Mr. Media Interviews by Bob Andelman

2009: In my mind, I’ve been associated with Playboy for roughly 40 years—I was roughly 10 when I discovered my dad’s box of old magazines in a cardboard box on top of the standup cedar wardrobe in the attic. Cartoonist Gahan Wilson still has me beat. He’s been connected with Hugh Hefner’s monthly treehouse for 50 years! He’s joining us today to talk about about publication of the three-volume collection, "Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons," now available from Fantagraphics.

2019: The folks at Twomorrows Publishing have embarked on a massive effort to qualify and quantify comic books of every era with their American Comic Book Chronicles series. Joining me today to talk about the latest volume—The 1990s—are author Jason Sacks and editor-in-chief Keith Dallas. This is their second appearance on the show; the guys were last here to talk about the 1970s edition.

2019: Today we’re going to deep-dive into the Queen catalogue of 15 original studio releases. Our guide is rock critic and historian Martin Popoff, author of "Queen: Album By Album." In the book, he engages a number of experienced fellow writers, including Stephen Dalton and former Mr. Media guest Richie Unterberger, plus musicians Darius Rocker of Hootie and the Blowfish, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and Sir Paul McCartney of The Beatles and Wings. It’s quite a conversation.

From 2012: You know what I really want to know from cartoonist Bill Griffith? It’s this: does he collect a royalty every time the housekeeper on “Two and a Half Men,” Berta, calls Jon Cryer’s character Alan Harper “Zippy”? Because with repeats, he should be a rich man. Nothing telegraphs an opinion of someone’s intellect more rapidly than calling him or her a “pinhead.” And no one has done more to expand the use of the term “pinhead” in our society than daily Bill Griffith, creator of

From 2009: Everybody thinks their life story would make a good book. I’m here to tell you that’s not true. Larry Harris is not everybody. He’s 1970s records mogul Neil Bogart’s cousin—and a co-founder of legendary Casablanca Records—for heaven’s sake, and boy, does he have a great story to tell. Reading his new book, And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records, is to be transported back to the wild early days of the rock band KISS, the origins of disco, Donna Summer and Giorgi

From 2019: Madison Paige, founder of Bold Blue Campaigns, presented a roadmap to Florida’s Democratic Party for overcoming obstacles and winning more elections up and down the November 2018 ballot. Was she right? Was she wrong? I don’t know. But today, in my small way, I want to give her a direct forum for sharing her ideas moving forward.

From 2009: I was stuck in the car, waiting to pick my wife up at work, tuning around the Sirius radio dial, looking for laughs. I had already heard the Howard Stern show earlier in the day and went a few clicks past him and landed on the Blue Collar comedy channel. The voice I heard—the inflection, particularly—sounded like Steve Martin. It wasn’t him,  but the performer had me laughing the way I used to laugh 30 years ago upon hearing new material from Martin. This was a fellow named James P. Connol

From 2009: Pamela S. Allyn knows a few things about what goes on behind the scenes of pro wrestling that you don’t. She’s the daughter of the late Gordon Solie, the whiskey-voiced ring announcer who put wrestling on the map way back in 1949 and stayed with it for the next half-century. Pam, her husband Robert Allyn and Scott Teal have written a fascinating new book about her dad, "The Solie Chronicles: The Life and Times of Gordon Solie." It is a refreshing look at a legend who was more than a little hu

From 2008: Jules Feiffer is one of comics’ great characters himself. He famously got his start with Will Eisner, creating and drawing a children’s strip called “Clifford” and eventually writing during the last years of “The Spirit”’s original run in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides his long-running strip “Feiffer,” he might be best-known for his children’s work, from illustrating "The Phantom Tollbooth" and writing the original screenplay for the Robin Williams film, "Popeye."

From 2010: I’m being joined by "Ugly Betty"’s older sister, Hilda, played by the red-hot chica, Ana Ortiz, and Betty’s distinguished and wise Papi, played by Tony Plana.