TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 530.2: Tony, Donna, and Ed celebrate the life and career of Academy Award-winning and Emmy Award-winning actress Cloris Leachman as part of a special edition of This Week in TV History. Cloris Leachman passed away on Wednesday, Jan. 27 at age 94. 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 530.3: From October 2020: Ed Asner shares a few memories of working with Cloris Leachman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Also in this segment: Tony, Donna, and Ed discuss Leachman’s performance in Young Frankenstein and what made the “Frau Blucher” gag so funny. 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 530.4: Ed plays Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Walter Koenig, the actor known around the world as Mr. Chekhov on the original Star Trek TV series (and the first seven Star Trek movies) and Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. Topics this segment includes what Walter describes as the “complexity of character” of actor William Shatner; why Leonard Nimoy was arguably the most indispensible actor on Star Trek; the broad audience appeal of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; and a funny story involving Walter, James Doohan, George Takei, and a personal appearance at a video store in Dothan, Alabama. Walter’s memoir, Beaming Up and Getting Off: Life Before and Beyond Star Trek, is available in hardcover and as an eBook through Jacobs Brown Media Group. 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 530.5: Walter Koenig talks to Ed about how playing Bester on Babylon 5, in some ways, brought his career full circle. Walter’s memoir, Beaming Up and Getting Off: Life Before and Beyond Star Trek, walks you through Walter’s growing up years as the son of Russian immigrants in 1940s Manhattan; his formative years as an actor with the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York (where Walter learned his craft alongside such classmates as Christopher Lloyd, Brenda Vaccaro, Jessica Walter, James Caan, and Dabney Coleman); his lifelong love of theatre; and his deep appreciation for the many opportunities that Star Trek continues to give him. Beaming Up and Getting Off: Life Before and Beyond Star Trek is available in hardcover and as an eBook through Jacobs Brown Media Group. 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 530.6: Ed welcomes Darren Wadyko, the distributor of Betty White’s The Pet Set: The Complete Series, an excellent new DVD set featuring all thirty-nine episodes of the long-lost syndicated talk show from 1971 that Betty White always considered to be among her favorite projects. The Pet Set blended White's lifelong passion for animals of all kind, both domestic and wild, with her gift for conversation and her many skills in unscripted television. Betty White’s The Pet Set: The Complete Series includes a host of extra features, including documentaries about White’s long association with game shows and her years hosting experimental television (both in Los Angeles and on a national level), plus rarely seen episodes of White’s first two sitcoms, Life with Elizabeth and A Date with The Angels. 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 530.7: From June 2013: Jennifer Armstrong, author of Mary and Lou and Rhoda and All the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic, talks to Ed, Tony, and Donna about where the characters of Phyllis Lindstrom and Sue Ann Nivens fit in the “sexy feminism” pantheon. Jennifer’s latest book, When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today, will be released on Tuesday, Mar. 23 and includes a profile of Betty White’s early, early career as a pioneer in experimental unscripted 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

From September 2014: Singer/actress Connie Stevens shares a few memories of working with James Garner, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis, Patrick Macnee, and Marty Allen. 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 June 2015: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the premiere of The Lawrence Welk Show on ABC in July 1955. 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 June 2015: Tony, Donna, and Ed discuss how the success of The Lawrence Welk Show in the late 1950s changed the landscape of television in the 1960s. 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 January 2013: Barbara Feldon became a role model for women around the world when she played Agent 99 on the long-running, groundbreaking comedy series Get Smart. But while 99 continues to live happily ever after in reruns, Barbara found herself at a crossroads many years ago when her 12-year live-in relationship came to an end, and she found herself faced with the prospect of actually living by herself for the first time in her life. After struggling with the notion at first, Barbara discovered, with the help of some friends, that living alone is just a state of mind — and that no matter what one’s age is, there are many ways to lead a full, happy and enriching life without a permanent housemate or live-in life partner. Barbara’s book, Living Alone and Loving It: A Guide to Relishing the Solo Life, not only speaks openly about her own experience, but challenges the often negative perceptions society has about the concept of living on one’s own. Statistics show that nearly 50 percent of the world’s population choose to live by themselves — and yet there remains a stigma to living alone that even Barbara had to overcome. 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 529.1: A return visit by sci-fi screenwriter and sci-fi and fantasy film historian Gary Gerani. Gary provides commentary for the Blu-ray release of Dark Intruder, a horror/thriller/fantastical type movie starring Leslie Nielsen and Peter Mark Richman. Released in theaters in 1965, Dark Intruder was actually conceived by Universal as a pilot for The Black Cloak, a prospective TV series about an intrepid investigator who specializes in crimes involving the occult. While Dark Intruder never materialized as a series, it paved the way for other Universal TV explorations of the occult and the supernatural, including Fear No Evil, Ritual of Evil, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, The Sixth Sense, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. 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 529.2: Documentary filmmaker and film/TV historian Gary Gerani updates Ed on the latest developments about Romantic Mysticism (his upcoming documentary on the life and music of Billy Goldenberg), and discusses some of his other upcoming projects. The Dark Intruder Blu-ray release, now available from Kino Lorber, includes commentary by Gary Gerani, plus an interview with Mike Westmore, son of legendary Universal makeup artist Bud Westmore. 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 529.3: From March 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the birthdays of Ben Murphy and Billy Crystal, the death of George Burns, and the anniversary of the first Academy Awards telecast as part of This Week in TV History.  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 529.4: Ed welcomes back actor, author, producer, director, screenwriter, and novelist Walter Koenig (Star Trek, Babylon 5). Walter’s latest book, Beaming Up and Getting Off: Life Before and Beyond Star Trek, is actually two books in one: Part One is a reissue of Walter’s memoir, Warped Factors (originally published in 1997), while Part Two includes nearly 100 new pages of material that brings you up to date on Walter’s life and career over the past twenty-five years. 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 529.5: Walter Koenig talks to Ed about the events that led to his being cast as Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. Walter’s memoir, Beaming Up and Getting Off: Life Before and Beyond Star Trek, walks you through Walter’s growing up years as the son of Russian immigrants in 1940s Manhattan; his formative years as an actor with the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York (where Walter learned his craft alongside such classmates as Christopher Lloyd, Brenda Vaccaro, Jessica Walter, James Caan, and Dabney Coleman); his lifelong love of theatre; and his deep appreciation for the many opportunities that Star Trek continues to give him. Beaming Up and Getting Off is available in hardcover and as an eBook through Jacobs Brown Media Group. 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