Matt Baume

Hello there! This week's bonus video is all about Beverly LaSalle, the groundbreaking drag queen from All in the Family -- where she was discovered, how the writers adapted a real-life drag performer for a TV audience, and how television changed live drag venues in the late 70s. Plus, the actress wh

Oh hello! In this week's bonus video, I've got a ton of great stories about Norman Lear's many many shows: How he had to sneak NBC executives into a CBS office in order to get Sanford and Son picked up; how the star of Mary Hartman Mary Hartman wrote a 12-page essay arguing for why she should have a

Hello! As of this week, all of the Patreon bonus videos should be transferred from Vimeo to YouTube -- which should mean an end to the "video not found" errors. Now that the change-over is done, everything ought to play normally. But if you run into any errors or weird behavior, please let me know s

Hello there! A quick heads-up about videos on Patreon: I'm in the process of moving all of the videos from Vimeo to YouTube, which should finally end the "video not available" message that sometimes pops up here. There shouldn't be any disruption for you -- all the videos should just play normally,

Hello there! I'm trying something new with bonus videos this week -- instead of putting them on Vimeo, this one's on YouTube. I'm hoping this will resolve the "sometimes it just wont play" issue that some folks encounter, but let me know if this is working better or worse for you. And here's a backu

Backup link in case the video's not working: https://youtu.be/kJ3UOjvZ8ro And by the way, I've started the process of moving bonus videos over to YouTube, which should be more stable. It'll take a few weeks because I've got A LOT of files to transfer and it has to be done one-by-one, but once I'm fi

Backup link in case the video doesn't play: https://youtu.be/qOXWIbCL0m0 Hello there! In this week's bonus video, we're exploring the SUPER bizarre saga of the animatronic robot that Disney built in the 90s to promote both ABC sitcoms and the Exxon oil company. Why does it look SO terrible? I think

Backup link in case the video doesn't play: https://youtu.be/QdnZEXEF1Ck It's Mother's Day, and you know what that means: Time to celebrate the iconic 1965 sitcom My Mother the Car, widely considered the worst television show ever made. But I think it's the best! Not because it's good (it's not) but

My guest this week on The Sewers of Paris is Jim Colucci, author of numerous books about the behind-the-scenes stories of the making of classic TV shows. In his work he’s had opportunities to interview greats like Norman Lear, Betty White, and Bea Arthur — but the REALLY good stories are about what

You may think you love reruns, but this week’s guest lives them. Taylor grew in literally the most geographically isolated town in the lower 48 states, where his only connection to the outside world was syndicated TV. Fortunately, he had a ticket out, and found a way to create an entire career aroun

My guest this week is Steven Capsuto, whose book Alternate Channels documents the history of queer images on television across the twentieth century. An updated edition was released last year and it’s absolutely vital reading for anyone interested in LGBTQ culture — which I suspect is you. Steven’s