Mr. Media Interviews By Bob Andelman

From 2013: So… I was all set to ask Jon Lovett a bunch of predictable questions about making the transition from being one of President Obama’s speechwriters to producer of a TV show about a fictional president of a fictional country in a fictional world capitol… … when the real-life actor who plays the son of said fictional president showed up on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” a week ago making his case on national television to play the overweight son of Han Solo in the new Star Wars movie!

From 2008: I hate it when people confuse actors with the characters they play. For example, just because 11-year-old Joey Luthman appears on the Showtime sitcom “Weeds” doesn’t mean he’s a pothead. At least I hope not! And just because he has a role in the new movie An American Carol alongside Kelsey Grammer, Leslie Nielsen, Dennis Hoppe and James Woods doesn’t mean he’s a conservative right-winger. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

The third season of “The Expanse” continues to blow minds in the battle between Earthers and Martians. The writing in season two made sense of the various threads from season one and gave the show a grounding it lacked the first time around. Thomas Jane's departure created new storylines and stars, including Cas Anvar, who plays Alex Kamal. Anvar most recently appearing in the third season of FX’s “The Strain.” "The Expanse" currently airs Wednesdays on Syfy at 9 p.m. in the U.S.

From 2010: If you’re going to get called on the carpet for something you did right, might as well be by Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central’s whirlwind of truthiness, “The Colbert Report.” That’s what happened about a week ago to Bill Adair, Pulitzer Prize winning editor of Politifact.com, the online fact-checking operation spawned by the St. Petersburg Times.

If you’ve ever written or thought about writing a book—unagented—Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents: Who They Are, What They Want, How to Win Them Over is the one book you must own and study. If you only know me as the host of this podcast, you may not know that I make my living as a co-author of more than 15 books. Jeff and his wife Deborah Herman also wrote another important book : Write the Perfect Book Proposal.

From 2008: I was a correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times back in 1983, and I convinced my editor that we should write about these Hooters guys, of which Ed Droste was one of the six co-founders. It’s a story I have gone back to over the years because it’s never gotten dull. The company has hundreds of restaurants in dozens of countries, will celebrate its 25th anniversary in October. And nobody understands what gets the media’s attention better than Ed Droste.

From 2012: In the beautiful new book Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was, animation fans will be delighted to discover an entire missing chapter in the artist's catalog: "Crawford," a would be cartoon and comic strip character that never quite hit its mark. Dean Mullaney and Kurtis Findlay, working with the Jones family, have reconstructed the animator's life in the 1960s and '70s along with a trove of finished and raw Chuck Jones comic strip art and sketches that tells the "Crawford" story.

From 2011: Manmeet – as played by Sacha Dhawan – is simply too gentle and sweet a character to keep clobbering with the same one-note joke. As the series developed, the writers have found much better uses for his talents. Of all the crazy characters on “Outsourced” – which airs Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. after “30 Rock” – Manmeet is the most grounded, the most Indian “Average Joe” on the show. He is its Jim Halpert (“The Office”) or Jeff Winger (“Community”), providing laughs at Mi

From 2010: Toby Bloomberg's new ebook, "Social Media Marketing GPS: A Guide to Social Media, 1 Tweet at a Time," is just that: a book written almost entirely in 140-character tweets. Toby not only talks about the social web but is actively involved in the conversation. Her blog "Diva Marketing," launched in 2004, was acknowledged by Forbes as one of the “20 Best Marketing and Social Media Blogs By Women.”

Until The CW committed to adding an African-American hero--"Black Lightning"--to its burgeoning roster of DC-based TV series, creator Tony Isabella’s demands were ignored. On March 27, 2017—a year to the day we recorded this interview—Warner Bros., parent company of DC, finally decided to recognize Isabella’s role as creator of Black Lightning with production royalties and on-screen credit. And DC Comics invited him back to write a new “Black Lightning” 6-part limited series, “Cold Dead Hands.

From 2007: Talking media, and magazines in particular, is great sport for me, so imagine my delight when Lisa Granatstein agreed to an interview. Lisa is the managing editor of Mediaweek (now part of Adweek). She’s a brand name in media coverage. Earlier in her career, Lisa was a reporter for Time magazine and an associate editor of its technology spin-off, Time Digital. She’s also worked at US News & World Report, Conde Nast Traveler Online, and she was a stringer for The New York Times metro desk.

From 2010: Alaina Huffman is a double-dipper.When it comes to commanding the hearts and minds of fanboys—and, no doubt, fangirls—the world over, Huffman holds not one but two roles of substantial interest in the TV sci-fi/comic book universe. On The CW’s long-running “Smallville” series—you know, where Clark Kent is no longer a Superboy, but not quite a Superman—she is the Black Canary—the fishnet, leather-clad blonde Green Arrow has stashed on his balcony.

From 2010: It’s a big night for the show’s supporting cast—for no one more so than Grizz Chapman, about whom we’ve made two shocking discoveries: 1) The actor who plays half of Tracy’s entourage undergoes dialysis three times a week for kidney failure, and; 2) His character and Tina Fey’s have a secret, sexual past.

From 2012: On “Worst Week,” Hayes MacArthur played Bornheimer’s perfect brother-in-law – perfectly conniving that is. And on “Perfect Couples,” they were the husbands in two of three couples presented on the show, which was clever, innovative and given up on way too soon. Damn you, network programmers!

From 2009: “The Wicked Wit of the West,” as Groucho called Irving Brecher, lived a long and productive live, starting out writing one-liners for Milton Berle in the 1930s, two Marx Brothers films, punching up the humor in "The Wizard Of Oz," writing and convincing Judy Garland to star in "Meet Me in St. Louis," creating the long running radio and TV sitcom, “The Life of Riley,” and writing the original film version of "Bye Bye Birdie" for Dick Van Dyke and Ann-Margaret.

From 2012: So much has happened in the two years since "30 Rock" star Kevin “Dotcom” Brown first dropped by Mr. Media and said my cool black comedian nickname going forward could be F.O.D. Friend of Dotcom. Unfortunately, no matter how many people I paid to introduce me that way wherever I went, it never caught on. In fact, when Big Kev brought his comedy club tour to Tampa last year and invited me to see the show and hang out after, even he forgot to call me “F.O.D.”

From 2010: Even as Tracy Jordan became more defined as "30 Rock" developed in its first season, the roles of his entourage, Grizz Chapman and Kevin "Dotcom" Brown, were refined and grew distinguished. The twin towers found their niche as brilliant supporting characters, one or the other often defining a scene with a shrug, an eye roll or a gentle quip. They, unlike Tracy—played by Tracy Morgan, of course—were in on the joke with the rest of us.

From 1984: On today's show, I'm reaching back in my archives to April 3, 1984 to share a telephone interview I conducted with seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer Al Jarreau. Al passed away in 2017 just short of his 77 birthday; I am sharing this now on what would have been his 78th, March 12, 2018. He was a sweet, gentle soul and a man whom my then roommate, Kathy Harrison, thought was one of the handsomest men in the world. -- Bob Andelman

Rick Smolan, is the co-author of a new coffee table book of searing photography and no equivocating essays called The Good Fight: America's Ongoing Struggle for Justice. It depicts the injustices and victories over injustice experienced by African Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, women, the LGBTQ community, Latino Americans, Asian Americans and the disabled. I don't know about your American community, but that seems to cover everybody I know.

From 2007: You may be familiar with David Simon’s work. A former Baltimore Sun crime reporter, he is the writer that the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce no doubt loves to hate, having co-authored (with Edward Burns) the Baltimore-based book, "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner City Neighborhood," and the subsequent HBO series, The Corner, as well as "The Wire," "Treme," and "Homicide: Life on the Street."