TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

From April 2011: Phil Gries says Happy Birthday to Ann-Margret by playing highlights from "Today," an NBC special hosted by Andy Williams that also marked one of the singer/actress' very first network TV appearances. Originally broadcast in May 1962, "Today" was also one of several Williams specials for the Peacock Network that eventually led to his popular NBC variety hour.  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 2015: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of My Name is Barbra, an hour of music starring Barbra Streisand, and the first in a series of specials that the Broadway star and future Oscar winner filmed for CBS in the late 1960s. Though it went on to win two Emmys and a Peabody Award, CBS was nervous about My Name is Barbra before it aired. Rather than rely on variety show conventions (such as having guest stars), Streisand chose to perform every musical number in the show by herself. That posed a risk for the network because Streisand was not a household name at the time.   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

TVC 490.4: Ed welcomes back Alison Arngrim, the actress known around the world as Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. With everyone sheltered at home these days, Alison began reading the original Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder aloud to her fans and followers around the world and posting them every day, for free, on her Facebook page. Alison’s daily readings have not only exploded in popularity, but have inspired fellow Little House cast members Dean Butler and Charlotte Stewart to join her. 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 490.5: Alison Arngrim (Little House on the Prairie) tells Ed about the upcoming live digital version of her acclaimed one-woman show, Confessions of a Prairie Terror, on Saturday, May 9 and again on May 16. For more details, go to SpinCycleNYC.com. Alison’s memoir, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, is available wherever books are sold. 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 490.6: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with John Barbour, the five-time Emmy Award-winning talk show host, comedian, critic at large, and documentary film maker who is also the creator, producer, principal writer, and one of the original co-hosts of Real People (NBC, 1979-1984). In this segment, John shares a few thoughts about isolation during this extraordinary time, including a whimsical, Tom Lehrer-like song set to the tune of “Mack the Knife.” John’s memoir, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin: The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American TV, is available in softcover and as an eBook wherever books are sold online. 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 490.7: Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, director, comedian and talk show host John Barbour (Real People) shares a few more stories about his days at a nightclub comedian in the 1960s, including finding his own piece of ground as a comic and helping a young Pat Morita do the same. John’s memoir, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin: The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American TV, is available wherever books are sold online, while select videos of John reading chapters from Your Mother’s Not a Virgin are available for free viewing on his YouTube channel and at JohnBarboursWorld.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 490.8: Emmy Award-winning talk show host, comedian, critic at large, and documentary film maker John Barbour (Real People) tells Ed the story of his unlikely friendship with screenwriter Harlan Ellison. John’s memoir, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin: The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American TV, is available wherever books are sold online. John Barbour’s film The American Media and the Second Assassination of John F. Kennedy is available at Amazon.com for $1.99 to watch and $4.99 to own, while his documentaries The Garrison Tapes and Ernie Kovacs: TV’s Original Genius are both available for free on his YouTube channel and at JohnBarboursWorld.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

From April 2012: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the screen debut of Warner Bros. character Daffy Duck in Porky's Duck Hunt (1937), which was originally released on Apr. 17, 1937. 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 2018: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the world premiere of The Blues Brothers on the Apr. 22, 1978 edition of Saturday Night Live. Topics include the sheer level of talent that Dan Ackroyd put together in creating the band. 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

In light of the passing earlier this week of Tom Lester, the actor known around the world as Eb on Green Acres, we you bring this minisode edition in which Greg and Ed discuss the broadcast history of Green Acres (CBS, 1965-1971). In many respects, Green Acres was the closest thing American television came to capturing the genius and absurdity of Monty Python's Flying Circus. 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 489.1: From April 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed remember Apr. 22, 1976, when Barbara Walters signed a $5 million contract to join Harry Reasoner as co-anchor of The ABC Evening News. The deal made Walters not only the highest paid TV journalist at the time, but the first female to headline a network news broadcast. Barbara Walters passed away Friday, Dec. 30 at age ninety-three. 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 489.2: From April 2011: Tony, Donna, and Ed go back to Apr. 24, 1936, when television cameras in Camden, New Jersey filmed a group of firemen responding to an alarm. This not only marked the first time an unplanned event was broadcast on television, but paved the way for what we now know as "breaking news" or live TV news coverage. 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 489.3: Ed, Tony, and Donna welcome back actor, director, and entrepreneur Anson Williams. Anson directed and co-stars, along with fellow longtime Happy Days cast member Don Most, in Harvest Time, a dramatic short with dark humor that is also the pilot episode for a possible anthology series that would feature actors from movies and TV in roles that are completely different than the characters for which they are best known. You can watch Harvest Time for free at PopGoestheCulture.tv. Anson and Don will also appear together in The Happy Days of Garry Marshall, a new two-hour special that will premiere on ABC on Tuesday, May 12.  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 489.4: Actor/director Anson Williams tells Ed, Tony, and Donna how fellow Happy Days alumnus Don Most made it easy for Anson for appear in front of the camera for the first time in years during production of Harvest Time. The pilot for a possible anthology series, Harvest Time can be seen for free at PopGoestheCulture.tv. Anson Williams, along with his business partner Joanna Connell, also recently partnered with entrepreneur Meggie Jones in her effort to provide needed items to our frontline healthcare workers as they tend to those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anson and Joanna donated supplies of Alert Drops to emergency medical technicians so that they can alert naturally during this critical time. If you own a business, large or small, and would like to help Meggie with this important cause, a list of needed items can be found at NutrientSoak.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