Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show (Texas Film and Media Studies Series)

Rating:
Summary: Academic Book Misses True Talk Television
Review: "Television Talk" is the product of another research-oriented academic who obviously read up on many of the talk shows but did not convey the feel behind talk television. The writer may have done some quick research on the subjects but fails to communicate what these shows are really about. There is also an incredible final section (mentioned in more detail below) that claims that "talk television" includes The Miss America Pageant, game shows like Hollywood Squares, and even sporting events like wrestling! Namely, this author doesn't know his subject area.

The author uses a decade-by-decade approach to the subject, meaning that the reader has to string together two or three pages in each chapter about Johnny Carson, a few pages on Letterman in one chapter then hunt down more Letterman information in another chapter. It's terribly distracting and doesn't give a true flavor or feel for what these talk shows were all about. It merely is a historical timeline of what happened during different talk show periods.

The book is NOT for the person who is looking for current insight into the shows. The book has a dated feel and many of the examples and stories are two or three decades old. Has this author even watched any of the more recent episodes of the show?

Overall, there are better books out there on the subject. This book comes across as an extended class research paper, using references and web sites to collect minor bits of information but failing to pick up on some major points. There are big gaps missing regarding the how and why of certain influential shows.

The book ends with an unbelievable "Guide to Television Talk" that groups Oral Roberts, Hollywood Squares, and Oprah Winfrey in the same category. HELLO! Roberts' program is NOT a talk show, it's a religious broadcast in which most of the show over the years has been sermon preaching, and Hollywood Squares is a game show with less than a minute of unscripted talk in each episode (as are many of the other shows listed in this section). It is an incredibly misguided attempt to group together different genres under the title "talk" and it just doesn't work. Pro wrestling commentary by a sports announcer is "talk television?" Get your definition straight before publishing a book on the subject.

The book is purely for this professor's classroom and students wanting a shortcut to research the subject. Otherwise it is an incomplete and ineffective discussion of the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Television Talk Comprehensive and Fascinating
Review: "Television Talk: . . ." guides one through our most popular television talk shows in the United States, beginning in the 50's with Edward R. Murrow and Jack Paar. It delivers a critical, objective, comprehensive and increasingly insightful view of the evolution of "talk shows" with respect to content and tone. And it reveals the significant influence host personalities from Dick Cavett to Donahue to David Letterman to Oprah (and so many more) have exercised in shaping this increasingly controversial form of mass "entertainment".

Rating:
Summary: Television Talk a lot of fun to read.
Review: Television Talk was fun to read. Good vignettes, interesting background history on how talk-show hosts started, took the reader behind the scenes ofthe talk shows. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Letterman and Carson. A good book--serious but at the same time fun.