So we had a lot of fun talking about the BBC discovering -- probably to its horror -- our little show that can't (or won't), your TVTM. But now we get back to actual questions. Which means Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) stumbles all over his reading of the questions and I provide almost no information. For his part, Benny is asleep. Just a reminder to newbies who stumble upon us and don't get it: If you're looking for something coherent, edited and polished, you'll have to go elsewhere. Cheers to a...
Mar 18, 2008•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's true. BBC Radio 5, or Five Live, as they like to call it across the pond, interviewed me about what can only be described as the awesome power of -- third person alert -- Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine podcast. Of course, I played along and didn't tell them that our podcast was incredibly lame and that our goal at TVTM is to be as unprepared as possible and do bad impressions. Colin Murray, a BBC radio guy who has his own sports podcast called "Fighting Talk" did the interview and I touted o...
Mar 17, 2008•33 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast Not that improving is our goal, mind you. We are much more Zen about it than that. Or lazy. Pick your religion. And this one has been up on the SFGate.com front for, what, two days? Anyway, it's our gift to the world, set sail on the breeze of indifference.
Mar 11, 2008•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're making Benny, who once again is "manning the knobs" here, truly suffer for implementing the split podcast. You may remember this was to cut down on The Podfather's workload -- wait, "work" load -- and edit our unwieldy (but oh so user-friendly if not actually educational) podcast from 45 minutes into two 'casts of roughly 22 minutes. Yeah, that was the idea. A kind of Tuesday/Thursday double-dip. Well, we only do what we're told, until we don't, so this week we are offering up two 35 minut...
Mar 10, 2008•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lots of questions, some answers, tons of yelling and swearing. Both knowledge and entertainment knock on the door -- actually the pod cave wall -- but we don't answer it. And yes, two parts. It's out of our control, but in all honesty, these two flowed a lot better than last week. Also, in all honesty -- it probably sounds too professional. We'll dumb it up more next week.
Feb 27, 2008•23 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast Man love alert: Colin Farrell, George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Question Boy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Oh, we also answer questions. Joe Garofoli (Question Boy and Chronicle media critic) and I come back strong after two really terrible podcasts last week. We apologize yet again for those, but we are supremely strong this week. Well, alright, we did unveil Joe's impersonation of a very angry Regis. And we did make fun of some of our most loyal e-mailers and callers. Mostly we ...
Feb 25, 2008•27 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast In addition to totally screwing up the narrative beauty of our podcasts, Benny fesses up that he forgot a call from a guy in London. London! And the call came in a month ago. You know what that means? One of our seven listeners has probably given up on us. Thanks Benny. By the way, if Charley from "Maisy" can call in (we think Tallulah did the dialing), then there's no reason you can't as well. Give us a jingle.
Feb 21, 2008•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast We've decided -- well, wait, "decided" hints at actual preparation -- that the podcast should be cut in two and run on consecutive days each week. At least that was the plan for about five minutes, and then the plan was to run Part 1 on Tuesday and Part 2 on Thursday, because Benny said we should "keep them wanting more." To which Joe Garofoli, admirably playing Question Boy, and I both said, "They don't want any of it, much less more." So that was the plan. We taped on Tuesday because of the Mo...
Feb 20, 2008•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Just to make things clear, I wasn't aware that Manny was going to "man the knobs" so quickly and, yes, the podcast starts out talking about burping. Our grand intro -- ruined. But Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) plays Ed McMahon. And we do a bunch of stupid voices -- undaunted by last week's miserable impersonations. Including: My really bad version of Charley from "Maisy." I promise to go back to "Maisy" and get it right for next week. We also talk kids shows (Dora: loud; non...
Feb 11, 2008•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast We took a couple of weeks off but now we're back, more stupid than ever. But let's face it -- Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) was way off his game in this one. His impersonations were all messed up. Banjo? Awful. Bill Walton -- worse than mine, even. Al Gore? Lame. On and on it went. On the plus side, it was perhaps his finest moment ever reading the e-mail questions. As for Manny (Benny Evangelista), he was asleep at the knobs. If it wasn't for the great calls and e-mail, this would just be our nor...
Feb 05, 2008•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast After feigning politeness for much of Part 1 with Jennifer Gomez (aka Jengo) as Question Girl, the true colors of Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) come to the surface. Lots of questions, lots of anger, a couple of answers. Way better than we usually do.
Jan 16, 2008•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Question Girl No. 2 joins the TVTM podcast. We decide not to be so lame. We may have failed. Actually, "first runner up" Jennifer Gomez (aka Jengo) helped fuel a surprisingly upbeat, informative and far-reaching two-part TV Talk Machine podcast. We raised our game in honor of her in-Pod Cave appearance. We have Part 1 today, Part 2, tomorrow and then -- because we have pledged to you our word to be as unprepared and lame as always -- we hope to return, a week later, to rambling nonsense about "u...
Jan 14, 2008•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast After a long winter holiday break, I have regrouped with Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) and extended the contract of Benny Evangelista to "man the knobs" as we go forward with the most popular, least professional and most dangerously stupid podcast in San Francisco Chronicle history. The TVTM plods on, even when it's (cough!) blocked by Question Boy's inability to read the questions right, or, for that matter, to have many coherent questions that don't have a lot of late 2007 dust on them. Undaunte...
Jan 08, 2008•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yes, Virginia, there is a podcast. And a bunch of other pointless stuff. Well not a "bunch" per se. I've got some random bits of info, sure. But mostly I'm throwing this up there to let you know that I recorded a podcast with Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) and Manny/Knobby (Benny Evangelista). After a long layoff, we were all a bit rusty. But the shorty robes were seasonal and festive. And short. That's all that really matters. If you're hungry for a morsel of stupidity from this podcast, I will te...
Dec 11, 2007•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast I talked with Michael C. Hall, star of "Dexter," on Monday and here it is as part of my latest TV Talk Machine podcast. Ah, talking with the stars. Never an actual interest of mine. But as I noted previously, the whole idea of the TV Talk Machine podcast was to talk with people I actually liked, who were doing great work, and having that as archive material for years. More and more people are being offered up. Podcasting is becoming more acceptable as it becomes more accessible, I suppose. I hav...
Nov 13, 2007•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast You can hear the dulcet tones of Mandy again! We continue to dominate all of America, Canada and the rest of the world by taking calls from around the globe, including "near Oakland" and our first from Harlem. Or was it Brooklyn? Hell, I couldn't even get Mandy's whereabouts in Oregon correct. But we rallied, as usual, and we hope that TVTM will entertain you. It remains free. And we remain unpaid.
Nov 06, 2007•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Well, it took some time -- alright, a long time -- but Amandapants our winner in the long forgotten Question Girl battle royale -- finally makes an appearance on the TV Talk Machine podcast. Mandy Murphy survived all of our jibes and jokes and lies and slander to appear with us. And she even had a great time. Such a great time, mind you, that we've split the podcast into two parts. Yep, you add someone in the booth, even figuratively, and the bloated rambling just gets more windy and lengthy. So...
Nov 05, 2007•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Well, we were just hoping to kick back and do Bill Walton impressions and talk about shorty robes in this one -- plus mock the fact that our new Question Girl is AWOL. But, as they usually do, things went sideways. First, we had too many questions -- both e-mail and by phone. It's actually becoming work now, this podcast...And we had to fess up that Amandapants, our Question Girl winner, isn't 100 percent at fault for what is now "Question Girl Is Missing: Week Three." Turns out she was availabl...
Oct 30, 2007•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast These days Ricky Gervais is a busy man. He's making movies. He's doing live comedy concert tours. He's writing books, appearing on "The Simpsons," and making perhaps the most popular podcast (and the funniest) in the medium's short history. On and on it goes. In this podcast, recorded on his day off from shooting a film, Gervais talks about the "Extras" finale, why he and Merchant wanted to make this something more than just a comedy, how fame has affected his own life, what he was trying to say...
Oct 23, 2007•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast I interviewed David Duchovny today about his role in Showtime's acclaimed "Californication" series. Duchovny did the interview while keeping his eye on the TV news -- the Southern California fires are rapidly encroaching on his home (he also noted, with some sad irony, that his latest movie is "Things We Lost In the Fire"). "Californication" has two episodes left -- one tonight (repeated this week) and then the season finale on Oct. 29. Duchovny talked about why he came back to television, how t...
Oct 22, 2007•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mood swinging mayhem; future celebrity appearances, efficient rambling. It's the TVTM! Indeed it is. Yet another podcast without our new Question Girl, so it comes back, yet again, to Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) and your Cultural Commissar to deliver the goods (or the averages) on yet another TV Talk Machine podcast. There are more Q's and A's here than ever before and all the joyful abundance of swearing, laughing and scoffing you've come to expect. Plus, still more singi...
Oct 16, 2007•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Question Girl winner! Question Boy survives! Actual questions answered! Plus anger, etc. Yep, that's about the gist of it. Plus, Joe Garofoli sings as Juan Antonio Samaranch. We get yelled at. We forget things. But there's a happy ending (no, not that kind) and a lot of phone calls and e-mails get answered. Plus we bash Benny, who, as you know, is "manning the knobs." It's quite fun, actually. And we have now officially destroyed all other podcasts at the Chronicle. Our next goal is world domina...
Oct 09, 2007•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Carnage! Sucking up! Sultry voices! Hating on Question Boy! It's Attack of the Question Girls! Boy, is it. The highly-touted, hotly anticipated throwdown to become the Once and Future Question Girl (and, in the process, firing Joe Garofoli as Question Boy -- but not really) led to a bloody TV Talk Machine podcast. Hear all about it below. So many people participated, that we now have a controversy brewing (or if not, we'll cook it up anyway). Apparently, some Question Girl tryouts might not have...
Oct 02, 2007•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Uh, yeah. Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) was angry. I was angry. Ignoring us only makes us -- what's the word? -- cranky. We had a lot of letters. But we had no calls. So we went off. Later we talked about shows. Joe sang (the Pittsburgh Steelers fight song...God help us.) We did vocal impressions. We talked about fall shows and, specifically, series premiering this week. I put the bunting out at the house (and on the shorty robe) in honor of this being the official start wee...
Sep 26, 2007•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Actual answers! The return of the shorty robe! An attack on Question Boy! It's the TV Talk Machine podcast. Oh, hell yes it is. We go off! And then we catch ourselves and correct course. Mostly we realized that the show seemed too professional, too helpful, too effortlessly informative. So we ruined it. Or tried to. Next week it'll be lousy again -- promise.
Sep 18, 2007•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Here -- after a lengthy absence -- is the return of the TV Talk Machine podcast!
Sep 11, 2007•32 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Tim's down in L.A. at Death March with Cocktails, where he met up with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Tim took the opportunity to chat with Burns about his upcoming seven-part series, "The War," which airs on PBS starting Sept. 23. In the interview, Burns talks about how he handled criticism from those who said his series didn't do justice to the role of Latino soldiers in World War II.
Jul 12, 2007•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Even more listener calls about the "Sopranos" finale!
Jun 20, 2007•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Well it's been quite a few days of post-"Sopranos" speculation and chat. I did five radio interviews on Monday including 40 minutes on "Talk of the Nation" and that finale was, indeed, the talk of the nation. No doubt the finale will live on in pop culture history as a great debate. Did Tony live or die? I love that it has prompted so much discussion and creative (insane?) deconstruction. And now I'm on the verge of being very much over the whole thing. Time to move on. But before I do, here s t...
Jun 11, 2007•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chronicle readers react to the "Sopranos" finale.
Jun 11, 2007•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
