- Wait, you have a TV? - No, I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide, you don't need a TV. (rock music) - Hello and welcome to TV Guidens Counselor. I am Ken Reed, your TV guidance counselor, and it is Wednesday, it is time for an all new episode of the show that talks about the television of our youth. Welcome to the show if you're checking the show for the first time due to my excellent guest this week, a little background on the premise of the show. Basically, I grew up doing nothing but watching television. I own every issue of TV Guidens, and so what I do is someone comes on the show, they pick a specific issue of TV Guid from my collection, they go through it, they pick what they would watch that week in television, and then we discuss it. It's a pretty simple concept, it's a lot of fun, we get into a lot of stories about growing up, and culture, and television, and I really enjoy it, and that's what's important here. Now my guest this week is Ophira Eisenberg, who you may know from the moth, or her excellent NPR game show Ask Me Another, which I was very pleased to appear as a contestant on last month at the Bell House down in New York, and the holiday edition was a lot of fun. She's also an author, has a great book called Screw Everyone. After her and I recorded this episode, I managed to pick up a copy, it's not hard, I don't know, I said manage, you can get it in most places, but I grab a copy and really, really loved it, it's if I'm a sucker for a memoir, and coming up and growing up sort of stories, and it's very, very good, so I recommend that. She also has a really great new stand up CD out called Bangs that you should pick up as well, and you will undoubtedly wanna pick up after you listen to this episode, because it's a lot of fun. And I will also have links up on tvguidescounselered.com with all of her social media stuff, and where you can get all of the things I just mentioned. So, please enjoy this week's episode of TV Guidescounselered with my guest, Ophira Eisenberg. ♪ 'Cause I go blind ♪ ♪ TV movies made for TV ♪ ♪ TV movies made for TV ♪ ♪ Dreamers ♪ Ophira Eisenberg, thank you so much for doing this. - Thanks, Ken. - We were just chatting a little bit about the warm memories that this TV guide has stirred in you. - Yeah, so I picked, you gave me all these TV guides, so I picked this one from 1990. - Yeah, 'cause you said '89, '90 was what you were kind of thinking, initially 'cause you said you live in Australia at that time. - Yeah, I went away to Australia, I went away. - I would send to Australia for crimes against humanity. - It was a prisoner. - I went to Australia for a couple years, and it was obviously, it was a teenager, and so it was weird 'cause when I came back-- - 'Cause it's like the anti-Canada. - It's the, yeah, I was in Canada. I went to a different colony. - Yes, yes, the warm colony versus the cold colony. - There's also, there's like so many, very small cultural differences in these things, but they end up being, in pop culture, they end up being huge. So the pop culture difference between Canada-America, I mean, when I moved here, it was like, I know exactly everything that you guys know, just from a little bit of a different perspective, right, a little bit of a fringe. No, not only do we have some just basic vernacular that is different, but I didn't grow up at MTV. - Yeah, did you have much music or the boxer? - Yeah, we had much music, but it was-- - That was later, though, too. - It was later, and it wasn't as, it didn't have the same original programming that MTV had when people watched actual shows of their reference all the time. - There were VJs, but it was still, it was just music videos. So I know MTV used to be just music videos. - It was, but they had like remote control, which was the game show. - Remote control. Didn't know that one. - Great show. - I know. - Yeah, and then they started getting stuff like House of Style, which I'm a big fan of, which was very weird growing up, where I was like, I gotta get home and watch Cindy Crawford's House of Style and my 13-year-old-- - Oh my God, that's so amazing. - Yeah, it was great. Todd Oldham would teach you how to reupholster things on it. It was pretty exciting. - Yeah, but they started the original program in the late '80s and that was the end of MTV as we knew it, but so you just had videos and that was later. - So yeah, just videos, I mean, I certainly remember watching all the Dran Duran videos and all that. - Was there like a youth network though that you had, or were there shows? - Yeah, there was one, but again, I think either I didn't watch it or it was later because there was something called YTV, which was it, but it was, I think it was really like, I think they were doing children up until what tweens. - Right, right. - Also, there was no delineation. Basically, you were under 18 and therefore a pain in the ass. - Oh yeah, over the years, if you look from like the '50s to now-- - No, not getting the shit. - No, absolutely not. They've made like each year its own thing slowly, so like teenagers didn't exist in the '50s, you were like in high school and you're an adult. You had children at 19, then we have teenagers now, then we have tweens and now-- - That's interesting, but we keep, and I guess it's just marketing, right? - Yeah, advertising runs the entire world. - It does, and they get better and better. - There's some advertising. - There's some advertisers listening to this right now going, "Yes!" - "Yes, we get this money." - I mean, perhaps they've figured it out. - All those eight-year-olds are their disposable income. They know! - They have a disposable income. - That's very sad. - Although, actually, I'd be more worried if an eight-year-old had income that wasn't disposable. He's like, "I gotta pay my bills." - Exactly. - Oh jeez, damn milk man. - You think this Barbie Dreamhouse pays for itself? - It's on a payment plan. - So, yeah, so Canada had its own cultural things, and then there were other shows that I grew up watching that nobody else knows. Did you watch Buckshot? See? - What was Buckshot? - Buckshot was a kid show. - Like a cartoon wraparound type show. - Oh my God, no, you're set making a set like there was money behind. - Okay. - It was a kid show. I also do think it may have only been on the West. This might have been a local, 'cause I grew up in Calgary, it was on the West. So, we didn't even get all the Toronto programming, which is huge, right? - That's the more urban kinda. - And it was really informing everyone's ideas of what Canada was. - Yeah, 'cause we got like King of Kensington, we're coming to Toronto. - Yeah, yeah, sure. - So, I would get that, and then, you know, the kids in the hall would seem like a very Toronto-y show. - Absolutely. The King of Kensington, yeah, which was based on the Kensington market in Toronto. - Right, right, right. Poor guy, yeah, that guy was a major, or beachcomers. Did you ever hear that show? - The name sounds familiar. - That was a, that was like a, God, was there mystery? And I think there was mystery, but it took place in the Maritimes, on the coast, I barely remember it. - Like the Anne of Green Gables? - That side of the world, yeah. - Was it Prince Edward Island? - Prince Edward Island in Nova Scotia and stuff like that. So, we had some, this show, Buckshot, Calgary and Alberta is very cowboy, right? Ranching, it's the West. - It's the West. - It's the West, and it was very cowboy. And so, Buckshot was a cowboy, like it, but he was like, hey! - Was his name Buckspace Shot? Like, I'm Buckshot. Nice to meet, it's convenient, that's my name. - I think they took out the space, but yeah, I mean, it was, come on, Buckshot, totally inappropriate now for a child, they'd be like, we need to think about this. - Yes, this new children's host is called, Uzi 911, that's his name. - Uzi 911's amazing, I love Uzi 911. - That's my favorite show. - Any, most of the show, like, the side alleged that a little hand puppet was popping over. - Okay. - Which was a bear, and I mean like a hand puppet that they would have purchased. - Off the shelf, we'd call it. - Yeah, it was the most generic thing of all time. None of this was supposed to be a parody because there was nothing to parody. - It was completely sincere. - This was before there was a parody. - Who did you like crafts and things like? - There were some crafts, but mostly it was banter. - Between a puppet and a man. - Between a puppet and a man, who, they can't, like, who had to lean by a ledge. It's not like they could even like-- - It's just in the corner of some local studio and they're like, we can't do that. - I think it was someone's house. - You will see people on their lunch break. - I think there was a counter, you know, it's just like we're doing this in someone's kitchen counter. - I wonder if they would just like, right, like if you found out that all that dialogue was very meticulously written. - It may have been, it also may have been, it may have been really a cervic and very adult. - Like some subversive thing that you just didn't get at the-- - Yeah, it's possible. - Because you ended up having the influence of the sort of British television system with the CBC and sort of importing a lot of that stuff, which we didn't really get here. We got like Benny Hill and Monty Python and that was it. But you got more of the sort of educational wing of the BBC type stuff with the CBC in a lot of ways than we did. - Yeah, so, yeah. I've tried to, I mean, like, I just, but I watched a lot of America stuff. I mean, I grew up in Sesame Street. - Right. - Mr. Rogers. - Yes, Mr. Fred Rogers. - Mr. Dressup. - Mr. Dressup. - Mr. Dressup. - Yeah, that's a Canadian one. - That sounds very Canadian. - Yeah. - Like, I don't think you can even say that without a Canadian accent. You have to pronounce Mr. Dressup. - That guy was also a painter and he would start to tell you a story, but he would paint the story as he was telling. - We had some things like that on PBS here. We had a thing. This guy was called, the show wasn't, there was a Canadian who called "Read All About It" that I used to watch all the time, which was terrifying. But this guy used to hear from books and draw pictures of what he was reading at the same time. And it was just some guy in his bedroom. It was the cheapest year, however. - Yeah. - Totally compelling. There is something that was, and then so then I went to Australia, and I was, I didn't watch a lot of television while I was there, some. - Surfing. - I was outdoors, but neighbors. - Yes, I loved neighbors. - Massive. - And that was right when Kylie Minogue was breaking. - Yes. - She was like the big breakout star in that show with Jason Donovan and all that kind of stuff. So that must have been the height of neighbors. - Yeah, and this was like, in excess was popular, but there was a movie called-- - Dogs in Space. - Dogs in Space. I mean, that was like my anthem. - Awesome soundtrack to that movie. - Amazing soundtrack. I listened to it for years. - I love the Boys Next Door of Track shivers, which is Nick Cave's first band. - Yeah. - Yeah, amazing, amazing soundtrack. - Yeah. - I couldn't find that movie forever here and actually just recently finally got it. - How did you know that movie? - I-- - That's a random movie. - An obsessive nerd about things. - Yeah. - And I just watch movies and I love, I actually really liked a lot of Australian shows. - Yeah. - And I actually tracked that down because of the Boys Next Door song on the soundtrack and then checked it out. But there's a bunch of Australian stories-- - I mean, it's not a good movie. - No, it isn't. It isn't. There are very few Australian movies from the '80s that are decent. But I loved it because it also shows this sort of punk scene in Melbourne. - Yeah, that's not just the Saints, guys. There's other bands. - Yeah. And just it's a city, it's a Nancy story, basically. I think that's who they're supposed to be 'cause they're doing heroin. - Yeah, yeah. - And then GODs and blah, blah, blah. - Classic tale. - But it's also about like, you know, anarchy and they're all living in a communal house. It's young. - It feels like to be a teenager. - Yeah, Michael Hutchins. - Thanks to you. - Yeah. Michael Hutchins was a suicidal blom. Yeah. - Yeah, it was fascinating. I mean, I wanted to be those people so-- - Why did you go to Australia? What drove you there? - I really wanted to get out of Calgary. - Yeah. - I was too young to do it, but I was a really pushy kid and I finished high school early. And I saved my own money 'cause I just worked tons of jobs. - Oh, really? So this wasn't even like a school then? You just were like, "I'm going." - Mm-hmm. It's complicated 'cause I did plan with a boyfriend. But anyways, and we broke up. I ended up going alone. - That's a tale. - But I did go. - Yeah. - And I, for two, half the time, I just thought it was so exotic. - Yeah, well, it would be. I mean, I've never been Australia. My wife went for like a month and a half when we first met and I was very jealous. It's like one of the few places on Earth I haven't been then I'd still like to go to. - Yeah. - But it does seem completely, literally the other side of the world. - Yeah, and it is, I mean, okay, so their pop culture is super different. Also, their ideas of comedy are very different. - Yeah. - But any, I think that's also just a climate thing. You could say that like hot, cold climate, different comedy. - It's much bigger. It's like, but sillier and more like laddish. Like it's more kind of guy swaggery from the castle. - Yes, yeah. - That Hogan, huge comedy institution in Australia. - I had no idea, by the way, that Crocodile Dundee was an Australian movie. - Yeah, yeah, it's a cool production. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So anyways, I was just like, that was an American movie. - Oh no, I was like, God, they were genius. - Oh yeah, well there was a weird, right at this time actually, here in America, there was sort of a weird obsession with Australia that we were having in like the late '80s, early '90s. - Yes. - And so every single TV show added an Australian character, like Facts of Life, I don't know if you got that in Canada, but they added an Australian student named Pippa, played by Sherry Krenne, who was on Hummin' Away. - Oh, I do remember that. Yeah, and so I was part of that obsession. I wanted to go really far in a hilarious sort of idea of mine. It was very cliche for people to go backpacking to Europe. - Right. - I thought. - Yeah. - Oh my God, going to Italy is so cliche. - Oh, blah, blah, blah. - Or Prague. So I wanted to be different, but my idea, I mean, if I really wanted to be different, I could've gone to, I don't know, South America. - Right. - I think there's a lot of places to be. - Japan. - But then, right, I decided Australia was my-- - What's an English meaning for you, where the weather is nice. I'll go frontpacking. - I went there, and then I came back, and I missed these years. So I missed pop culture in '89 and '90, because I was just in a totally different place. - Oh, absolutely. Which is probably a good thing in many ways, but you're kind of saying, I feel like I missed this. It's taken me back to some more memories, whether they'd be real or not when you became this issue. Yeah. - And I mean, I didn't actually quite see it in this one that I picked. This was July 7th through 13th, 1990. So I didn't see the Twin Peaks, but I know it's a feature, this is the best and the worst of the year. Twin Peaks was so huge. - Oh, I would imagine, especially being like right above Washington, where it was sort of, it's a very specific Northwest show. - That when I came back, everyone was talking about it and talking about it, and like they lived with these people. - Oh yeah, that was the last-- - And I missed the entire thing. - Yeah, if you've ever seen it. I've never seen an episode. - It'd be weird for you. I'd be curious to hear what you think now, because without sort of being tainted by the memories of watching it the first time around, it's always interesting to me to hear people who've seen it for the first time. - Yeah. - But it's the last sort of major phenomenon show I can remember before everything sort of got specialized with cable. So we still only, I mean, people had cable by 1990, but there was still really only the three networks and Fox was kind of new. - Right. - So you had appointment television that everybody was watching, and they would have, when Twin Peaks was on, bars would shut down and have everyone would go and watch it communally. And I know people watch like Walking Dead and the advent and stuff like that now, but it's still really tiny numbers comparatively. - So compared to what was-- - Yeah, I will say though, I did read Laura Palmer's diary. - Yes, that David Lynch's daughter wrote. - I mean, I think I, whatever I had to do that day, took me like half a day or a day to read, I had no idea what the hell was going on. - But that book got bought by all these people who hadn't seen the show yet. - Oh, really? - Yeah, because not to put you in this category, but angsty teenage girls were like, this book is speaking to me because it was literally just David Lynch's daughter basically writing like teenage girl fanfiction about like, oh, life is whatever. So all these people latched on to it who had never seen the show. - Oh my God, I loved it. So yeah, but I didn't see the show, but I read Laura Palmer's diary. - Well, that's probably all you need, yeah, yeah. And I'm not going to go, right, I'm not going to go back and watch the show. And not that, I mean, I love my DVR and I love my Netflix and iTunes and it's great, but it's also kind of interesting how that shared experience, I mean, it was a blip and then everyone moved on and I'm so right. - Yeah, and I think that people like our age, we have this, if you go back far enough with people, you have some common ground, no matter how different the person is with you or from a different country or whatever. - 'Cause you were all subjected. - All subjected to same stuff at some point. And I wonder like 20 years from now, I don't think people will have that. Like they'll be asking her and be like, did you see that cat video on YouTube? I watched that, it was great. - Right, exactly. - It's not going to be the same bit. - Like the handle cat. - Yeah, it was so funny. - The memes, right, we're just going to be, well. - I remember we used to get this email forward and we would all sit around and read it out a lot. Like it's just not, I don't know if there's anything shared experience-wise like that now for-- - Tragedies, that's our shared experience. - Traged, like major news events. - Yeah. - That's interesting, that's true, that's true. - And I mean, I think people have realized that that's what's being marketed to. I mean, in New York, and I'm sure, well, you guys, the boss that have had your shared tragedies, but people sit there and talk about the blackout, 9/11 yes, but there's just even the tragedies that, you know, weren't as devastating the blackout. That was a huge one. Hurricane Sandy, devastating, but somehow people talk about like, "Where were you, what were you doing?" - Right, right, right. - I think this is what-- - That's not as fun as like, "Hey, I remember on Facts of Life when they added that Australian character." - Exactly, do you remember waiting for the final episode of Moonlighting? - Yes, so that, you watched Moonlighting. - Oh, loved Moonlighting. - That final episode blew my mind growing up because it was fourth wall breaking and was just huge. - That whole series shouldn't have been very weird. - No, it's very weird and it never really aired. It's all available on DVD, but I'm surprised that show hasn't really gotten a resurgence among-- - It's too weird. - You think it's too weird? - I just think it doesn't make sense. Somehow they clicked into, I just don't, I think it doesn't hold up. - Okay, because of the sort of the pop culture locking of it, or just that it's not the quality, or could you re-watched it? - I did watch an episode, where was it some hotel room someplace? And you know, in some ways it was making fun of itself, and in some ways it was making fun of the 80s. And also, like Sibyl Shepherd wasn't particularly good. - No, but she was very soft focused. - But she was very soft focused. Bruce Willis, it's hard to watch Bruce Willis like you don't know Bruce Willis. And I, maybe I have too much invested it too, 'cause I loved that character. - The Bruce Willis character? - In moonlighting. - Well, 'cause he was a charming smoke prick, and then now he's just a smoke prick. - Yeah, he was more like Bill Murray. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, in that role. And it was completely, yeah, just so, I was so attracted to that. And the wacky, I can't remember the actress name who played there. - Alice Beasley. - Alice Beasley, amazing. - Agnes de Pesto. - Yes, thank you. And then the murders were not-- - Secondary. - And not very good. - No, and not very scary either. I mean, it wasn't, with all the police procedural shows and stuff we have now that really focus on sort of the grew of this sort of stuff, and they try to do, like either there's some character development that you didn't see coming, or there's a twist that, like there's a lot of attention paid to that now, which I, for the most part. - Yeah, I mean, even a show that I think was not close to moonlighting in the sort of fourth wall breaking, interesting writing way, but sort of in structure is Bones, which isn't a bad show and was funny at times and reminded me of moonlighting in a lot of ways. But then they add in this arc mythology stuff that every show has to have now, and it just ruins it. - Yeah, one of the things I love on Bones, actually, is when they go to the autopsy and look at these, I don't know who's creating-- - The science fiction elements. - Everything is always charred, right? That's how they get away with it. It all has to be charred on a barbecue, these-- - We've scanned it in the computer, and this is what-- - So bad. - We've determined what these people more for choose based on this child. Yeah, it's ridiculous. - That's amazing. In an article that courts are having a tough time with juries now because of all these procedural shows, because people are like-- - Walk in. - Can't you just enhance the DNA? And it's like, that's the science fiction show. Like, you might as well just ask us if we can ask the space gods to tell us you did this. - Yes, you know, and based on that, actually, there's so much of, I was actually talking to someone who's a social anthropologist, I guess, or a sociologist, and he was just seeing across the board whether you're dealing with people watching medical shows, whether they're watching these shows and then-- So the medical shows and then people are talking to their doctors, and they believe the technology is so much further ahead than it is. - Oh, absolutely, yeah. - And just all of these visuals are people believe the stuff in it is fiction, and it's very sad. - Yeah, oh, absolutely. - That means sad that we believe it, but also sad that it is actually not reflective of anything. - No, not at all. And I mean, it's probably even more obvious to you having come from Canada with the health care system up there, which I imagine is very similar to the UK health system, and so my wife is always-- - Except for the dentistry. - Right, except for the dentistry. My wife is always complaining when we watch the news or something, and there's like a million ads for drugs. She's like, "Why, if you are sick and you need a drug, "they just give you the drug for that thing where I'm from, "which I imagine gets the same way "you don't go into the doctor and go. "I think I have restless legs and drugs, "and I need this drug and this drug." - I can't imagine. I think about that a lot. I mean, maybe with the exception of what I would call a, you know, whatever, boutique drug, like Viagra. Like, you know, you're not gonna die if you don't have Viagra, so that's just something like, you know, whatever, for your fun times. But I just, who is watching that going? - I think I need clarity. - But no, but then it does speak to the fact that you're giving people the feeling of power when they have no power because they don't have access to health care. So by giving them these ads and going, this is the drug you need, you go, "Oh, okay." So you get to be your own doctor. - But I think it undermines the expertise of doctors, too, which is something in America that I think is a problem because they go, "You don't know what you're talking about. "I know better, even though you went to school for this." - I agree. I was talking about this in a master or something that I've been to doctors my whole life. And can I, I never questioned-- - It's the doctor, he never-- - It's the doctor. - Yeah. - I never thought about that, like, "Well, where did he graduate in this class?" Or, "Where did she graduate in her class?" Is this the best person? Or, "Should I get a second opinion?" When I had to go through something in America, "Oh, my God." It was like, "Well, have you gone to the different hospitals? "Have you checked the different people? "Have you compared them? "Did you get a referral?" I was like, "This is a full-time job." - Yeah, do you find that America is just generally more suspicious than Canada? - You'd think not. - Yeah. - Is it more suspicious? Maybe we're all more suspicious. - We could, too. It could be a society thing in general. - Yeah, but now I live in New York, which I only have that lens to-- - The heart of suspicion in America. - That's right. - What do you want from me? - Everyone's treated like a rat. - Yes, yes. - So you do-- - How are you trying to screw me? I'm just holding a door. I'm not giving you any money. - That's right. So what I do go home just with the, everything seems a little breathier. - Right. - Like it's just everyone's like, "I don't know, it seems fine." - What does it matter? So when you moved to New York, did you bend down here before that? - Yeah, I mean, definitely on vacations and stuff, for sure, but also I had a friend who, when I went to college at McGill. - Okay. - And she went to college at a fighte. - Okay. - Where she went to fashion school. And I would come down and visit her, like, almost every few months. - Okay. - Because I really like New York. - Right. - And she had an apartment in Chelsea. I didn't understand all these things at the time. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And she's like, "What ever, it's cool." - Seems cool, yeah. - But now we're looking back and was like, "Wow, she had an apartment in Chelsea." - How did that work? Going to fashion school? - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. She's very rich as it turns out. - Because I wonder, I always wonder when people come here from a different country, how, what they watched growing up, that was set here, or from here, sort of framed what they thought it would be like. - It's true. I had no, the accents. Even the accents I thought were false. - Right. - I thought were put on. - The Brooklyn accents. - Or television. - Yeah. - I mean, I was so stupid, they were naive in a way that I actually didn't think, you know, that art was imitating. - Right. - Reality. - They just talk like that. - I think it was made up for comedic effect, or. - Well, I had a weird sort of reverse of that, and that Nickelodeon here was like 80% Canadian content, because it was, they just, I guess they just bought it cheap. And there were shows like you can't do that on television, and there was a show called Owl TV, and a lot of-- - Owl TV. - Yes. Owl TV was a very weird Canadian show that was different segments. So they had this segment with this kid, whose best friend was a skeleton that talked live action. And the skeleton had light bulb eyes, and this kid would drive around with his bike, and like learn things with the skeleton. And it was named Mr. Bones. And then they had a segment that was like, "Here's some things about animals." And then here's a segment where like a bunch of kids in wheelchairs make things out of garbage. It was like a really bizarre show. And so I didn't realize it was all Canadian, because why would you? - What's, what's, yeah. - Why does everyone speak the same on these shows? They all have the same strange-- - Little TV, yeah. - 'Cause I hadn't really associated accents yet. So I almost had the opposite where I thought it was all real, but I didn't know why it was very confusing. - Yeah, and I also, I think I confused as a kid. I put Washington together with New York, together with Boston. Like basically it was just the East and the West. Like it was California. - Yes, very different. The Australia of America. - Yeah, but Miami I wouldn't necessarily, but I think I just thought that was the same as California. And then every tall building and monument. - Is it New York? - And it's in New York DC. - Yes, yeah. - You were to draw on that. My father-in-law would come visit us from England, and he was like, "Oh, I come for a couple days in Boston, then maybe I'll go look at LA." And I'm like, "No, no, no, no, it's very big. They're not near each other at all." - Right, especially the UK where you just drive around everywhere. All right, so here we go. Oh my God, see. - So you had trouble getting through the whole week, first of all, because you kind of got sidetracked, just reading that. - Well, then I was just like, "The soap opera guide." And I was like, "Oh, by the way." And it's just, I know this is probably like what the internet is, but it's just different when this is the internet. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's tactile, though, and it has like a... - You know, it just says, "Bye, Susie, Wetmore, and Tom Mitchell." - Yeah. - So all of a sudden, I'm just picturing these two people. - Yeah. - It's like, "Hey, it's not a week. We need another soap opera guide, oh my God." "I'm the soap opera guide writer for TV Guide." - Yeah, this week, you take another world, I'll take general husband, and you know, they're writing the little roundups. I don't know, I just... - Did you watch "Sopes?" - I watched "Nighttime Soats." I've never watched "Daytime," so I found them. - Like "Dynestie" and the kind of stuff. - "Dynestie Dallas," "Not Landing," all that stuff. My sister, my older sister loved it, and I really, and I looked up to her so much, so... - So did she sort of make all the television decisions in your house? - She did for a while, 'cause she, so I'm the youngest of six, so I made no decisions. - Yes, you just watched whatever they told you. - Yes. - I was basically just a pain in the ass that was around. - Was there only one TV in the house? - There was many TVs. - Okay. - Yeah, we were a mini TV family. But the one in the basement was the... - The good TV? - The record, like that's where we were, where the kids hung up. - Finished basement. - Finished basement. - Very dangerous as a parent to have a finished basement. - Yeah, there was one in the living room upstairs. Somehow things changed. Like, I remember when I was a little younger, we all would be in that one. But then, so my sister, who is older, so was my brother, I was at home, so was mostly us. Anyways, but she moved back home in her 20s and lived in the basement. And so all of a sudden, we all hung out in the basement. - Yeah, 'cause it now becomes like a dorm room. - Totally. - Like, you've brought the hip outside world in your home. - Yeah, yeah, right. So it was her apartment or something. So all of a sudden, we were in the basement. And she pretty much dictated what was, before that, it would be my brother and I fighting. - Right. - And, you know, but that was, he was a little older and I was a little younger. There's four, four and a half years between us. But when you were-- - He was not a lot over lapping what you wanna watch. - When he was like, you know, he just wanted to watch Formula One racing. - Right. - Like, I remember he cried when Jill Villeneuve died in a car crash. You know, and I just wanted to watch a, you know, kids show, I guess. - You wanna watch buckshot. I wanted to watch buckshot. The only thing we came together on was Star Trek. - Really, original series, Star Trek? - Yeah, I loved it. - I guess that appeals to a lot of, I mean, older brother probably enjoys the green ladies. - Yeah. - You probably enjoy the cartoonish space adventure of it. - I liked, I loved, yeah, just like the whole fantasy. I love that. - We always joined with that kind of stuff. Do you like sci-fi and fantasy stuff in general? - Not really. I mean, I like, I loved X file. - Right. - So there's like some of it, but you know, again, not that Star Trek was a great example of this. I mean, I really liked X files too because I was like, strong female characters. - Right. - But not, Star Trek didn't necessarily have dumb female characters. - No, it had a lot of female characters. - And it had a lot of female characters. - Yeah. - And you had like, who were kind of treated for the most part, especially for the late '60s. - Yeah. - Very much like an equal comparatively. - Yeah. - Which is very odd. And we didn't have a lot of sort of action series with female characters at all. - I love action. - Do you ever see "Honey West"? - No. - Oh, you'd like "Honey West". It was a contemporary of Star Trek about a Kung Fu wielding female private investigator in San Francisco who has a serval cat with her live action series, really, really cool show. Very little loved. It should have been a much, much bigger, more popular show. - Wow. - It's like if you watch "The Avengers" and when I just won an Emma Peel show, that's what "Honey West" was. - That sounds amazing. - Yeah, it was a cool show. - Yeah, my favorite movie of all time is "Ready to Lost Ark". - Excellent. - I mean, that's all, I just want to watch that over and over. - Yeah, just over and over. Do you ever watch "Curse of the Gold Monkey"? - No, but I do remember it. - Yeah, it was, I mean, "Indiana Jones" was a ridiculously huge phenomenon that people seem to forget. Bigger than "Star Wars" for the time that it was around. It didn't endure as long as I don't think. - Right. - But. - And there was "Spin' Off" for me. I was still looking at all these years. - Oh yeah, there were so many rip-offs, King Solomon's mind. - Right. - And then you had the young "Indiana Jones" chronicles, but there was a lot of television series that tried to capitalize on the "Indiana Jones" thing. And "Curse of the Gold Monkey" was one of them that kind of got greenlit as an "Indiana Jones" rip-off, but was actually more of a tribute to sort of 1930s serials and sort of action, that kind of stuff. But it was a cool show if you enjoyed it. - Interesting. There's a new series that will come out, I think, next year on USA Network called "Dig". - Okay. - And it's like a architectural- - Archaeologist. - Archaeological adventures that take place in like Israel. - Oh, nice. - And yeah, Israel and I think they were even filming there. Anyways, we've got a lot of high hopes for that. - Yes, well, it could be good. - A lot of high hopes. It's USA Network, which my husband works for. So I know that's great, but I also think that there-- - Well, I love burn notice. I mean, I watch-- - Love burn notice. - This was so good. It was like a whole thing. - Watch the whole thing. - I watched it every week, loved it. - Me too, loved it. - I did a show with Bruce Campbell a couple of weeks ago. - Oh my God. - What? - So hard not to talk to about burn notice. - You couldn't talk to about burn notice. - I was like I'm gonna geek out too much, I can't even bring it up. - He's doing a living dead, evil dead. - Evil dead, evil dead, evil dead. - Yeah, he told me about that like two weeks before they officially announced it, and I had to just sit on it, and it was killing me. It was killing me. - I can't believe that hasn't been done yet. - Well, I think it sort of has unofficially in a lot of ways, but I think now is the time with a lot of this sort of harsh stuff. - Okay, look, you know what? See, I was saying that I was leafing through this, and it was taking me back to a place where I thought, God, remember when everything was okay? - Yeah. - Life was easy. - But I think some of that's probably candy colored, because I don't know for you growing up, but we were just terrified of being nuked at this time. It was like, and you had the stock market crash in '80s, 'cause when I think back, I mean, my job was not great, but I'm like, oh, '88 to '92, what a great time. But when I'm thinking back, it's like what I'm reminiscing about the things I used as distractions. Like, that's what I'm following. - No, you're right, you're right. Oh, God, you know, if I really was to dive into what that time was like, it's a nightmare. - 'Cause I remember being in Australia, and that was when people were freaking out that there was holes in the ozone, and we were all gonna dive. - Yeah, especially in Australia, that's where the big hole was. - Yeah, and they were like, put on T-shirt when you go to the beach. - Yeah. - But they only had SPF like four or something. - Right, well, you gotta get a nice tan still too. - The technology, the SPF technology wasn't up to snuff. All right, so here I am. Saturday, it's a simpler time. - Right. - I don't have a lot of work to do, but I'm still helpful with my career. - Yeah, yeah. - 'Cause I don't have a career. (laughing) - Anything's possible when you have nothing going on. (laughing) It's endless possibilities. - The potential. - Yes. - APM, you know what's on? A 1978 movie called The Buddy Holly Story. - Yes, starring one Gary Busy. - Gary Busy before he was-- - For his motorcycle accident, before he was essentially a zombie. - Yeah. - He was a reanimated zombie. - This is when this, did he win an Oscar for this? - It was nominated. - He was nominated. I don't think he won. And that was the thing that really broke him, was this Buddy Holly Story. - Yeah. - This guy's gonna be the next big actor. - Oh, that's a tough one. But I just, you know, you think about, it got three stars. - It's a pretty good movie. - I do remember it a little bit, it's not bad, but it's just the idea. You know, it's just like, this is what, this is why you have this, the hindsight. People were just watching this movie going, "This guy's really great." - Yeah. - And that was it. - Yeah, you didn't know that Gary Busy would become fodder for entire work. - It's a celebrity, yeah. - You know what freaks me out about that a little bit too, is that 1978, I think Buddy Holly wasn't even dead 20 years. So if you look back to like 20 years ago, if they made a movie now of like some musician from 1995 or 1994, it's gonna be like the Gavin Rosdale story. So they're like, I-- - Amy Winehouse story or something like that. - Yeah, you're ridiculous. So I wonder if people in '78 were like, "You're making a movie about Buddy Holly, come on." - I also like that on Discovery. So that would be my two hours. That's gonna take you right through. - Yeah, yeah, right through all night, yeah. - But on Discovery, this has just gotta be so interesting. It's a documentary that's called "Explorer Colin Sudan." - So you like that historical sort of, middle of like Africa, Middle East? - "Explorer Sudan" is a very different show right now. - Yeah, oh absolutely it would be, yeah. - But back here that we, yeah, rituals practiced by the descendants of the ancient Nubian civilization are observed. - This stuff is gone. - Yeah, it's a respectful historical thing that you could not even do now. - No. - Yeah. - 'Cause just warfare will be like, "And this is where we keep the guns." - This hole was where things used to be. (laughing) - This hole. - Yes. There probably would have been very interesting full-on artifacts here, but-- - Probably some pieces of the origins of humanity. We can only guess, no, but they're all gone. - Discovery was a really weird channel at that time. They sort of had a mixture of PBS-type documentaries like that, and then they would air things like this show that Jonathan Ross, who's a big name in England, did called The Incredibly Strange Film Show, which was a series of documentaries about people like John Waters and Jackie Chan and Sam Raimi speaking of Evil Dead. - Wow. - So you'd see this thing about the Sudan or like a documentary on cheese, and then it would be, here's a half hour about Sam Raimi in 1988, and it was just amazing. - Well, you know, yeah, I was noticing too, and this one, there's that America Master Series. - Yes. - And that, I mean, would've been a fascinating, they still have that, or they redid it recently. - They did, yeah, yeah. - But there was that very cool one with the crossover. - Yes. - What was that called? - That was-- - They just did like six of them. It was like, Fano was gonna interview-- - Yeah, some classical music area. - Oh, this fuck still. - I can't think of what it was either, but yeah, but I think you need to do those sort of stunt things now to get people to watch that kind of thing. - I know, I know. - That's very sad. - All right, we're Sunday night. - Sunday night, yes. - Sunday night. I knew, I'm gonna ask you all about this, because one of my other, so I love, we've established, I love action and adventure. - Yeah. - So anything, I loved the born series. Obviously, some of them are better than another. I think the Doug Lyman one was the best one, being the first one, but I thought the third one was also pretty good. - I thought the room was good. - I liked the first one 'cause it didn't have quite as much what the hell's going on in this fight scene, cross-cutting. - Right, so however, I had no idea it was a remake. - It was, they did a made for TV movie version of the first born movie. I believe it was British made of the born identity. - Richard Chamberlain. - Yes. - Oh my God. - Richard. - Jacqueline Smith. - Yeah. - From Charlie's Angels. - Yes, yes. - And from Kmart designer thing. - I know. - So, I mean, this would be great, was it good? - It wasn't great, I mean, because there, it was very much of its time. It's very much a made for TV action series. And it was made as a pilot, basically, pilot movie to do a series. - Yeah. - So it doesn't really wrap anything up, Ber. - What's interesting is that, so this was a, it was made in '88, when did that, when did Robert Lutland's novel come out? - I think it came on the early '80s. I think it was like '80s, two '83. - Anyways, that's that nine. So that's definitely gonna be my evening. But at eight, there's, at eight, there's so many amazing things that could happen. - Something that was big night, and this is summer too, so they're doing a lot of their stunt shows, because everything's in repeats. So you get a lot of specials, you get a lot of these pilots they would burn off, like the born movie. - Yeah. - And so you'd see a lot of weird stuff in the summer. - I would totally watch that. So, I mean, at 8 p.m., there's so many great things that could happen. Murder, she wrote, you know, you could just go classic. - Yeah. - National Audubon Society, whatever happened to that. It's a fifth season, and it opens with If Dolphins Could Talk, which examines how the mammals are being threatened by pollution, some tuna fish, tuna fishing methods, and explores their sophisticated sonar, social organization, communication, in destroying dolphins in their habitat, narrator Michael Douglas, since we are abusing the very system, which makes life on Earth possible. Let's see, how have we solved this problem? - I think that solved, yeah. I mean, as you can see, most people have a dolphin now, 'cause we have so many of them. Not an issue, yeah. - We figured out nothing. - Absolutely nothing. - You might know less than we did then. - This exact same thing could run right now. - Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. There's so many things that have not changed in 20-plus years, it's sort of terrifying. In some ways, reassuring, because a lot of those shows would be like, 20 years from now, we'll all be dead. We'll be underwater or something, but that hasn't happened, but it's still we haven't really gotten even better. - I just feel bad that the dolphins, we didn't work on that at all. There's also something, a documentary on A&E called "Women in Politics." President, and this one's focusing on a, it doesn't say, it's just a documentary. It's not a series. - It's not a reality show, like the housewives of the politics. - No, all they have is Dominican Prime Minister, Mary Eugenia Charles, and Philippine President, Corazon Aquino. So I guess this is 1990, where is the-- - 1990, yeah. - Margaret Thatcher's gone, thankfully for some. - Hillary Clinton doesn't count. - Clinton doesn't count yet, because she hasn't really, she's still the first lady of Arkansas, wherever Clinton was the governor. Yeah, there was not many women in politics at that time. - Pretty interesting. - Especially in the US. - One documentary. - That's all we have. We've tried-- - It's not even a series. - Yeah, it's only 15 minutes, too. It's really strange. (laughing) - So then you're on Monday. - Two or Monday nights? - Very, I always call it the saddest night of the week, because you've gone to school and you've gone to work, and now you're like, I need something. I need something to make me forget. - You know what, and the programming is specifically designed-- - Absolutely. - To get you out of that funk. 'Cause I agree, Monday, I mean, lots of comedy nights, doing a lot of comedy, lots of comedy nights around Monday now. I remember what-- - They weren't, though. No, nothing was on Monday. - Nothing was on Monday. Maybe we need to go back to that. By the way, there's a lovely ad for Sears Portrait Studio, where you can get a 21-piece portrait package. - Remember, you'd sit on the shag ledge. - Did you go with your six siblings? - Some, but we would be in small portions. - Oh, you did give her their segments. - Yeah, we'll put it together in post. - 2195, that must have been a fortune. - My parents never purchased the class picture packages, and it was always horribly embarrassed by it. And I felt like a sham for keeping the comb. Like, everyone would get a comb, with the photographer's name on it, and they would help that you would pay for an inflated package, and I'd always keep the combs, and we would never buy it now. I was like, they're gonna come for these combs someday. - My, not that it's the same, I'm sorry. - It's quite alright. - My, but I will say that we didn't, she, my mother would buy the smallest package. - Yeah. - Like just, you know, not even the big one. - Yeah, like two wallet size. - Why do we need the big one? - Yeah. - I don't know. - We don't have a mantle. - Of me. - Yeah. - We don't have. We don't care about you. How many different ways can we say this? - The guy who ran our school photography, he was some outside contractor, but this is honest truth, he was legally blind. - Of course he was. - And he would take our pictures, and a lot of the pictures came out, like they were taken by a man who was legally blind. And I was always like, even as a kid, I was like, what kind of weird sort of organizational, crooked politics are going on here? - Was he in photography because he was trying to show that even though he was legally blind, he could still do it. He might have been trying to get a TV movie made about his story, possibly, possibly. - Speaking of which, now there is no TV movie called Legally Blind High School Photographer, but I might watch that. Now, APM I would return to, it would be comfort food. - Yeah, oh absolutely. - Right? MacGyver, that is totally right. - If you tried to re-watch MacGyver recently. - Oh, I don't think I-- - It's awful. - Terrible. - Why don't you read the synopsis? - All right, let's do it again. - I used to love it. - Yeah, well I did as well. MacGyver is not sure. - Uh oh. - That's rare. That's rare. MacGyver is not sure whether it's a trick or a treat when ruthless rival murder. - This one's called Lessons in Murder. This is the Halloween episode. - Of course. - Oh, it doesn't have the title. I just know that. Yeah. - Asked to help free his sister held by a Homicide International Trust. - Yes. - Repeat. Nicholas is Daniel Davis. Sonia is Joanne Bates. - Yep. - And Ashton is Debbie Podowski. - This one is maybe the second most ridiculous episode of MacGyver. They go through, so first of all, they have to dress up in costumes to sneak into this international evil murders organization who's having a Halloween party. Because they're like, we're an international group of killers, but we like to have fun sometimes too. - Dress up? Do you guys want to dress up? - Dress up a little bit. So they sneak in. - I hate myself. - Yes. - Right 'cause they're all murder. - Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm a murderer for hire, but I've decided to dress up like Max Hedger. - I'm an angel. - Yeah, that's fine. - Max Hedger. - He sneaks into this mansion and under this murderer's mansion, they have what's essentially a life size version of those carnival games where you shoot ducks. - Yeah. - Except you have to get through these robotic murder machines to get this guy's sister who's like tied up at the end like some sort of weird video game. And it is horrifically wonderful. - And what happens at the end? - Let me guess. - They catch her. - He crosses 'em 'cause he owes MacGyver a favor now. - Well, he's ruthless rival. - Yeah, ruthless rival. It's a terrible episode, but in the most wonderfully entertaining way. See, Monday nights, I was just completely in love with CBS's Monday Night lineup for years because, and this was the last year that it was still pretty great, where you had New Heart and you had Designing Women, which is such a fun, smart show, Murphy Brown. - Murphy Brown, that was gonna be my nine o'clock. - And Keaton Natalie before that, which I love. - Keaton Natalie. - Such a good show. - I love that too. - Such a good show. - That was not in my team. - No, it ended, it ended in '89, sadly. - Interesting, I do, I did love that. Murphy Brown, one of my all-time favorite shows. - Speaking of strong female characters from our action show, but that was unheard of. - So, I used to also like WKRP and Cincinnati, right? - Okay, yeah. - It was crazy about that show, but I don't, I just remember very little of it 'cause I guess I was really young when I watched it. But Lonnie Anderson played the- - Jennifer. - Jennifer, she was like the hot, sex secretary relationship. - Who's the smartest person who worked at the company? - So, my father, who was a rest in peace, who was a Israeli, kind of like tough, Israeli authoritarian, loved television. He loved Wheel of Fortune, strangely. But, and he loved WKRP and Cincinnati. - Really? - Yeah, and he used to always say, you know that Lonnie Anderson, she looks dumb, but really, she runs the whole show. (laughing) - I was just like him to review all the '70s sitcoms in the same way. - Yeah, I just always remember that. It's great. So, Murphy Brown's happening at nine, the brown clan, a Fellini version of the Waltons. Can you imagine that right up right now? - You don't reference Fellini on, I don't even know what the Big Bang Theory or something people are like. - Right, straight men, or whatever that's- - A bullini? - A bullini. Just sends on Murphy, Gandersburg, to see her pick up a prestigious prize. - And it was a weird show too, to see something set in a cable news network. That was also very odd. And the workplace sitcoms were just starting to take over from the family sitcoms at that time too, which was interesting. - Right, because you know, this is also Roseanne Land, right? - Yes. - Where is Roseanne Land? And I think that's- - I think Roseanne's on Tuesday. - Oh yeah, let's go, it's 'cause I was gonna watch it, okay? - Roseanne's fantastic. - But there was, so there was that happening where you have the smart career woman. - And the very blue collar. - Wasn't it very dressed if Murphy Brown had kids, or not kids? - Oh, it was a big deal here. Because she got pregnant as a single mother, and Vice President Dan Quill went on TV and criticized her. First of all, ridiculous for being like, who would raise a child without a man, but also fictional character. And he went on national TV talking about her, like she was a real person, and he was completely ridiculed. And it was one of the reasons, among many, that Bush was out after one term. - Really? - It was around this time. - Because of Murphy Brown. - Yeah, it was a huge deal out of it. And then Murphy Brown, which for the most part remained sort of apolitical from being a show set in Washington, DC. After them was just hammered, just hammered the White House and the stupidity of it. And it made a big difference. - Very interesting. How do you remember this stuff? I'm just like, I have some laughs that I remember, and they were associated with Murphy Brown. Did you ever have a kid? You're like, did you ever have a kid? - I've been waiting for someone to ask me this question. Yeah, it was a big deal here. Probably didn't make it to Canada. - I just don't, yeah, again, Dan Quill was, and the works of Robert Frost, by the way, is on at 755 on Channel 11 on Tuesday. - Yeah, so that was a WPIX in New York. This is a New York edition, which was a UHF station that would show all kinds of bizarre things. I don't know why they were showing up works at Robert Frost. - Wait, I mean, what is that even gonna be, just poetry? - I just picture an old man reading from a book of an hour. You imagine putting that on TV now? That happened a lot. There used to be a lot of shows with people reading to the camera. Like Vincent Price had a whole series of Poe readings he did for PBS where he would just sit and read Poe to the camera on television. - Which is amazing voice, amazing dark voice. All right, so here we are on Tuesday. Things are heating up, starting to get into the groove a few weeks. - Yeah, absolutely. - Do we wanna watch the conclusion of Poor Little Rich Girl, the Barbara Hutton story, starring Farrah Fawcett? - It'd be difficult to watch if you hadn't seen the part one. - Okay, then you know what, forget it. However, Cary Grant is played by James Reed. - No relation. - No, I think we might have to watch some Nova. - Yeah, Nova actually is picked very frequently by people on their show, which always surprises me. - This is when, this is again. Oh, anytime you talk about the exploration, nature, the environment or animals and the 20 year lens. - Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's just devastating. Because it's like from 1989, so it's from last year, Yellowstone's burning question considers the effects of 1988's devastating fires which left a million acres. - Which we never have fires anymore. (laughs) - We saw that problem. - Yeah, looking, and this is how it was criticized, they have a quote from someone looking not like a wonderland, but like a wasteland. Wow, they really went for the intense insult there. - Yeah, that's a hallmark card level insults. - Park management was criticized for a policy of letting fires burn themselves out. - I always thought, like I understand the reasoning behind those. - I don't even, where's the issue here? - Yeah, but it does sound funny when you're like, "I just burn itself out, don't worry about it." - It's a fire. - It's a fire. - It's what they do. - They burn. - Yeah. - Right, so I don't know how they made 60 minutes out of this, but this sounds like the beginning of, there was a rainstorm. - Yeah. - But, and no one panicked or got hurt. But man, this is the Weather Channel. - Is fire bad? We'll tackle that issue. (laughs) - Is it, it's a little rain, but is it enough rain to ruin your home? Yeah, it's gotta be something like that. Do I wanna watch Fergie, Duchess of York, a profile? - So you could've watched Fergie, but were you into the royal family? - You know what, some people were obsessed. - I wasn't obsessed, I did, we got a lot of that. - Right, as you were. - in Canada, and Australia, it's even bigger. - Yeah, yeah. - So I was, I was very aware of it. - Yeah. - I mean, now I just, like Kate Middleton, I mean, I feel like Americans are pretty obsessed with that. - They are, because we don't have anything to like it. - And it's also Cinderella. - Yeah, absolutely. - So that's, that's the American dream for every girl right there, even though, if you ask me about Cinderella, I want 'em to be the mice. Just saying it right now, didn't care if I was obsessed with the mice. - What was it about the mice there? - I don't know, they had their own secret little hole in someone else's house. - Yeah, rent-free. - Rent-free, just the logistics. I liked, I just liked that it was, you know, they were the whole world within the world. - You used to make a lot of forts and stuff as a kid, like couch cushion forts. - I liked forts, I, I, I, I, the board game clue, I thought was, I liked playing it, but it was such a let-down. - Yeah. - 'Cause I just wanted to be in it. - You just wanted an old house with- - With panels. - With passageways and panels. Have you ever, have you ever seen any in real life like a house with like secret passageways? - Just one, and it was in, there's some place that you can go to in, it's not in Edinburgh, but it is in Scotland somewhere. - Yeah, yeah, I love that stuff. And there was, that was big on TV shows at the time, like Webster, had a house full of secret passageways, silver spoons, all these things. - Yeah, I always wanted that in the house and it was very appealing, I don't know why. I don't know why kids love that kind of thing. - Secret passageways. - Secret passageways. Kids love it. - You know, there's a, there's a really weird found art, or created art museum called the City Museum in St. Louis. - Okay. - That has, it's weirdest place of all time, but it's an adult playground kind of, but you can go through different weird things and down slides and stuff and I- - There's a more of that for adults. - You can, I mean, how you're not just signing liability forms when you walk in there? - Yes. - I don't know, but somehow it's in its own jurisdiction. I don't know how it works. - I would sign away anything to go to a place like this. - It's amazing. Anyways, but you know what we're watching? We're watching only because it has the best name of all time. Prime time primates. - Prime time primates. - He does, like, I think if you and I just drove to it in TV network, right this second, and just walked in and go, "Here's the pitch, prime time primates." They would be like, "Greenlet." - There's no way they wouldn't be on TV. - Prime time primates. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's amazing. - You better not ready for prime time primates. It would be like, "Primates have to dark." - Right, exactly. - Oh my God. Right, primates after dark. That would just be the bottomos. - Yes. - So this one's in, oh, I did, I have an anthropology degree. I went cultural instead of physical, but this would have been great. - Yeah, monkey societies. - We're going to Borneo and Costa Rica, so that's real monkeys, right? - Yeah, yeah, this isn't those city monkeys like that they have, you know. If you haven't seen the footage of that, and like-- - These are curly tails. - Taiwan or some Asian country, where they train monkeys to beg for money from people, and they dress them up like children, and they actually will put masks on them, so they look, it's terrifying. - Terrifying. - Why? - I don't know, I have no idea why. - Okay, something about me talking to you and really relating to you, and looking at this TV guy from the past, it's just really, it's just reinforcing that I think, just kill us all. - Yeah, there's no hope. - Nuke the whole planet. - It's not unusual for people to say talking to you hopes for death for the entire world. - Nope, I just realized there's only a few of us, we should go live in our little mansion with the-- - Biosphere. - Behind the secret panel. - Earth too. - We'll wait at that. - Yeah, exactly. - All right, we're on Wednesday. We could watch a cartoon. What do we get, prime time cartoons? - Prime time, 8 p.m. on channel five, eight, and 13, and it's closed captioned, and it's a repeat. It's summer, everything's a repeat. - Yes. - We could watch, "This is America, Charlie Brown." - Yes, because it's round 4th of July. - Yes. - So they're airing all the patriotic shows. This is America, Charlie Brown is not one that's really endured, like the Great Pumpkin, or even the Thanksgiving, or Charlie Brown Christmas. Would you guys get those specials? - Oh yeah, Charlie Brown Christmas. That's classic, it's so good. I think Charlie Brown Christmas and the Great Pumpkin are so good that when you watch these other Charlie Brown specials, which they try to do for every single, I mean, there's an Arbor Day one. Like, they really were trying, they're not good. - You know, and again, just, I know I recently was talking to Mo Willems on the Ask Me Another Show who's a kid's author, but he was saying as a kid how he was obsessed with Charlie Brown. - Yeah. And this stuff is a little dark and a reverent for kids' books, and I know that I'm so tired today, I can't even think of people's names. But the guy, know the guy who wrote the Goosebumps series. - O'Arlstein. - O'Arlstein talked to him, he was obsessed with Charlie Brown. - Yeah, 'cause it did have this darkness to it. - Darkness. - It's like Nietzsche of animation. It's very like, it's futile. - And the main character was depressed. - Yeah, depressed, and it's very anti-commercialism. And I mean, that's what Charlie Brown Christmas is about. - Yeah. - But by that same time being very sort of religious too, it's like, it's exactly what America isn't now where they're like, you're either one or the other. You can't really-- - It was just all complicated. Yeah, and so this comic, actually Poppy Kramer has a great joke too of just about, yeah, the saddest Christmas song of all time. ♪ Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na ♪ - Yeah, it's just like lamenting tears. - Frozen tears of Charlie Brown. But the one for "Fort of July" is not correct. - Yeah, the great inventors, again, reports on first, and that "Transfort America's Way," blah, blah, blah. - Yeah, it's okay. - And Franklin, blah, blah, blah. - So that's 60 minutes of my life. - I would've watched it. - I would've watched it too. And then I would've gone right into Night Court. - I love Night Court so much. - Oh my God. - This was when they moved Night Court from Thursdays to Wednesday nights here. - Marcy Post. - Marcy Post was great. - Marcy Post. - So funny. - Thank you. - So funny. And this was sort of Night Court's sweet spot. It was break before, it was season seven. They had "The Cast Everyone Remembers," which they didn't really get 'til season four, which is when you had like "Roz," it was-- - Yes. - "March Floor Field." And John Lenarket is one of my all-time favorite comedic actors of all time. - Again, I mean, I know there's great television on right now. We're living in the age of golden television, but some of this stuff, you know, this was, you had to wade through a lot of garbage. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. - But there were some really, I mean, "Nightrider" is not a good show. - No, no. "Nightrider Court" might be a little worse. - "Nightrider Court." - Yeah. - And then just the bowl goes to the extremes to save an old vaudeville theater from "Demolition." - Yes, he changed himself to the doors in this episode. Again, a reverence for the past that you wouldn't really get now. I mean, there's, I know who Mel Torme is because of "Night Court." - Oh, that's hilarious, right? - And all sorts of things that they would introduce generations to sort of pop culture from more than 10 years ago is crazy. - That, you know, because I host this trivia show, general knowledge with pop culture comes up a lot. And you find out how generational it is, but you'd think also that now we are in a time where you can listen, I mean, if you wanna listen to music, you can listen, you don't have to go to a store, check it out, television, movies, all of it, instant access to all of it. And you'd think that would broaden everybody's scope and it has completely done the opposite of it. - 'Cause it's not curated at all. There's no one to introduce you to anything, even if it's a matter of I'm a network executive and I greenlight this thing, so it's on, so you have to watch just nothing else on. You're still, it's still being filtered through somebody. - Yeah, and I can't, you know, I'm sure there's a, the niche part of it is probably good because in some ways there's probably less people that feel alone because they have something that they go, "This is specific for me," and I really like it. - But they also end up isolating themselves more, I think, 'cause they're not sort of forced to not have-- - Again, what's gonna happen to the world? - I don't know, we're all gonna end up at our own bubbles with horrible, we'll not know who Melthormae is. - I mean, I feel like I learned about so much, like Melthormae, a lot of music, actually tons of music from, well, dating older guys. - Well, that's how I did it too, and I'm straight. - No, yeah, but just having older siblings are these sorts of things that people introduce you to this world, whereas now I feel like you can only look for stuff you already like. There's not like a way to, you know, I would get a record and I would, we had great college radio here in Boston, which is one of the ways that I'm the oldest, so I kind of had to blaze the trail myself for that stuff, but I would sit and stay up all night with a pen and paper and listen to, what's that song and write it down? - Absolutely, yeah, I would do very similar, and I also feel like I would like something, so I'd go by the record or the CD, I mean, yeah, read it all, but I also would often not like it immediately, but then I would listen to it. - To you liked it? - 25 times. - Yeah, I spent money on this. It wasn't free. - And often I figured out why it was good or what I like, but I like, I felt a lot that I didn't like stuff right off the top. - And you're more invested to it at that point because you're like, "Ah, I get it now, you can't just dismiss it," which is why if you look at musically, we're going more towards like a 1950s model of singles and it's not this album world. - Swipe left. - Yep, exactly. - Swipe left. All right, we're on Thursday. - Yes, must see TV night on NBC. - There's a lot going on. This is pre-Shonda Land. - What is it? - Pre-Shonda Land, Shonda Rhimes, who now takes over Thursdays. - Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, this is pre. - How do I get away with murder, it's not bad? I like that show, but it's not on right now. - Not as instructional as I would have liked. (laughs) - I wonder if there were people who turned that on and were like, "I just watched this for an hour and I don't know how to do it." - Right, I thought it was a documentary. - Do you know why no work? - So, okay, Cosby show? I probably would have watched it. - Yeah, I mean, in the current environment, it's a little cringy to say that, but it was a great show. - It was a great show? - It was a great show. It was innovative and funny and a sweet show and smart and it's a good show. - Do I want to watch father delving mysteries? - How much do you like Tom Bosley? - I think not enough. - On a scale of one to 10, what is your Tom Bosley look? - Yeah, I'm going to be right in the five for once in a while. - For the delving mysteries, I used to watch occasionally because, what was there, Tracy Nelson? - Tracy Nelson, that's right. - I loved her from square pegs and so-- - Oh my god, square pegs. - This is not great, it's eyeshadow. - Yes, square pegs is such a good show. Another show that really should be really discreet. Like, I feel like teenagers would love square pegs now. - I need to watch that again. You can get the whole series for like five bucks. It's great. And Tracy Nelson was great on it and so I would try to watch father delving mysteries but I'm like, yeah. - Not good enough. Weird, we could also watch Jaws 3. - The Revenge. - That, I've read the original script of that movie and it was originally intended to be like an airplane type parody called Jaws 3 People Zero. And Joe Dante was gonna direct it and it was really funny. There's still some elements of it in the actual movie where it takes place in like a sea world type place and it's such a shame to watch. It makes me sad. - Yeah, there's no way. I mean, I probably-- - Good summer movie though. - Right, I could have watched that probably had like a little Kool-Aid-- - Yeah, yeah. - Iced tea that I made from that crystal stuff that came in a big fat jar. - I believe in crystal light 'cause I believe it. And that was the slogan for crystal light. - Back when people like, they were like, all right, you have to cope with the jingle but you only have seven minutes. - Five minutes. - Four notes, get this, that could be a great game show. Right at jingle for this product and four notes. - Four minutes. There was one that we always made fun of that was for a Canadian fabric store also. Gone. But you know, like Michael's. It was like Michael's but fabrics. And there's, there jingle was fabric land, fabric land. - Excellent, excellent. What's, there was a store is it, it's called like National Tire or something in Canada. - Canadian Tire. - Canadian Tire, yes. - Close. Your tires, perfect. - That's like Target though. Like it's sort of like a department store. - Yeah and it's so much so all of their, I mean they, right you can buy a camping lantern or a plant. They don't do groceries. But you could buy a lottery ticket and a vacuum cleaner. I mean it's really, but all of their advertisements I remember growing up were, we saw more than tires. Like those very debts. - No, just tires, okay. Like change your name then. - Yeah, no. But that's where anytime sort of like, oh no, I could use like a new one of these mugs, Canadian Tire. - Yeah. - Oh, I need something to refinished this wood. Canadian, I mean it's just. - I need tires, not Canadian Tire. - But in case, no more tires. - No more tires. 9 p.m. I know I'm speaking to someone from Boston, but I was crazy about Cheers. - Here's one of the, I think the universal truths in life that I've discovered talking to people for this show. There's nobody on earth who doesn't like Cheers. Even if they've never seen it. - First of all, the theme song is fucking amazing. - And it's so sad. It's such a sad theme song. - Two, they did the impossible, which you know over time of pitching television, especially, and I'm sure it happened yesterday and it's gonna happen tomorrow. Everyone with a comedic vision walks in and they wanna sell, no, no, no, is just a bunch of funny people sitting at a bar. You know, like what we did the other night was so funny and we all turned to each other and said, this would be so funny if it was on television and possible. And everyone goes, no, no, no, no. - Yeah, yeah, and people want high concept stuff. Like if you would have to go to be like, it's a bar, right? But it's a bar for jeans. Like you would not have to do this really weird thing. - It's an open mic night, but they're magicians. - Yes, in space. Yeah, and so this show is just, I mean, it's basically a family sitcom and a workplace sitcom of sad people at a bar. - I just loved it, right? For 12 seasons. - Lilith? Okay, first of all, people used to tell me that that's who I reminded them of. - Not an insult. - I was totally happy with that. - Yes, yeah. - Yeah, and this is while she's touting her book, "Good Girl's Bad Boys." - Excellent. - And talk show audience women throw themselves at the baddest boy, Sam. - Yeah, yeah. - Ted dancing. - Like an unapologetic womanizer, but not in a cartoonish way like you get with like how I met your mother. Like, I felt like he seemed like a sad guy that was competent. - Damaged. - Yeah, and it came across. It wasn't like a lionizing like, yeah, he's a cool guy. You were like, that's kind of pathetic. - And you know, and then he makes that comeback. I mean, he's on CSI now, right? - He was on "Curb and enthusiasm." - He was on "Curb." - I think Becker. - Right, but I loved him in the HBO series based on Jonathan Names' book, "Star Jason Schwartzman." - Which I know only like me and two of the people in Brooklyn watched, and maybe you. - I did watch it. I've heard a lot of people. Everyone watched it. I loved it. It's like there were undergrounds albums. - Yeah, just nobody. But he was, he made fun of himself and was a stoner. I mean, I was just like-- - It was very funny. And everything was-- - It was just like, you're so good. Like, that's one thing with a lot of the stuff. You know, some people never, some of these people that were in these sitcoms and some of them were cartoonish in the '80s. And they certainly had a little bit of a, there was that glamour that is lost now. We don't do that same glamour. - But the celebrity's so different now. - Yeah, and the '80s glamour was sort of like ostentatious and ridiculous. And so a lot of it, I look back and you see it as superficial, or maybe it wasn't very good. But some of these actors and actresses are, were fantastic, how many wise? I feel like not even appreciated. - Well, 'cause there were a lot of more jobbing actors for such a long time that I feel like now, when people do acting, they kind of give up very, more quickly in a lot of ways, if they don't reach a certain level of fame. But you have like Ted Danson, who'd been like a song-and-dance theatre actor for like a decade-and-a-half before he got that show. And so he has this sort of-- - Maybe numerous, I guess. Like she was doing Broadway total. - Yeah, so they were all people that had been around for a long time, Shelley Long, who I love, amazing. And that's a show that you had two major roles replaced and the show didn't miss a beat, was just as good of not better with the new people. - Yeah. - You never have that. - Also, those two, so even though it was changed, those two female characters, you know, so you have Lilith and you have-- - Rebecca at this time. - Right. But I mean, not one of those people, not one of those characters was dumb. - No, not at all. They were, some of them were crazy. - They were crazy. - Like they were complicated, damaged people, but they weren't like, "I'm the dumb character." And you know, Woody was the dumb character, but in a like an interesting way, it wasn't, yeah. - Yeah, we had no idea who that guy was gonna become. - No, no, no, it's the Bruce Willis syndrome all over again. - Exactly, it's kind of amazing. - It's funny to see who becomes a movie star from sitcoms. If someone in 1988 was like, "Woody Harrelson, Bruce Willis, "action adventure movie stars," and be like, "Shut up." No way. - Yeah, what are you talking about? - It's gonna be Jean-Laurekette. - Yeah. - You know, it just, it wouldn't make any sense. - They were like, "And by the way, "the born identity television series, "the television movie is not good." I would have said, "Oh, please." - Yes, yes. - "Please, if it hadn't been good though, "we would have maybe never have had the movies." - That's true. - 'Cause people would go, "You want to make a movie "of that awful, born identity TV series? "It'd be like, it's so like rendered movie." - All right, so we're back on Friday. - Final night of the week, and a TV got week. - It's 7 p.m., right, I know we're talking about eight, but at 7 p.m., you're really, you're starting to realize what's going on. - Yeah. - With your life. - Yeah. - Are you in? - Are you gonna go out for the night? - Yeah. - Or just put the pajamas on now. - You know, you're staring at the phone. - Yeah. - It's got a cord. You're probably watching a little family feud. - Yeah. - Mindless. - Yep, yep, yep. You're gonna, I'm just, I'm not invested in this, so if I have to leave the house, you know, because all my friends are calling me or come pick me up, it's okay if I leave halfway through. - It's fine, and then 7.30 rolls around, you're like, "Maybe I'll throw this a little new heart?" - I love new heart so much. That's maybe, maybe my, my favorite sitcom of the 80s. - Oh, it's so, so good. - No one ever agrees with me on this, but I think new heart better than the Bob Newhart Show. - Well, you know, I didn't watch enough of the Bob Newhart Show, so a new heart was just much more in my world, so I will-- - Bob Newhart took very 70s. - Yeah, so I mean, I totally agree with you because-- - Yeah, thank you. - Plus, they had those three Canadian characters. - Larry Darongar. (laughing) - They weren't. - Yeah, they kinda weren't. - Yeah. - Who wants to wear Vermont and Wiggledy show, which I imagine has a lot of-- - But I, we always saw them as like, you know, that was like, Doug Gordon Gorge, basically. All right, so it's eight, eight p.m., you're in. I'm not watching Primetime Pets, you know why? 'Cause it's not Primetime Primics. - No, unless it is. What if the pets are Primates? - Nope. - It's just a document from Michael Jackson. - There is, this is pre, this is, let me tell you what Primetime Pets is, though, read in the description. This is before internet cat videos. So you have a guide dogs for the blind, got to do that. So it has a little gravitas. - Even if that guy is a high school photographer. (laughing) - Even if he just-- - The dog frames up the photos. - The dog's carrying a bag of combs. A pet duck that quacks up its owner. - Oh, dear. - An 82-year-old nursing home resident. - Is she someone to pet? - Oh, that's the one, she's the owner of the duck. This is my pet old lady. - And here we go, dogs that dance to rap music, play pool, ride horses, eat corn on the cob, a bowling rat, a praying cat, an ant farm wrangler, a man who helps his fish brush its teeth. - She doesn't have teeth, do they? - I want to see this now. Like, this sounds like, that list sounds like a Dr. Seuss book, or like a deleted scene from Willy Wonka. So like, it's June Wild, they're going on a rant. - I might have accidentally just started watching the show. - Yeah, I would watch that every week. - On A&E, you're right, we've got someone, we've got Roy Blood Jr. reading, just reading. - Just reading, to himself, silently. It's just a man reading to himself. - And we have, on HBO, we have Tales from the Crypt. - I love-- - Pretty good. Now, I did not have HBO, obviously, so I did watch this in the future. - You had different rules, censorship rules in Canada, correct? They would show more extreme content, like after Watershed Hour. - Yes, yeah, yeah, but HBO stuff, I feel like we would get released. I mean, everyone-- - You had Super Channel, which was sort of like Cinemax and HBO, I think I've even been owned by the same company, and we had all the pay TV stuff. - Yeah. - So we got some of it, but I don't, we didn't have HBO, like other things picked it up. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tales from the Crypt is a really smart show made by Hollywood royalty, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, all these people were involved with that show in various ways. - I do remember it, and I do remember really liking it. I mean, I also remember too that at midnight, we'd just watched "Softcore Porn" and be like, "Holy shit, I can't believe mom's doesn't know "we're watching this." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Would you have to sneak down? Like, would you go to bed and then come down? - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - Were I'd have sleepovers? - Oh, the sleepover stuff, was there ever a girl who freaked out and had to leave 'cause you were watching things that she couldn't handle? - I'm sure people were upset. - Yeah, I had a friend who would-- I never slipped over anyone else's house 'cause I was like a weird kid. The kids would sleep over our house often. Hindsight probably 'cause we had a lot of snacks and a black box that I built, but I had this one kid who would always leave 'cause he would get sick, and his excuse was always he ate too much pizza. Even if we didn't have any, that's very weird. - Interesting, how's that kid doing now on Facebook? - Yeah, I don't know. We're the enough Facebook friends with him. - Yeah. - Yeah. - That's good. Nine p.m. - Yep. - What's gonna happen? - It's the final hour of the week. - Perfect strangers. - Did you watch it? - I did watch it. - Yeah. - Very silly show. - Not good. - Mark Lynn Baker, one of the biggest assholes on television, cousin Larry Appleton. - Oh, yeah? - Psychotically angry on that show. - I know, that's why it was, that was what I think I liked about it. - Like he would've been locked up. - Oh, I know what I'm watching. Two's company. - Two's company. I'm unfamiliar with Two's TV movie. - Comedy. I'm unfamiliar with the two, but check this out. It's on Channel 12 and 26. - Okay, so it's a Fox show. - Two's company, as in T-W-O, apostrophe S company. - Yep. - Comedy. Dorothy, played by Elaine Strich. - Okay. - Asks Robert to help her avoid the unwelcome attentions of a titled admirer. Robert, played by Donald Sinden. - Oh, of course, Donald Sinden, this was his first role. No idea who this person is, yeah. - Elaine Strich, that's it, that's all you got. It's Elaine Strich, though. - So I'm guessing what happened was, we're in July, this was a pilot, they're burning it off. It didn't, because networks would go, we paid for this pilot, we're gonna air it, goddamn it. - Right. - And so, it was probably a one and done air. - I'm pretty sure I would check that thing out. - I would watch all the unsold pilots, but it was with such a remorse, because I'd be like, I hope I don't like this, 'cause I know it will never be. - Right, yeah. And then I guess our city will all watch that into the evening. - You took that interviewer. - Ah. - We watched those, it's always awful, awful. - See, there was some like, oh, this is now mine. - Yes, you can keep that now. - There was some amazing things, I also wanted to point out that on the cover of this, there's all these little TVs, 'cause it's the best and the worst. With pictures in it, there's a new heart finale, one of the greatest finale of all time. - Yes, absolutely. - There's the Energizer Bunny commercial. - Yes. - Which is important just because that was better. - Huge phenomenon. - Right, a joke and an icon and a visual thing that was talked about for the rest of her was lives, except for now, Twin Peaks, of course. - Yep. - There's Andrew Desclay. - He's under the worst. That was when he was banned from SNL. - And he's got a cigarette in his mouth. - Bad ass. - Dirty. - Yep. - He had just done his movie debut, well, he was in movies before that, but his starring role, the adventures of Ford fairly. (laughing) - Or like, he's gonna be huge. Directed by Renny Harlan. - Oh my God, no one could have, I mean, that guy, well, he has a comeback. - That's true, that's true. - Yep, 'cause he was really good in that recent "Witting Allen" movie too. - Well, he was great in "Pretty in Pink." - And in "Pretty in Pink." - Yes, absolutely. - Well, thank you so much. - Oh yeah, thank you. Oh my God, fantastic. (upbeat music) - That was Ophira Eisenberg, lot of fun. My second Canadian guest, maybe there'll be more. I don't know, word gets around the can of it quickly, so it'll be just inundated with Canadian TV. I'm actually trying to hunt down some Canadian editions of TV Guide, or whatever the Canadian equivalent is. So if you are a Canadian listener and you have any, let me know, email me at tvguidenscounselor@gmail.com, or at canidicandread.com. We'll see if we can arrange something. I would be curious to check them out. They don't pop up on the internet very often, as far as I am aware. Also, if you are in the Los Angeles area, or you can get to the Los Angeles area, on Saturday, January 16th, we'll be doing a live TV Guide and Counselor, first West Coast live TV Guide and Counselor, for the Riot LA Comedy Festival. This is the third Riot Festival. It's always a highlight for me every year. I love going down there, it's a great festival, and we have a super amazing guest that I won't reveal here. But if you sign up on our mailing list to tvguidenscounselor.com, or go to the Riot LA site, the announcements will be there. So you will be very pleased, I guarantee you. So, that's it for this week. We will see you again next week. And as always, please let me know what you think of the show. You can rate it on iTunes, you can review it on iTunes, you can share it with your friends. You can email me at the previously listed email addresses that I gave you. And I'll see you again next week on TV Guide and Counselor. (upbeat music) - You know that Lonnie Anderson, she looks dumb, but really she runs the whole show.
