Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen and guest J.J. Sedelmaier

After twelve years writing The Ethicist for the NY Times, Randy Cohen created Person Place Thing, an interview show based on the idea that people are especially engaging when they speak, not directly about themselves, but about something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing with particular meaning to them. The result: surprising stories from great talkers. 

Join Randy Cohen as he interviews animator, illustrator, designer, author and film director/producer, J.J. Sedelmaier. Enjoy live music performed by Emmy Award winning composer/trombonist/ukulele player J. Walter Hawkes.

J. J. Sedelmaier, president of J. J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc., is responsible for some of the most talked about animated projects of the past 25 years – the launch season of MTV’s “Beavis and Butt-Head”, SNL’s “Saturday TV Funhouse” series (“The Ambiguously Gay Duo”, “The X-Presidents”, etc.), the pilot for Cartoon Network/Adult Swim’s  “Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law”, the “Tek Jansen/Alpha Squad 7” series for Stephen Colbert, and over 500 TV commercials and design projects.  His studio, which he runs with his wife Patrice, also lends its services to architectural preservation/restoration, corporate branding for companies like MTV Networks, and The Chicago Tribune, and contributing archival reference material to publications on everything from animation history to urban mass transportation. He has also authored over 50 articles for Print Magazine. If you Google him, prepare to be very confused. . . .

Randy Cohen’s first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines (The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Young Love Comics). His first television work was writing for “Late Night With David Letterman” for which he won three Emmy awards. His fourth Emmy was for his work on Michael Moore’s “TV Nation.” He received a fifth Emmy as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it. For twelve years he wrote “The Ethicist,” a weekly column for the New York Times Magazine. In 2010, his first play, “The Punishing Blow,” ran at New York’s Clurman Theater. His most recent book, “Be Good: how to navigate the ethics of everything,” was published by Chronicle. He is currently the creator and host of Person Place Thing, a public radio program.

Originally from Pascagoula, MS, four time Emmy Award winning composer/trombonist/ukulele player J. Walter Hawkes has been an active performer, composer, and arranger/orchestrator in New York City for two decades. He has played and/or recorded with some people you’ve possibly heard of, (Elvis Costello, Norah Jones, Jon Hendricks) and many more you haven’t. It’s also very possible that he’s freaked out your kids with the music he’s composed for “Wonder Pets,”(Nick) “Third & Bird,”(BBC & Disney Channel) “Blue’s Clues”(Nick) and was the Music Director (and ukulele player) for “Peg + Cat” on PBS.  He also performed with Taylor Mac on “The Hang” (2022) and the 24-hour long “24 Decade History Of Popular Music.” (2017)