- What made you want to write about 80s TV specifically, and what did that decade do that TV hasn't quite replicated since?
One of the things I talk about in the book is how disappointing my family life was when I was a kid. Between divorce and the allure of multilevel marketing schemes, my folks were rarely around, so television became a de facto friend…maybe even a parent. I learned adulting from folks like Michael Knight, Tony Micelli, and ALF. But I digress. What did 80s television do that hasn’t been replicated since (besides raising me)? Appointment viewing. That's the thing we lost. The 80s ran on a blueprint: cartoons in the morning, soaps and talk shows during the day, reruns before dinner, primetime after, more reruns to send you to bed, and the free weekly TV Guide in the Sunday paper telling you exactly when all of it happened. You didn't choose when to watch something. You showed up when it was on, or you missed it. There was also this weird genre coexistence that doesn't really happen anymore - man/child action shows like Knight Rider and The A-Team living right next to earnest family sitcoms like Family Ties, all before we got exhausted by antiheroes. Good guys won. It was simple. I wanted to write about that whole ecosystem, not just the shows.
2. What's your litmus test for a show earning a spot in the book?
I don’t think I had a litmus test. I approached this book with an anything goes attitude. That said, I wanted to paint a picture of what shows made 80s TV my 80S TV. So, of course I touch all of the classics, but honestly, what really turns me on are the shows almost nobody remembers anymore and they seem to fall in 1 of 3 categories: shows that were just blah and vanished without a trace; shows that were genuinely great but too far ahead of their time for audiences to catch up to; and the true gems - the batsh#t crazy ones with a premise or casting choice so strange it probably ended a network executive's career. I’m also a sucker for the 80s variety of “very special episodes”.
3. Of all the shows you revisited, which one held up way better than you expected, and which one aged the worst?
Joe Bash (1986) shocked me. Peter Boyle playing a burnt-out, toxic-masculinity cop with zero laugh track and zero studio audience - it's basically doing the anti-sitcom thing The Office and Modern Family got credit for twenty years later. ABC didn't know how to sell it and it died after six episodes, but watching it now, it's clearly smarter than its ratings.
On the flip side, Small Wonder aged terribly. It's just plain weird. A robotics engineer, clearly a genius, uses his unique skill set to build… a ten-year-old android girl. Huh. And where does he keep her? In his son's bedroom closet. As a kid you don't clock how deeply weird that premise is. As an adult, you can't unclock it.
4. You spent two years writing this. How much was memory versus actual research, and which surprised you more?
Oddly enough, the first 60 pages were about the 1985 film, Teen Wolf, before I decided to focus solely on 80s television. Going forward, it started as pure memory dump. I filled dozens of pages just vomiting opinions about actors and shows I grew up with. From there, I created a format built around each individual year: the shows in the Top 10, the shows that debuted, the shows that were canceled, and the shows that were nuts! I also created opportunities to discuss various types of actors, 80s movies that became 80s TV shows, and the things that made me scratch my head wondering what the network executives were thinking. The throughline throughout all of this was my personal experience with each topic. Of course, I needed to backfill all of it with real research to make sure I wasn't just running on nostalgia and bad information. So TV became homework. The best homework. The research is what surprised me more - how much behind-the-scenes chaos was happening on shows that looked completely wholesome on screen.
5. Is there a bigger cultural story in 80s TV that you think doesn't get enough credit?
The first-run syndication boom. Shows like Small Wonder didn't air on a network with standards and practices breathing down their neck - they were sold station by station, which is exactly how something as strange as a robot-girl-in-a-closet sitcom got 96 episodes over four seasons without anyone stepping in to say “wait, maybe don't.” Syndication is where a lot of the era's true weirdness lived, and it rarely gets talked about the way network primetime does. Also, it’s it was very clear in the 80s that there was still a very solid line between Movie actors and Television actors and it’s fun to discuss what happened when those lines were crossed.
6. Any casting decision that still baffles you, or an actor who deserved more recognition than they got?
The Valerie Harper situation still gets me. She was the whole reason the show Valerie existed - a legit TV star from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda. Ratings go up, she and her producer husband ask NBC for a raise, NBC says no, they hold their ground, and NBC just fires her and replaces her with Sandy Duncan mid-series. The show then gets renamed twice before landing on The Hogan Family. She later won $1.8 million in damages, but the show just moved on without her like nothing happened. Meanwhile it accidentally launched Jason Bateman into teen-heartthrob territory. Wild outcome from a fight over money.
7. What's the most underrated or completely forgotten show in the book that deserves a second life?
Joe Bash, hands down. Stephen Cannell-adjacent creative talent, critics loved it, Time Magazine named it one of the year's best and it still only lasted six episodes because ABC genuinely didn't know what kind of show they'd bought. It's a comedy with dramatic roots and no safety net. Nobody talks about it, and more people should.
8. The book grew out of your podcast. What can readers get from Boxed In that even longtime listeners haven't heard?
The podcast is conversational and lives in the moment - it's me riffing. The book is the version where I actually did the homework: full episode runs, cast breakdowns, behind-the-scenes fun facts, and a dedicated “Things That Make You Go Hmmm” section for every show where I pick apart the plot holes nobody questioned in the 80s. It's a much deeper, more structured dive than anything that's made it into an episode.
9. Watching these shows now with a critical, writerly eye - how different is that from watching them as a kid?
As a kid, you just accept the premise and move on. An alien lives in your garage, fine, a robot girl lives in a closet, fine. Writing this book meant going back and actually interrogating that stuff. Why does ALF, who has an entirely normal human name, Gordon Shumway, get called ALF instead? Why does a family with an alien secret and nosy neighbors on every side let him roam the house unsupervised all day? None of that occurred to me at eight years old. All of it occurs to me now.
10. If a stranger read only one chapter to decide whether to buy the whole book, which one would you point them to?
Two chapters. Keeping House and Not Keeping House. This is where I used the maid, or lack thereof, to take a closer look at shows like Mr. Belvedere, Who’s the Boss?, Charles in Charge, The Golden Girls, and a few more. Think about. How does a middle-class family in Pittsburgh afford a live-in British butler? And Charles in Charge? What the hell was that about? They moved a horny college kid into their house and basically let him raise the kids. You can’t see it, but I am shaking my head in a disapprovingly.