TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 704.6: TV Confidential commemorates August 29, The Day The Running Stopped, with an encore presentation of our July 2014 conversation with actress Diane Baker. Television writer Paul Robert Coyle co-hosts.

TVC 703.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Joseph Atkins, author of Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel , a deep dive into the life and times of the angular-faced character actor who became a leading man in the 1980s (most notably, with  Paris, Texas and Repo Man) . Topics this segment include how the success of Paris, Texas paved the way for Stanton's singing career (even...

TVC 703.3: From August 2018: Chuck Harter joins Ed for Part 2 of our look at the era of pop music TV shows from the mid to late 1960s . Topics this segment include The Lloyd Thaxton Show , a popular weekday afternoon show featuring teenagers dancing to hit records, plus guest appearances by such top artists as The Byrds, The Turtles, Jan and Dean, and Sonny and Cher. Originally produced for local...

TVC 703.4: From August 2018: Chuck Harter and Ed continue their look at nationally syndicated pop music TV shows from the mid to late 1960s . In this segment, we focus on Shebang (hosted by Casey Kasem), Hollywood a Go Go (aka Ninth Street West ), Shivaree , and Groovy .

TVC 703.5: Ed welcomes back award-winning producer, director, and author Joseph Wallenstein ( Knots Landing, Hotel, Seventh Heaven, Flynn vs. Miranda, Nothing Dies for Film ), longtime director of physical production for the USC School of Cinematic Arts (where he helped oversee more than 15,000 student film projects without a single injury), and now host of the new podcast Whatcha Know Joe? Topics...

TVC 703.6: Award-winning producer, director, and author Joseph Wallenstein talks to Ed about how Knots Landing producer Michael Filerman helped him become a director. Joe's podcast, Whatcha Know Joe? , is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you find podcasts.

We'll be back with a brand new edition of TV Confidential later this week. In the meantime, please enjoy this clip from August 2012 in which Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the life and career of Groucho Marx and the broadcast history of You Bet Your Life .

TVC 702.1: From August 2018: Chuck Harter joins Ed for Part 1 of a three-part look at Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is and other national and syndicated pop music TV shows of the mid to late 1960s—a genre that not only showcased such popular groups as The Kinks, The Righteous Brothers, Herman's Hermits, Darlene Love, Paul Revere and The Raiders, and Ike and Tina Turner, but which broke gro...

TVC 702.2: From August 2018: Chuck Harter and Ed continue their look at national, syndicated, and (in a few cases) locally produced pop music TV shows of the mid to late 1960s. Topics this segment include the back story of Hullabaloo , NBC's answer to Shindig , which premiered in January 1965.

TVC 702.3: From August 2018: Chuck Harter and Ed discuss the on-air history of Where the Action Is (ABC, 1965-1967), a weekday afternoon music series, created by Dick Clark, that featured such artists as James Brown, Herman's Hermits, and Paul Revere and The Raiders.

TVC 702.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Joseph Dougherty , author of Comfort and Joi , and Alexis Hunter , author of Joi Lansing: A Body to Die For, about the life and career of singer/actress Joi Lansing . Topics this segment include how Joi's third husband, producer Stan Todd, not only helped Joi launch her nightclub singing career, but stepped up for both Joi and Alexis, p...

TVC 702.5: Ed welcomes Joseph Atkins, author of Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel , a deep dive into the life and times of the angular-faced character actor who not only became a leading man in the 1980s (most notably, with Paris, Texas and Repo Man), but was also an accomplished singer and musician. Joe's book includes interviews with such Harry Dean Stanton contemporaries as Nehemiah Per...

TVC 702.6: Joseph Atkins, author of Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel , talks to Ed how director Monte Hellman cast Stanton frequently in his movies, yet never saw him as a lead; how Stanton and Alex Cox, director of Repo Man , did not always see eye to eye during the early production of that movie; and how the soundtrack of Repo Man kept the film in the public eye. Harry Dean Stanton: Hol...

TVC 700.1: Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer Joseph Dougherty and author and artist Alexis Hunter join Ed for the first of a special two-part look at the life and career of Joi Lansing , the legendary Blonde Bombshell best known for her pin-up photos, her frequent work in movies and television throughout the '50s and '60s, and her successful nightclub singing act. Joe's latest book...

TVC 701.2: Joseph Dougherty , author of Comfort and Joi , and Alexis Hunter , author of Joi Lansing: A Body to Die For, talk to Ed about the many times in which producer Al Simon and actress Nancy Kulp crossed paths with Joi Lansing; Joi's notable television appearances, including her recurring role as Gladys Flatt in The Beverly Hillbillies ; and Hot Cars (1956), a film noir thriller that, in man...

TVC 701.3: From August 2016: Steve Binder, Emmy Award-winning producer and director and the co-author, along with Mary Beth Leidman, of Fade Up 26: The Movers and Shakers of Variety Television , talks to Ed about the controversy involving Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte behind the scenes of Clark's 1968 special for NBC, and why both The Ed Sullivan Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour reall...

TVC 701.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with actor, author, playwright, and Emmy Award-winning producer Laurence Luckinbill ( The Boys in the Band , The Delphi Bureau , Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , Lyndon, Hemingway, Teddy Tonight!, Clarence Darrow Tonight! ). Topics this segment include how Larry and Mart Crowley, author of The Boys in the Band, had more in common with each...

TVC 701.5: Actor and author Laurence Luckinbill ( The Boys in the Band , The Delphi Bureau , Star Trek V , Affective Memories: How Chance and The Theater Saved My Life ) talks to Ed about working with writer/producer Sam Rolfe on The Delphi Bureau (ABC, 1972-1973); how Larry's portrayal of Glenn Garth Gregory as a "reluctant hero" was a first for American dramatic television (beating out James Gar...

TVC 701.6: Actor and author Laurence Luckinbill talks to Ed about why St. Thomas More, the protagonist of Robert Bolt's award-winning play A Man for All Seasons , was one of the true disciples of Christ. Larry's autobiography, Affective Memories: How Chance and The Theater Saved My Life , is available wherever books are sold through Sunbury Press . Larry Luckinbill's A History and a Quest is a min...

TVC 701.7: From August 2022: Chuck Harter shares a poignant memory of a scene that he witnessed at a Washington, D.C. tavern on Aug. 16, 1977, the day that Elvis Presley died.

TVC 700.1: From August 2016: Ed welcomes Steve Binder, Emmy Award-winning producer and director ( Diana Ross: Live in Central Park, Elvis: The 1968 Comeback Special, The T.A.M.I. Show ) and the co-author, along with Mary Beth Liedman, of Fade Up 26: The Movers and Shakers of Variety Television , an oral history of variety television, as told through the voices of the men and women who were and are...

TVC 700.2: From August 2016: Steve Binder, Emmy Award-winning producer and director and the co-author, along with Mary Beth Leidman, of Fade Up 26: The Movers and Shakers of Variety Television , talks to Ed about working with Dwight Hemion on the pop music series Hullabaloo (NBC, 1965-1966). Gary Smith, Hemion's longtime producing partner, passed away on Saturday, July 19 at the age of ninety.

TVC 700.3: Via remote from Las Vegas: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Morgan White, Jr. , longtime late night radio personality for WBZ AM-FM/Boston , author of many books on a variety of subjects, and the Undisputed King of Trivia . Topics this segment include the back story of Morgan came to wear his trademark black leather cowboy hat; how he came to be immortalized in two of...

TVC 700.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with 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 Mrs. Parker in Friday . Topics this segment include Kathleen's years traveling the world as a member of the female soul and disco group The Love Machine ; the time when director Olive...

TVC 700.5: Ed back welcomes actor, author, playwright, and Emmy Award-winning producer Laurence Luckinbill ( The Boys in the Band , The Delphi Bureau , Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , Lyndon, Hemingway, Teddy Tonight!, Clarence Darrow Tonight! ). Topics this segment include why both the original stage production and the original theatrical release of The Boys in the Band are literature in the tr...