Charlie Meyerson interviews

Netflix’s comedic biography of National Lampoon co-founder Douglas Kenney, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, sent me back to my conversation decades ago with one of the story’s key figures, who shared his recollection of developments that made their way into the movie.

If you enjoyed A Futile and Stupid Gesture, you’ll get a kick out of this unedited April 30, 1987, interview with the Lampoon’s founding publisher, Matty Simmons.

Enjoy this? Get more on iTunes or via RSS feed.

Netflix’s comedic biography of National Lampoon co-founder Douglas Kenney, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, sent me back to my conversation decades ago with one of the story’s key figures, who shared his recollection of developments that made their way into the movie. If you enjoyed A Futile and Stupid Gesture, you’ll get a kick out of this unedited April 30, 1987, interview with the Lampoon’s founding publisher, Matty Simmons. Enjoy this? Get more on iTunes or via RSS feed.

From the perspective of the Women’s March and #MeToo era of 2018, a 20-year-old book that set out to examine “working women and the transformation of American life” offers insight into trends decades in the making.

Here’s my 1998 interview with author Sally Helgesen, who, over the course of three years, put a microscope to women in the Chicago suburb of Naperville—and found dramatic changes, which she documented in her book Everyday Revolutionaries.

One excerpt, as she discussed two-career families:

Helgesen: “Many of the women said to me … ‘My husband is tremendously helpful in the house.’”

Me: “You didn’t talk to my wife about this.”

Helgesen: “‘However,’ they said, ‘I have to decide everything that’s done.’”

Me: “Oh, you did talk to my wife.”

Helgesen on technology in 1998: “The personal computer is what’s enabling the tremendous move toward home-based business, toward individual entrepreneurial efforts … among women. … That’s what permits people to have this freedom from ‘The Organization Man’ way of life, in which individuals were completely dependent on large organizations.”

Helgesen on the wage gap between men and women: “Of more concern really is the wage gap between those who have … something to offer the knowledge economy and those whose services are not as in demand.”

If you were a kid back then, odds are good you’ll recognize a mom or two here.

So: My interview with Sally Helgesen, talking about Everyday Revolutionaries, aired Jan. 25, 1998, on the late WNUA-FM, Chicago.

Enjoy this flashback? Catch the full Meyerson podcast experience on iTunes or through this RSS feed.

From the perspective of the Women’s March and #MeToo era of 2018, a 20-year-old book that set out to examine “working women and the transformation of American life” offers insight into trends decades in the making. Here’s my 1998 interview with author Sally Helgesen, who, over the course of three years, put a microscope to women in the Chicago suburb of Naperville—and found dramatic changes, which she documented in her book Everyday Revolutionaries. One excerpt, as she discussed two-career families: Helgesen: “Many of the women said to me … ‘My husband is tremendously helpful in the house.’” Me: “You didn’t talk to my wife about this.” Helgesen: “‘However,’ they said, ‘I have to decide everything that’s done.’” Me: “Oh, you did talk to my wife.” Helgesen on technology in 1998: “The personal computer is what’s enabling the tremendous move toward home-based business, toward individual entrepreneurial efforts … among women. … That’s what permits people to have this freedom from ‘The Organization Man’ way of life, in which individuals were completely dependent on large organizations.” Helgesen on the wage gap between men and women: “Of more concern really is the wage gap between those who have … something to offer the knowledge economy and those whose services are not as in demand.” If you were a kid back then, odds are good you’ll recognize a mom or two here. So: My interview with Sally Helgesen, talking about Everyday Revolutionaries, aired Jan. 25, 1998, on the late WNUA-FM, Chicago. Enjoy this flashback? Catch the full Meyerson podcast experience on iTunes or through this RSS feed.

Barbera’s autograph on one of the first books I picked for myself as a childFor an American kid after the birth of television, few experiences were more memorable than discovering one’s first favorite TV show. For several generations in the mid-to-late 20th Century, odds are good that thrill came from a show created at the dominant U.S. television animation studio — the one founded by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna Photo: NBC via Wikimedia CommonsFor me, it was Hanna-Barbera’s Huckleberry Hound (although Jay Ward Productions’ Rocket J. Squirrel quickly surpassed Huck in my personal pantheon). In this first part of my 1997 interview with Joe Barbera and in this Part 2 of the session, we explore the evolution of cartoons from the dawn of TV animation for kids to the onset of a more adult era. If you’ve ever enjoyed time spent with the Cartoon Network or Boomerang, you owe a debt to Barbera, who died in 2006. Here’s our chat. Got a thing for the history of kids’ TV? Here’s Captain Kangaroo in 1994 and Sesame Street co-creator Jeff Moss in 1997. And sign up for the latest from this blog by email.

Barbera’s autograph on one of the first books I picked for myself as a childFor an American kid after the birth of television, few experiences were more memorable than discovering one’s first favorite TV show. For several generations in the mid-to-late 20th Century, odds are good that thrill came from a show created at the dominant U.S. television animation studio — the one founded by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna Photo: NBC via Wikimedia CommonsFor me, it was Hanna-Barbera’s Huckleberry Hound (although Jay Ward Productions’ Rocket J. Squirrel quickly surpassed Huck in my personal pantheon). In this first part of my 1997 interview with Joe Barbera and in this Part 2 of the session, we explore the evolution of cartoons from the dawn of TV animation for kids to the onset of a more adult era. If you’ve ever enjoyed time spent with the Cartoon Network or Boomerang, you owe a debt to Barbera, who died in 2006. Here’s our chat. Got a thing for the history of kids’ TV? Here’s Captain Kangaroo in 1994 and Sesame Street co-creator Jeff Moss in 1997. And sign up for the latest from this blog by email.

Richard Nixon, Leonard Garment (Click to hear interview)For a kid growing up during the Watergate scandal, it was easy to imagine anyone associated with Richard Nixon's White House was detestable. So you can imagine my surprise as I found myself charmed by a man who'd been a top legal adviser to Nixon during the darkest days of Watergate, Leonard Garment, who was promoting his autobiography, Crazy Rhythm: From Brooklyn and Jazz to Nixon's White House, Watergate, and Beyond. In this 1997 interview with Garment, who died in 2013, you'll hear lots to like -- not the least of which was his affection for jazz. (As a young musician, he played with a man a later president, Ronald Reagan, would appoint to chair the U.S. Federal Reserve System, Alan Greenspan.) You'll hear Garment recall the debate over what Nixon should have done about those incriminating Watergate tapes; you'll hear him describe how he explained the scandal to his teenage daughter; you'll get his perspective on the parallels between jazz and the law; you'll hear how Garment, Greenspan and the band sounded back in the day; and you'll learn how well his jazz chops held up in 1997 (playing my then-11-year-old son Ben's sax). Most of all, you'll hear why I couldn't help but like the guy. If you're into this sort of listening, check out my sessions with legendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas, Nixon confidant Monica Crowley and 1968 chronicler Jules Witcover. And make sure you get the latest from this blog, every time. Sign up for email delivery.

William Gibson (Credit: Frederic Poirot) Click photo hear interviewVisionary science fiction author William Gibson is the guy who first published the word cyberspace, in his groundbreaking novel Neuromancer. He’s the guy credited with coining the axiom “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed” (which is what he says about 1:40 into this interview with me from 1993, only about two years after the internet had opened to the public). But it’s funny now to hear William Gibson explain he didn’t have an email address, pleading a case of — and maybe thereby coining another phrase — “cyberagoraphobia.” (He’s gotten over it. He now has a vibrant website and Twitter account, @GreatDismal.) Here you go: A historic audio sitdown with a transformative writer — hearable here and now for the first time (by anyone but me, anyway) in almost a quarter-century. Related listening: Greg Bear’s 1994 vision of the future of cyberspace, the time Ray Bradbury told me he didn’t believe in the Internet, and a funny sitdown with Monty Python’s Terry Jones and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy creator Douglas Adams. And don’t miss what’s next on this blog. Subscribe by email.

1975: I was just beginning my radio career at college station WPGU-FM, hosting an investigative mini-documentary radio series, Probe.

What would be more natural to “investigate” than my passion for comic books—with what became the first of several interviews over my career with Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee?

Presented here far more for the value of Lee’s remarks—including his disappointment in the then-new Fantastic Four radio series and his enthusiasm for Howard the Duck—than for my own stuffy and waaaay-underdeveloped on-air presence: Stan Lee on WPGU Radio’s Probe.

Enjoy this? Check out these much-more-polished later encounters with Lee, here, here and here.

(1975 photo: Alan Light.)

Radio production, comedy and advertising visionary Dick Orkin’s death Sunday sent me back into the archives—waaaay back in the archives—to my days learning radio at my college station, WPGU. (Image: 2016 Radio Ink cover.)

Aired Feb. 2, 1976, here’s my journalist-in-training report from the time I interviewed Dick Orkin, a man whose creation of the hilarious serial Chickenman led me to love—and seek a career in—radio.