TV Guidance Counselor Episode 490: John Sayles

TV Guidance Counselor Podcast

This week Ken welcomes writer, director, actor, and one of Ken's most looked up to Renascence Men, John Sayles.

Ken and John discuss outer space, TV as babysitter, how 1960 was far before Ken was born, late night TV, inappropriate commercials, human remote controls, the lack of choice, 30 Westerns on TV, Have Gun Will Travel, signature guns, TV theme songs, how you set the tone and mood for a story, Wanted Dead or Alive, Steve McQueen, how some actors are just cool, Ernie Kovacs, sight gags, surreal TV, The Rebel, Nick Adams wannabe status, Johnny Cash singing the theme to The Rebel, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, how The British actually really love Murder, Elmer Bernstein's theme to Johnny Staccato, John Cassavetes, west coast white jazz musicians, the Ed Sullivan Show, variety shows, Johnny Puleo and the Harmonica Gang, SCTV, The Beatles, Jackie Mason flipping off America on live TV, Peter Gunn, lack of ambiguity in television, first seeing color on TV in a baseball game, learning story structure via watching TV, Sergio Leone, being and undercover western detective for Wells Fargo, Adventures in Paradise, Ricardo Montauban, Dobie Gillis, Bob Denver as Maynard J. Krebbs, Tuesday Weld acting on TV with Warren Beatty, Archie, making your own On the Road as Route 66 with very minor changes, The Riflemen, Chuck Connors, doing your chores, TV and movies being banned from shooting in Chicago for years, The Untouchables, Crime Story, M Squad, Lee Marvin, Police Squad being influenced by M Squad's theme song, Joe Dante directing Police Squad, the best sight gags on the show, John Ford, Andy Devine's Hollywood status after Ward Bond's death, The Millionaire, dueling Bat Mastersons, being a super fan of mafia succession, how Ring Lardner in 8 Men Out was Robert Stack's voice, Robert Stack's jokes, Walter Winchell, Neville Brand, Al Capone, Friday Night Fights, The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, how boxing was the perfect subject to air on television, Emile Griffith killing Benny Paret in the ring live on TV, The Twilight Zone, Lee Marvin in the Twilight Zone Episode Steel, Hemingway's story "50 Grand", and the oddness of TV sign offs.