Sandra Bernhard and the Alberici Sisters: Next on TV CONFIDENTIAL

Actress and comedienne Sandra Bernhard and singers Maria Lauren and Linda Eichberg will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Dec. 2-6 at the following times and venues:
Share-a-Vision Radio
KSAV.org
Friday 12/2
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT

KWTY 107.7 FM
Ridgecrest, Calif.
Sunday 12/4
TBA

InternetVoicesRadio.com
Tuesday 12/6
11:05pm ET, 8:05pm PT

and at various times throughout the week on WROM Radio.
Camille Paglia once described actress, author, singer and comedienne Sandra Bernhard as “an artist with few peers today, whose lineage goes back through early Barbra Streisand to Lenny Bruce and the comic monologist Ruth Draper, but whose raging energy is sparked by the rock idiom, which gives her propulsion and a flirtation with danger.” Known for her appearance in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, as well as such popular television shows as Roseanne, Ally McBeal, The Larry Sanders Show, The Sopranos, Law & Order: SVU, The L Word, Will and Grace and The New Adventures of Old Christine, Sandra has also written, produced and performed in many acclaimed one-woman stage shows, including I Love Being Me, Don’t You, which she will bring to the cities of Philadelphia, Seattle and La Jolla in early 2012.


Sandra Bernhard will also be appearing on TV Land’s Hot in Cleveland on Wednesday, Dec. 14. We’ll ask her about that, as well as some of her early influences as a performer, when she joins us in our first hour.


Also joining us this week will be the Alberici Sisters, Maria Lauren and Linda Eichberg, who sang with Dean Martin for nearly twenty years, both on television and in nightclub venues around the world, as members of the renowned Dean Martin Golddiggers.

Maria and Linda’s book, Beyond Our Wildest Dreams, is a memoir of their life in show business that also takes you behind the scenes of the world of nightclub entertainment between the years 1973 through 1978 ― a time that saw Maria and Linda perform with such legends as Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Jerry Vale, Louis Prima, Donald O’Connor and, of course, Dean Martin. It’s a book that really captures the spirit of one of the last great eras of show business, when old Hollywood and old Vegas were still alive and vibrant, and nightclub singing acts were more intimate, yet just as spectacular. We’ll learn about the last successful Rat Pack tour with Frank and Dean, the story of Dean’s reunion with Jerry Lewis, and a whole lot more when Maria and Linda join us in our second hour.






TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Fridays 7pm ET and PT Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org
Sunday nights KWTY 107.7 FM (Ridgecrest, Calif.)
Tuesdays 11:05pm ET, 8:05pm PTPassionate World Radio
Three times a week
WROM: Realms of Music www.tvconfidential.net
blog.tvconfidential.net
Also available as a podcast via iTunes and FeedBurner
Find us now on Facebook

This Week in Television History: November 2011 Part V

Listen to me on me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:

 

Realms of Music
WROM
Wednesday 9/7
9pm ET, 6pm PT

Share-a-Vision Radio
KSAV.org
Friday 9/9
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT

KWDJ 1360-AM
Ridgecrest, Calif.
Saturday 9/10
Following Dodgers baseball

InternetVoicesRadio.com
Tuesday 9/13
11:05pm ET, 8:05pm PT

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

November 29, 1948

Children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie premieres on prime time network TV.  

The show featured beloved puppets Kukla, Ollie (a dragon), and others, with live actress Fran Allison as host. The show began as a local Chicago program before debuting on NBC. It was one of the two most important series made in Chicago, along with Garroway at Large, during the city's brief period as an important production center for network programs in the late 1940s. After its network cancellation in 1957, PBS revived the series from 1969 to 1971.

December  3, 1948

Heavy-metal legend Ozzy Osbourne born.  
On this day in 1948, John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne, the heavy-metal musician and star of the pioneering reality TV program The Osbournes, which originally aired from 2002 to 2005, is born in Birmingham, England.

Osbourne first gained fame in the 1970s as a founding member and the lead vocalist of the heavy-metal band Black Sabbath. After being fired from the group in the late 1970s, he embarked on a successful solo career. In the mid-1990s, he and his wife Sharon launched Ozzfest, a popular annual tour of heavy-metal and rock acts. As a performer, Osbourne became infamous for biting the heads off a dove and a bat onstage and was also accused of promoting suicide and Satanism through some of his lyrics.

Osbourne’s fame widened beyond the music world with the debut of The Osbournes, a reality TV show featuring the rocker and his family that debuted on MTV on March 5, 2002. The idea for the show reportedly sprang from an episode of MTV’s Cribs, which featured the feisty, frequently foul-mouthed Osbourne clan at home. The Osbournes focused on Ozzy’s relationship with his spunky wife Sharon and the couple’s two teenagers, Kelly and Jack; a third sibling, Aimee, opted not to participate in the show. Filmed largely at the Osbournes’ Beverly Hills, California mansion, the show covered a range of topics, from Ozzy’s battles with a vacuum cleaner to his efforts to stay sober; to Sharon’s fight against colon cancer; to Jack and Kelly’s partying and often-bratty behavior; to the family’s pack of misbehaving pets.

The Osbournes, which aired its last original episode on March 21, 2005, proved to be one of the highest-rated series in MTV’s history and spawned a string of reality TV shows about celebrities on various networks, including MTV’s Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, with pop stars Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, which aired from 2003 to 2005, and Hogan Knows Best, which featured pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and his wife and children and debuted in 2005 on Vh1. Gene Simmons of the rock group Kiss starred with his family in Gene Simmons Family Jewels, which premiered in 2006 on A&E, while Denise Richards, the actress and former wife of Charlie Sheen, appeared in a show about her professional and domestic life, Denise Richards: It’s Complicated, which debuted in 2008 on E!.

In addition to turning Ozzy Osbourne into a household name and sparking a boom in celebrity-focused reality TV, The Osbournes transformed his wife and longtime manager Sharon into a star in her own right. From 2003 to 2004, she hosted her own TV talk show and later went on to make numerous guest appearances on various TV programs and to serve as a judge on the TV competition America’s Got Talent.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Black Friday Mental Sorbet: The Jack Benny Program: Christmas Shopping

Here your Black Friday "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths. 

Original Air Date: December 15, 1957 Jack is determined to finish his Christmas shopping in one visit and tortures a wallet salesman with constant changes to his order. Meanwhile, Dennis is having difficulty finding the right present for his mother.
Link:

Stay Tuned and Safe Shopping


Tony Figueroa

Your Thanksgiving Mental Sorbet: WKRP in Cincinnati "Turkeys Away"

Here is a Thanksgiving "Mental Sorbet" tradition. This is a little brain candy to snack on while dinner is cooking. May we be thankful for what we are about to view.

Station manager -Arthur Carlson comes up with a big idea for a unique holiday promotion involving live turkeys and a helicopter.
Stay Tuned and Happy Thanksgiving

Tony Figueroa

Your Pre-Thanksgiving Mental Sorbet PSA: William Shatner & State Farm® present "Eat, Fry, Love," a turkey fryer fire cautionary tale

Here is a Pre-Thanksgiving 

"Mental Sorbet" 

P.S.A.

William Shatner loves deep-fried turkey, but over many Thanksgivings and Christmases he's made mistakes, burned himself, and nearly burned down his house. In this dramatic retelling, Bill shows us how dangerous turkey fryers can be.


Stay Tuned and have a SAFE Thanksgiving

Tony Figueroa

TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives: Nov. 16, 2011

Show No. 113 Nov. 16, 2011

First hour: Ed welcomes independent filmmaker Daron Ker. Daron’s films include I Ride and Rice Field of Dreams, both of which tell stories about bridging the gap in different cultures. I Ride takes viewers into the world of biker culture, as seen through the eyes of The Fryed Brothers Band, while Rice of Field of Dreams is the story of Joe Cook, the man who brought baseball to Cambodia. Also in this hour: Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen remember the birth of Danny DeVito, as well as Television Screen Magazine, an NBC precursor to 60 Minutes that premiered This Week in TV History. Second hour: Ed welcomes actor, author and television historian James Rosin. Jim’s latest book, The Streets of San Francisco: A Quinn Martin TV Series, is a comprehensive oral history of the long-running ABC crime drama, featuring comments and insight from the people who made it, including series star Michael Douglas, producers John Wilder and Cliff Gould, and director Walter Grauman.

Return Engagement with Charles Fox: Next on TVC

Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composer Charles
Fox and pop culture expert Joanna Wilson will join us on the next edition of TV
CONFIDENTIAL, airing Nov. 25-Dec. 1 at the
following times and venues:
Share-a-Vision Radio
KSAV.org
Friday 11/25
7pm ET, 4pm
PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT

KWDJ
1360-AM
Ridgecrest, Calif.
Saturday 11/26
8pm
PT
Sunday 11/27
2pm PT

InternetVoicesRadio.com
Tuesday
11/29
11:05pm ET, 8:05pm PT

and at various times throughout the week
on WROM Radio.

The
Grammy-winning composer of “Killing Me
Softly with His Song,” one of the most-performed songs ever in music history,
Charles Fox has also composed the scores for
hundreds of film and TV productions, including Goodbye, Columbus, Barbarella,
Foul Play, 9 to 5, One on One, The Last American Hero, Two Minute Warning, The
Other Side of The Mountain and Victory at Entebbe, as well as the
theme songs for Love, American Style, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley,
Wonder Woman, The Love Boat, The Paper Chase, the original theme to
Monday Night Football and the famous theme to Wide World of
Sports.

Charles’ memoir, Killing Me Softly: My Life in Music, tells the stories behind these great songs while also
paying pays tribute to the teacher who started it all for him, Nadia Boulanger.
We’ll not only talk about Charles’ journey in music, we’ll also play some of his
most famous compositions when he joins us in our second hour.

































Joining
us in our first hour will be Joanna
Wilson, pop culture expert and the leading authority on the
subject of holiday TV programming. Joanna’s books include The Christmas TV Companion: A Guide to Cult Classics, Strange
Specials and Outrageous Oddities and Tis
the Season TV: The Encyclopedia of Christmas-Themed Episodes, Specials and Made
for TV Movies, both of which provide engaging looks at
Christmas specials over the years.

Joanna Wilson will also moderate the
special panel discussion at The Waltons
40^th Anniversary Cast Reunion that will take place
Friday, Dec. 2 at the Loews Jersey Theater in New Jersey. Among those scheduled
to appear that night will be Richard Thomas, Michael Learned Michael Learned, Kami Cotler, Judy Norton and Mary McDonough. The event will also include a special screening of
The Homecoming, the holiday-themed two-hour pilot of The Waltons.
For tickets and more information, go to www.waltonshomecoming40th.com.




Also this week: Phil Gries with Part 1 of our
special tribute to talk show pioneer Joe
Franklin; and Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen with a new edition
of This Week in TV History.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about
television
Fridays 7pm ET and PT Share-a-Vision
Radio, KSAV.org
Saturdays 8pm
PT
Sundays 2pm PTKWDJ
1360-AM (Ridgecrest,
Calif.)
Tuesdays 11:05pm
ET, 8:05pm PTPassionate World
Radio
Three times a week

WROM: Realms of
Music
www.tvconfidential.net
blog.tvconfidential.net
Also available as a podcast via iTunes and FeedBurner
Find us now on
Facebook

This Week in Television History: November 2011 Part IV

Listen to me on me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:

Realms of Music
WROM
Wednesday 9/7
9pm ET, 6pm PT

Share-a-Vision Radio
KSAV.org
Friday 9/9
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT

KWDJ 1360-AM
Ridgecrest, Calif.
Saturday 9/10
Following Dodgers baseball

InternetVoicesRadio.com
Tuesday 9/13
11:05pm ET, 8:05pm PT

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

 

November 24, 1978

David Letterman makes his first guest appearance on The Tonight Show.  
Letterman became a favorite on the show, serving as guest host more than 50 times. By 1982, Letterman had his own late-night comedy talk show, Late Night with David Letterman, which ran until 1993. When NBC chose Jay Leno instead of Letterman to become the replacement when host Johnny Carson retired, Letterman changed networks and launched Late Show on rival network CBS.

November 26, 1922

Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz is born in St. Paul, Minnesota.  
The son of a barber, Schulz showed an early interest in art and took a correspondence course in cartooning. After serving in the army in World War II, Schulz returned to St. Paul and took a job lettering comics for a small magazine. In 1947, Schulz began drawing a comic strip for the St. Paul Pioneer Press called "L'il Folks," featuring Charlie Brown and his gang of friends. In 1950, after several rejections, Schulz sold syndication rights to United Features, which renamed the strip "Peanuts." Schulz drew the comic himself, without assistants, until his retirement in 1999. Peanuts ran in some 2,600 papers, in 75 countries and 21 languages, earning Schulz some $30 million a year. Schulz died in 2000.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Michael J. Fox Playing "Johnny B. Goode" LIVE!

Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.

This video is by http://AnnaGoldfarb.com

featuring Michael J. Fox rocking out at the Waldorf-Astoria for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today.

Every team needs a hero. Team Fox needs you! Find tools, advice and inspiration to raise funds and awareness for Parkinson's research.

Watch a 30-second Team Fox Video

2011 NYC Marathon

Learn More

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives: Nov. 9, 2011

Show No. 112 Nov. 9, 2011

First hour: Ed welcomes Prism Award-winning actor and five-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Tony Denison (The Closer, Crime Story, Little Vegas, Getting Gotti, Playmakers). The Closer resumes its final season on TNT beginning Monday, Nov. 28, plus Tony will be co-starring in Major Crimes, the spin-off of The Closer that will premiere in 2012. Also in this hour: Tony Figueroa remembers November 13, the day on which "Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence" on The Odd Couple. Second hour: Ed welcomes Greg Ehrbar, Grammy Award-nominated writer/producer and the co-author, along with Tim Hollis, of Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records, the definitive book on the history of Disney music and its impact on children and families throughout the world for more than six decades.