This week join Andrew, Steve, and Jonathan as they hangout, chat, and close out this season’s worth of episodes of Inside the Box: The TV History Podcast. They’ll probably also talk a little bit about holiday TV programming and make a few New Year’s resolutions as well.
An old-school style Inside the Box episode. No guests, just Steve and Jonathan discussing the 1984 pilot episode of the cop show, Hunter (1984-1991) starring Fred Dryer, Stepfanie Kramer, and Brian Dennehy. A mixture of lighthearted poking fun at some of well-worn tropes combined with serious talk that attempts to contextualize the series within the larger issue of representations of police in U.S. culture.
Join as Steve continues his interview with TV producer, Joe Gannon, in part two of this two-part episode about his experiences working with actor Carroll O’Connor on In The Heat of the Night (1988-1995) and how the industry has changed from Gannon’s perspective.
Join Steve as he interviews TV producer, Joe Gannon, in part one of this two-part episode about his experiences working with actor Carroll O’Connor and the significant effect O’Connor had on Gannon’s career as a producer.
This week join us for a truly Steve-centric episode as Steve Voorhees welcomes longtime CBS Manager of Prime Time Feature Films, Steve Besserman to the program. If you love the nuts-and-bolts of late-20th Century network television practices as Steve Voorhees does, you’ll dig this episode. Learn about how the network chose, edited, scheduled, and promoted certain feature films to achieve the highest rating possible. Hear how certain directors would actually get involved with the edits needed for either timing or censorship reasons. Also, hear about the role “made-for-TV-movies” had on the presentation of feature films on TV.
This week join Jonathan in conversation with Dr. Kendall Phillips about his recent book, Kolchak, The Night Stalker, a part of Wayne State University Press’s Milestones series. Don’t worry, Steve Voorhees is here too to comment on our conversation that includes ideas including: “Where was horror at in the U.S. by the late 1960s / early 1970s?”, Kolchak’s trio of creatives behind the scenes, Kolchak as an influential gothic investigator, and would Kolchak show up these days on What We Do in the Shadows? Whether you’re a longtime Kolchak fan or brand-new to the character, we think there is something here for you during our conversation.
This week join Jonathan and Steve in conversation with fellow academic, David Brokaw to discuss his new book, Monsters on Maple Street: The Twilight Zone and the Postwar American Dream. We discuss the false dichotomy between “good writing” and “bad television” during the 1950s, the psychology of advertising within 1950s culture, the effect Rod Serling’s service during World War II had on his later writing, and where Twilight Zone-style social commentary can and can’t be found today.
This week join Steve and Jonathan in conversation with television writer and producer, Stan Zimmerman. Listen as Stan talks about writing for the first season of The Golden Girls, writing that VERY famous episode of Roseanne that got the country talking, and what it was like to work for his friend, Amy Sherman-Palladino, writing on Gilmore Girls. Stan also discusses what it takes to make it in a tough industry and how back-in-the-day, writers’ rooms weren’t as inclusive as you might have expected them to be – particularly on shows with inclusive reputations.
This week join Jonathan and Steve as we commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attacks by speaking with Dr. Paul Arras (SUNY: Cortland) about his new book, American Television’s Live Coverage of the 9/11 Attacks: Journalism on the Screen (Rowman & Littlefield).
Join Jonathan for a short episode that explains the end of this podcast season and what to look forward to in the future and when.