The Canadian TV Thread

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ironically, it's often when things are more authentic and rooted in their place of origin that they end up having a more universal appeal.

Trying to pretend you're something you're not generally leads to second-rate pastiche status, in my experience anyway.

Amen, you can't play someone else's game, they're more experienced and better at it.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Well going down memory lane, aside from a lot of the obvious ones, I admit I was a bit of a sucker for Canadian Game Shows.

My favourite and one I was wickedly good at was the seemingly now forgotten Headline Hunters (and it had a pretty long run)

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Well going down memory lane, aside from a lot of the obvious ones, I admit I was a bit of a sucker for Canadian Game Shows.

Definition was definitly the poor man's Wheel of Fortune, but I loved watching it.

Front Page Challenge was probably one of the ways I started becoming aware of news from around the world.

Reach for the Top was big for anyone in school.

And Bumper Stumpers is one I really wish would be remade to come back.

Acting Crazy and Supermarket Sweep were similarly 'cheap' Canadian Game Shows that were fun to watch regardless.


Aside from the gameshows, there si another series I wish would be done again, and that's Street Cents. Another one of my growing up shows, it certainly helped me learn about personal finances and product quality and so forth.

Yes to Street Cents. With buddy from Trailer Park Boys amirite?

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I think it opens the door for more Canadian tv shows that aren't just trying to be America-lite (was there ever anything discerningly Canadian about a show like Flashpoint?)

Actually, as a fan of Cop Shows at the time, I found Flashpoint both very Canadian and very refreshing. Some of its strengths was how it focused on the event's build up, and how the team would spend a lot of time trying to de-escalate the situation and to find solutions that didn't result in a hail of gunfire.

US cop shows tend to treat the episode's event as a quick story to wrap around the climatic gun fight (or explosion) scene to wrap the ep back and rarely really dealt with the aftermath. Flashpoint tended to spend as much time on both the set up and the aftermath as the event itself, and all in all seemed to revel in its Canadian aspects without throwing them in your face all the time. (Plus having Toronto actually be Toronto was a nice change).

Sure, there were some times it did fall into the American style cop show tropes; but it was just different enough that it caught the attention of fans (part of the reason it did as well as it did in the States as well I suspect)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

Amen, you can't play someone else's game, they're more experienced and better at it.

I mean, what would be our level of interest in a White House drama produced in Australia with some Australian city pretending to be Washington and Aussie actors faking American accents?

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ironically, it's often when things are more authentic and rooted in their place of origin that they end up having a more universal appeal.

Trying to pretend you're something you're not generally leads to second-rate pastiche status, in my experience anyway.

I'll put the caveat: Without being painfully culturally cringey, unless you're trying to be funny (see: Bob and Doug Mckenzie)

Corner Gas, Trailer Park Boys and Letterkenney do this reasonably well.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Yes to Street Cents. With buddy from Trailer Park Boys amirite?

Yes, Jonathan Torrens, lovely fella. Met him on a beach in PEI where we were doing some shooting, he came over and introduced himself. He has had one success after another: Street Cents, Jonovision, TPB, Mr D

[elly63]

This was big back in the day

Quentin Durgens, MP
Network: CBC Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1965 to 1969
Broadcast Medium: Television

Aired - Tuesdays 9:00 to 10:00 pm – December 6, 1966 to February 4, 1969.
Repeated Sundays 9:00 to 10:00 pm - spring 1971.

This hour-long drama offered viewers an inside look at the life and times of a Canadian Member of Parliament. It starred Gordon Pinsent as Quentin Durgens in a role so convincing that many viewers thought him as a real M.P. who could solve their own problems. The show was a huge hit as the cameras followed Durgens on location in Ottawa, Toronto and Moose Falls, Ontario, working for his constituents. As the CBC publicity department described it in 1966, “Quentin Durgens brings to life flesh-and-blood individuals, the human conflicts, triumphs and errors behind the scenes in present day Ottawa.” One might consider it a Canadian version of The West Wing, many years earlier. Head writer and creator George Robertson did extensive research and relied upon the advice of real MPs to write authentic stories about the young lawyer and backbench member from Moose Falls.

[elly63]

No commentary about Canadian TV would be complete without Steve Smith alias Red Green. I've always been interested in how much money somebody makes in Canadian television but have never received too many good answers.

Here is a guy who must have struggled getting his shows syndicated in Canada (Smith & Smith, Me and Max, The Comedy Mill) before finally hitting the jackpot with Red Green. I saw a bio/doc on him and he had a pretty big shack in the Hamilton area overlooking a golf course and a big boat and beach house in Florida so I finally think he made it at last.

[elly63]

Here is a good resource I've used over the years that some might find interesting

A complete listing of television programs produced in Canada and broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation between 1952 and 1982, listed alphabetically from A IS FOR AARDVARK to ZUT!

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes. A whole bunch of shows on the top 100 list are American.

Oh ok i just meant the ones shown. The only ones i recognized were British.

[Denscity]

And yes to Smith & Smith and Red Green!

[elly63]

A big event back in the day, reminiscent of Tiny Tim on the Tonight Show:



Wedding bells on TV: Canada's first live television wedding, watched by an estimated 2 million viewers, took place yesterday November 2, 1973 on the CBC's Luncheon Date with Elwood Glover program when singer Stompin' Tom Connors, 36, married Lena Welsh, 26, a onetime barmaid he met three years ago.

[softee]

Some good ones that haven't been mentioned yet:

Hilarious House Of Frightenstein
My Secret Identity
Forever Knight
Kenny vs Spenny
Being Erica
Kim's Convenience

[MonctonRad]

Special shoutout to This is the Law, with Austin Willis as the host, Paul Soles as the hapless repeat offender and Hart Pomerantz as one of the panelists (ex of the Hart & Lorne Comedy Hour). His partner Lorne Michaels went on to found and produce Saturday Night Live on NBC.

• Video Link

This clip is inane, and offensive to all milk maids, but it is the only clip I could find on Youtube.

[kwoldtimer]

One CTV show that I've not watched but that seems to get good reviews is "Cardinal". I think it's coming back for a fourth season.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Special shoutout to This is the Law, with Austin Willis as the host, Paul Soles as the hapless repeat offender and Hart Pomerantz as one of the panelists (ex of the Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour). His partner Lorne Michaels went on to found and produce Saturday Night Live on NBC.

See last post on the first page As a young lad I remember Susan Keller's notoriously low cut dresses, that made a young man's week. The milkmaid was Valri Bromfield and apparently a young Dini Petty was a panellist in 1971 along with Madeline Kronby of Chez Helene fame. On the show itself Hart used to crack me up, imagine him being your lawyer.

[elly63]

One show I recall and kind of doubt if anyone else will was a little show on CBC in 1980 called Home Fires. I really got into this show at the time. It starred Gerry Parkes and Kim Yaroshevskaya with the lovely and talented Wendy Crewson in one of her earliest TV roles. She went on to a lot bigger and better things.

From IMDB
Home Fires took viewers into the home of the Lowe family - a Toronto doctor, his wife and two teenage children - as they experienced World War II from the home front.

Gerard Parkes starred as Dr. Albert Lowe, the family patriarch and a general practitioner in a working-class, ethnic district of Toronto. Kim Yaroshevskaya played

Hannah Lowe, the doctor's Polish-Jewish wife, who feared for the safety of her relatives in the old country.

Wendy Crewson, as the Lowes' daughter Terry, made the difficult transition from adolescence to independent womanhood as the series progressed.

Peter Spence played Sydney, the Lowes' teenage son.

[elly63]

In the 80's when the inferiority complex was in full bloom and no one would admit they watched any Canadian programs this one broke the mould.

Seeing Things with the neurotically funny Louis Del Grande

From IMDB

Louis Ciccone is a reporter for the Toronto Gazette, but life's given him a forced side activity. This is due to his inconvenient power as a postcognitive, a person who is able to see visions of past events. These visions are always related to a murder of a person he encounters by happenstance. While he cannot control these visions or trigger them voluntarily, they do provide vital leads and clues that allow him to investigate the crime. This leads him into the strangest situations as he investigates them

When this series was rerun on the Canadian cable network Showcase in the mid-1990s, the network chose to precede each episode with a disclaimer advising viewers that the series - produced only a few years earlier - "does not necessarily depict" the way relationships between men and women were treated in the 1990s. This politically correct disclaimer was roundly criticized by viewers and the media, and was eventually dropped by the network.

[kwoldtimer]

One show I detest is the Just for Laughs hidden camera gags show. Absolute rubbish and yet it seems popular - it has been running for years.