Thursday double...

Lots of questions, some answers, tons of yelling and swearing. Both knowledge and entertainment knock on the door -- actually the pod cave wall -- but we don't answer it. And yes, two parts. It's out of our control, but in all honesty, these two flowed a lot better than last week. Also, in all honesty -- it probably sounds too professional. We'll dumb it up more next week.

Man love alert: Colin Farrell, George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Question Boy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Oh, we also answer questions. Joe Garofoli (Question Boy and Chronicle media critic) and I come back strong after two really terrible podcasts last week. We apologize yet again for those, but we are supremely strong this week. Well, alright, we did unveil Joe's impersonation of...

In addition to totally screwing up the narrative beauty of our podcasts, Benny fesses up that he forgot a call from a guy in London. London! And the call came in a month ago. You know what that means? One of our seven listeners has probably given up on us. Thanks Benny. By the way, if Charley from "Maisy" can call in (we think Tallulah did the dialing), then there's no reason you can't as well. Gi...

We've decided -- well, wait, "decided" hints at actual preparation -- that the podcast should be cut in two and run on consecutive days each week. At least that was the plan for about five minutes, and then the plan was to run Part 1 on Tuesday and Part 2 on Thursday, because Benny said we should "keep them wanting more." To which Joe Garofoli, admirably playing Question Boy, and I both said, "The...

Just to make things clear, I wasn't aware that Manny was going to "man the knobs" so quickly and, yes, the podcast starts out talking about burping. Our grand intro -- ruined. But Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) plays Ed McMahon. And we do a bunch of stupid voices -- undaunted by last week's miserable impersonations. Including: My really bad version of Charley from "Maisy." I pr...