Mary McCormack, IN PLAIN SIGHT USA Network drama star: Mr. Media Radio Interview

On June 13, 2008, my wife twisted my arm into seeing a Broadway play while we would be in New York celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary.

The big attraction of that trip was going to be seeing comedian Ricky Gervais live at Madison Square Garden the next night. Because Gervais was chosen for my wife, I got to pick the play.

Scouring the listings and reviews, I landed on Boeing-Boeing, a traditional bedroom farce revival from the 1960s starring Bradley Whitford, Gina Gershon, Christine Baranski and an actress named Mary McCormack who I only knew from one high-profile role—she played Howard Stern’s wife, Allison, in the movie version of Private Parts.

The New York Times described McCormack’s “glorious Olympian strut and wide-legged, take-no-prisoners stance.” And she was truly incredible, demonstrating tremendous comedic timing in a cast of top-notch players.

When we returned from New York, we discovered McCormack’s other role—star of the USA Network’s new drama, “In Plain Sight,” which is now in its second season. It airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Lisa Lampanelli, LONG LIVE THE QUEEN comedian: Mr. Media Radio Interview

Will success spoil Lisa Lampanelli?

That’s what Howard Stern asked her in January 2009. He thinks that now that the standup comedian has hit the big time with her first HBO special, “Long Live the Queen,” on HBO, that it might be too much exposure for her extremely vulgar, awfully funny brand of humor.

Maybe he’s right. But maybe, just maybe, it will open a lot of new doors for Lampanelli, who has long been a regular on the roast circuit, ripping new you-know-whats for her fellow comedians and celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, Chevy Chase and William Shatner.

A word of warning for the faint-hearted Mr. Media listener: There are no censors on this show. Nobody will be bleeping Lisa, who is known to thrown around four and 12-letter words. She is free to let it rip here. So if you’re easily offended, switch shows now.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Kelli McCarty, FAITHLESS, PASSIONS adult film actress, soap star: Mr. Media Audio Interview

Let’s be honest: Some might believe Kelli McCarty’s career path is heading down the ladder rather than up.

She first came to notice as Miss USA in 1991. That led to appearances on “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place” as well as several episodes of “Even Stevens” starring a young Shia LeBeouf and, in 2006, the role of “Beth Wallace” on the NBC soap opera “Passions.”

Pretty hot stuff, right?

But not hot enough for Kelli: she’s now doing porn.

Most people probably think her life must have taken a wrong turn; how many once successful actors—with the exception of Dustin Diamond, who played “Screech” on “Saved By the Bell”—intentionally wind up having sex on film?

But that’s new direction Kelli McCarty has chosen. She promoted her latest film, Faithless—produced by one of the more reputable adult film producers, Vivid—on the Howard Stern show and now she’s going to talk to me.

If you’re easily offended, this will be your only warning to switch over to the Fly Lady or Dr. Blogstein. This next hour is for the grown-ups.

You can LISTEN to this interview with KELLI McCARTY, the former soap opera star of "PASSIONS" and now adult film star in FAITHLESS, by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

John Melendez, THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO announcer: Mr. Media Audio Interview

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John Melendez has one of the most interesting careers in show business. During his 15 years as "Stuttering John," a punchline on Howard Stern’s radio show, he was the cast member you loved to hate, not for the stuttering but for the way he managed to piss off everyone around him.

Still, you couldn’t help but admire the way the kid grew up and emerged as his own person in the later years, a husband and a father, smarter than you thought, savvier, contributing more than just a disability and an intuitive sense of how to make celebrities ill at ease when he attempted to interview them.

Fast forward to March 2004 and almost overnight, the world of John Melendez changed. Jay Leno shocked everyone—Howard Stern most of all—by hiring Melendez to be his announcer on “The Tonight Show.”

You had to wonder: “Stuttering John” as the voice of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”? Really?

But it all worked out. Fans missed Melendez on the Stern show—and so, too, did Stern—but he earned the respect he’d never get on the air from Stern, by striking out on his own. He’s even launched his own online TV show at johnmelendez.tv.

Now, as Leno prepares to transition from “The Tonight Show” to a new, five-night-a-week program on NBC at 10 p.m., everyone wants to know: is Melendez going with him?

Let’s find out.

You can LISTEN to this interview with JOHN MELENDEZ, announcer on THE TONIGHT SHOW with JAY LENO, by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

You Said It! (Howard Stern)

"Between Obama and McCain, you want to throw yourself out the window!"
—Radio personality Howard Stern, discussing his frustration with both leading presidential candidates on his Sirius satellite radio show, September 18, 2008.

Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Alec Foege, RIGHT OF THE DIAL: THE RISE OF CLEAR CHANNEL author: Mr. Media Interview

It is so easy to hate terrestrial radio these days. No matter how many stations you scan, AM or FM, it’s difficult to find one on which you can land without moments later wanting to take a sledgehammer to the radio.

The politics are angry and irrational -- left and right. The music hasn’t changed in 30 years and it seems to repeat every hour. Local news and talk is virtually non-existent. Ditto for humor.

The smartest radio guy of the last 20 years, Howard Stern, escaped more than two years ago and is better than ever in the unshackled environs of Sirius Satellite Radio.

Who screwed up radio?

Will today’s generation of young people even care in a few years, what with the glut of alternatives before them, from satellite and Internet radio to iPods and cell phone broadcasting?

I suspect these are just of the few issues I’ll be discussing today with my guest, Alec Foege, author of Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and The Fall of Commercial Radio.

You can LISTEN to this Mr. Media interview with ALEC FOEGE by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!

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Roger Bennett, CAMP CAMP, DISCO BAR MITZVAH author: Mr. Media Interview

My parents never sent me away to summer camp. I don’t blame them; as a kid, I was afraid of my own shadow, easily got car sick, and was not well adjusted, socially.

And after reading Roger Bennett’s new love letter to summer camps, Camp Camp, I’m pretty sure I would have hated sleepaway camp.

That said, I found reading about it to be great fun. And I think my own kid, now approaching the age where sleepaway camp is being discussed, would love it.

Speaking of kids, this is the first Mr. Media interview where I’ve ever been on high maternity alert; my guest's wife was due to give birth last week, but hasn’t yet. So if Roger Bennett has to leave suddenly, I’ll just read from his book to fill the time, okay?

You can LISTEN to this Mr. Media interview with Roger Bennett by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Robert Schimmel Returns, CANCER ON $5 A DAY author, standup comedian: Mr. Media Audio Interview

Robert Schimmel was my guest on Mr. Media recently and despite an hour of conversation, I felt like we barely began talking when time ran out.

And based on listener response, it seems many of you felt the same way, so I’ve invited Robert back to pick up where we left off. So please welcome back to Mr. Media one of the best stand-up comedians in America and the author of Cancer on $5 a Day, Robert Schimmel.

You can LISTEN to this interview by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Jim McBride, "Mr. Skin" adult web site pioneer: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 1

Guys, Mr. Skin watches movies so you don’t have to.

Forget the days of wading through plot and dialogue just to get to the moment where Phoebe Cates pops open her bikini top in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Or when Sherilyn Fenn gets randy in Two Moon Junction.

Mr. Skin, via his website at www.mrskin.com and his just released second book Mr. Skin’s Skintastic Video Guide, The 501 Greatest Movies for Sex and Nudity on DVD, can tell you alphabetically exactly how far to fast-forward just to get to the good parts. Skin time, what body parts are exposed, size, skin color, hair color, you get the idea. Mr. Skin is nothing if not thorough.

And for those who think there must be a finite supply of these moments, let me just say that today alone Mr. Skin added seventy new pictures and twenty-one video clips to his archive. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.


BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Mr. Skin, also known as Jim McBride, welcome to Mr. Media.

Mr. SKIN: Hi Mr. Media. It’s always a pleasure to meet a famous mister. You’re right up there with a Mister Clean, a Mister Peanut. This is a big thrill for me to rub elbows with another mister.

ANDELMAN: I must say I feel the exact same. Thanks for joining us today.

Mr. SKIN: Thanks for having me.

ANDELMAN: Jim, you were a guest on Howard Stern’s morning show recently on Sirius, and he called you a “grandmaster of porn.” Your parents must’ve been so proud.

Mr. SKIN: Oh yeah. As you can imagine, my parents are very proud of me. I’m very lucky. I have parents that are very cool. They are the kind of parents that, as long as I’m happy, they’re cool with what I do for a living. And it’s neat. I even have my mom works as a “skintern” for mrskin.com. My parents are retired, and she gets paid to help with data entry for the website.

ANDELMAN: Now I understand -- data entry! She’s not watching the movies with you noting the…


Mr. SKIN: No. I have a team of 10 people in our content department that go through screeners of DVDs that movie companies provide us or stuff that we tape off of satellite or things we rent at Netflix. It’s a hard job. They have to go through movies, fast-forward through movies to find the nude scenes and chronicle them, grab the pics and clips, associate the actresses to the movies. It’s tough work, but somebody has to do it.

ANDELMAN: Now, how do you interview someone for a job like that? And are they all men?

Mr. SKIN: We have, I think of our 45 employees, I’d say about 40 are guys and five are female. But I think it’s more because there’s so much tech involved with running a website that you get a lot of males. We have writers; some of our writers are female so we do have females, but it’s definitely a guys club over here at mrskin.com.

ANDELMAN: Tell us a little about how mild-mannered Jim McBride became the internet legend known as Mr. Skin.

Mr. SKIN: Well, as a kid, I had a fascination with celebrity nudity in film. In fact, I remember when I used to look at my dad’s old Playboys in the early seventies. I would immediately go to the “Sex in Cinema” section. That was my favorite part of Playboy. I, of course, loved the Playmates, but the “Sex in Cinema” feature fascinated me, that famous people, people I knew, had been naked in film.

And fast-forward, a habit of mine, to the early ‘80s, and I was a senior in high school and all of a sudden, we got cable television and a Betamax at the same time. And it was a meeting of two great technologies. And you gotta remember, as a kid, growing up, we had ABC, NBC, and CBS, and that was it. All of a sudden, now I had HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime, and to fill all that programming, they had to show Italian sex comedies, drive-in movies. So I was a kid in a candy store taping as many films as I could every night with my new Betamax and the next day, editing the nude scenes onto other tapes I was collecting. I had hours and hours and hours of nude scenes on tape, and I’d categorize them as TV stars or categorize them for movies from the ‘70s, however I chose. And I became kind of an expert on it just as a fan, and it was something I collected.

During the ‘80s and ‘90s as I continued to do it on my own, I was a fun guy at parties or wherever. The guys would always come up to me and say, “Has such and such been naked?” and I said, “Oh yeah, 42 minutes into this movie.” And they were blown away that I knew this stuff.

One day in the mid to late ‘90s, I was in a bar in my hometown of Chicago, and I just happened to be standing next to a guy who had a radio show here. The topic of female celebrity nudity came up, and some guys were asking me questions. I was nonchalant, answering the questions, and he thought, “My God, this would make for a great radio guest!” And he invited me onto his show. We agreed not to use my real name. We came up with “Mr. Skin,” and next thing you knew, I was on more shows in Chicago. Finally, it started to spread across the country. I never dreamed it would become a popular radio segment where people would call in, ask me actresses, I would tell them off the top of my head if they had been naked, but it did. And then I was thinking, “Wow.” I had nothing to promote. I didn’t have a website or anything. I just went on radio shows talking about this stuff, and, finally, someone heard me on the air in Chicago and said, “I’ll help you build a website if you want to do it.” And I said to him, “What’s a website?” In 1998, I didn’t know what a website was.


I started with me and one tech guy, and I launched mrskin.com on August 10, 1999. And then it’s grown to today we have over 40-some employees, and we get about 6 million visitors a month to mrskin.com. And it’s really one of those things where it wasn’t like, as a kid I thought, “Boy, I want to grow up and have a website and be an expert on female celebrity nudity in film.” It’s one of those things that just kind of happened, but I couldn’t be luckier. The fact that I get to do this for a living and am obviously well-paid to do it, it’s a dream come true.

ANDELMAN: Now, did you meet your wife before or after all this happened?

Mr. SKIN: Right when it was starting, I was going on a show in Chicago as a regular guest to talk about nudity in films coming up on DVD and whatnot. And he had his one-year anniversary show at a bar, and he had me there as a guest as part of the live broadcast. And I actually met a girl at my health club, and I said, “Why don’t you come to this thing, it’ll be fun.” And she brought a friend who turned out to be my future wife. The night she met me I was Mr. Skin. So she knew what she was getting into, in other words.

ANDELMAN: So you never had to resort to any subterfuge or anything…

Mr. SKIN: No, but I, prior to meeting her, I sure did, because there were times where I would go out with someone, and the topic of, “What do you do?” would come up. And I remember “computer consultant” came up a lot in the early days, until I could feel someone out, no pun intended, I really wasn’t about to just throw the Mr. Skin out there and ruin my chances until I felt a little more comfortable.

ANDELMAN: Well, as part of the challenge for me in getting ready to interview you, I had to force myself to think back to the first time I saw a woman’s breasts in a movie. And I’ve come up with, I think it was Serpico, and the reason I remember it mostly, I don’t remember whose breasts they are, and I’m sorry, sorry for the women listening…

Mr. SKIN: You don’t have to, because I do. Her name’s Cornelia Sharpe.

ANDELMAN: There we go. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. Skin! That was it! I remember it because I had read the book; I loved the book. My dad took me to see the movie. I must’ve been 12, 13, maybe 14. I can’t remember what year that was.

Mr. SKIN: It came out in ’73.

ANDELMAN: There we go. I was 13. Thank you, thank you. Take a bow. So I remembered being in the movie theater, and then suddenly there they are. And just as suddenly, my dad puts his hand over my face, and I’m like, “Knock it off!” Do you remember your first pair, so to speak?

Mr. SKIN: Actually, there’s different moments in my life. I remember the situation you just talked about. In 1977, I was 15 years old, and my parents took me to an R-rated movie called I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. And it was a critically-acclaimed movie, and they took me and, 52 minutes in, Kathleen Quinlan’s top loosened. I remember that awkward moment where you see breasts, and you’re sitting next to your parents and then the next day going and telling all your buddies you saw breasts in a movie. So that was one of my early memories.

Remember on PBS, you used to watch the Public Broadcasting cause they would occasionally flip in some nudity. I remember I watched “I, Claudius” in 1976, all of 13 episodes, just for the nineteen seconds of nudity. I became an expert on the Roman Empire just because I was just riveted waiting for Sheila White’s topless scene in that. Another thing, I remember when “Steambath” with Bill Bixby and Valerie Perrine was aired on public television. She had some nice nude scenes in that, and I remember catching that on public television. So those are my earliest memories of nudity, but I remember looking in Playboys I saw a ton more prior to ever seeing it on a movie screen or TV screen.

ANDELMAN: That’s funny. I’m thinking about PBS, and I think probably around the same year that I saw Serpico, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” was being broadcast in the United States for the first time. And I remember all the guys talking about how funny it was, but also oh my God, could you believe that you can see those breasts?

Mr. SKIN: Yes, exactly. And they would have Carol Cleveland would be on.

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

Mr. SKIN: She’d show her breasts. And you’re right. Well, that was the great thing about public television especially. To a kid now, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal when you have the Internet, you have all these different ways to see girls naked. But boy, when we were kids, it was tough. We could only look at National Geographic so much for your nude scenes.

ANDELMAN: Now, from a sociological point of view, and we won’t spend a lot of time on this, but as much time as you’ve spent in pursuit of seeing naked actresses in movies, any idea why we’re so attracted to that? Is it the whole forbidden fruit?

Mr. SKIN: Well, I think the biggest thing is I compare it this way. It’s just for people personally. Who are the people you most want to see naked in your life? It’s always people you know. You work at an office, you see a girl works at your office, you see her all the time. She’s beautiful. Most guys are thinking, “God, I’d love to see her naked.” It’s because she’s familiar to them. They know her, they see her all the time. You see a girl that you get coffee every morning. She works back there, and she has great breasts, let’s say, and you think, “Boy, I’d love to see her nude.” Well, think about celebrities. With the way media is and, Mr. Media, you would know this, the way things are. Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, they almost are a part of people’s lives. They’re on every television show. You see them in the magazines. You hear about them from other people. You feel like you know these celebrities like you know people in your real life. I’m not saying it’s the same, but it’s the same type of feeling -- you feel like you know Jennifer Aniston. You feel like you know Angelina Jolie because you just are inundated with information on them. And I think because of that, it adds another level of excitement to want to see them naked just like you do someone in your personal life. I really believe that. I think that because of the familiarity. I always say that what would you rather see, Angelina Jolie naked or someone as hot as her that you don’t know and never heard of? Everyone would take Angelina Jolie.


ANDELMAN: Yeah, I guess we’ll have to wait for someone to do that off this website, thegirlsinyourofficewhoyoualwayswantedtoseenaked.com.

Mr. SKIN: Well, that would be a pretty expensive database, I can tell ya that.

ANDELMAN: Is there a difference to being, say, addicted to porn and just wanting to see celebrity women without their clothes? I was thinking about this, and I remember years ago, at least from my experience, this would be before mrskin.com started, picking up a magazine called Celebrity Sleuth.

Mr. SKIN: Oh yeah. I’m a big fan of Celebrity Sleuth magazine.

ANDELMAN: Yeah. It collected still photos and images much the way you do. But, in that situation, it was something that even my wife had to admit that she was a little curious to see who they got each month.

Mr. SKIN: Well, yeah. I’ve kind of based mrskin.com on, in a sense, the Celebrity Sleuth and Celebrity Skin magazines, magazines I grew up loving to read in the eighties. And it’s the same thing. Here’s a guy, Celebrity Sleuth, who has an incredible collection of pictures and paraphernalia and trinkets or whatever of celebrities. And he, on almost a monthly basis, would put out a magazine in which he’d talk about different topics and different celebrities, and it gets you interested. If you paint the picture, if you make the people you’re talking about sound interesting and give some background on them and some history, it makes it that much more exciting to see them nude. And Celebrity Sleuth is a master at it. I’ve always been a big fan, always given him a lot of credit as a “skinspiration” for what I do, and I learn lessons from that exact thing. It’s more than just throwing pictures up. It’s about the information that accompanies it, and we’re real big on that at mrskin.com. That’s why we have so many reviews, ratings, articles, interviews, information where you can find what’s coming up, all that kind of stuff. When it’s combined with the pictures, that’s how you have a successful venture, no question about it.

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©2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Jim McBride, "Mr. Skin" adult web site pioneer: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2

(Return to Part 1)

BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: In talk shows, they talk about a big “get,” like, at one time Donald Trump would’ve been a great get for a certain talk show or something, and there’s people who just won’t do those things. What has been a great get at mrskin.com? Someone that people really wanted to see that you found.

Mr. SKIN: Oh, well, like we’re always looking for rare, out-of-print stuff where we know you can’t just walk into a Netflix or a Blockbuster and find. Like some examples, Stockard Channing. Stockard Channing, not the hottest girl in the world, but she’s pretty famous. People know her from “The West Wing” and a number of other shows. She did a movie in 1977 called Sweet Revenge, and no one every heard of this movie. It’s out-of-print. It only came out for a short time on video. But she has a nude scene 17 minutes in. And I remember when I had the website I was trying to track this down in the early days of the site and, a few years later, tracked it down. And things like that are really fun for me.

Another example would be Melanie Griffith did an Israeli movie called Ha Gan, which translates into The Garden, and she’s pretty much naked throughout the whole movie, full frontal. And that’s another one out-of-print, impossible to find. We tracked that down.

Victoria Principal did a movie called The Naked Ape that was produced by Playboy, one of the few times they went into the movie production business. And the movie was made and never released or released very limited at theaters, and I was able to obtain a copy and have that.

Stuff like that’s really fun, and I could probably name some others. But to give you an idea of one of the fun things for me and for the website is we’re not only chronicling the actresses we all know, the Angelina Jolies and Pam Andersons and Jennifer Anistons, but it’s all the female celebrity nudity in the history of film. And there’s some real obscure stuff out there, and it’s fun to find it. The pursuit of it is almost as fun as actually seeing the pics.


ANDELMAN: There’s a new movie in release called Good Luck Chuck with Jessica Alba, who’s had an interesting career avoiding being caught naked. She got very upset with Playboy when they put her on the cover in a bikini. And, for this movie, the story where I had read, I guess, she was talking to someone from Newsday and said did you think I was naked in that movie? And she insisted that she was always covered up. How big a get would it be to find her?

Mr. SKIN: Let’s put this way: in this day and age, if Jessica Alba did a movie where she was naked, everyone would know about it. There’s no way that this would be an unknown movie cause, in this day and age, it just wouldn’t happen. I think finding out that Jessica Alba is gonna do a nude scene from someone on a set and before it came out, that would be huge. But it would be too difficult for her to do a nude scene. It would be sitting there, and no one noticed it. Nowadays, it’s just impossible. Yeah, that Good Luck Chuck should’ve been renamed “Good Luck Seeing Jessica in the Buff” because it just doesn’t happen, and it’s unfortunate. There’s about, I’d say, six or seven girls naked in Good Luck Chuck. There’s a ton. Nothing from Jessica Alba.

ANDELMAN: Okay. And what about this? You’re a dad. As a matter of fact, just a couple weeks ago, your wife had a baby. My daughter whispered to my wife the other day that someone had told her that there were nude pictures of Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical on the internet.

Mr. SKIN: Yes.

ANDELMAN: How do you feel about the inadvertent release of stuff like that? Those pictures were not from a movie. And then after you think about that for a second, how will you explain to your own kids one day what you do?

Mr. SKIN: Well, first of all, as far as Vanessa Hudgens, I always say. “If you don’t want pictures of yourself naked out on the Internet, don’t take pictures of yourself naked.” That’s number one. My personal business philosophy is we only are chronicling nudity from films or television or video. I don’t sit in a tree and take pictures of actresses and post them at mrskin.com. We really stay true to the movie database aspect of it. So the Vanessa Hudgens stuff is not something you would find at mrskin.com.

To get to the question of how would I explain what I do to my children, to be honest, I’m not ashamed of what I do for a living. It’s not only a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work. And I treat it very seriously. I have a great team of people working with me. It’s a great place to work. I would have no problem explaining it to my children when the time is right. And if I was doing something that I felt I’m ashamed of or couldn’t tell my children, then I probably shouldn’t be doing it. So that’s really my philosophy. I really wouldn’t have a problem telling my kids.

ANDELMAN: Has any actress ever asked you to remove her image or video?

Mr. SKIN: Yes. We get letters occasionally, not as many as you’d think, but occasionally, we’ll get letters from actresses. I could tell you that 99.9% of the time, they’re from no-name -- I shouldn’t use no-name -- obscure actresses which maybe search Google and find out that mrskin.com has pics and clips and a review of their nude scenes at our website. And we’ll get contacted by them, but we always point out to them that we’re a database and that our attorney gets to them right away to make sure they know what the website’s all about. And we’ve never had any -- in over eight years of running this website -- legal trouble as far as movie studios or actresses are concerned. And I think it goes back to because of how we promote the data. We’re celebrating the nudity. We’re having fun with it, and we’re sticking to stuff that actresses willingly appeared in. It’s not like the Vanessa Hudgens thing or the paparazzi pics that you would see all over the internet.


ANDELMAN: Have you ever had a Traci Lords moment where you found out that someone was underage?

Mr. SKIN: Occasionally, especially these European movies and stuff, you’ll find out that maybe an actress was 15 or 16 when she was in the movie, but it’s hard to tell right away. And we always remove that stuff. So we try to keep it so that, as best we can, that an actress is at least 18 years old when she does stuff. It’s just the smart thing to do in the political and business environment today.

ANDELMAN: You’ve had a relationship with the “Howard Stern Show” for a while, and you do the “Mr. Skin Minute.” But you made a real crossover to the mainstream this past summer with a part, not you personally, but the Mr. Skin site with a part in the movie Knocked Up. How did that come about?

Mr. SKIN: Well, I received a letter from the attorneys at Universal saying that they’re putting a movie out in a year. It was gonna be done by the guy that did 40 Year Old Virgin and would I give permission for my website to be used in the movie. And my answer was, “How quick can I get this back to you, signed?” I didn’t know how they were gonna use it originally, but they said that it was gonna be real positive. “You’ll like it.” And I said, “You know what, I don’t even care if it’s negative, let’s do it.”

Then the movie was made. I heard from people that saw it at a film festival, you’re not gonna believe the promotion for mrskin.com in this movie. And then I was able to see a screening in Chicago. I invited a bunch of friends, and there was a screening in Chicago before it came out. And I was just floored, blown away, by how just to be associated with the movie this successful and more important, the actual product placement of mrskin.com. You couldn’t ask for a better product placement in a movie.

ANDELMAN: Oh, it was amazing. And all the while, I don’t want to give away too much for people who haven’t seen the movie yet, but all the time that they’re building up to where Mr. Skin will be mentioned, anyone who has heard of or seen the site has got to be thinking they’re doing Mr. Skin.

Mr. SKIN: Right. I’ve had that from a lot of people where they didn’t know that the Mr. Skin thing was coming up, and they’re watching it thinking, “My God, they totally ripped you off! I was so angry!” and then they’re like, “Oh, my God, was that great!”

But I was able to talk to Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen. I was lucky enough to go to the L.A. movie premier of Knocked Up and then the after-party to meet those guys. And they both told me that when they based Seth Rogen’s job for the movie on what I do for a living thinking it would be a funny…Number one, it’s a funny job to have to tell people that’s what you do, but number two, they wanted a website that already existed so that the guys could be trying to duplicate it and later find out that it existed. So my site kind of fit. They wanted a funny business and something that already existed, and it kind of hit it well for them.

And I’m so lucky because now on September 25, yesterday, the DVD is in stores and pretty soon, it’s gonna be airing on cable television everyday. And as great as the bump was for us when the movie hit theaters, I truly believe that the DVD and the airings on cable and satellite television are gonna be just even better because you’re already at home watching it, and you just walk over to your computer and check out mrskin.com

ANDELMAN: That’s just an amazing thing. Any movie producers that would like to mention Mr. Media, just give us a call, okay. We’ll talk. How do the movie studios treat you? And tell me if there’s any difference between pre-Knocked Up and post. Do they discourage you, or do they actually send you the videos at this point?

Mr. SKIN: No, actually the movie companies really embrace mrskin.com. And we keep records. I have over 75 different studios send us screeners of movies before they’re out. In fact, I had Knocked Up in here on September 10, I believe it came in. It’s in stores September 25th. Its very common for a great majority of the movie studios to send us stuff. Think about it: I get to go on Howard Stern, Mr. Media, many different radio shows, to talk about their movies. We don’t talk about Disney movies or Gone With the Wind or things that have no skin. But if a movie has female nudity – like Good Luck Chuck - that’s on the front page of our site today. We get 6 million visitors a month to our site! We’re telling you there’s six different girls naked in that movie! Unfortunately, not Jessica Alba, but I’m promoting their movie. And in this day and age, of all the competition, what a great thing to get mentioned by mrskin.com for free on the radio and for free at the website. It’s a great promotion for the studios. We used TLA Video, if you’re at our web site and you want to buy Knocked Up, let’s say. You can follow a link direct from mrskin.com to TLA Video. We’re their biggest seller of movies. We move movies. We get people excited about them. And let’s face it: a lot of the movies are crummy movies. But we point out that “Alyssa Milano is nude in this movie” or “Demi Moore is nude in this movie” and it makes guys want to own the movies to check ‘em out. It’s a great vehicle for the movie studios to be able to promote their product.

ANDELMAN: You’ve said that, in deference to your mother’s preference, you don’t list the nudity in Schindler’s List.

Mr. SKIN: Well, what I meant by that is we don’t have the pics and clips from Schindler’s List. From the database standpoint, we do have Schindler’s List in our database, but we don’t have the pics and clips. I remember a few years back my mom sent me an email. She saw it at the website, and she said, “Please tell me you won’t put up pics and clips from Schindler’s List.” And I said I will not. I promise you it will not happen. And that’s the only example of one where we pulled, but I think that was the right move.

ANDELMAN: Well, I was gonna ask you if there are any other lines that you won’t cross, and I had one in mind. I was thinking of the Jodi Foster, the rape scene in The Accused.

Mr. SKIN: You think of The Accused, but if you think of these B movies and flasher movies, there’s so much more rough stuff in those. And if I have to start screening things based on what I think is wrong or right, that gets into a weird area. So what we do is, if it’s a movie that has nudity, we’ll review it, show the pics and clips, rate it, and that’s the policy. And hey, there’s stuff I have on my website I can’t even watch it because the scenes are so rough. Some of the stuff you saw in Hostel is pretty tough, but I didn’t want to get into censoring other artists’ work. And it just gets too goofy. If you don’t want to watch it, don’t go to that page to check it out is how I feel about it.


ANDELMAN: I asked you the question, but I actually saw that The Accused was on the site. But I thought it was interesting someone had a concern because it does say, “Turn down the sound.”

Mr. SKIN: Oh yeah, well yeah. We definitely have comments about it because it’s a rough scene, but that doesn’t mean that, because it’s a rough scene, I want to leave it out of the website. And, like I said, The Accused is just in the mainstream of people know about it. We have hundreds and hundreds of movies. I Spit On Your Grave, it for one, is a drive-in movie from the seventies that makes The Accused look like a Disney movie. So there’s movies out there that are very rough, but we, if it has nudity in it, that’s what we deal with, and yeah, sometimes it’s rough, but most of the time it’s enjoyable.

ANDELMAN: You’ve indicated in other interviews that you have no interest in doing a male nudity site, but the issue seems to come up more and more often. I’m kind of surprised that you haven’t considered a spin-off.

Mr. SKIN: It sounds stupid, but I don’t really do this for the money. I do it because, when I was a kid, I was so into collecting this stuff. When I was collecting it for 15 or 20 years, I didn’t make any money doing it. But I continued to collect it and chronicle it and learn about it and read about it. I didn’t do it for the money. If I have to wake up at two in the morning to tape and go through a movie because Ernest Borgnine’s gonna be in his underwear, it won’t be fun.

ANDELMAN: But you can hire people to do that.

Mr. SKIN: If anyone wants to do a guy nude site, go ahead. I won’t stop you. I won’t compete with you.



ANDELMAN: So where do you go from here? Hugh Hefner bought Jenna Jameson’s Club Jenna site awhile back. I suspect you’ve had offers. And with the publicity and the attention you’re going to get as Knocked Up goes into DVD, I’m sure that the value of the site only goes up.

Mr. SKIN: I think so. I’ve had some inquiries lately about what I would sell this website for and until someone knocks my socks off, I’m very happy doing this for a living. I don’t really have any plans to sell it.

I can say, as far as the next frontier -- or front and rear, if you will -- for us is the…I feel like, as far as radio goes, I’ve done everything I can to get the Mr. Skin brand and word out on radio. The Internet, obviously, we’ve got that covered. I have books. I have a book out in stores this month called Mr. Skin’s Skintastic Video Guide, The 501 Greatest Movies for Sex and Nudity on DVD. It’s our second book. I think we’re off to a good start in the book world.

I think the next logical step would be the television side of things, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be television in the network or cable sense. It could be television as far as maybe putting content out there that can be downloaded to your phone or downloaded to whatever device you have. I really think that’s going to be the next area that we have to get the Mr. Skin brand into. And I’ve had tons of offers I’m sifting through right now how to make that happen. It’s pretty amazing what’s out there, and it’s a learning process for me. I really think you’ll be able to download content from us, pretty cool stuff, in the coming years, and I think that’ll be a real neat thing for the future. And, hey, it may lead to a TV show, it might not, but I don’t even know if TV’s the way to go anymore. I think if you could do something that millions of people want to download via the Internet or via their phone, who’s to say that’s not better than television in the next couple years, anyway.

ANDELMAN: That’s where it all seems to be going.

Mr. SKIN: It seems, yeah, it seems. So we’ll see.

ANDELMAN: Well, Mr. Skin, Jim McBride, thank you so much for joining us today on Mr. Media.

Mr. SKIN: Well, thank you. I really appreciate you doing this interview and like I said, we’re in the “mister” club. Any time I could meet a mister, it’s a big thrill for me.

ANDELMAN: Appreciate that. And if you’re reading this or listening to this and you’re over 18 -- and if you’re not over 18, just don’t come back to me about it, you can check out Mr. Skin’s website at www.mrskin.com.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Tom Taylor, "Inside Radio" Editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic (1997)

Originally published January 20, 1997

While most of the big talk in media these days centers around the World Wide Web, real money is quietly being made in radio.

"Suddenly," says Tom Taylor, 47, editor of the daily fax tipsheet, Inside Radio, "radio is starting to look like other businesses."

What he means is that for the first time, it's possible for one person or company to own as many radio stations as they can afford. Until 1992, federal regulations limited station ownership to just a handful per owner. But in '92, under the so-called duopoly rules, the same company could own two AM and two FM stations in the same market. And then in February of last year, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 turned the industry inside-out, permitting virtually unlimited numbers of stations to be held by a single company.

"It's only been 11 months, but it feels like 11 years since the Act took effect," Taylor says. "An avalanche was unleashed, as dramatic a change as we've ever seen in the business."





Instead of controlling seven or 14 stations, radio groups with anywhere from 75 to 300 stations have emerged. That may not seem like much in a country with nearly 10,000 commercial outlets. But in cities from New York to Tampa and from Dallas to Los Angeles, one company may now own separate stations featuring Top 40, country, news and rock formats.

"If you look at the CBS/Infinity group, that company is the leading revenue company in eight of the nation's top 10 markets," Taylor says.

The recently completed $4-billion merger between CBS Radio and Infinity Broadcasting created a broadcast company with 83 stations and an estimated $1-billion in advertising sales this year. On the programing side, it brought together strait-laced CBS talent such as Dan Rather and Charles Osgood with raucous Infinity personalities such as Howard Stern, Don Imus, Tom Leykis and Don & Mike.






"This growth spurt has made a lot of people notice radio for the first time, particularly on Wall Street," Taylor says. "The next wave of combinations will be very large groups. The joke going around is that the next wave of owners will be the Baby Bells and Microsoft."

On a regional basis, Taylor says that Bud Paxson, a co-founder of the Home Shopping Channel, created a mighty tempting company in Florida by buying up multiple stations -- 38 in all -- in every one of the state's major markets.

"If he wants to sell, he can say, 'Look, here's Florida,' " Taylor says. "Because of the changes in the law, these local groups are much more attractive to investors."

Prices for stations have skyrocketed in recent years. Taylor says that former singing cowboy Gene Autry recently sold his last station, KSCA in Los Angeles, for $112-million. It is changing formats to Spanish language broadcasts.

"Go back 10 years and that station would have been less than $10-million!" Taylor exclaims. "But radio is a great cash-flow business. That's one of the things that attracted Wall Street."
The impact of all this on programing is still uncertain, although Taylor thinks the number of duplicative formats will shrink. In Seattle, for example, Taylor says multiple ownership reduced the number of country music stations from three to two.

"If you own four shoe stores in a mall," Taylor says, "you wouldn't sell the same shoes in all four. You'd aim one at women, one at men and one at kids. You'd segment to give each their own identity."

Still, it's safe to assume a company such as CBS will move quickly to put newly acquired talent/money machines such as Stern and Imus on more of its stations.

Could this be the beginning of a return to 1940s-style network radio, in which listeners from coast-to-coast could simultaneously hear the same programs?





"Imus has 75 stations. Stern is on 35. Rush Limbaugh is on more than 600 and Dr. Laura (Schlesinger) is a hot newcomer on hundreds of radio stations," Taylor says. "I think the 1990s have brought more willingness to use syndicated programs. The technology is here -- stick a satellite dish on the roof and you get the world."

Radio has even invaded cable TV; Taylor says MSNBC's simulcast of "Imus in the Morning" is its highest rated program and E!'s edited version of Stern is likewise that network's top draw.
Drawbacks? With fewer stations carrying locally originated programing, breaking into the business will be tougher for the next Stern, Leykis or Tom Taylor, who spent the bulk of his career spinning plastic waffles at WPST-FM in Princeton.

"I literally went for coffee and sandwiches to get my foot in the door at my first station, then dubbed tapes," Taylor says. "That's how a lot of people get in the business -- those opportunities may no longer exist."

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Robert Wuhl, "Assume The Position/Arli$$/Hollywood Knights" actor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 1

Robert Wuhl cracks me up. Always has, always will.

His HBO series, “Arli$$," about an over-ambitious Hollywood sports agent, was must-see TV in my house for years, and I’ve seen his first movie, Hollywood Knights, hundreds of times. Really, hundreds. If you haven’t seen it, buy it.

In terms of media experience, Wuhl played reporters in Batman and Cobb and a disc jockey in Good Morning, Vietnam. And when Billy Crystal hosted the Academy Awards in 1990, 1991, and 1992, Wuhl contributed a good many of Crystal’s best lines. This, I’m sure of.

It doesn’t hurt that we share a birthday, October 9th, and we’re both New Jersey natives.

This month, Wuhl returns to HBO with his second “Assume the Position” special. It’s a raucous run through history in which Professor Wuhl takes charge of a class of college students and shares “more stories that made America and the stories that America made up.”

BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: What attracts you to history so much?

ROBERT WUHL: Well, I like storytelling. I mean, that’s basically it. I just like storytelling, and that’s all history is is storytelling. Of course,

the thing to always remember is you have to keep in mind who’s telling the story. What’s their agenda? What gain do they have? What point of view are they saying?

And I just like storytelling, so history lends itself, because it has characters in it.

ANDELMAN: When did you become skeptical of the way history is told?

WUHL: I think by nature I’m just skeptical. You know, not cynical. I don’t like the idea of being cynical, because as (Oscar) Wilde said, “A cynic knows the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.” But I am skeptical. I always want to know who’s telling the story, and I just question. And then, there was a great quote from (Paddy) Chayefsky in “The Americanization of Emily” where he said, “I don’t know what is good or bad or true. I let God worry about the truth. I only want to know the momentary facts of things.” And I think that’s a pretty good line.







ANDELMAN: How much do you read? My sense is that you must read a lot.

WUHL: I do a lot of reading. I read mostly non-fiction, obviously. The Internet is a godsend for research. But I do read; not as much as my wife. My wife reads fiction, and she reads a book a day. She used to work for Simon and Shuster, so she just devours fiction. I read nonfiction.

ANDELMAN: What have you read recently?

WUHL: What did I read recently that’s really good? You know what I just read that was terrific was Katherine Graham’s book, which was wonderful, Personal History. That was a great book. And then I just read a novel by Frank Deford, The Entitled, which was a nice read.

ANDELMAN: What made you want to get in front of a classroom of college kids and talk history? It is one thing, it seems to me, to read history and to study history, but you really put a lot on the line by getting in front of kids who have nothing to lose by challenging and heckling. But you get up there in these specials, and you just turn it on.

WUHL: I thought there was a way to do this. I just thought there was a way to make history more entertaining in front of a classroom. I’m very pro-student. The beauty of Chris Albrecht, the genius of Chris Albrecht, is that when I pitched him the idea, he said, “Okay, the one thing I know about what you’re talking about is that we have to commit to shooting it. You can’t have a script and develop it. It’s like developing a stand-up act. You just have to shoot it.” These things are pretty labor-intensive, so it takes a while, then we workshop it in the classrooms for a couple of months, and then we go and shoot it in New York.

Robert Wuhl on YouTube
Clip 1: 2007 Writers Guild Awards
Clip 2: Real Time with Bill Maher

ANDELMAN: The presentation is very stand-up style. I don’t know, I’m just going to ask you: have you done a lot of stand-up?

WUHL: Oh, sure. I started out as stand-up.

ANDELMAN: Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that. And are you doing stand-up now?

WUHL: I don’t do much of it. No. I really don’t do much of it any more. I’ll do some corporate dates, and I do a lot of hosting at charity events. Occasionally, I’ll go and do a stand-up gig but not too often.

ANDELMAN: What can a high school teacher or college history professor learn from stand-up comedy about presenting their material?

WUHL: I don’t know if they can learn anything.

ANDELMAN: Really?

WUHL: You know, I’m fortunate in that I can workshop it out, and I do have a background, and I don’t know if it’s fair to ask any other teachers to do that. That’s not their job. Remember, first and foremost, it is a piece of entertainment. It’s an HBO entertainment special, and it is a comedy special. I would always say to use context. That would be the biggest thing I would say to teachers, explain context of why and how these things happened rather than just giving names, dates, and places, because that means nothing. That, they will memorize for a test and forget the next day. If you put a face on it, understand the characters involved and what their motivations were for doing something, then that would be my only thing to say.

ANDELMAN: Who do you most admire from American history?

WUHL: Probably the common man, probably the working man.

ANDELMAN: Oh, that sounds like a Time magazine answer, Robert. “The Man of the Year is YOU.”

WUHL: It’s true, though. I admire the people who have to, as we say in the show, get through it. The people of power make decisions that affect usually not them, you know, but usually the people who work and live under them, so I really do respect the working man, the working woman, the family guy, the woman who’s keeping a family together in the obstacles of society, whether it be present-day or the past. It’s all present-day family, I mean, no matter when it takes place. History takes place in the present. It doesn’t take place in the past. That’s who I most admire. I mean, there are figures, just like any other kid, sports figures or scientific figures or stuff like that, people who accomplish. Anybody who accomplishes, gets through the workday and does their job, I’m a fan of them, the working men.







ANDELMAN: One of the things you say is that when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

WUHL: Right. That came out of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

ANDELMAN: Right. What does that mean, exactly? How would you explain that to someone who didn’t see the show.

WUHL: Well, that’s exactly what I think a lot of history is is that the stories are passed down, and then they become accepted as fact, and then people print them. They take it that way. That’s just the nature, and that one, it was pop culture, of culture. You know, when you get a story long enough, you do believe it, especially when it becomes accepted.

ANDELMAN: Robert, you make a point in both “Assume the Position” specials, the first one from a year ago and this new one: You say that your dad was a Republican, your mom a Democrat, your wife is to the left of Lenin.

WUHL: Yep.

ANDELMAN: Now, you’ve been interviewed and gone toe-to-toe with Bill O’Reilly, but is it intentionally difficult to get a fix on your politics?

WUHL: My politics are, I look at each individual issue. I think you have to take everything into consideration. Because my dad was a businessman, he had a family business, so when you do that, your view on how government affects you is different than somebody who doesn’t, and so it just gives you a different point of view. I grew up in the Northeast, in New Jersey, and I went to school down in Texas There you are exposed to a whole different culture and whole different points of view. I think that’s really good. Basically, however, in this country, social issues and stuff like that can change, but you are dealing in a capitalistic system, so the one party is the capitalist party. The other stuff I really don’t think matters a whole hell of lot. Again, social issues, individual issues, yes, but as far as other things, not that much.

ANDELMAN: You made a very strong case for Hedy Lamar’s post-Hollywood accomplishments, so I need to ask you, how will American history look back on Paris Hilton?

WUHL: Oh, God, I don’t even think about Paris Hilton. I’m probably the only person in the world. I think she won’t be remembered, basically. She’ll be a footnote, unless she creates something great. As of right now, I don’t know what the future holds.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING!

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Robert Wuhl, "Assume The Position/Arli$$/Hollywood Knights" actor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2

(Return to Part 1)

ANDELMAN: My buddies will kill me if I let you get away without asking about Newbomb Turk and Hollywood Knights. What do you remember about getting that film made? I don’t know that we’ll ever get a DVD commentary on that, but…

WUHL: There is a commentary on it.

ANDELMAN: Is there really?

WUHL: Yeah, there’s one out. Did I do it, or did Floyd (Mutrux) do it? I think maybe Floyd did it.







ANDELMAN: I’ve had my copy so long I didn’t even know that. If you could tell a story about that movie, what might it be?

WUHL: It was my first gig. It came out in 1979. I just got out to L.A., and within about three months, I’m handed the lead in this movie, and within another two months, we’re shooting it. What I remember most about it is the anarchy involved in the shooting of it and a lot of good times and a couple of friends who I still talk to, am still close with to this day. I’m stopped more for Newbomb Turk than anything, I would say, with the exception probably of “Arli$$,” because that was a TV series. But outside of that, including Batman, including Bull Durham, including anything, I’m probably stopped more, I’m sure I’m stopped more for Hollywood Knights.

Hollywood Knights on YouTube
Clip 1: Tubby's Drive-In
Clip 2: Newbomb Turk Farting to "Volare"

ANDELMAN: That movie just had such an anti-American Graffiti feel to it, which may have made it that much funnier.

WUHL: Well, the pitch was, I remember, the way they sold it to the studio was “American Graffiti meets Animal House.” And as good as the movie was, the early cuts I thought were even better.

ANDELMAN: Really?

WUHL: Yeah, I thought it was a much better movie before they went to do all the preview screenings and chopped it down and stuff. But, that said, Hollywood Knights also coincided, believe it or not, with the birth of HBO, because when HBO first started, that was one of the movies that they ran over and over and over about 1981. They ran this thing, and people would watch it, and it’s amazing that I’d hear about fathers watching it with their sons, and now those sons have grown up, and now they’re watching it with their kids. So, it’s kind of fun -- now.






ANDELMAN: I said in the introduction that I had seen it hundreds of times. I wasn’t kidding. It just cracks me up every time I see it. I love that movie. I don’t know why. It must say something for my level of maturity, I guess, I don’t know. It’s interesting, though, looking at the “Assume the Position” specials and then Hollywood Knights, maybe it’s the wonder of the camera, but you don’t look like you’ve aged 25 years in that time.

WUHL: It’s more than that. It’s 27 years.

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

WUHL: Well – I have!







ANDELMAN: Fran Drescher, who was in that movie…

WUHL: A lot of good talent in that movie. Floyd was great at picking young talent. That’s Michele Pfeiffer’s first film.

ANDELMAN: Tony Danza was in there.

WUHL: Tony Danza’s first film.

ANDELMAN: Richard Schaal…

WUHL: Dick Schaal did work before, but the talent! Fran’s in it, a guy named P. R. Paul, Gailard Sartain, Stuart Pankin, a lot of good people in that movie.

ANDELMAN: Pankin was great. Fran was on Howard Stern’s radio show recently talking about her interest in running for Congress. Now, unfortunately, she couldn’t name the three branches of government when questioned, and I just wondered, knowing your interest in history, if she would get your vote?

WUHL: I must say, I’m a big believer in loyalty, so probably. I’m a believer in voting for your friends. I think that’s a good thing.

ANDELMAN: Are you very political?

WUHL: No.

ANDELMAN: You’re not.

WUHL: No. But I believe in voting for your friends in anything, whether it’s the Oscars, the President, your high school buddy running for junior class president. Why not vote for your friends?

ANDELMAN: Another actress who you started with or started with you, Sandra Oh, of course now a very big star on “Grey’s Anatomy” and made a name for herself though first as your secretary on “Arli$$.” She won the Academy Award, of course. How much credit can you take for her success?







WUHL: She did not win.

ANDELMAN: Did she not win?

WUHL: No, no.

ANDELMAN: My apology. She was nominated.

WUHL: No, she wasn’t.

ANDELMAN: She wasn’t even nominated?

WUHL: No.

ANDELMAN: She deserved it. Anyway, I’m embarrassed. How much credit, nonetheless, can you take for her success?

WUHL: I gave her a job.

ANDELMAN: There you go.

WUHL: I just gave her a job.

ANDELMAN: It all came from there.

WUHL: Well, I had seen her work. I had seen her do a movie called Double Happiness from Toronto, where she’s from, and I thought she was really good in that. The part came down to two actresses. It came down to her and a girl named Lauren Graham.

ANDELMAN: Oh, really?

WUHL: Yes, and either one would have been great. I just took a flyer on Sandra, and I’m not surprised at all at the huge success of both of them.

ANDELMAN: Very different actresses.

WUHL: They’re both terrific. I mean, those are two terrific actresses.

ANDELMAN: So what’s next for you? I know when you did the first “Assume the Position,” there was talk of it becoming a regular thing, but it’s been a year now until the second one. Will it get a regular spot, or….

WUHL: It’s very hard to do. That’s the one thing. These things are pretty labor-intensive between the research, the writing, the editing, the workshopping. But yeah, I enjoy doing them a whole hell of a lot. It’s different. There’s nothing like it. I really love watching the students and working with them, so hopefully it continues.

ANDELMAN: Do you have other things scheduled at this point?

WUHL: There is a film project I’m looking to direct that I’ve been working on for a while called Pick Six, which was about the three ex-frat kids in 2002, I think it was, or 2003, who hacked into the OTB and won the Breeder’s Cup. It’s a funny story about growing up and coming of age, a different type of coming of age story that I really like a lot.

ANDELMAN: Well, Robert, I want to thank you so much for joining us on Mr. Media and, of course, for making me a big hero among my college buddies, who worshiped at the altar of Newbomb Turk and the Pie Wagon.

WUHL: Do you know there was a band named The New Bomb Turks?

ANDELMAN: No, really?

WUHL: They had a rock band for about 15 years -- I never met the guys -- named The New Bomb Turks.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.