TV Guidance Counselor Episode 713: Eric Miller

December 27, 1980 - January 2, 1981

This week Ken welcomes author, screenwriter, movie maker Eric Miller (ericmillerwrites.com) to the show.

Ken and Eric discuss satellites, the creepy paying with your palm technology at Whole Foods, when Sci-Fi actually predicts the future, Dawn of the Dead, The Running Man, Hell House, The Haunting of Hell House vs The Haunting, story prompts, Shirly Jackson, Richard Matheson, Magnum PI, how prevalent Vietnam vets were in 80s pop culture, PTSDT, the importance of character, dark sense of humor, dealing with serious topics, how you need rules to kick against, why having no problems to solve actually makes worse art, how amazing it is that anything produced in Hollywood is ever good, Full Moon Pictures, Crash and Burn, Bill Mosley, life long friends, directing Orson Wells, working with legends, Phantasm, being an intern, cigarettes, Umph in Triumph, being from Indiana, David Letterman, Breaking Away, learning there is a TV series based on your favorite movie, how everything is more or less streaming for free if you know where to look, Schlitz vs Bud in the Great American Beer Switch, Mark Twain, Hal Holbrook, Grace Kelly, variety shows, the M*A*S*H finale, gallows humor, how sometimes an awful toxic workplace can still produce a good end product, Real People, That's Incredible!, The White Shadow, Mud Wrestling, New Year's Eve, Bonanza, cop shows, setting the tone, The Muppet Movie, the NBA, basketball, Meet the Feebles, Peter Jackson, how nobody can really attain the levels of fame people had in the second half of the 20th century, Bob Cousy, Secret Agent Man, Branded, Larry Cohen, Dexter and how being a fan of television often leads us to reverse engineer story telling and interact with people (not kill them).

ALSO Ken is giving away a pair of tickets to the 945 Arts at the Armory show on November 13th where Ken will be opening for Janeane Garofalo. If you can tell Ken the reason Loren Michaels gave Janeane for why she couldn't quit SNL, email it to tvguidancecounselor@gmail.com and you will get a pair of tickets for the show.