Mr. Media Interviews By Bob Andelman

From 2009: Jon Rosenberg, you had me at the gray-skinned alien who said, “On our planet, people worship pancakes.” That’s the point—it was page three, I believe—that I realized that "Goats: Infinite Typewriters" was spinning out of control and I loved it. Rosenberg’s whack-a-doodle webcomic is my kind of strip. It’s got aliens, a chicken named Diablo, monkeys as assistant editors, bikers, alternate universes, good Hitler, a character coincidentally named Jon, and yes, even a goat.

From 2010: Am I the only one who, when "TGS" producer Pete Hornbergerwalks into and out of a scene on “30 Rock,” thinks of Johnny, the airport control worker in the Airplane! movies? That character, played by Stephen Stucker, stole many a scene Lloyd Bridges was in much the same way that Scott Adsit, who plays Pete, can tear away a moment from any character on the show with a sincerely played line of utter lunacy.

From 2012: Adventure? I’ve had adventures. There was that time in the hot air balloon in Brandon, Florida, for starters and, uh… Well, I guess that was about it. Oh, I’ve canoed, kayaked and fished – I do live in Florida, fer cryin’ out loud – but that’s the extent of my adventures. Terry Tomalin, however, has made a cottage industry of looking for fun above and below the Sunshine State’s surface. As Outdoors Editor for the Tampa Bay Times, he’s enjoyed a license to thrill for years.

From 2012: My suspicion is that restoring Jeff to normality was the show’s producers handing actor Scott Krinsky a parting gift. They had to know it might tough for him landing future roles with such a convincing portrayal of a loser and, I believe, gave his character back some semblence of normalcy to let future casting directors see Krinsky in a more employable light. But rather than guess, I’ll ask him.

From 2009: A Tony and Obie winning actor, writer and director, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, co-star on "Castle" with Nathan Fillion and Stand Katic, made his debut as a screenwriter with Lackawanna Blues, for which he received the Humanitas Prize, a Christopher Award, National Board of Review Honors, an NAACP Award and Emmy, Golden Globe and a WGA nomination.

From 2010: You might actually recognize Rib Hillis from a lot of places, from the soap opera "Port Charles" to the sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” in which he played one of Charlie Sheen’s mother’s playthings. But the one that rang true with the women in my family was when he played a masseuse in an episode of ABC’s “Ugly Betty." 

From 2008: John Darnton is a 42-year New York Times veteran reporter, editor and foreign correspondent who was awarded two George Polk Awards for his coverage of Africa and Eastern Europe, and the Pulitzer Prize for his stories that were smuggled out of Poland during the period of martial law. He retired in 2005 and began teaching journalism at SUNY/New Paltz. And I’m guessing fewer co-workers at the old Grey Lady are on speaking terms with him, thanks to "Black & White and Dead All Over."

From 2011: I’ll wager that the change in fortunes for fictional Morgan Grimes on "Chuck" has had a similar, real life impact on the career of actor Joshua Gomez. Gomez took a one-note best friend who only had the annual San Diego Comic-Con to look forward to in life and turned him into a lovable, respectable man of the world.

From 2010: If “Chuck” were to end tomorrow, actor Joshua Gomez would have to thank his lucky stars that the producers and writers saw him as something more than where he started on the show and turned Morgan into a fully realized character. That’s going to pay off for him in the post-"Chuck" years. Which, I might add, won’t be too soon; NBC just picked the show up for the rest of the season.

I read a compelling new book by Esther K. Choy titled "Let the Story Do the Work: The Art of Storytelling for Business Success." In her own way, Choy independently applied the kind of storytelling suggestions I found so useful in Thau’s presentation and put them in an easy-to-access book form for business leaders. She breaks it all down, step-by-step, and even diagrams her methods. If you make any kind of presentations at work, I think you can learn something from Choy and her book.

From 2010: I honestly had no idea how popular actress Janina Gavankar was the first time she appeared on Mr. Media Radio, but the star of Showtime’s long-running “The L Word” caused quite a buzz. That show is still one of the most popular in our archives. So when the opportunity to have the stunningly beautiful actress return to the show and catch us up on her career, of course, I said “Yes.”

2017: I knew Bob Marley's hits – “I Shot The Sheriff, “No Woman No Cry,” “Buffalo Soldier,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” “One Love/People Get Ready” and “Jamming” – most of which have since been co-opted by Madison Avenue for commercials. That said, it made me quite eager to learn more about what I didn’t know, which, thanks to author Richie Unterberger and his new book, Bob Marley and The Wailers: The Ultimate Illustrated History, is quite a lot.

From September 2010: Here’s what I know about jewelry: my wife likes it; my daughter likes it and I frequently pay through the nose for it. That said, why am I welcoming Housewives Ramona Singer back to the show to promote her latest line of jewelry on St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network? It ain’t because I can talk intelligibly about baubles and beads, that’s for sure.

From May 2010: The rest of the ladies may be “The Real Housewives of New York,” but Ramona Singer is the real businesswoman of the Big Apple. Kelly Bensimon may have shown her family jewels in the pages of Playboy, but fellow “Housewife” Ramona Singer has used her fame to pursue a more traditional route to success. This reality TV star, seen every Thursday at 10 p.m. on Bravo, sells her “True Faith” jewelry collection on HSN and has a store on Amazon.com called “Ramona Singer Collections.”

From 2011: Alina Puscau is hot. Hot, as in, she’s appearing in her first movie this week, Conan the Barbarian. And hot, as in, have you seen this girl? That, as Paris would say, is hot. You may also have seen her modeling in Pepe Jeans and Victoria Secret campaigns, or on the cover of Playboy magazine in 2009, where she was photographed by film director Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand, Rush Hour).

From 2011: Don’t you love it when a friend recommends a book and it turns out he was right? That’s how I got turned on to William Kent Krueger’s new book, Vermilion Drift. A friend knew I would love a good mystery and said, “Read this.”

I’d like to tell you something about Jess McConkey, but she was a bit of a mystery to me. Her bio is just two sentences — “Jess McConkey is an award-winning writer of short fiction. She lives in a small Iowa town and is currently working on her next novel.” That only told me that she may be in the witness protection program. Then I found out the truth: Jess McConkey is the pen name of Shirley Damsgaard, creator of the Ophelia and Abby mystery series. So I’ll talk to Shirley as Jess, then Shirley a

From 2011: "Certifiably Jonathan" not quite a documentary and not quite a story, although there is a slice of fiction threaded in there. What it is – and what matters most – is that Jim Pasternak and Richard Marshall have captured a late-in-life slice of the great Jonathan Winters, sprinkled in with classic moments from the humorist’s past. It’s an irresistible piece of cinema. Joining me today is Certifiably Jonathan director Jim Pasternak and producer/photographer Richard Marshall.

From 2007: In the 1970’s, my dad never made any purchase of substance without consulting Consumer Reports. Vacuum cleaners, toaster ovens, window air conditioners, used cars -- he never made a move without CR. In those pre-Internet days, he collected the magazine’s back issues the way I collected comic books. I just kept my comics a lot neater and more organized than he did his magazines. We’ll talk about that and more today with my guest Kim Kleman, the new Consumer Reports editor

From 2012: I don’t know if Morgan Spurlock is getting rich as a documentary filmmaker, but he sure looks like a guy who is having a good time going to work each day. Spurlock first came to international attention with his face-first slide into bad cholesterol hell with "Super Size Me," his month-long ode to McDonald’s. It was a great gimmick that had legs, much the same way that "Roger & Me" earlier launched the career of Michael Moore. Today we'll talk about "Comic-Con: Episode IV: A Fans Hope."