Episodes

  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 718: Ben Katzner
    Dec 8 2025

    March 7-13, 1992

    This week Ken welcomes comedian behind the must watch/must listen to comedy special "Supple Harlot", Ben Katzner.

    Ken and Ben discuss their mutual love of seltzer, local drinks, Galco's soda pop stop, pinpoint carbonation, hating Tim Allen, Detroit, hating Kid Rock, Prince, small towns, Minneapolis, moving from New York, how beer is Dad soda, co-headlining a seltzer brewery tour, sweeps week, the TV Guide secret decoder, Marlboro miles, Pepsi money contests, Pepsi Points, being shocked that Mark DeCarlo is 29, Studs, Tiny Toons, NBC cartoons, Smurfs, Fantasy Factory, how TMNT is too violent, how math and sex are difficult, Macaulay Culkin, when Ringo Star was replaced by George Carlin, Captain Planet, the Where's Waldo? cartoon, 3.2.1 Contact, the sleaze of Step by Step, NOT!, True Colors, MTV, Roc, Mr. Rogers, rich kids, Scorch, all the work in TV Guide, how long it takes Ken to scan a TV Guide, Comic Strip Live, basketball, What a Dummy?, The Gate, Rick Patino, Pat Reiley, America's Funniest Home Videos, Eerie Indiana, Designing Women, Northern Exposure, how TV gave us personality at school, candlepin bowling, Soul Train, the ghost of Frederick Douglas' knowledge of the natural, Rescue 911, Wonder Years, Night Court, Quantum Leap, Seinfeld, field trips, Ken's love of Winona Ryder, The Crucible, Big Brother Jake, Morton Downey Jr., hormonal viewing of Beverly Hills 90210, Family Matters, after school specials, THE BAG, how to save the Earth's natural resources, beardless Kris Kristopherson, and the "hit her" episode of Married...with Children.

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    1 hr and 32 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 717: Jack Lawler
    Nov 30 2025

    March 11-16, 2013

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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 716: Jason Klamm II and Dan Gomiller
    Nov 24 2025
    1 hr and 35 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 715: Myq Kaplan III
    Nov 17 2025

    February 15th - 21st, 1997

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    1 hr and 22 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 714: Mary Houlihan
    Nov 10 2025

    TV Guide October 31 - November 6, 1987

    This week Ken welcomes writer, comedian and artist Mary Houlihan to the show.

    Ken and Mary discuss new ways to greet people, how awful the world is, growing up in New Jersey, how New Jersey is actually nice, checking out the woods, Paramis, going into Manhattan, not getting the issue you wanted, Dolly Parton, the tattoos, variety shows, Mary, product placement, growing up without country music in the Northeast, how famous rich people should try to be good people, work life balance, wanting to be left alone, Family Ties, Courtney Cox, At This Moment, Billy Vera, Kool Milds, when political campaigns became reality TV, Grand Ole Opry, Halloween, Women in Prison, Joe Piscapo, the most famous person from your state, how it's incomprehensible that anyone in the 21st Century ever puts on black face, Nickelodeon, Nick News, Cartoon Network, Dexter's Lab, The Flying Karamatzoff Brothers, non-comedic Rhea Pearlman roles, murder, The Simpsons, the awful early days of the Fox network, Get a Life, kicking Seinfeld's ass, Jason Mamoa, Giants vs Cowboys, ambiance, Harry and the Hendersons, Scorch, What a Dummy!, the TV Guide movie section, Bad New Bears go to Japan, Fluppy Dogs, The Huga-Bunch, Discover, World of Science, Bigfoot, Crime Story, Miami Vice, David Chase, Dads, Romania, Ukraine Youtubers, Billy Joel Back in the USSR, how Joel Hodgson could have been Woody on Cheers, Freaks and Geeks, Wise Guy, I Married Dora finale, Ken's Rags to Riches beef with Baby Jessica, Billy Madison being interrupted by Clinton Lewinski coverage, and the art of saying it without saying it.

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    1 hr and 34 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 713: Eric Miller
    Nov 3 2025

    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.

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    1 hr and 30 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 712: 2025 Halloween Special with David Weiner
    Oct 27 2025

    October 24-30, 1981

    Happy Halloween!

    This week Ken welcomes producer/director behind the excellent documentaries "In Search of Darkness", David Weiner.

    Ken and David discuss playing Star Trek, TV watching with siblings, the three ages of horror, the video store age, making friends just to watch cable, not getting a VCR until much later in life, being the person in the household who brings in technology, missing four years of television due to attending boarding school, the power of the TV Guide movie section, seeing The Omen, the Exorcist, and Amnityville Horror for the first time on television, Fall Preview love, being able to see photos and images from television, the TV version of a movie, TV series based on movies, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Land of the Lost, Valley of the Dinosaurs, being a 70s kid, Famous Monsters, where you have to grow up to associate King Kong with Thanksgiving, The Crawling Eye, Monster movies, WPIX, Chiller Theater, television images burned into your brain forever, having no identity of your own, being made of exclusievely tv memories, CED Selectadisc, having a Seagram's hook up, having a Kraft food hook up, Ken's sleeping bag collection, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Wonderful World of Disney, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Disney's Haunted Treat, Ken's theory of Knight Rider taking place in the Halloween III universe, going to film school, all the familar locations you drive by in LA, Moby Dick, Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, pre-empting shows, the baseball world series, variety shows, The Muppets, Star Wars, Private Benjamin, local variations, mail fraud, record clubs, getting to interview John Carpenter, Star Trek II Wrath of Kahn, Looney Tunes Halloween specials, Fat Albert Halloween, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, The Brady Brides, Tom Baker Doctor Who, The Fall Guy, the first time ever network airing of Halloween on NBC, factual inaccuracies, Jaws, seeing things you are not allowed to see, watching Halloween home alone as a teen and being terrified, how you couldn't easily prove people wrong growing up, Close Encounters of the first and second kind, and making an In Search of Darkness 70s documentary.

    Be sure to buy the latest In Search of Darkness doc, covering the second half of the 90s, 90shorrordoc.com

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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • TV Guidance Counselor Episode 711: Fabrizio Copano
    Oct 20 2025

    March 16-22, 1991

    This week Ken welcomes comedian Fabrizio Copano.

    Ken and Fabrizio discuss Barbara Walters love of TMNT, inappropriate turtle love, Chile, El Chino, Ninjas, Hero Turtles, Peru, Dragon Ball Z, Japanese content, Ramna, why The Simpsons were so massive in South America, prime time animation, things that aren't just for kids, Bart is forever, Lucha Libre, El Santo, WWF, how things from inside Latin America don't travel that well, El Chavo de Ocho, El Chapulin Colorado, Sabado Gigante, making it world wide, Paul Simon, Batman, Superman, Comics, being a huge movie freak, Pretty Woman, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jessica Rabbit rocketing you into puberty, hunting down obscure VHS tapes, traveling all over the country to go to video stores, hating 2010: The Year We Made Contact, being disappointed by Barry Lyndon, the 2009 film La Nana, Machuca, El Club, Catholicism, learning English ten years ago after you've already moved to the U.S.A., how there are no Spanish shows in L.A., doing comedy in a totally different language, how jokes don't quite translate, finding your voice, MTV, Lifetime's Genecology Update, Comic Strip Live, inventing the stand up scene in Chile, The Half Hour Comedy Hour, having an empty Sunday, Indiana Jones, Daughters of Privilege, Nickelodeon animated shows, how Nick shows with humans didn't do well in Latin America, Fabrizio's American wife showing him shows from her youth, Sabrina vs Clarissa, The Lion King, Frog Girl, how only in America do student dissect frogs, Divorce Court, old people running the world, Phil Donohue, Yo! MTV Raps, America's Funniest Home Videos, Video Loco, Fabrizio's brother's journalism career, the Copano boys cable show, getting recognized in public, fame in another country but not in the U.S., recognizing the power of luck, realizing how good you have it, having to put a disclaimer on your citizenship, The Wizard of Oz, Jesus of Nazareth, Titanic, and the insanity of the TV Guide cross word tip line 900 number.

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    59 mins