Pop Culture Tonight with Patrick Phillips

Talented voice actress Susan Eisenberg chats with Patrick about the new Wonder Woman movie, portraying the iconic character in animated form, an upcoming Justice League cast reunion and more!

About Susan Eisenberg:

Susan Eisenberg is a professional voice-over artist known for her animation and commercial work. Her breakout role was that of Wonder Woman, aka Princess Diana, in the acclaimed Justice League and Justice League Unlimited television series.

Susan attends various comic book conventions as a celebrity guest, and has been featured in national television campaigns for Fancy Feast, Kenmore, Gatorade, Moet & Chandon, Pioneer Electronics, and Microsoft. She has recorded promos for CNN, and voices all of the television and radio commercials for The Salvation Army.

VISIT SUSAN’S WEBSITE!

Lexus Broadway in Austin presented by Texas Performing Arts premieres Broadway’s hilarious new smash, SOMETHING ROTTEN! With 10 Tony Award® nominations including Best Musical, SOMETHING ROTTEN! is a “big, fat hit!” (New York Post).

Set in the 90s – the 1590s – this hilarious smash tells the story of Nick and Nigel Bottom, two brothers who are desperate to write their own hit play while the “rock star” Shakespeare keeps getting all the hits.

When a local soothsayer (Blake Hammond) foretells that the future of theatre involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very first MUSICAL! With its heart on its ruffled sleeve and sequins in its soul, SOMETHING ROTTEN! Is “The Producers + Spamalot + The Book of Mormon. Squared!” (New York Magazine)

About Tito Beveridge Tito’s Handmade Vodka founder and master distiller Bert “Tito” Beveridge is a true pioneer in the world of microdistilling – in fact, it’s a world he helped create. A native Texan and entrepreneur, Tito was born in San Antonio and attended The University of Texas in Austin, where he earned degrees in both Geology and Geophysics, with a minor in Math. His professional life began as a Geophysicist, working around the globe at jobs in and out of the field, including dynamite-blasting oil reserves, sub-surface mapping, processing seismic data, analyzing ground water, and even at one time, as a mortgage banker.

The varied life and career experiences gave Tito a unique perspective on time, forecasting, planning, finance, and the ability to understand people from all walks of life. In the early 1990s, Tito enjoyed infusing flavored vodka in his spare time, creating much-loved (and much-requested) batches for friends. It was soon after Tito decided to create his own vodka company.

In 1997, Tito fought to create the permit process in Texas to establish his legal right to open the state’s first distillery. Without investors, any formal training, and on a tiny budget, Tito began to create his dream. “I listened closely to the advice of those who advised me to start small, saying, ‘Try to own your hometown, then, if you do that, try to own your home state, then if you do that, try to own your home country,’” recalls Tito.

It took the company more than eight years to turn a profit, but today, Tito’s Handmade Vodka is one of the fastest-selling and fastest-growing microdistilleries on the market and remains one of the purest spirits available. 

About This Side of the Dirt

This Side of the Dirt was born from the mind of no other than Tito Beveridge. He pieced together a story based on characters in his own life and others that he simply dreamed up. Writing about the subjects that interested him most — family, friends, land and philosophy – he tinged this all together with a little South Texas flair to create This Side of the Dirt.

Tito’s love of these characters drives his narrative through the ups and down of life and family – touching upon those hard hitting moments when we are our weakest then building back up to our best and oftentimes funniest. Most of all This Side of the Dirt is about love and family and the importance of telling it like it is and knowing that in the end it will all work out like it should. The film stars Jennifer Caplan, Wray Crawford, Jonna Juul-Hansen, Mark Hernandez, Beth Shea and Jae McCain.

Patrick welcomes composer Cris Velasco! Cris discusses his process for scoring Hulu’s “Dimension 404”, video games and more! Velasco has been composing orchestral, rock, and hybrid scores since 2003, and has scored some of the highest grossing games in the industry today.

Visit His Website!

Broadway actor Derrick Davis joins Patrick to discuss his role as ‘The Phantom” in a spectacular new production of “The Phantom of the Opera”, which is currently on its North American Tour and is visiting Austin this week!

Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera comes to a city near you as part of a brand new North American Tour. This production, which retains the beloved story and thrilling score, boasts exciting new special effects, scenic and lighting designs, staging and choreography and has been hailed by critics as “bigger and better than ever before.”

ABOUT DERRICK DAVIS:

Derrick Davis is a dynamic and passionate performer who is currently starring in the 25th Anniversary Tour of The Phantom of the Opera as The Phantom. In his exciting theater career, Derrick has held the role of Mufasa on the US Tour of Disney’s The Lion King, covered both Scar and Mufasa on Broadway and most recently starred in Dallas Theater Center’s production of Dreamgirls as Curtis Taylor, Jr.

He has been seen on the Daytime Emmy Awards, Live with Regis and Kelly, Dancing with the Stars, as well as on the big screen in such movies as “Can a Song Save Your Life” and “A Christmas Story”. His concert career includes a sold-out performance of Rogers and Hammerstein works with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, as well as several solo performances in New York City featuring his original works and holiday favorites.

VISIT DERRICK’S WEBSITE!

Mark Dawidziak 

Can you live your life by what The Twilight Zone has to teach you? Yes, and maybe you should. The proof is in this lighthearted collection of life lessons, ground rules, inspirational thoughts, and stirring reminders found in Rod Serling’s timeless fantasy series.

Written by veteran TV critic, Mark Dawidziak, this unauthorized tribute is a celebration of the classic anthology show, but also, on another level, a kind of fifth-dimension self-help book, with each lesson supported by the morality tales told by Serling and his writers. Mark Dawidziak has been a theater, film and television critic for more than thirty-five years. A member of the editorial board of Rod Serling Books, he penned the foreword to the 2015 reissue of Rod Serling’s first book, Patterns. He has edited three collections of works by Twilight Zone contributor Richard Matheson. Learn More About “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone: A Fifth-Dimension Guide to Life”

Justin Freer

American composer/conductor Justin Freer (principal conductor/producer) has established himself as one of the West Coast’s most exciting musical voices and has quickly become a highly sought-after conductor and producer of film music concerts around the world.

He has served as composer for several independent films and has written motion picture advertising music for some of 20th Century Fox Studios’ biggest campaigns including Avatar, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Dragonball Evolution and Aliens in the Attic. As a conductor Freer has appeared with some of the most well known orchestras in the world including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Actor/Comedian Tom Green chats with Patrick about his role in the new horror movie “Bethany” and how his unique brand of comedy helped to inspire today’s generation of online pranksters! Riad Bekhit, Chief Potato Officer Potato Parcel also stops by!

You know Tom Green from his anything-goes run as the funniest, most unpredictable personality on MTV, and his unforgettable, deliciously loony roles in uproarious film comedies including “Road Trip” and “Freddy Got Fingered.” He is currently touring the world with his comedy show, and this April he stars in the spine-chilling Bethany, from acclaimed filmmaker James Cullen Bressack.

He’s graced the cover of Rolling Stone, commandeered the coveted guest-host chair on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” and conquered the World Wide Web with his free-wheeling, wildly popular internet talk show, “Tom Green’s House Tonight.”

Tom brought his unique brand of hilarity to the art of stand-up comedy in his one-hour comedy special, Tom Green Live, which continues to re-air on Showtime and is available on Netflix.

Author, actor, singer-songwriter – the only life for Adam-Michael James is a creative one. Writing song lyrics, working on a novel, and winning Drama awards in high school, AMJ went on to broadcasting school and amassed five years of radio experience, first as a deejay at Florida country station WDKC, then as writer, producer, and air talent for “IMRU”, a weekly newsmagazine for KPFK in Los Angeles. AMJ’s “IMRU” efforts earned him a Golden Mike Award for Best Entertainment Reporting.

AMJ’s two published novels are “Undo the Deed,” a time travel story with a child abuse theme, and “Extra Extra!: Memoirs from a Piece of Human Furniture,” an anecdotal guide for background actors based on his own experiences in Hollywood. AMJ has also done script analysis for several Hollywood production companies, and he puts these skills to use writing opinion columns regularly for the soap opera web site, soapcentral.com.

Collaborating with Emmy-nominated composer Leo Marchildon, AMJ wrote the book and lyrics for “The Nine Lives of L.M. Montgomery”, a multimedia musical drama based on the life of the famed “Anne of Green Gables” author. Other theatrical exploits include playing Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau in a workshop of “Trudeaumania”, Pirelli in the ACT production of “Sweeney Todd”, Philip in “Relatively Speaking” (also for ACT), and Lumiere in the Fandango Musical Players production of “Beauty and the Beast.”

VISIT ADAM-MICHAEL’S WEBSITE!

Rue la Rue Cafe is a Golden Girls themed cafe eatery located in the Washington Heights neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The restaurant was conceived and is operated by Michael LaRue, a close confidante of one of the four “Golden Girls”, Rue McClanahan (1934 – 2010) while McClanahan’s son Mark Bisch is a partner.

La Rue, who inherited many of the star’s personal belongings, in turn decorated the restaurant with them (including her 1987 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series), as well as pictures of McClanahan (one each from the decades of her entertainment career) and other memorabilia related to the hit show.In an ironic twist of fate the establishment is located inside of the Sofia storage building.

Mike Quinn, (producer of Horizontes, a daily radio program dedicated to the music of Latin America on KUT-FM, Austin’s NPR affiliate), was in 1978 a lowly, but ambitious retail clerk at Discount Records across from the University of Texas campus. Mike undertook the organization of Carnaval ’78 as an outlet for his own creative interests in Brazilian music.

The music of Carnaval — SAMBA, MARCH, FREVO, TRIO ELÉTRICO, and lots of BATUCADA, or drumming — now pours out in seamless, driving, ninety-minute sets. This is the euphoria of a real Carnaval, magnified by an arena-style sound system that makes three or four drums sound like a hundred. The key to the samba sound is the heavy boom of the surdo bass drums set against the counter-rhythms and back beats for the smaller percussion. When all of this is on the mark, samba kicks ass! You can see it on the faces of the crowd as people begin to lose control and abandon themselves to the charged atmosphere.

Over the past four decades, the Stephen King movie has become a genre unto itself. The prolific writers works have spawned well over 100 adaptations for both the big and small screen, ranging from modern classics of horror (Carrie, The Shining) to Oscar-nominated fare (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) to unapologetic, B-movie schlock (the King-directed Maximum Overdrive).

Author and film critic Scott Von Doviak stops by to discuss Stephen King and how it’s many film incarnations.

GET Stephen King Films FAQ: All That’s Left To Know About the King of Horror on Film

Dale Watson is an Austin-based honky-tonker carries on in the tradition of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson with his “Ameripolitan” brand of American roots music.

Dubbed “the silver pompadoured, baritone beltin’, Lone Star beer drinkin’, honky-tonk hellraiser” by The Austin Chronicle, Watson sat in with Jimmy Kimmel’s house band as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC) from SXSW 2015. He also emceed the first ever SXSW “Ameripolitan” showcase featuring the best of Honky-tonk, Outlaw Country, Rockabilly and Texas Swing music.

Dale has flown the flag for classic honky-tonk for over two decades. He’s christened his brand of American roots “Ameripolitan” to differentiate it from current crop of Nashville-based pop country. The Alabama-born, Texas-raised Watson may be the hardest working entertainer today and is rapidly approaching legendary status.  He is a country music maverick, a true outlaw who stands alongside Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and George Strait as one of the finest country singers and songwriters from the Lone Star State.

VISIT DALE’S WEBSITE!

Josh Keaton’s career has spanned the gamut of almost every form of entertainment media today. Video games, television cartoons, and animated movies; On camera work like movies, sitcoms, TV movies, prime-time dramas, soap operas, indie films, and even internet/viral comedy videos.

You can also catch him voicing commercials for many well known companies and products everyday on national television and radio and even announcing the next segment or TV show for television promos.

VISIT JOSH’S WEBSITE!

Patrick chats with Game Show host Bob Eubanks (The Newlywed Game/Card Sharks) and author/puzzle creator Steve Ryan! (The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows)

BOB EUBANKS

Although best known for his stint as the host of the long-running television game show The Newlywed Game, Bob Eubanks also enjoyed a brief career as a recording artist and concert promoter. As a promoter, he masterminded the Beatles’ legendary appearance at the Hollywood Bowl.

In 1966, Chuck Barris Productions tapped Eubanks to host their new ABC daytime relationship game show The Newlywed Game, which became such a runaway hit that in early 1967 the network launched a primetime version.

After several years out of the limelight, he made a cameo appearance in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and in 2004 published his memoirs, It’s in the Book, Bob!

VISIT BOB’S WEBSITE!

Source: AllMusic.com

STEVE RYAN

If the world’s greatest magician was Harry Houdini, and the world’s greatest detective was Sherlock Holmes, then surely the world’s greatest puzzle and game master is Steve Ryan, recognized as one of the most prolific creators of puzzles in the world, with more than 12,000 brain-busting bafflers to his credit.

This virtuoso of vexation has been inventing games and puzzles since childhood.  Early in his career he found a market for his creations at Copley News Service, where his Puzzles & Posers and Zig-Zag features appeared for more than 30 years. Currently his puzzle features are distributed through Creators Syndicate.

Ryan is the author of more than twenty popular books, and is the co-author of The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows and The Ultimate TV Game Show Book.  His puzzles have also appeared in such magazines as Games, Nick, Nickelodeon, Nick Toons and World of Puzzles in the U.S. and Games & Puzzles in the United Kingdom.

Steve’s extensive knowledge and experience as a TV Game Show historian and Game Show creator has been called upon to serve as an Expert Witness in legal cases and to guest as a Game Show Expert on such formats as “Entertainment Tonight” and Game Show Network. 

VISIT STEVE’S WEBSITE!