Hollywood & Levine

By popular demand, Ken shares an audio documentary he made for a UCLA class with fellow classmate, Bill Pearl. It traces Southern California Top 40 radio from the ‘50s to the ‘70s. We got an A.

On this week's Hollywood & Levine, sportscaster Josh Lewin joins Ken to discuss his new podcast, “The Throwback League” – recreating games between the best teams in baseball. It’s a great way to spend a day on lockdown. 

As an experiment, Ken just free associates from one random topic to another. It’s a little of everything including throwing Neil Young out of a record store. 

On this week's Hollywood and Levine Podcast, Ken Levine puts together a list of over 60 of his favorite comedy movies worth seeing whilst you're locked on in quarantine. There’s nothing you can do and nowhere you can go, so you might as well spend the time laughing at some of the best comedies of all time.  The list includes: Beverly Hills Cop, All About Eve, Blazing Saddles, Groundhog Day, Road To Morocco, Something About Mary and many more. Enjoy!    

This week, comedy writer Jay Kogen discusses his time working on FRASIER, MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE, and shares stories about his work on the huge hit TV show THE SIMPSONS.

Ken interviews Jay Kogen, one of the original writers of THE SIMPSONS. He’s worked on many great shows and won an Emmy for a script of FRASIER. In part-one of this two-parter, Jay talks about breaking in, learning from Garry Shandling, and the early days of THE SIMPSONS. 

With the help of celebrity interviewer, Arlen Peters, Ken discusses his “other” career – that of a major league baseball play-by-play announcer.   How he broke in, why he broke in, the stories and lessons along the way doing both minor and major league broadcasting (while maintaining a writing career).   It’s not so much a “baseball” episode as “Walter Mitty” episode.

In the second part of his discussion with David Lee, the co-creator of FRASIER, they get into the creation, casting, tone, and speculation over whether there will ever be a reboot of this iconic series.   If you’re a fan of FRASIER, this episode is not to be missed. 

David Lee was a showrunner on THE JEFFERSONS and CHEERS and co-creator of WINGS and FRASIER. He’s an Emmy winning writer/director/producer.  In part one of this two part discussion, he discusses breaking into the business, THE JEFFERSONS, CHEERS, and the rigors of creating their first series, WINGS.  Next week is all FRASIER. 

Even the best actors get rejected countless times. Ken lists all the actors he and writing partner, David Isaacs have rejected for projects – often for good reasons, some for frustrating reasons (the network wouldn’t approve them), and some we just plain screwed up. But hopefully it will give heart to actors that rejections can’t deter talent or a great career.

The former president of Paramount TV and VP of CBS Late Night, John Pike discusses his role, the birth of Fox, the return of STAR TREK, working with David Letterman, the future of the business, and he offers great advice for anyone interested in getting into the entertainment industry. 

Ken’s guest is John Pike, the longtime president of Paramount Television in the ‘80’s & ‘90s. Most people don’t know this but John played an instrumental role in the creation of FRASIER. That and CHEERS take up most of part-one of this fascinating two-part interview.

Ken recalls some of the music concerts he’s attended down through the years.  From Sinatra to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band he’s seen ‘em all, or at least some of ‘em.

Ken and longtime writing partner David Isaacs discus genres of film and TV comedy. Why FRIENDS and other successful sitcoms work. 

On this week's Hollywood and Levine podcast, Ken’s writing partner David Isaacs returns for a lively discussion on comedy – theories, genres and romcoms. It’s a fascinating study of what it takes to evoke laughter. 

The wild stories of the making of these two Hollywood films (one a huge hit, the other a colossal bomb). It’s a saga filled with colorful characters, scoundrels, wacky decisions, and overall craziness. In other words: a typical Hollywood story. And Ken was right in the middle of it all. 

This week on Hollywood and Levine, Ken tells tales of his Christmas childhood growing up in ole’ LA.

Ken puts on his director hat and shares his thoughts on how to become a good comic actor. And he offers some great examples.

This week on Hollywood and Levine Podcast, Ken shares some stories of horrible casting suggestions, and inspired casting choices that were rejected. It’s why all actors are on Lexapro.

Once again Ken plays some Thanksgiving Turkeys, songs that don’t try to be funny but just are.  Get ready to laugh and cringe, but mostly laugh.