TV Time Machine

Wednesday 4pm to 5pm Pacific Time on
World Talk Radio

"TV Time Machine" is a unique, fast-paced, fun-filled look at classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) television series from the past forty years. Featuring interviews with well-known TV personalities, "TV Time Machine" explores individual TV Shows and celebrities, utilizing the unique perspective of television writer and historian, Jim Benson.

For the past twenty years, Jim has accumulated a wealth of knowledge regarding all aspects of television history, not only through his own research, but also as a result of his mail-order business, Jim's TV Collectibles. Launched in 1984, Jim's TV Collectibles quickly became the nation's largest mail-order company specializing in TV memorabilia. Consisting of thousands of TV Collectibles, over 25,000 TV Guides spanning the years 1953-2000, and over 10,000 TV and movie soundtracks, Jim has been able to meet the voracious demands of thousands of baby boomers throughout the world for classic television memorabilia over the past twenty years.

Along the way, Mr. Benson has contributed to many entertainment publications, including TV Guide, The Twilight Zone Magazine, and Television Chronicles. He's also worked extensively with Columbia House Video, TV Land, CBS Entertainment, and many others, on a myriad of television history projects, including the video releases of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and The Equalizer. In 1996, Jim began his largest endeavor, co-authoring the book, Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour, with Scott Skelton. This particular project lasted over three years, resulting in a 400 page tome which is generally regarded as the definitive study of Rod Serling's classic 1970's anthology series.

While researching "Night Gallery," Jim conducted over 100 interviews with the show's many stars, directors, writers, and producers. The interview contacts accumulated over the past seven years, will provide a strong foundation for the potential success of "TV Time Machine." Among the interviews and contacts that were cultivated over that period of time, are such personalities as: John Astin (The Addams Family), Pat Boone, Leslie Nielsen (The Naked Gun), Leonard Nimoy, director Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa, Tootsie), Tom Bosley (Happy Days) director Jeannot Szwarc (Somewhere in Time), Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman), Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson (Laugh-In), Phyllis Diller, Michele Lee (Falcon Crest), Richard Thomas (The Waltons), John Saxon (Enter The Dragon, The Bold Ones), and many, many, more.

"TV Time Machine" also encourages audience participation in the form of phone calls, and interactivity via the internet featuring trivia contests and fun factoids regarding various television shows and stars.

TV Time Machine Home Page

Recent Shows

Select a Show Session link below to view the list of Archived Segments for that Session.

3/3/2004: Popular songs performed by TV stars who should have known better... In this edition, The TV Time Machine ventures into the realm of truly bad musical renditions of popular songs, performed by TV celebrities with aspirations which, unfortunately, exceeded their talents...

2/25/2004: The Equalizer with writer/producer Coleman Luck. In this edition, The TV Time Machine takes us back to 1985. A year that invited audiences to witness a special type of TV justice -- courtesy of a dapper, yet dangerous gentleman known as The Equalizer...

2/18/2004: The Waltons and The Twilight Zone with Earl Hamner, Jr. In this edition, The TV Time Machine takes us back to 1959 and 1972. Two separate years which beckoned TV audiences to enter a special dimension of imagination, and to join a warm, close-knit family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia...

2/11/2004: TV Game Show History with author Fred Wostbrock. In this hour, The TV Time Machine takes us back in history to examine over 50 years of TV game shows. A trip that ventures into a far-reaching past, filled with myriad puzzles guaranteed to frustrate, titillate, confound, and amuse...

2/4/2004: Classic TV Shows on DVD with TV Historian John Field. For this hour, The TV Time Machine ventures into the realm of modern technology colliding with vintage television history. On a special edition of our program, guest host John Field occupies the co-pilot seat of our magical transport, to help guide us through a wide-ranging review of classic TV shows available on DVD.

1/21/2004: Hogan's Heroes with Corporal LeBeau -- Robert Clary. For this hour, The TV Time Machine takes us back to 1965. A year that invited TV audiences to find laughter in what otherwise would be a grim and serious subject -- a group of POW's imprisoned by the Germans during World War II...

1/14/2004: The Twilight Zone with screenwriter George Clayton Johnson. For this hour, The TV Time Machine takes us back to 1959. A year that invited TV audiences to enter another dimension -- a special dimension of space and time not bound by our world's natural laws. An other-worldly piece of geography, carved from an unknown universe, where the impossible becomes possible, where extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. Our host and creator of this remarkable series was the legendary television scribe Rod Serling...

1/7/2004: The Adventures of Superman with The Original Lois Lane -- Noel Neill. For this hour, The TV Time Machine takes us back to 1952. A year that TV audiences were re-introduced to a true American icon, in The Adventures of Superman. Originally conceived as a comic book superhero, Superman thrilled young and old alike with his other-worldly powers, the embodiment of all that was good and right with the world...

12/24/2003: TV Music History with author Jon Burlingame. For this hour, The TV Time Machine takes us back in history to examine over 50 years of television music. A trip that highlights many of the most familiar, dramatic, toe-tapping musical compositions not only to enter our homes, but our pop-culture consciousness as well...

12/10/2003: Rod Serling's Night Gallery interview with author Scott Skelton. For this hour, the TV Time Machine takes us back to 1969. A year that invited TV audiences to an after-hours tour in a dimly-lit, frequently frightening art gallery populated by bizarre canvases. Within this exhibit, stood our host -- a dark, compact, intense man -- one who would guide television viewers through three seasons of captivating tales featuring the odd, the bizarre, and the supernatural...

12/3/2003: Columbo interview with author Mark Dawidziak. For this hour, the TV Time Machine takes us back to 1968. A year that introduced TV audiences to a shabby, absent-minded, seemingly dim-bulbed LAPD detective named Lt. Columbo...