Letting Them Talk with Will Harris – Details, episodes & analysis

This week, I'm letting Paget Brewster talk.

I have a long and thoroughly non-sordid history of interviewing Paget for various outlets. It started with her Random Roles for the AV Club, continued with an interview for Decider, and I know I’ve interviewed her twice for That Thing They Did, and…I think this is therefore our fifth time talking, maybe? Unless you count the time when I met up with her at a CBS party during the 2016 summer Television Critics Association press tour, but if I did an interview with her there, I don’t think it was a full interview, and if any portion of it ran anywhere, I can’t produce it.

Anyway, my point is that we've talked about a lot of stuff over the years, and this time we talked about a lot of stuff, too, including - but not limited to - Criminal Minds, Friends, Two and a Half Men, Grandfathered, Drunk History, DuckTales, and The Thrilling Adventure Hour. We also talked about some of her failed pilots, including the inevitable Ghost Cop. (He’s a ghost, she’s a cop… You get it. But I still have to recite the line anyway.) Oh, and we also talked about the time she created botulism for a comedy sketch.

Yeah, we really covered the gamut. You'll love it. She's delightful.

This week, I'm letting Mitch Easter talk. He's a producer (R.E.M., the Connells, Suzanne Vega, Marshall Crenshaw), and he's also a singer, musician, and songwriter in his own right, though you likely know him best on that front from the years he spent in the band Let's Active. He's made a lot of music over the years, and as a result, he's got a lot of stories to tell. Also, when it comes to Smash Mouth's cover of "Every Word Means No," he has...thoughts. But you'll have to listen to find out what they are.

This week, I'm letting Robbie Rist talk. For my first guest, I wanted someone I actually know but who I've never interviewed before, and although I've interviewed Robbie once many years ago, it wasn't a full look back at his career, so this seemed like a good time to do that. We discuss Big John, Little John, Battlestar Galactica, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Kidd Video, and much more, including his music career. Fair warning, though: we barely touch on his time on The Brady Bunch at all.

This week, I'm letting Kevin M. Kruse talk. 

Also this week: the debut of what I hope will be a recurring episode premise called “Political Pundits on Pop Culture.” Then again, maybe it’ll be a one-off. But given how much fun I had talking to Kevin, I certainly hope it isn’t.

Kevin is a history professor at Princeton, a respected author, and one of my favorite follows on Bluesky, but as it turns out, we also have more than a few similar pop culture touchstones, from SNL and Police Squad! to Edgar Wright and R.E.M. In the long run, it’s basically a conversation between two guys who are geeking out on their pop culture faves, but – spoiler alert – this is not the first time a podcast has descended into such a conversation, and it damned well won’t be the last.

Listen, enjoy, and if you haven't already, please subscribe! 

This week, I'm letting Murray Attaway talk.

I first became a fan of Murray’s work when he was fronting the Georgia-based band Guadalcanal Diary, who – along with Rhett Crowe, John Poe, and the late, great Jeff Walls – brought us such classic college rock tracks as “Watusi Rodeo,” “Trail of Tears,” “Spirit Train,” “Cattle Prod,” “Litany (Life Goes On),” “Get Over It,” “Always Saturday,” and “Pretty Is as Pretty Does.” After releasing their fourth studio album, 1989’s Flip Flop, the band made a collective decision to go their separate ways, but Murray soldiered onward, signing a solo deal with Geffen Records and releasing his solo debut, 1993’s In Thrall. I, for one, loved it, but let’s just say that it didn’t exactly go platinum, and it was pretty soon thereafter that Murray and Geffen parted ways.

Since then, Murray certainly hasn’t been completely absent from the world of music – for one thing, Guadalcanal Diary reunited for a performance in the late ‘90s that resulted in a live album entitled At Your Birthday Party – but those who were waiting for him to release anything new under his own name were left wanting…until this year, that is, when he finally released a sophomore solo LP entitled Tense Music Plays.

Naturally, you'll want to head over to Murray's website and order yourself a copy of Tense Music Plays. But that's after you listen this episode, of course...

This time, I’m letting Chris Mulkey talk.

Chris is a character actor whose work I’ve been watching since well before I actually knew who he was, but I do know when I actually started paying attention to him: after he started playing Hank Jennings, the deceitful husband of Double R Diner owner Norma Jennings, on Twin Peaks.

He first stepped in front of the camera in the mid-1970s, and he’s been working steadily ever since, perpetually mixing things up between film and television but always keeping busy. The amount of TV series he’s been in is kind of ridiculous. We’re talking about a list that includes Baretta, M*A*S*H, Charlie’s Angels, The White Shadow, Magnum P.I., and even the short-lived Vincent Price series Time Express, although I literally had to send him a link to the episode to prove to him that he’d done it, because he had zero memory of it.

During the course of the conversation, we hit on topics including – but not limited to – The Long Riders, First Blood, The Hidden, Patti Rocks (as well as its prequel, “Loose Ends,” and the sequel he’s hard at work on getting into production), Gas Food Lodging, Ghost in the Machine, Bulworth, Radio, Captain Phillips, Whiplash, and a bunch more. He’s a guy who’s full of stories, and he’s happy to share them. There’s definitely enough untouched material for a sequel, so definitely let me know how you enjoy this.

Just a couple of notes up front: Chris did the interview in a cabana, and he shows off his surroundings, so only  those watching the video will really appreciate that. Also, at one point he froze and vanished, and I’ve edited it down so that the downtime isn’t significant, but I kept in the moment, so when it happens, don’t worry, it won’t last long, and he explains what happened, which is pretty funny and the direct result of where he was doing the interview.

And just to speak off the cuff, since this is the last new podcast episode of 2025, with many more to follow in the new  year, God willing, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who’s listened and supported me in this endeavor. It’s already lasted longer than my last podcast, and it’s because I haven’t been limiting myself to a particular niche or gimmick, I’m just been inviting people whose work I enjoy onto the podcast and, like it says, letting them talk. As of this writing, we’re less than 25 downloads away from hitting a grand total of 1,600 downloads, and for a podcast that has zero advertising budget and is strictly being discovered by word of mouth, that seems pretty decent to me. And I have you to thank, so…thanks. And please keep it up. Please share an episode whenever you’ve listened to it and liked it. And rate the podcast. I hear that’s important, too.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro and a thank-you. Happy New Year, everyone. It’s time to let Chris Mulkey talk.

This time, I'm letting Angelo Moore talk.

Angelo is a force of nature, one of the most gregarious individuals I’ve ever had the good fortune to interview, and – it must be said – one of the greatest self-promoters you’re likely to ever come across. And I mean that as a compliment. I need to take notes from this man.

In addition to having been the frontman of Fishbone since the band’s inception, Angelo also works under the guise of Dr. Madd Vibe. I interviewed him years ago, way back in 2001, and it was a decidedly freewheeling conversation, but it was also one that led to him signing my copy of Fishbone’s The Reality of My Surroundings with the words, “Thanks for the accurate article.” Accuracy should be pretty easy when all you’re doing is literally transcribing what someone said, but you’d be surprised how many people are grateful for you simply for typing out their actual words.   

During the course of this freewheeling conversation – and truth be told, I’m pretty confident that freewheeling is the only sort of conversation that Angelo is capable of having, but I’m 100% good with that – we talked about as much of Fishbone’s career as possible, including John Cusack’s support of the band, the time Fishbone opened for the Beastie Boys, Angelo’s appearance in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and much  more.

I should probably mention a few things up front, however.

First of all, this is inarguably the most visual episode of the podcast that’s happened to date, so if you’ve ever thought about joining the ranks of the paid Substack subscribers or the Patreon supporters, this is the one. Angelo spends the early part of the conversation taking me and his camera on a tour around the entirety of his new apartment, and then he later takes me on a visual tour of some of his more recent releases, which are pretty amazing. Given that he’s talking the entire time, it feels wrong to trim it from the audio version, but just know that you’re definitely not getting the full experience without seeing the video.

He also gets a few calls during the course of the interview, but I kept those in as well, since he proceeds to introduce the people who are calling, even holding the phone up to the camera. How could I cut those out? That’s gold, Jerry! GOLD!

The other thing is that when I asked Angelo one of my stock questions – the one about the first person who ever made him have to fight to keep from going full fanboy – he thought I was asking about Fishbone fans who went full fanboy on him. Given the title of this podcast, I didn’t interrupt him, I just let him answer it the way he thought was accurate, and the end result was still a really great story, so…no complaints whatsoever.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. Now brace yourself accordingly, because I’m going to let Angelo Moore talk.

This week, I'm letting Mike Carlin talk. 

You may recognize Mike's name if you’re a comic book fan, since not only has he written and edited for both Marvel and DC Comics, but he’s even been a comic book character on occasion, famously hiring one particular superhero as an artist with Marvel Comics…while in his secret identity, of course.

The funny thing about this interview, however, is that it didn’t come about because of comics. It came about because Mike and I are Facebook friends, and it caught my eye when he offered up an R.I.P. post for Gilson Lavis, the drummer for Squeeze, and said that he’d seen Gilson live more than any other drummer. I immediately thought, “Okay, here’s a conversation I want to have: Mike Carlin on Squeeze.”

And we did indeed talk about Squeeze. We also talked about some of his other favorite music, and we talked a whole lot about his favorite comedy, including how he was such an SNL nerd that he spend a good chunk of the show’s first five seasons standing in the stand-by line in order to attend tapings of the show. As a result, he saw a few of the most iconic musical performances in the history of the show…but I’ll let him tell you about those.

But, of course, we also talked about comics, and how Mike’s sense of humor influenced his writing. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that over the course of his career he’s managed to write for the humor magazine trifecta: Crazy, Cracked, and Mad Magazine. He’s also worked with some of the most legendary artists of all time – perhaps you’re familiar with a gentleman by the name of Steve Ditko? – and he was even part of a cable access sketch comedy show with a couple of other guys from Marvel Comics, including the late, great Mark Gruenwald. Oh, and if you remember the Superboy TV series that was in syndication in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s… Well, I think Mike would be surprised, but even if you didn’t, he’s got some great stories about working on that, too.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Mike talk.

This week, I'm letting Vincent Martella talk.

I’ve been a fan of Vincent’s work since he was a series regular on the UPN – later CW – sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, where he played Chris’s very white friend, Greg. It’s one of those sitcoms that not enough people watched when it was originally on the air, but its fanbase has continued to grow over the years as a result of the show’s streaming presence. In fact, it even spawned an animated sequel last year called – what else? – Everybody Still Hates Chris.

The original run of Everybody Hates Chris was from 2005 to 2009, but before it had even come to a conclusion, Vincent had already begun work on a new series, one that continues to keep him gainfully employed even now: Phineas and Ferb. Yes, that’s right: he’s the voice of Phineas. Mind you, just because he’s pulling a steady paycheck from voice acting doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still find himself in front of the camera on occasion as well, as fans of The Walking Dead well know. But having said that, as of this recording, Phineas and Ferb is still going strong, possibly even stronger than ever.

During the course of our conversation, we talk about all of these projects in great detail, as well as a few others from throughout his filmography. We also talk about how he found his way into acting in the first place, and I even found an excuse to ask him about the time he was nominated for a Teen Choice Award, and…let’s just say that, in retrospect, he still can’t believe who won the award over him that year.

But that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Vincent Martella talk.

This time, I’m letting Rizwan Manji talk.

Rizwan has successfully carved himself out a career as a character actor, one who’s frequently comedic but has also had the opportunity to show off his dramatic chops on occasion. I first met him when he was in the cast of the NBC sitcom Outsourced, which was set in a call center in India. It met with a decidedly mixed reaction at the time, but I enjoyed it from the get-go, for reasons which I explain during the course of today’s episode. But I interviewed Riz and his co-star Parvesh Cheena at the TCA tour, and I’ve stayed connected with the both of them via social media ever since. As such, when I saw that Riz was in the cast of a new Adam Saunders film called Re-Election and was doing virtual interviews to promote the film, I immediately reached out to get on the list to chat with him.

Since our initial meeting, Riz has been a part of a ridiculous number of impressive projects – these days, I think most people may recognize him from his recurring role on Schitt’s Creek – but he’s been doing high-profile stuff even before I met him. During the course of our conversation, we talk about his work with Mike Nichols and Tom Hanks on Charlie Wilson’s War, auditioning for Scorsese for his role in The Wolf of Wall Street, and his reflections on having done a few episodes of 24.

Of course, we also talk about Schitt’s Creek and the surrealness of working with two of his comedic idols on his very first day of shooting, his love of the underseen sitcom Perfect Harmony, his son’s reaction to his appearance in the opening credits of Peacemaker, embarrassing himself in front of Antonio Banderas, and much more.

Okay, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Rizwan Manji talk…