TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 721.5: Lindsay Wagner talks to Ed about working with Academy Award-winning actor John Houseman on both The Paper Chase and The Bionic Woman , working with Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise on Two People , and how she got her first television set with an assist from James Garner. Lindsay is making available  special, limited-edition Bionic Woman memorabilia to celebrate the show's fift...

TVC 720.1: From January 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember of the premiere of Masterpiece Theater (PBS, 1971-…) and the first NBC broadcast of Kukla, Fran and Ollie as part of This Week in TV History.

 TVC 720.4: Ed welcomes Doug Thompson, award-winning writer, producer, and director of more than 1,000 hours of radio programming for broadcast across the U.S. and Canada, as well as more than thirty TV documentaries for Canadian television. Among his credits, Doug created and produced three radio shows for John Candy, including Radio Kandy, a weekly two-hour show that was not only carried by more...

 TVC 720.5: Award-winning radio producer Doug Thompson talks to Ed about working with Ringo Starr on the nationally syndicated radio series Ringo's Yellow Submarine ; with Jim Henson on both The Dark Crystal and The Fantastic Miss Piggy Special ; and with The Monkees on a radio documentary that Doug produced for broadcast in Canada in 1967.

Monday, Jan. 12, 2026 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the premiere of Batman (ABC, 1966-1968). With that in mind, we thought we'd bring you an encore presentation of a conversation that Tony, Donna, and I had in January 2016 about the legacy of the Batman television series, including how the premiere of Batman as a midseason replacement ushered in the era of the "second season," a staple of netw...

We took a few days off for the holidays, but we'll be back with a new edition of  TV Confidential later this week. In the meantime, please enjoy this Blast from the Past clip from January 2013 featuring renowned Elvis historian Cory Cooper. Cory's knowledge of The King is based on his deep ties to many of the people who were closest to Elvis, including members of the "Memphis Mafia." Topics this s...

By now, most of you are probably aware of the tragic deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner on Dec. 14, 2025. We are in the process of putting together a formal tribute program in memory of Rob Reiner that will air in a few weeks on TV Confidential. In the meantime, please enjoy this clip from January 2011 in which Tony, Donna, and Ed discuss the many ways in which All in the Family changed television w...

We're taking a few days off for the holidays, but we'll be back with brand new editions of TV Confidential in the new year. In the meantime, please enjoy this Blast from the Past clip from December 2015 in which author Paul Green helps Ed revisit the life and career of Pete Duel, the star of Alias Smith and Jones who took his life on Dec. 30, 1971, at the height of his television celebrity. The se...

TVC 719.2: Part 2 of a conversation that began a few weeks ago with author, essayist, novelist, and TV historian Mitchell Hadley ( The Electronic Mirror , ItsAboutTV.com ). Mitchell's latest book, Darkness in Primetime: How Classic-Era TV Foresaw Modern Society's Descent into Hell , is a series of essays that shows how certain episodes of such classic series as The Twilight Zone , The Outer Limits...

TVC 719.3: Mitchell Hadley talks to Ed about "The Running Men," an essay that Mitchell recently wrote for ItsAboutTV.com that makes the case for why it's not necessary for every television series to have a final episode that resolves the premise and ties up any other loose ends. Ed agrees with Mitchell, but adds that the influence of social media on today's TV landscape makes it impossible for sho...

We're taking a few days off for the holidays, but we'll be back with brand new editions of TV Confidential in the new year. In the meantime, please enjoy this Blast from the Past clip from March 2016 featuring sixties film historian Tom Lisanti. Tom's books include Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974 , a comprehensive look at Tiffin's work in film and television that includes insight from...

TVC 719.4: Ed welcomes Tom Sturges , son of Academy Award-winning writer/director Preston Sturges, one of the top executives in the music industry, and the author of such books as Every Idea is a Good Idea , A Good Divorce Begins Here , and Preston Sturges: The Last Years of Hollywood's First Writer-Director . Tom's latest book, Men Explained... Finally , is a humorous, totally unscientific, and y...

TVC 719.5: Tom Sturges talks to Ed about how his father, Preston Sturges , embodied some of the "man truths" that Tom writes about in his new book, Men Explained… Finally ; how Tom came to work with NBA star Shaquille O'Neal when O'Neal became a rap artist; and what Tom looks for when determining whether a new song has what it takes to become a hit record. Men Explained… Finally is available where...

TVC 718.1: From November 2015: Tony, Donna, and Ed discuss the legacy of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970-1977), including a look at its spinoff series Rhoda (CBS, 1974-1978), Phyllis (CBS, 1975-1977), and Lou Grant (CBS, 1977-1982) .

TVC 718.2: From November 2015: Tony, Donna, and Ed discuss "Rhoda's Wedding" (CBS, Oct. 28, 1974), the famous first-season episode of Rhoda in which Rhoda Morgenstein (Valerie Harper) marries Joe Gerard (David Groh), and why the episode remains a television classic more than fifty years later, even though the decision to marry the two characters ultimately hurt the series.

TVC 718.3: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Mark Shaw , author of Abuse of Power: Connecting Robert Kennedy's Assassinaton with the Murders of JFK and Dorothy Kilgallen and The Reporter Who Knew Too Much . Topics this segment include new findings that suggest that the autopsy performed on Kilgallen after her death in November 1965 may have been compromised. As was the case with M...

TVC 718.4: Ed welcomes back Stefanie Powers , the actress known around the world as Jennifer Hart on Hart to Hart (ABC, 1979-1984), and the founder and president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation , the nonprofit organization that Stefanie established in 1982 in memory of her longtime life partner that continues and furthers the conservation work of William Holden in East Africa. Stefanie w...

TVC 718.5: Stefanie Powers talks to Ed about why her experience as a contract player at Columbia Pictures at the start of her career was like "a finishing school for actors"; working with Ava Gardner on Maggie (CBS, 1986), a pilot for a series that marked Gardner's final screen appearance (the pilot, however, never aired); and why James Garner ranks alongside Robert Wagner as among Stefanie's favo...

TVC 718.6:  Mark Shaw , author of Abuse of Power: Connecting Robert Kennedy's Assassinaton with the Murders of JFK and Dorothy Kilgallen and The Reporter Who Knew Too Much , talks to Ed about how the City of New York honored Dorothy Kilgallen on Saturday, Nov. 8 by naming a street after her on the sixtieth anniversary of her death. Other topics this segment include why so many of us are enamored w...

TVC 717.1: Ed welcomes back Mark Shaw , investigative journalist, former criminal defense attorney, onetime legal analyst for CNN, ESPN, and USA Today, and the author of nearly thirty books, including  The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen . Mark's latest book, Abuse of Power , includes new information about the mysterious n...

TVC 717.2: Mark Shaw , author of Abuse of Power: Connecting Robert Kennedy's Assassinaton with the Murders of JFK and Dorothy Kilgallen , talks to Ed about a recently released YouTube video about John Shear (pictured above, left), a longtime paddock captain at Santa Anita Racetrack in Southern California who hired Sirhan Sirhan (pictured above, center) as a "hot walker" several months before Sirha...

TVC 717.3: From December 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed send birthday wishes to film and television legend Dick Van Dyke ( The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Poppins, Diagnosis Murder ) as part of This Week in TV History. Dick Van Dyke turns 100 on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025.

TVC 717.4: Ed welcomes back Ellen Geer , daughter of Will Geer and the artistic director of Theatricum Botanicum , the outdoor amphitheatre in Topanga Canyon, California that Will Geer founded in 1973. Theatricum's fifth annual Holiday Family Faire will take place on Saturday, Dec. 13 from 11am to 5pm, followed by a special live production of It's a Wonderful Life featuring Beau Bridges, Wendie Ma...

TVC 717.5: Ed welcomes back actress and author Alison Arngrim ( Little House on the Prairie , Confessions of a Prairie Bitch ). Alison has news about several events coming up over the next few weeks that will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Little House on the Prairie (NBC, 1974-1983), including the recent Live Before a Studio Audience edition of The Little House 50 th Annive...

TVC 716.5: From February 2014: Prolific television director Ralph Senensky takes listeners behind the scenes of "Grandma Comes Home," the episode of The Waltons from March 1978 that marked Ellen Geer's return to the series after she had suffered a stroke the year before. Other topics this segment include how Corby and Will Geer were "the salt and pepper of The Waltons ," plus Ralph shares a few me...