Timecode Cowboys | Ep. 15 | TV PILOTS! (Season One Finale)

We’re closing the book on Season One — and doing it the only way we know how: by talking about the strange, high-stakes, half-forgotten corner of Hollywood history known as the TV pilot.

In this finale episode, Danny and his dad dig into the lost art of pilot season: rushed schedules, wild concepts, focus-group madness, and shows that almost were.

Drawing on decades of firsthand experience cutting pilots — some brilliant, some doomed — we trace how the system worked, why it collapsed, and what it says about how Hollywood used to gamble on ideas instead of algorithms.

Along the way, we veer into market testing, Nielsen ratings, backdoor pilots, pilot killers, soundtrack needle drops, and the eerie feeling of standing outside buildings where entire TV futures were once decided.

In this episode, we cover:

• 🎬 What a TV pilot actually is — and why most never made it to air
• 🧪 Focus groups, Nielsen diaries & the Preview House on Sunset Blvd
• ✂️ Inside the cutting room — brutal deadlines, unfinished episodes & sudden cancellations
• 📺 Standalone TV vs. serialized prestige — what we lost, what we gained
• 🤠 Personal war stories — the pilots that almost changed everything

More importantly, this episode also marks the end of Timecode Cowboys: Season One — and the beginning of a new era. New seasons, new collaborators, new music, and field-trip episodes exploring Hollywood’s past, present, and future are just over the horizon.

Cowboys out (for now).

🎬 Films and TV Shows discussed:

My Mother the Car (1965, TV)

Mister Ed (1961–1966, TV)

Star Trek (1966–1969, TV)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

The Last Run (1971)

Columbo (1971–2003, TV)

McCloud (1970–1977, TV)

The Name of the Game (1968–1971, TV)

The Rockford Files (1974–1980, TV)

Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983, TV)

The Twilight Zone (1959–1964, TV)

Hill Street Blues (1981–1987, TV)

St. Elsewhere (1982–1988, TV)

Star Wars (1977)

Doctor Who (1963–present, TV)

ER (1994–2009, TV)

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015, TV)

CSI: Miami (2002–2012, TV)

Century City (2004, TV)

Breaking Bad (2008–2013, TV)

The Dark Knight (2008)

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Timecode Cowboys | Ep. 14 | David P. Loughery: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

We’re back — and this week we literally walked off the 18th green, dropped our clubs, and hit record. Why?
Because David P. Loughery — screenwriter, mentor, raconteur, and honorary cowboy — loved two things with unadulterated devotion: classic movies … and golf!

From Dreamscape to Passenger 57, Money Train, The Three Musketeers, Lakeview Terrace, and The Intruder, David built the kind of career Hollywood rarely celebrates: steady, surprising, generous, and full of personality. A real craftsman. A real wit. A real one-of-one.

In this episode, we cover:

• 📝 Script stories from the trenches — Snipes, Quaid, Shatner & beyond
• 🎬 Notes swaps & mentorship — how David shaped Danny’s writing
• 🍸 Martinis, mini-malls & midnight noirs — David’s secret map of Los Angeles
• 😂 The quirks — the early arrivals, the BMW he wouldn’t drive on freeways, the Word docs saved “somewhere”
• 🧠 A master of genre — thrillers, western riffs, studio rewrites, and pure storytelling
• 💙 A friend who became family — and the voice still echoing in our writing

Here’s to David and the movies, the memories, and the punchlines he gifted us.

🎬 Films discussed:

Dreamscape (1984)
Heart to Hart (TV)
The Stepfather (1987)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Flashback (1990)
Passenger 57 (1992)
Money Train (1995)
Tom and Huck (1995)
Lakeview Terrace (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Penthouse North (2013)
Nurse 3D (2013)
The Intruder (2019)

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Timecode Cowboys | Ep. 13 | Universal Monsters & Other Ghost Stories

Happy Halloween!!! On this, our oh so spooky number 13th episode, Danny and Alec dust off the silver nitrate and dive headfirst into Universal’s monster legacy - from Lon Chaney Jr.’s The Wolf Man (1941) to Abbott & Costello’s horror-comedy crossover, all the way to the haunted soundstage where Phantom of the Opera was filmed (and allegedly never fully dismantled).

Along the way, they wander through forgotten film reels, UCLA’s hidden vault in the hills of Santa Clarita, and a few attempted “phone-a-friend” sessions with none other than friend-of-the-pod Colin Smight (spoiler: he didn’t pick up!).

Plus: Dodgers in the World Series, Tiny Tim trauma, and a quick shoutout for Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.

It’s a loose, spooky, cinephile séance — half Hollywood history, half family campfire. Join us!

🎬 Films discussed:
The Wolf Man (1941), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Exorcist (1973), Sunset Boulevard (1950), In a Lonely Place (1950), Bugonia (2025), One Battle After Another (2025)

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