BearManor Media News — q&a

Why did you decide to write a book about Romper Room? I have two daughters and as I watched children’s television shows with them, I thought back to my own childhood. I found a letter my mother had saved that I had written to the Romper Room teacher I used to watch. I was too old to be on the show but wanted to let her know that I was a “good Do-Bee.” I originally thought that the show was only on in my hometown but found out it was actually almost everywhere. As a journalist used to sharing information...

  Q&A with Raymond Valinoti, Jr., author of The Joe McDoakes Comedies - A Critical Filmography     Q: Who was Joe McDoakes? A: Joe McDoakes was a character played by actor George O'Hanlon in a series of comedy short subjects. They were released by Warner Brothers from 1942 to 1956 and were popular with filmgoers. George O'Hanlon is best known as the voice of George Jetson on the Hanna Barbera cartoon show The Jetsons. His character of Joe McDoakes was an ordinary fellow who found himself in extraordinary situations. Each of the shorts had a title beginning with So...

                                         An Interview with Lewis J Stadlen   1- This is your first novel after two theatrical memoirs. How much does LOVE AND SECOND ACTS, rely on biographical events? Stadlen: I believe Philip Roth said the novel is the purist form of biography. 2- You tell the story of a group of ex-acting students and their elderly university professor who meet by chance in a small midwestern city after a twenty-five-year absence.  Fact or fiction? Stadlen:  Fact to a point.  I did teach acting at the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1999. It was one of the most...

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...

Terrence McDonnell Q&A   Q: How did Memoirs of a Hollywood Unknown: Book One: Prime Time originate?   A: In the first place, I never intended to write a book, let alone three of them. But I did have plenty of great stories worth sharing. Maybe fifteen or twenty years ago when I had some time on my hands, I sat down and wrote a piece about working behind the scenes on one particular television show. I don’t even remember what show it was, because the whole point of it was just an exercise for me, and it came out...