This week Ken welcomes fellow TV obsessive and the man behind the It's About TV site Mitchell Hadley to the show. Ken and Mitchell discuss Indiana, Ken's awful short term memory, growing up in Minnesota, Canadian TV, the Twin Cities, TV Guide's amazing writing, time capsules, futurism, the original source documents, why a period piece will never get it quite right, the golden age of television, sci fi, the benefits of television, how sugar is bad, making us further apart as a society, Howdy Doody, rethinking TV for kids, how crime shows can be instructional, politics on television, doom saying, Nixon getting TV right before he got it wrong, JFK, the 1968 Democratic Convention, Ronald Regan's origin story, the night James Brown saved Boston, The Year of the Sex Olympics, Bread and Circuses, the power of the Beverly Hillbillies, TV moving west from NY to LA, Edith Efron, the fake version of LA, essays, Gomer Pyle, a war show that never discusses a war, dragging TV into a more socially conscious world, allegory, Twilight Zone, how rules can be good sometimes, cringe, shades of grey, Barney Miller, true Broadcasting, Ed Sullivan, Stiller and Mira, Lawrence Welk, Vanilla Fudge, letting your guard down, Dick Cavet, reaction, the best way to interview people , worshiping the creed while forgetting the message, being superficial, things that are important to you, people who grew up watching TV making TV, MST3k, deconstruction, watching sports, '77 Sunset Strip, cookie cutter shows, commercials, TV regulating itself, The Family Hour, Donna Reed, legal dramas, spy shows, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., exposing new generations to shows, It's About TV, TV Guide as a serious historical document, revisiting shows from your youth that end up even BETTER, The Rifleman vs Branded, Rockford Files, Chuck Connors, The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan, actors with drinking problems, Mitchell's book The Electronic Mirror and Atomic Bombs.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

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