Emmy winner Ken Levine, plus Oscar, Oscar, Oscar: Next on TVC

Emmy Award-winning writer/producer Ken Levine and author Bob Leszczak will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Nov. 5-10 at the following times and stations:

WROM Radio
Detroit, MI
Wednesday 11/5
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Sunday 11/2
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at WROMRadio.net

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 11/7
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
or hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 11/8
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 11/9
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

Pittsburgh Talks
Pittsburgh, PA
Saturday 11/8
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 11/9
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Click on the player at PittTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Pittsburgh Talks

KSCO-AM 1080
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY-AM 1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 11/9
11am ET, 8am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com

Boost Radio Network
Paramus, NJ
Sunday 11/9
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Click on the On the Air button at BoostRadioNetwork.com

KHMB-AM 1710
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 11/9
9pm PT
Monday 11/10
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com
or use the Live365 app on your smartphone and type in KHMB

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 11/10
10pm ET, 7pm PT
with replays Tuesday thru Friday at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

PWRNetwork
Ann Arbor, MI
Various times throughout the week
on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork.com

Ken Levine spent thirty years in network television writing, producing and directing such shows as M*A*S*H, Cheers (for which he won an Emmy as a producer in 1983), Frasier, Wings, The Simpsons, Becker, Dharma and Greg, and Everybody Loves Raymond, plus he co-created three shows of his own, including Almost Perfect. Now a successful playwright, Ken’s first play, a romantic comedy called A or B?, recently opened to rave reviews at theFalcon Theatre in Burbank, CA. We’ll ask Ken how he came to write A or B?, as well as talk about some of the differences between writing for television and writing for the stage, when he joins us in our second hour.

A or B? is now playing at The Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive in Burbank, CA through Sunday, Nov. 16. For tickets and more information, call (818) 955-8101 or go to www.FalconTheatre.com.

Also joining us this week will be author and film and music historian Bob Leszczak. Bob’s latest book, The Odd Couple on Stage on Screen, tells you everything you wanted to know about The Odd Couple, from the Broadway play written by Neil Simon, to the classic TV series starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, and the various other renderings of Felix and Oscar over the years. The basic premise of The Odd Couple has been revisited many times in film and television (including, most recently, The Big Bang Theory, Two Broke Girls and Two and a Half Men) while The Odd Couple itself will be returning to television on CBS in early 2015. We’ll ask Bob about that, and more, when he joins us in our first hour.

Plus: Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen with a brand new This Week in TV History.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Wed and Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT on WROM Radio
Wed 9pm ET, 6pm PT on WYYR: Yesteryear Radio
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org and CX Radio Brazil
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 6pm ET, 3pm PT on Indiana Talks
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 6pm ET, 3pm PT on Pittsburgh Talks
Sun 11am ET, 8am PT KSCO-AM 1080 (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA)
Sun 11am ET, 8am PT KOMY-AM 1340 (La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA)
Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT Boost Radio Network
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM 1710 (Half Moon Bay, CA)
Mon 10pm ET, 7pm PT on The Radio Slot Network
Replays various times throughout the week on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork
Tape us now, listen to us later, using DAR.fm/tvconfidential
Also available as a podcast via iTunes, FeedBurner
and now on your mobile phone via Stitcher.com
Follow us online at www.tvconfidential.net
Follow us now on Twitter: Twitter.com/tvconfidential
Like our Fan Page at www.facebook.com/tvconfidential

TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives: Show No. 253 with guests Kathy Garver, Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad

Show No. 253 with guests Kathy Garver, Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad


Original Airdate: Week of Oct. 22-27, 2014


First hour: Ed welcomes actress, author and voice artist Kathy Garver (Family Affair). Kathy’s new movie, Mom, Murder and Me, is making the film festival circuit after its recent world premiere. Also in this hour: Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen remember how television news covered the Loma Prieta earthquake that struck Northern California on October 17, 1989. Topics include the damage done to the Bay Bridge and Cypress Freeway and the postponement of Game 3 of the World Series that year between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s. 

Second hour: Ed welcomes Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, co-authors of Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, a behind-the-scenes look at the first ten years of the groundbreaking NBC late night series that began its 40th season on television this fall. Recently re-released as an eBook, Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live was hailed by the Associated Press as “the best book ever written about television.”

This Week in Television History: November 2014 PART I

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:

CLICK HERE for a list of Stations

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 8, 1914
Norman Nathan Lloyd is born. 

Actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning roughly eight decades. Lloyd has appeared in over sixty films and television shows. 

In the 1980s, he gained a new generation of fans for playing Dr. Daniel Auschlander, one of the starring roles on the groundbreaking medical drama St. Elsewhere.


November 8, 1979
The program, "The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage", premiered on ABC-TV. 

The show was planned to be temporary, but it evolved into "Nightline" in March of 1980. The program had its beginnings on November 8, 1979, just four days after the Iran hostage crisis started. ABC News president Roone Arledge felt the best way to compete against NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was to update Americans on the latest news from Iran. At that time, the show was called The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage: Day "xxx", where xxx represented each day that Iranians held hostage the occupants of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. 

Originally, World News Tonight lead anchor Frank Reynolds hosted the special report. Shortly after its creation, Reynolds stopped hosting the program. Ted Koppel, then ABC News's State Department Correspondent, took on the hosting duties. It was not until a few days later that a producer had the idea of displaying the number of days on America Held Hostage: Day 15, Day 50, Day 150, and so on.

November 8, 1994
Salvatore "Sonny" Bono is elected to the U.S. Congress.

If you had made a friendly wager back in 1974 as to which recent or current pop-music figure might go on to serve in the United States Congress in 20 years' time, you might have picked someone with an apparent political agenda, like Joan Baez, or at least one who was associated with some kind of cause, like nature-lover John Denver. 

You almost certainly wouldn't have placed your bet on Sonny Bono, a singer of arguably limited talents who appeared content to stand, literally and figuratively, in the shadow of his far more popular wife, Cher. It was indeed Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, however, who had a future in elective politics—a future that included his election to the United States House of Representatives from California's 44th Congressional District on this day in 1994.


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

Stay Tuned



Tony Figueroa