TV Guidance Counselor

October 23-29, 1993 Today Ken welcomes comedian and man about town Kevin Harrington to the show. Ken and Kevin discuss bouncers, consequences, Kevin's grandkids, lying about having nieces and nephews, Ken's superman fortress of solitude, Dean Koontz, Tobe Hooper's Funhouse, St. Louis, central time, O'Boisie's, potatoes, regional candybars, Norwegian heritage, Ren & Stimpy, Aeon Flux, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Ray Bradbury, Liquid Television, Married...with Children, Knight Rider, Murphy Brown, Newhart, strong man competitions, lumberjacks, edited Dream On, Dave Holmes, Kevin Kline, Herman's Head, The John Larroquette Show, Melrose Place, Martin, Amanda Donohoe, Fraiser, The Wild Wild West, Alan Ruck date raped by a woman, and Mortal Kombat.

This week Ken welcomes actor Yancy Butler (Witchblade, Hard Target, Dropzone, Brooklyn South) to the show. Ken and Yancy discuss Air BnBs, the land of the beautiful and rich, Sarah Lawrence College, Spring Break in Boston, growing up in Manhattan, navigating crazy people, Al Lewis, palming $100 bills, expensive real estate, Dick Wolf, peaking at 21, Mann and Machine, being up against Murder She Wrote, The Lovin' Spoonful, futuristic dystopia, moving from NYC to LA, being car blind, Ken's parking Karma mutant ability, not knowing what you want to be when you grow up, getting into acting to pay your student loans, police procedurals, reality TV, Honey Boo Boo Naked and Afraid, Hard Target, John Woo, Nailed It, growing up on Broadway, facing cancellation, having never made a pilot, South Beach, Universal Tattoos, James Coburn, Drop Zone, Gary Busey, John Badham, replacing Mel Gibson while still kissing Wesley Snipes, theater acting vs. movie acting, being (non) musical, voice over, Ad Rock setting you on a path of non-musical entertainment, The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, David Bowie being your first concert, The Bee Gees, ad libbing FUs in Saturday Night Fever, negotiating swears, Witchblade, the gauntlet, almost killing Roger Daltrey, music rights, not watching NYC set shows while you are in New York, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, a career of cops and derelicts, and campaigning for Yancy to be a comedy superstar.

October 5 -11, 1985 Today Ken welcome promoter and man about town Clay Fernald to the show. Ken and Clay discuss Ken's trash pile, being three years in the making, Sullivan Square Somerville, older siblings, Benson, not being allowed to watch Soap, Eddie Murphy's stand up, comedy tapes, mis labeling shows, PBS shows, boxing nuns, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Ken's grandfather killing The Exorcist, having the most friends on Myspace in Boston, The Boston Phoenix, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Dust Witch, SNL, Saturday Night's Main Event, horror anthology shows into ongoing series, Duck Decoys, comic books, Ray Bradbury, Bloopers and Practical Jokes, buying bootlegs, bag ladies, Jennifer Grey, how kids are the world's biggest liars, Wrestlers, Spitting Image, Genesis' Land of Confusion, D.C. Follies, Martin Mull, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, dating Adam Ant, local WGBH news, being fascinated with Boston, Bon Jovi, Tower Records, Columbo, Webster, Aliens, Clay vs. Clayton, Mr. Belvedere, Spenser for Hire, and living in Reagan's 80s.

Today Ken welcomes singer, actor, director Don Most (Happy Days, Dungeons & Dragons) to the show. Ken and Don discuss growing up in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, Million Dollar Movie, Channel 9, a start in singing, commercials, seeing The Jazz Singer, when things feel right historically, The Summer of '42, The Wanderers, American Graffiti, Love American Style, auditioning for your own part, Room 222, Emergency, Dramatic Roles, having a funnybone, Happy Days, recognizing Jumping the Shark, forgetting the 50s, Gary Marshall, The Bronx, the weird New York feel of Happy Days, Dungeons & Dragons, Teen Wolf, indie movies, multi-cam vs. single cam, swing music, American Standards, crashing the set of Chinatown, Jack Nicholson, The Twilight Zone and playing paddle tennis with Rod Serling.

Today Ken welcomes actor, singer, and author of the memoir "Growing Up Fisher", Joely Fisher to the show. Ken and Joely discuss her enormous group of children, TV wallpaper, the news, the way kids watch TV, how difficult it is the tell stories on social media, growing up with Connie Stevens, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, "Does TV Go Too Far?", Made for TV movies, "Someone I Touched", AIDS on TV, After School Special, why Ellen will never get rebooted, the wonders of multi-cam television, directing, Til Death, the loss of opening titles and end credits, Station 19, bothering people in public, Ken's interactions with Norman Lear, getting lost in the story, the new content hungry avenues of streaming media, rebooting Amazing Stories, the lost pilots, getting married on stage, Love American Style, Variety Shows, Reality TV, The Battle of the Network Stars, showing side boob, breaking preconceptions, Desperate Housewives, the failure of Ellen's last season, Last Man Standing, the 90s stand up comedian based sitcom boom, the essential nature of a good ensemble supporting cast, Grace Under Fire, being warned not to run on camera, Wild Card on Lifetime, being in the show Baby Bob and having it named one of the worst shows of all time by TV Guide, having a rival, and moving toward the future of storytelling.

It's the 2018 TV Guidance Counselor Halloween Special! This year Ken reunites the Halloween TV Special Forces A-Team of Monsters are Good's Sam Furst and Ken's Wifes is Great's Rachel Reid to watch and discuss the 1986 Sunday Night Disney Made-for-TV Special Mr. Boogedy. Happy Halloween!

FALL PREVIEW EDITION October 1-7, 1988 Today Ken welcomes the multi-talented podcaster, actor, producer Megan Duffy to the show. Ken and Megan discuss the Hollywood Hills, what it takes to give an Uber drive one star, Midnight Caller, Almost Grown, Roseanne, Paradise, Murphy Brown, Boston Common, Boston Public, growing up in Springfield MA, the boring homogeneity of Suburbia, Two Guys A Girl and a Pzza Place, Red Sox vs Dodger, the wonders of Judith Light, the weirdness of Nightmare on Elm St Freddy Kruger toys, the Blumhouse Halloween party, Isabelle Adjani in Possession, best Halloween costumes, cheerleaders, dancing, The Patty Duke Show, Nick at Nite, music and wine for cats, cooking, the magic of potatoes, Liberace, the weirdness of actors, being a producer, Alf, It's Gary Shandling Show, Tracy Ullman, Skeeter vs. Scooter on the Muppets, American Top 40 Long Distance Dedications, Flowers in the Attic, Ken's high school quest to perfect a Sugar Cookie recipe, the pure sex of Billy Idol's Rebel Yell, Samantha Fox's Now I Lay Me Down, Columbo, John Cassavettes acting career, the evil of Cosby, being scalded to death in the shower, 48 Hours, why there are no genius serial killers, The Spader Tapes, loving trapeze artists, and what we would do in the circus.

October 7-13, 1989 This week Ken welcomes co-host of Throwing Shade and author of Feminasty Erin Gibson to the show. Ken and Erin discuss fancy hotel entitlement, hospitality industry jobs, why you should always rob criminals, Hollywoods One Chubby Girl at a time rule, Delta Burke, Gerald McRaney, the quest for judgement, how women are treated in Hollywood, Eating Disorders, why it's important to talk about stuff, Linda Bloodworth Thomeson, Les Moonves, sticking to your guns, sticking up for yourself, Just the Ten of Us, sexist D.C., Mr. Belvedere, the "manny" subgenre, learning from Sitcoms, I Married Dora, growing up poor, if it's better or worse to know your show is being canceled while you are still shooting it, being not pretty enough, Hollywood being brutally honest for no reason, watching Ladyhawke as Sex Ed, Mystic Pizza, entertainment industry restaurants, playing a mom at 30, The Monster Squad, the other f-word, not supporting monsters, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, aspirational television, changing demographics, hidden secret sitcoms, ALF, Cats, Cats The Musical, Hill St. Blues, Night Court, Hard Copy, 20/20, not trusting people with beards, Peter Horton's look, This Old House, WGBH, PBS, missing your opportunity to call someone out, and how Steve Urkel ruined Family Matters.

This week Ken welcomes musician Agnes Obel to the show. Ken and Agnes discuss the proper pronunciation of "Agnes", Danish, having a satellite dish, the life change that was MTV, being on the cutting edge of technology, Yo! MTV Raps, 120 Minutes, Alternative Nation, Tori Amos, Daniel Johnston, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, YouTube, being exposed to new things, the interaction between sound and vision, national television stations, pop culture, living in Berlin, the strange comforting displacement of Berlin, Copenhagen, punk poets, Scandinavian minimalism, the liberation of failure, Eurovision Song Contest, Twin Peaks, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Stephen King, New England, experiences America through pop culture, the meaning of art, the evil lurking under the surface, American Suburbia, dubbing, Fraggle Rock, homelessness in America, the double edged sword of the American Dream, the rust belt, a basic living wage, hierarchy of needs, wondering if we need oppression in order to react, the best environment to create art in, constant distraction, and taking the time to actually live life while you're trying to survive.

In this special TV Guidance Counselor Investigates edition of the show Ken explores the 1984 MTV contest "The Lost Weekend with Van Halen" by going right to the source, the man who would know best, the winner, Kurt Jefferis.