Well, we're back bigger and stronger and less awful this week! And we're hot for Cougars! (theme song forthcoming). Even though Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) can't read an e-mail to save his life this time out, he rallies as we both tout the merits of older women, aka, "elder hot," aka "Cougars." Now, you might not think this is relevant to anything -- and normally that doesn't matter on the TV Talk Machine -- but NBC has a new reality series this month called "Age of Love,"...
Jun 06, 2007•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Worst. Podcast. Ever. Well, so far. I had a really bad headache and lacked sleep. Question Boy sucked at reading questions. Well, not really, but I like to blame him for everything. We were angry. I had the Cranky Pants on instead of the shorty robe. We made a stab at man-love and retreated. We didn't have any crazy-ass callers in a dark place. Benny "The Podfather" Evangelista, who we like to blame for pretty much everything, was out sick and Justin (last name deleted because we don't want to d...
May 30, 2007•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Well, let's just get right to it. Question Boy and the Cultural Commissar admit to "reimagining" Lindsay Wagner, "The Bionic Woman," in their younger days. Yes, in that way. Hey, it's Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine! (well, that's the official title, so technically I'm not referring to myself in the third person but don't tempt me! Because I'll do it, like, all the time!) If you listen to no other TV Talk Machine, listen to well, no, let's not go there. But hey, check out our fancy new inline audi...
May 17, 2007•42 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Well, if ever there was any doubt that the TV Talk Machine was a flinty little operation with almost no managerial oversight, staffed by lazy, dumb and probably dishonest employees, well, this podcast will prove it definitively. It's the price of free, people. But you know what? There's a lot of love in it. There's even a shorty robe. And a man's chest. There are wayward metaphors, the inclusion of The World's Most Garbled Message, a plea for patience or at least understanding, a lot of laughs a...
May 02, 2007•39 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Conan O'Brien, who will bring his late night show to San Francisco starting Monday for a week of absurdist brilliance, phoned up the TV Talk Machine to chat a bit about The City, his future as the host of "The Tonight Show," his disappointment about how NBC botched Andy Richter's last sitcom (which Conan co-created) and what it's like taking the show on the road.
Apr 25, 2007•33 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to one very jarring episode of the TV Talk Machine podcast. Normally, as you know, when I am team with Question Boy (the Chronicle's very own Joe Garofoli) discussing all things TV, it often descends to rambling silliness. But this time out--at least for about the first 25 minutes--we decided to get serious. It makes sense. Garofoli is The Chronicle's media writer. Prior to him taking that job, I pretty much handled the duties for years. Together, we have a lot of experience on that beat...
Apr 18, 2007•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Geraldine Laybourne is one of the most influential women in all of television. Laybourne is chairwoman and CEO of Oxygen Media and started the Oxygen channel in 2000, in partnership with Oprah Winfrey, Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach. In one of my ongoing podcasts with the people who actually make the TV you watch, I talk with Laybourne-who dropped by The Chronicle when she was in San Francisco, recently--about her early days running Nickelodeon and how she turned that network into ...
Apr 11, 2007•29 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast We are inching closer to the Sunday debut of "The Sopranos." In this second part of my critics roundtable on the TV Talk Machine, I chat with Dave Walker of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic. Don't worry, no spoilers.
Apr 05, 2007•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast So the TV Talk Machine busts out its first critics roundtable, this time a two-parter starting today and finishing up with Pt. 2 on Friday. "The Sopranos" is the perfect kind of series for a critics roundtable because there's so much going on in the series and different people take away (and appreciate) different aspects of the series. I talked by phone with TV Guide critic Matt Roush, Portland Oregonian critic Peter Ames Carlin, New Orleans Times-Picayune critic Dave Walker and Arizona Republic...
Apr 04, 2007•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast It didn't take long for things to go completely sideways on this week's installment of my TV Talk Machine podcast. Along with Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli once again playing the role of "Question Boy"--don't worry, we're on a search for a "Question Girl"--we decided that two weeks of heavy war talk and big words with Ken Burns meant that we needed to dumb things down. Boy did we succeed. I even managed, unintentionally, to create what is now my favorite new phrase. Along the way we read v...
Mar 28, 2007•39 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast In Part Two of our special "Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine" interview with Ken Burns, the award-winning filmmaker talks about the differences between the subject of his latest documentary on World War II and America's current war in Iraq. Burns, who changed the landscape of TV documentaries with his landmark "The Civil War" 17 years ago, returns this fall with another epic called "The War," about World War II on PBS. Burns also tells Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman about what he learned about Wor...
Mar 22, 2007•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hey look, they even ran a cool house ad in the Datebook section for TV Talk Machine. Very nice. And radio ads. Normally TVTM would collapse under the weight of those expectations, what with me and Question Boy rambling about shorty robes and such, but today (like "Simpsons" writer Joel Cohen before) we have some worthy content. Ken Burns has long been one of my favorites through the years. He does great work, he's passionate about what he does, he smartly elevates the discourse and he's a whole ...
Mar 15, 2007•23 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast They say talk is cheap but we prove it's actually free! Unpaid podcasts are the best love ever! (I'm feeling really exclamation point happy today...). So, here's the TV Talk Machine "Ep. 3," featuring the return of Question Boy (Chronicle media writer and longtime friend Joe Garofoli), e-mail and phone mail questions from around the globe, my willingness to drink Ken Burns' old bottled water both because my throat was killing me and I thought it might make me smarter. And yes, the aforementioned...
Mar 08, 2007•35 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Well, the second TV Talk Machine is up and running, this time featuring an interview with Joel Cohen, a writer and co-executive producer. Cohen is in his eighth year writing for "The Simpsons" and before he came to San Francisco for a lecture, he took some time to chat about everything from what it's like inside a highly competitive writing room, to the new "Simpsons" movie and his brief stint writing on "Suddenly Susan," which I immediately held against him but then forgave him for. Cohen was a...
Feb 27, 2007•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast The very first "TV Talk Machine" podcast lumbered out of the garage late last night. I think it still might be running without brakes. I was joined by Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli who played the part of Question Boy. And he did it with aplomb. Joe does a superb Ed McMahon, which we might bust out next week. He's also a master at Bill Walton. We may do an entire podcast with our Bill Walton voices in the future. Or we might actually invite Bill on the show to see what the Big Man knows abo...
Feb 21, 2007•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
