TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 536.4: Ed welcomes award-winning television writer/producer Jay Moriarty. Jay spent about thirty years writing and producing sitcoms for network television, including eight years for Norman Lear and Tandem Productions—seven of which Jay and his longtime writing partner, Mike Milligan, spent writing and producing The Jeffersons (CBS, 1975-1985). Jay’s memoir, Honky in the House: Writing & Producing The Jeffersons, not only takes you inside the writing room of The Jeffersons, but provides many great tips for anyone considering a career in television writing, or writing comedy in general. Topics this segment include the back stories of the episodes “Florence’s Problem” and “Once a Friend” (the Jeffersons episodes that discussed suicide and transgender identity, respectively) and the back story of “The Draft Dodger,” the controversial episode of All in the Family from December 1976 that Jay and Mike wrote. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 536.5: Award-winning television writer/producer Jay Moriarty talks to Ed about “The First Store,” the seriocomic episode of The Jeffersons that paid tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; the portrayal of interracial marriage on The Jeffersons; and the May 2019 live staging of “A Friend in Need,” the premiere episode of The Jeffersons, as part of Live in Front of a Studio Audience. Jay’s memoir, Honky in the House: Writing & Producing The Jeffersons, is available at Amazon.com. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 536.6: Greg and Ed discuss the Blu-ray release of Jetsons: The Movie, and why it’s still an important film in the Hanna-Barbera canon, despite the widely panned decision to replace Janet Waldo with pop star Tiffany as the voice of Judy Jetson. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From April 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed go back to Apr. 19, 1938, when NBC launched experimental television broadcasts from the Empire State Building. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From April 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the Captain Midnight incident of Apr. 27, 1986, when a video pirate known only as Captain Midnight managed to override the satellite transmission of the HBO broadcast of The Falcon and the Snowman. The culprit hijacked the feed to protest HBO’s subscription fees. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From April 2012: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the first coast-to-coast telecast by satellite communications, which took place on Apr. 24, 1962. This technological advance changed the face of television. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 535.1: A special baseball-themed edition of This Week in TV History that celebrates the life and career of Tommy Lasorda, the legendary manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers who went on to become one of the great ambassadors of Major League Baseball. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 535.2: Tony and Ed commemorate the anniversary of Hank Aaron’s then-record 715th major league home run, which he hit against Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Apr. 8, 1974—an historic moment, both in the world of sports and for the U.S. in general, that was captured live on television as part of NBC’s Monday Night Baseball.  Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 535.3: Ed plays the conclusion of a three-part conversation with Carol Ford and Linda Groundwater, two of the co-authors (along with Dee Young) of Bob Crane: The Definitive Biography, a comprehensive, cradle-to-grave look at the life and career of the beloved Hogan’s Heroes star. Topics this segment include the lengths that Crane took to overcome his addiction to sex and porn, including seeking out and working with an addiction counselor in the weeks before he was killed. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 535.4: Bob Crane biographers Carol Ford and Linda Groundwater talk to Ed about Crane’s longtime compulsion to record every aspect of his life via written journals, audio tape, 8-mm film, and, finally, video cassette. Bob Crane: The Definitive Biography includes first-hand insight from more than two hundred people who knew Bob Crane personally and better than most, including family members; his friends from Connecticut, including many who knew him as far back as grade school; his colleagues from TV, the theatre, the movies, and, above all, radio; and Reverend Ed Beck, the addiction counselor whose help Crane sought just before his death. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 535.5: Part 2 of a conversation that began a few weeks ago with Radames Pera, the actor best known for playing young Kwai Chang Caine, aka “Grasshopper,” in the flashback sequences of the original Kung Fu (ABC, 1972-1975), and John Edwards, Mary Ingalls’ love interest, on Little House on the Prairie. After a successful career as a child actor, Radames left acting in the late 1980s and reinvented himself as an entrepreneur, drawing on his love for design and his interest in electronics and sound to launch Get It Wired, a company that specialized in installing home theatre systems. Topics this segment include how Radames successfully transferred his business several times after moving from L.A. to different cities (despite the fact that home theatre installation is a traditionally regionally-based service), as well as the pros and cons of working as a sole proprietor. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TVC 535.6: Actor and entrepreneur Radames Pera (Kung Fu, Little House on the Prairie) talks to Ed about his recent decision to return to acting after an absence of three decades, as well as his upcoming memoir. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From April 2013: Actress and author Karen Kondazian (James Dean, Shannon, Shootout at the OK Corral) talks to Ed about how writing is a form of "disciplined improvisation" insofar as it encourages writers to remain free enough to use their imagination. Karen’s historical novel The Whip is based on the life of Charlotte “Charley” Parkhurst, an extraordinary woman who lived most of her life as a man in the Old West.  Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From April 2011: Tony, Donna and Ed go back to Apr. 14, 1956, the date of the first demonstration of the videotape recorder. Invented by Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsberg, and Charles Anderson, the first such machine was originally the size of a piano and could record both images and sound. CBS purchased three of these videotape recorders in 1956 for $75,000 apiece. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From April 2011: Tony, Donna and Ed discuss the legacy of The Andy Griffith Show and the Return to Mayberry reunion movie, the latter of which first aired on Apr. 13, 1986. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices