You have a TV? No, I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. And don't need a TV. I'm gonna try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try to make you laugh. Try tos all over. My name is Scott Weinberg and I am always joined by my co-host Drew McQueenie except right now because he's running late and he told us to start without him. So we did. We're joined today by the host of one of my favorite podcasts. It is called TV Guidance Counselor and instead of me describing the concept, I will just introduce the host and allow him to do it. I will tell you the honest truth. I take notes from a lot of good podcasters and as far as speaking clearly and enunciating, I am a big fan and I learned a lot from listening to Mr. Ken Reed. Oh thank you. That is an honor. That's like one of the nicest compliments I've gotten. Oh, I am a huge podcast fan and when I listen to certain ones, I take notes. I'm like, oh you know, he rambled a little bit. I don't want to do that.

Oh, that was a good joke. Oh, that was a good, you know, well timed sound effect. Like, I listen and I try to improve my game. So why don't you give our listeners just a brief recap, the history and the premise of TV guidance counselor? Sure. I've been doing the show for four and a half years. I'm a stand-up comedian from Boston have been doing stand-up for about 15 years.

I own more or less every edition of and a half years. I'm a stand-up comedian from Boston. I've been doing stand-up for about 15 years.

I own more or less every edition of TV Guide magazine

because I'm not a crazy person. And the concept of the show is someone picks an old issue of TV Guide. They go through it and write down what they'd watched that week in history. They hand me the guide. They have their list. And then we press record. that sort of the purest form of the show.

We're about almost up to 350 episodes now.

Sometimes I end up having people who were on a lot of the shows we watch growing up and we just kind of have more of a straight interview, but it's always TV focused and it's my favorite thing I've done. Oh, that's great. This is our podcast is my favorite thing I've done and I've done a lot of things surrounding movies which I love movies. So I've done a lot of fun projects and this podcast is my favorite so far.

Absolutely. And I've done a lot of things surrounding movies, which I love movies, so I've done a lot of fun projects and this podcast is my favorite so far, absolutely. Let me ask you this Ken, what is it about nostalgia that makes us both feel warm and cozy, but also makes us want to be analytical and a little bit cynical, maybe. Yeah, I mean, I think we're probably slightly more shugazzy and insightful than most people, but one of the things I talk about a month ago, all the time, is sort of that pre-millennium, pre-social media, media, where we all sort of experience the same thing. So with television, especially where there are fewer choices, we all have that shared experience. So there are people who are roughly the same age as me, who I may be incredibly different from now. We have totally different lives and totally different political beliefs and we can talk about night court. And we have a shared language and a shared experience, which is interesting and sort of warming and one of the things I said in the show once is it's kind of about being alone together for a lot of us as kids. Yeah, it is that I think that's a good point. It's something that Drew and I have really touched on that much. We talk a lot about nostalgia and the good and bad side of it, but we never really got into like the idea of it's we share. Like we all, I have a great memory of seeing them up at movie. Now, you saw to you the same memory, but we share a great memory of seeing them up at movie. And that's a powerful thing. That memory and that love and that affection and connection with other people, sharing that love. That's how stuff like nostalgia starts to blind people. So how do you keep yourself, maybe cynical wasn't the right word, but how do you keep yourself modern? How do you keep yourself not looking backward and with rose colored glasses? Yeah, I try to be critical of stuff, and there's a lot of stuff I go back and watch that certainly doesn't hold up. There's a lot of stuff that I go back and watch recognizes being terrible but I still really enjoy. Like what? Give me one example.

Uh. I go back and watch it. Certainly doesn't hold up. There's a lot of stuff that I go back and watch and recognize as being terrible, but I still really enjoy.

Like what? Give me one example. Something terrible that I really enjoyed would be like the TV show Monsters, which was George Romero's anthology follow-up horror series to tell us from the dark side. And it was slightly more comedic and it's awful.

It's an awful low budget bad 80s horror show, but I love it.

Yeah, if you see it a few random episodes, but I would like to check that. It was only one season, right? It was two seasons. One, the episode I would recommend because it's everything that show is when it's at its best worst is there's a Christmas episode starring Gena Vaughnoy and it's called Glim Glim. And you will not believe, I don't want to say anything else if you really just look at what I will watch it tonight. Absolutely. So yeah, but I mean like do you ever find yourself like it is a better way to put it is like think of like a TV movie that you remember from 88 that you loved and now you're watching it and 15 minutes later in you're like, oh God What was I thinking like to you still enjoy it in a way or is it just completely disheartening sometimes nostalgia just Punches in the face kind of it's not that disheartening because I was kind of a discerning jerky kid So I for the most part stuff that I liked then I still like of now. I can't think of anything I watched growing up that I've rewatched and it's just been unwatchable where I've been like, what the hell was I thinking with this? I'm sure there's something. The other thing I do, and this is pure nostalgia, is for years I've collected beta and VHS tapes of full television broadcasts and then I digitize them

and I've traded them for years.

And it's slightly less of a thing now because so much stuff has been on YouTube in the last year or two. But sometimes there's stuff that's terrible, but I'll enjoy watching the DVDR of it I have because there's commercials and all that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. No, I love that as well. that you know back in the day you'd be like,

oh commercials, but if you're watching something ultra retro

and a bunch of 1983 commercials come on,

you'd be like, I'll watch these now.

Yeah, that's- love that as well. It's ironic that back in the day, you'd be like, oh, commercials. But if you're watching something ultra retro and a bunch of 1983 commercials come on,

you'd be like, I'll watch these now. Yeah, that's part of the whole thing, especially like Senator Morning stuff. Here's a legal question you might be able to help me with. Just, you know, I'm not planning to do this, but like there are certain TV movies and we'll get into this in a bit. There certain TV movies from the 80s that I love.

Now, who owns the rights to a 1981 ABC made for TV movie?

Does ABC still own it to the producers own it? It's a mixture. It's a mixture. And usually it's not the network these days. So for the most part, the production of those made for TV movies were farmed out to sort of independent production companies. They weren't, most of them weren't in-house productions.

Sort of the big mini, you know, the big event television was, but those movie of the weeks generally weren't. And so a lot of those got bundled up and sold, and it's very complicated, especially with the deregulation in 96. There are people who own rights to movies, and they don't know they own the rights of those movies. And it's extra complicated with TV movies

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