TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives: Show No. 300

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Show No. 300 with guest Bo Svenson
Original Airdate: Week of Dec. 9-14, 2015

First hour: Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen remember the 50^th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas and the 35^th anniversary of Magnum, p.i. Also in this hour: Ed commemorates Frank Sinatra’s 100^th birthday by playing highlights from our conversations with Robert Davi and Barbara van Orden about the legacy of Ole Blue Eyes, as a singer, actor and humanitarian. 

Second hour: Actor, producer and director Bo Svenson (Breaking Point, North Dallas Forty, Kill Bill, Here Come the Brides, Inglorious Basterds) talks to Ed about his upcoming film Don’t Call Me Sir, the inspiring story of groundbreaking judo legend Rusty Kanokogi, which will also feature the acting debut of Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison. For information on the film, go to SupportDontCallMeSir.com. Also in this hour: Phil Gries remembers the NBC 1967 telecast of Annie Get Your Gun as part of The Sounds of Lost Television. 

Tis the Season TV: Next on TVC

Author Joanna Wilson will join us on an encore edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Dec. 23-28 at the following times and venues:

WROM Radio
Detroit, MI
Wednesday 12/23
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Sunday 12/27
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at WROMRadio.net

KHDN AM-1230
KBSR AM-1490
KYLW AM-1450
Billings, MT
part of GLN Radio Network
Friday 12/25
3pm ET, Noon PT
Saturday 12/26
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Monday 12/28
3pm ET, Noon PT

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 12/25
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 12/26
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 12/27
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

KSCO-AM 1080
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY-AM 1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 12/27
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 12/27
9pm PT
Monday 12/28
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 12/28
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

This week’s show will include an encore presentation of our roundtable discussion featuring Joanna Wilson on favorite Christmas episodes and holiday TV specials. Joanna is the author of The Christmas TV Companion and Tis the Season TV: The Encyclopedia of Christmas-Themed Episodes, S.... Then Phil Gries will join us in our second hour for our annual tribute to bandleader Guy Lombardo, with audio highlights from some of the first TV coverage of the ball drop at Times Square… including a rarely heard clip featuring Howard Cosell. Plus we’ll look back at the career of singer Perry Como, with a particular focus on the many TV Christmas specials that he hosted throughout his career.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Wed and Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT on WROM Radio
Fri and Mon 3pm ET, Noon PT and Sat 6pm ET, 3pm PT on GLN Radio Network
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
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KSCO-AM 1080 (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KOMY-AM 1340 (La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA)
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (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
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and now on your mobile phone via Stitcher.com
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Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Festivus

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Today is Festivus

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Dragnet: The Big .22 Rifle for Christmas and Mike and Gloria Stivic had a baby on CBS-TV's All in The Family.

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Winter Solstice 

Dragnet: The Big .22 Rifle for Christmas (First aired December, 18th 1952). The Story is as relevant today as it was then.

And in Television History
December 22, 1975

Mike and Gloria Stivic had a baby on CBS-TV's All in The Family.

Joseph Michael Stivic was the son of Michael and Gloria Stivic, and grandson of Archie and Edith Bunker, and was born during the sixth season of All In The Family. The character first appeared as a newborn baby in the two-part episode "Birth of the Baby" which aired on December 15 & 22, 1975. In 1976 the Ideal Toy Company released a 14-inch "Joey Stivic doll" (called "Archie Bunker's Grandson") which was billed as the "first anatomically correct male doll." The doll inspired mild controversy at the time, and is a collectors' item today.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: An American Christmas Carol

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Humbug Day

An American Christmas Carol is a 1979 television film directed by Eric Till. The screenplay is based on Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

In Depression-era New England, a miserly businessman named Benedict Slade receives a long-overdue attitude adjustment one Christmas Eve when he is visited by three ghostly figures who resemble three of the people whose possessions Slade had seized to collect on unpaid loans. Assuming the roles of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future from Charles Dickens' classic story, the three apparitions force Slade to face the consequences of his skinflint ways, and he becomes a caring, generous, amiable man.

In Television History
December 21, 1935

Phillip John ”Phil“ Donahue is born. Media personality, writer, and film producer best known as the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, also known as Donahue, was the first talk show format that included audience participation. The show had a 29-year run on national television in America that began in Dayton, Ohio, and ended in New York City in 1996.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Benson - Carols around the piano

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Go Caroling Day

From Benson: Mary and Her Lambs



Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a song with words and music by Frank Loesser. Although popular during the Christmas season. Loesser wrote the duet in 1944 and premiered the song with his wife, Lynn Garland, at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party, and performed it toward the end of the evening, signifying to guests that it was nearly time to end the party. Garland considered it "their song" and was furious when Loesser sold the song to MGM.

In 1948, after years of informally performing the song at various parties, Loesser sold its rights to MGM, which inserted the song into its 1949 motion picture, Neptune's Daughter.^[2] The film featured two performances of the song: one by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett, the second of which has the roles of wolf and mouse reversed. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Lady Gaga - Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Idina Menzel - Michael Bublé

Casey Wilson and Scott Aukerman

An Honest Performance Of "Baby It's Cold Outside" from Funny Or Die

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Dr. Seuss’ ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

December 18th, 1966

Dr. Seuss’ ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas Debuted on CBS.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas from Basil Bruce on Myspace.

The animated television special directed by Chuck Jones. It is based on the eponymous children's book by Dr. Seuss, the story of The Grinch trying to take away Christmas from the townsfolk ofWhoville below his mountain hideaway. The special, which is considered a short film as it runs less than an hour, is one of the classic Christmas specials from the 1960s still shown regularly on television. Jones and Geisel previously worked together on thePrivate Snafu training cartoons for United Productions of America during World War II.


Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Simpsons 2010 Christmas Special

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

December 17, 1989

The first episode of The Simpsons aired on FOX.

Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

The Simpsons is an American adult animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town ofSpringfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and many aspects of the human condition.

Simpsons 2010 Christmas Special com katy Perry from Festivais de Verão on Vimeo.



Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Raging Rudolph

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY" a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

In its December 16, 1995 episode, the Fox Network's comedy series MADtv aired "Raging Rudolph" which also parodied Martin Scorsese's films. In it, Sam The Snowman narrates in a Joe Pesci-like voice how Rudolph and Hermey got violent Mafia-style revenge on their tormentors

December 16, 2010

"Larry King Live" ends after 25 years on CNN.

The 77-year-old King had hosted the hour-long CNN program, featuring interviews with movies stars, world leaders, politicians, musicians and other newsmakers, since June 1985. The farewell broadcast of “Larry King Live” included appearances by Ryan Seacrest, Regis Philbin, Katie Couric, Donald Trump, former president Bill Clinton (via satellite) and President Barack Obama (in a pre-recorded video), among others. Toward the end of the program, Tony Bennett serenaded King, who had become a TV institution, along with his wife and two young sons.

Larry King, who was born Lawrence Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, began his career as a disc jockey and sports announcer for a radio station in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1957. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked in Miami as a radio and TV host and newspaper columnist before getting his own nationally syndicated radio program in 1978. In June 1985, King joined CNN, the cable news channel founded by Ted Turner in 1980. “Larry King Live,” which anchored CNN’s prime-time lineup, originated from Washington, D.C., before moving to Los Angeles in the 1990s.

The first guest on “Larry King Live” was Mario Cuomo, the governor of New York. The program went on to receive big ratings boosts when billionaire Ross Perot appeared as a guest in 1992 and announced his intention to run as an independent candidate for the U.S. presidency, and in 1993 when Vice President Al Gore and Perot came on to debate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). That edition of “Larry King Live” was the highest-rated in cable history for more than a decade.

Over the course of 25 years, King, who became known for his straightforward, nonconfrontational interview style, consistently landed big-name guests, ranging from Marlon Brando (who famously kissed King on the lips) to Vladimir Putin to Lady Gaga. From a set featuring a color-dotted map of the world on a dark background, King often took call-in, and later email, viewer questions for his interview subjects. He has said that in order to be fresh and learn from his guests, he didn’t prepare extensively for interviews. This approach could occasionally backfire and make King seem out of touch, as in 2007, when he asked Jerry Seinfeld if his sitcom had been cancelled or if he had left voluntarily. A surprised Seinfeld, who had famously exited his show of his own accord, said to King, “Do you know who I am?”

In June 2009, King announced plans to end his show. At the time, “Larry King Live” had fallen into third place in the ratings behind political programs hosted by Sean Hannity of Fox News and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. By the time “Larry King Live” went off the air in December 2010, the legendary host had conducted some 50,000 interviews, by his account, during his more than 50-year career in radio and television.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa