Mr. Media Interviews by Bob Andelman

From 2008: "Army Wives" is sort of like “Desperate Housewives” on an Army base. The series is based on "Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives," a book by Tanya Blank. It’s full of sex, lies, booze, and bitches. And I mean that in a purely professional sense. All of which is a brief introduction to my guest, Katherine Fugate, the creator of “Army Wives,” and who is also the niece of TV legend Barbara Eden, star of “I Dream of Jeannie” and a few million grown-up men’s fantasies.

From 2008: Run for your lives! Hide the women and children! There’s a Ten-Cent Plague loose upon this fine land! My guest today, David Hajdu, is the author of a new book that – at the very least – probably has the best title of the year, "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America." Hajdu looks back at a hysterical period in American history – one of many, to be sure – when comic books were considered such a threat to our way of life that the industry nearly vanishe

From 2008: Katy Chevigny makes award-winning documentary films such as Election Day, Arctic Son, Innocent Until Proven Guilty, Nuyorican Dream, Brother Born Again, and Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America. Her credits also include the acclaimed film Deadline, an investigation into Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s commuting of death sentences. The film was broadcast on NBC. She’s the kind of woman whose work and thoughts you’ll find quite interesting.

From 2008: Brian Frazer’s life reads far more colorfully than mine would, I’m afraid. On the other hand, I managed to avoid that whole compulsive gambling-bodybuilding-speed-eating-colon-cleansing-Kabbalah thing that afflicted his youth. In his first book, Hyper-Chondriac, Frazer comes clean… Did I just say that? …about a life lived at super-speed. It is one he spent most of his years in search of medical solutions to a litany of physical ailments when it turned out most of the trouble was in his he

From 2008: Stephan Pastis is a big fan of Ricky Gervais, creator of "The Office" and "Extras," and Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld" and creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He also loves him some Cheryl Hines. As a matter of fact, I think the only reason I landed him on the show today is because I interviewed the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" co-star, and that gets him one degree closer to her. Pastis’ “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip has twice been named Best Newspaper Comic Strip of the Year by the NCS

From 2008: Pete Von Sholly’s day job would be enough excitement for most of us. He creates storyboards for big budget Hollywood movies, and if you’ve seen The Shawshank Redemption or Mars Attacks!, for example, the finished product was based on his early drawings. But being a respected, behind-the-scenes craftsman isn’t satisfying Von Sholly’s fertile mind. For several years, he’s been meshing a unique form of comics and cartoons that combine hand-drawn images with real life.

From 2008: Here’s something you probably don’t know about Mr. Media. The second of my nine books was actually about football -- Why Men Watch Football, in fact. So when the opportunity to interview Bob Horowitz came about, how could I resist? Bob is the creator and producer of the annual special, “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials.” You may also know one of Bob’s other creations, “The Singing Bee,” hosted by Joey Fatone, which was a summer hit for NBC in 2007 and will return soon.

If you’ve ever thought about writing novels, you might want to think about envying YA novelist Sara Zarr’s career. Her first, best-selling, young adult title, Story of a Girl, was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Awards. Book two, just released this month, is Sweethearts. It has earned glowing reviews and -- even better -- excellent sales. I interviewed Sara a couple months ago, the morning after the 2007 National Book Awards. She was a delightful guest, even in the face of disappointment.

Writer Sara Zarr had an experience last night that any author would kill for – sitting in the audience at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in Manhattan, her first novel, "Story of a Girl," a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award for young people’s literature. For a first-time fiction author, such a nomination is remarkable, and it would be fun for both of us to tell you that she won, but it wasn’t meant to be, not this time around.

From 2008: With $2.6 billion in assets, the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is the 22nd largest foundation in the United States. Its mission is the betterment of the 26 communities in which it works and the promotion of journalism as a career and industry nationwide. That puts Alberto Ibargüen, CEO of the Knight Foundation and a former publisher of the Miami Herald, at the same crossroads that silent movies encountered with talkies, talkies with radio, and so on.