Really? Yes, Really … Peter Tilden and Jason Alexander ponder life’s questions
Peter Tilden arrived on the Los Angeles radio airwaves in the late 1980s, first at KLSX (now KNX-FM 97.1) for the morning show back when the station played classic rock. Other stations on his local resume include KABC (790 AM) multiple times, a stint on the short-lived 710 Talk (KMPC, now KSPN 710 AM), and even KZLA (now KLLI, 93.9 FM) where he mixed comedy with country music in the morning.
But it was definitely KABC where he spent most of his time on the air, changing with the times as needed and developing a style reminiscent of talk radio’s early glory days, in which guests were chosen by how interesting they might be to the audience and politics had little to do with the discussion.
You probably know Jason Alexander as George Costanza on television’s Seinfeld. But his career is much, much more, including stage acting, singing, and dancing. In fact, he is a Tony Award winner for his work in theater — he won a Tony in his 20s — has done voice work, and even a little directing.
What happens when Tilden and Alexander get together for a podcast? You get “Really? No, Really?” the show that makes you say exactly that to topics from the mundane to the unusual.
“My kids kept telling me to do a podcast! Do a podcast!” says Tilden. So I designed a concept that was expandable, and ran it by Jason … talking with fascinating people about things we are interested in. He loved it!”
They took the idea to iHeart, which similarly loved the idea and approved the concept … without the duo having done a single show at the time. That was in 2023; the first show made its debut on January 30th of that year introducing the concept; the first “real” episode followed one week later on February 6th discussing “Bathrooms, Privacy and Seinfeld.”
Other topics along the way have included talking dogs, competitive eating, space junk, drunk stoners, AI, noise pollution, the Museum of Failure, secrets to happiness, the secret lives of rats, TikTok, a store that sells items found in lost luggage, sleep tourism, and my personal recent favorite, “The Shocking Power of the Placebo Effect.”
In that episode, originally released May 28th, the hosts spoke with an expert on the power of the brain, and how some “drugs” help improve your health, even if they have no active ingredients. “It is amazing what the brain does with the power of suggestion,” Tilden told me giving examples such as a group of college men who got drunk on non-alcoholic beer or someone who took a bunch of pills and was having ill-effects … until the leader of the study in which the man was participating explained that the man was in the placebo group. His vitals returned to normal within 15 minutes.
“It’s not political … it’s not divisive,” Tilden explains. “It’s just fun. Like Jason always says, we get to talk with the most interesting people in the world. Experts on things that really make you say, “really? That’s true? No, really?
“And I get to do it with my best friend in the world,” explaining they met during during the second year of Seinfeld and hit it off immediately. The two have been through the ringer together, Tilden says, adding to their bond.
Interestingly, while the show is interesting and generally light-hearted, with humor thrown in as needed, the recording schedule sounds brutal. “Due to Jason’s schedule, we usually record four or five episodes at a time,” Tilden said. “So we do one, take a breather for ten or 15 minutes, then go on to the next.” And since they do video they have to dress well, too, he says. “I have to shave, get a haircut … wear pants … I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to do video.”
You can find the Really? No, Really? podcast on all the typical podcast platforms; the video-enabled version is on Facebook at facebook.com/reallynoreallypodcast. Well worth checking out. New episodes are released every Tuesday.
Correction
Somehow I got the “Cali 93.9 FM” call letters wrong last week. As mentioned above, they are KLLI, not KLLA as stated last week!
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com
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