BriouxTV: The Podcast: Recent Episodes
Bill Brioux
Hosted by veteran TV columnist Bill Brioux. Each week, join in on an outspoken hour with the actors, executives, and insiders that make the television industry pop. In each edition, Bill invites his guests to talk business, give up some great stories, and make it personal. Plus laughs.
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For Part Two of my conversation with "Programming Insider" Marc Berman, we continue with the back half of the Critics Quiz. What was the scariest thing you ever saw on television? Do you think the era of the late night TV talk show is about done? What was your most memorable Television Critics Association press tour moment?
Questions about those semi-annual network press gatherings dominate, including, "What show did you vote for in the annual TCA Awards as Program of the Year?" and, "Name your most unforgettable TCA character."
All this and more from Berman and Brioux, part deux.
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If you are reading this, you probably already follow Marc Berman, a.k.a. "Mister Television." In 1997, while at Mediaweek, Marc created The Programming Insider, the daily, digital online destination for television and media. We've known each other since then through our affiliation with the Television Critics Association. We've both worked our way through platefuls of scrambled eggs at fancy Pasadena and Hollywood hotels in bi-annual trips to countless network press tours.
Those live tour dates are no more but as readers at Inc. now know, Marc's passion for television remains. In this first of two parts, I ask Marc my "Super 16" TV critic questions, including, Who was the first star you ever interviewed? Who surprised you as the biggest jerk? Who would you choose: Ginger or Mary Anne? And the telling opener: was there a TV series that made you want to become a TV critic? Marc gives a moving response to that and many other questions. This is a nostalgic, heartfelt episode from two dudes who were brought up right -- in front of the TV set.
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Back in 2008, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Lassally, then winding up his extraordinary career in late night as executive producer of The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. For close to an hour, at his office deep within CBS Television City, Lassally regaled me with stories about Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Ferguson and many others.
In listening back to the conversation — for the first time in 18 years — I’m struck not just by his professionalism but also by how generous and candid he was on that day. He truly had Carson’s gift for making the guest look good and feel at home.
Lassally blew my mind when I asked if there was a common thread to Carson, Letterman and Ferguson. The soft spoken TV executive did not hesitate with his answer.
“They have one thread — they all have mothers that didn’t give them enough love.”
Left unspoken was the fact that, in Lassally, they also all had one hell of a father figure.
I've edited down this interview to share some of the wisdom received on that day. Condolences to his family and friends and to all who value such a first hand connection to late night broadcasting and its roots.
SUGGESTION: the sound quality for this episode, where a simple digital recorder was used, is sub-standard. Lassally was very soft spoken, so you'll need to crank up the volume.
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In 2022 I had the good fortune to welcome Ronnie Schell as a guest on this podcast. Schell was a familiar face and voice on TV for decades, most prominently as Jim Nabors' army pal on Gomer Pyle, USMC. He was also the voice of Hockey Night in Canada's animated mascot Peter Puck, did many Disney movies and cartoon voice-overs. Early on, he even snuck in an appearance on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx.
Schell was 94 when he died last month, just 10 days before Joby Baker passed away at 92. The two starred as New York disc jockeys in a series from the folks behind The Dick Van Dyke Show titled Good Morning World. Wish I had spoken to Baker, who quit TV cold at 50 and built a reputation at galleries in California as a painter and sculpter.
Listen as Schell, a spry 90 at the time, reminisces about that series and name drops a ton of other TV stars he worked with as TV went from black and white to colour.
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In Part II of this two-part conversation, retired Globe and Mail TV columnist John Doyle returns to talk a little bit more about soccer but mostly about our shared fascination with television.
The two of us tackle several of today's biggest TV challenges. For example: are late night talk shows going the way of the western? Does Crave sensation Heated Rivalry live up to the hype? Is funding at a crossroads in Canada? And because he simply can't help himself, Doyle also manages to put the world soccer body FIFA in context. And folks said it couldn't be done!
While the World Cup rages on (without Canada, knocked out on Saturday by Morocco), continue reading Doyle's expert take on the beautiful game in the pages of The Toronto Star. For his take on TV today, hear him now on brioux.tv: the podcast.
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Can it be? Is that our John Doyle making sense of The World Cup in The Toronto Star? The former TV columnist at The Globe and Mail has come out of retirement to help explain why we are all suddenly mad for soccer as Canada continues to kick its way into contention.
This isn't the first time John has turned into a sports scribe. He has reported on three other World Cups as a journalist. Hey, he's not just another pretty face TV pundit. He wrote the 2010 bestseller "The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer." He knows this beautiful game.
Listen in as we kick the subject around. Then come back next week as we head into extra time. In Part II of our conversation we talk mainly TV, including a look at the best and worst of what we're both watching this summer.
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Yes, TV is Good. ABC declared it back in the '90s in their press materials. Now Alan Sepinwall has used the slogan as the name of his new podcast, where he is paired with fellow critic Kathryn VanArendonk.
I first met Alan back when that slogan was coined at the Television Critics Association's semi-annual network press tours. He wasted no time establishing himself in what was a competitive room as one of North America's leading voices of TV criticism.
At first at the New Jersey Star-Ledger and later as Rolling Stone's TV critic, Alan stood out for his insightful, episode-by-episode essays detailing landmark shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men, among many others. He'd write these short story-length breakdowns minutes after each show aired. To me it was like some sort of voodoo magic trick!
Alan has written several books about television. His latest, available now for pre-order, is "Serling: a Journey into The Twilight Zone with TV's First Visionary." He can always be read at his entertaining blog, "What's Alan Watching."
The two of us talk press tours past and future, including Alan's recent trip to Austin, Texas, to attend, with several other TCA critics, the ATX television festival. Plus we land on one 2025-26 series we both think could emerge as program of the year later this summer when the TCA Awards are announced.
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There has been a lot of talk lately that talk shows, as we know them, are too expensive to last. The big band, the studio audience, the nightly monologue -- they all cost money.
Well, Tom Green thinks he has the answer. He's growing the talk show of the future now on 150 acres in Ontario on The Tom Green Farm (now streaming on Crave).
What about the guests you ask? Green has managed to persuade a whole barnload of friends to come up and visit. They include Dan Aykroyd, Amber Marshall, Jason Blaine, Paul Bissonnette, Jay Baruchel, Michael Cera, DeadMau5, Jon Dore, Erica Ehm, Tony Hawk, Kurt Vile, Chantal Kreviazuk, The Tragically Hip’s Paul Langlois, Steven Page, Priyanka, Jessie Reyez, Kevin Staab, George Stroumboulopoulos, and more.
Plus there is his mule (16 and 1/2 hands high!), the chickens, his mom Mary Jane (now a co-producer) and an incredible vert ramp he had built for Tony Hawk on a farm field. This is Green acres, Canadian farm style. See it on Crave.
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This Saturday, May 30 at 12 noon, over 100 people in brightly-coloured orange wigs and vivid caftans will be storming Orangeville, Ont's city hall. Demanding more polyester? Lobbying for a clown college? No, this will kick off the 2nd annual Roper Romp Orangeville.
It's all thanks to super fan Sofie Weber, one of two guests on this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast. She tells me she has over 100 people set to dress up as Mrs Helen Roper, played by Audra Lindley in the late '70s ABC sitcom The Ropers. This Three's Company spinoff also starred Norman Fell as landlord Stanley Roper. Nearly a half century later, this two-season comedy has inspired people from across North America to bust out their caftans and clunky jewelry.
Joining us on this podcast is Stevie Louise Vallance, a Montreal-born, Emmy award-winning actress, director and voice artist with credits on everything from Knots Landing to Night Heat, ReBoot and Zoobilee Zoo. She played street urchin Jenny on Season Two of The Ropers and will be romping her way to Saturday's Roper-palooza in Orangeville!
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World's collide as the talky half of Jay and Silent Bob meets Murdoch Mysteries. Yes, it turns out that Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith's pal since Clerks, is a superfan of the CBC historical whodunnit Murdoch Mysteries. He was turned on to the series by his buddy, Matt Goehring. Mewes binged 18 seasons and 300 episodes in six months. All caught up, he and Matt have teamed with Shaftesbury on The Murdoch Mysteries Podscast, which drops every Monday.
Hey, I know the value of talking to Murdoch's main players. Yannick Bisson is still the reining champ here at brioux.tv: the podcast in terms of total downloads. Mewes nabbed a part on the series (as Slipperly Bill Watson) and he and Matt just teamed up on a May the 4th episode with the latest Murdoch recruit, Paul Sun Hyung Lee (Inspector Choi).
And, yes, I'm jealous of all the great graphics and other visuals on their podcast. So listen to them here first, before you go off and binge their podcast, okay?
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Please welcome a veteran sports reporter and host who, in my opinion, has been better on his feet and in the moment than anybody else in a rink or on a field. I’m talking of course about Scott Oake, who recently announced his retirement from Sportsnet and Hockey Night in Canada. Correction – he reluctantly announced, because he never wanted any fuss made about his departure. He just wanted to go quietly, to ghost. Sportsnet insisted a fuss be made and so he has squirmed through several interviews, including this one with me.
I just wanted to thank him for all the great TV moments and, as someone else who has milked this talking to famous people thing for decades, ask how I can find a dignified way to the exit ramp. Scott offers good advice, talks about that interview in the stands with Snoop Dogg, and names the colleagues who influenced him the most.
He also puts the spotlight on what is most important to him now, the Bruce and Anne Oake Memorial Foundation established in his son and late wife’s name in Winnipeg. It is a wonderful cause, one born out of sorrow but what a pivot towards helping others. Helmet on and get ready to lace ‘em up with Scott Oake.
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With the recent passing of Dinah Christie at 83 we go back into the vault for my 2014 conversation with the beloved Canadian entertainer.
Always a welcome presence on television in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, Christie was a touchstone for many boomers. I used to rush home from school to see the CHCH charades series Party Game where Christie, along with impish comedian Billy Van and "Captain" Jack Duffy, formed the almost unbeatable home team.
As we discuss in this interview, the weekday favourite was kind of Canada's low budget Tonight Show. It allowed viewers to see homegrown singers, actors and other celebrities as themselves in a relaxed and casual setting.
Christie's more serious side shone a decade earlier when she was the self-admitted "token blond" on the landmark (but short-lived) Canadian newsmagazine This Hour Has Seven Days. Hear her on those experiences as well as her three seasons opposite Don Adams on the less acclaimed grocery store set sitcom Check it Out!.
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Adam Growe is happy to be back behind the wheel of Cash Cab for a 10th season (airing Wednesdays on MUCH and streaming on Crave). Raised in Vancouver, the stand-up comedian had to re-take and pass his special cab licence in Toronto before shooting took place last October/November.
The series, which has been franchised in 40 counties, first took to the road back in 2008 in Canada. This new edition comes with a karaoke twist; passengers, after correctly answering trivia questions before arriving at their destination, can double their cash prize by answering one more and then singing a few bars of the song in question.
Growe talks about what passengers leave behind in the cab, the contestants who freaked and bailed when they learned cameras were involved, and answers the all-important question: naming his favourite character from the classic sitcom Taxi.
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Who’s a good boy? All the puppies on the new CBC/CBC Gem series Must Love Dogs, that’s who. Premiering April 20, the 10 episodes feature a couple I met last December at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto – Brady Oliveira and Alex Blumberg. They live in Winnipeg and are very dedicated to rescuing and finding forever homes for canines all across Manitoba.
Brady can catch any dog. He is the star running back with his hometown club the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Over his six seasons, he’s been the leagues rushing leader twice and was part of two Grey Cup winning teams. He was also the CFL’s most outstanding player in 2024.
Alex is equally impressive in her zeal to rescue as many dogs as possible. The relator will crawl under fences and sheds, as you’ll see in the pilot episode, to sack and tackle as many puppies as possible. Fetch this episode right here at brioux.tv: the podcast.
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I first met today’s guest, BC native Benjamin Ayres, in 2010 when he was co-starring with Corner Gas’s Fred Ewanuick on a little Canadian comedy called Dan for Mayor. Ben’s 110 IMDb credits go back even further and show him to be skilled at both comedy and drama with roles in such shot-in-Canada gems as Saving Hope, Less Than Kind, Family Law, Burden of Truth, Suits, and going way back, jPod.
Now he’s saddling up as a no-nonsense rancher in Hope Valley 1874, a prequel to the ever popular When Calls the Heart. Bethany Joy Lenz and Jill Hennessy are also along for the ride. The new series is streaming now on both Hallmark+ and the W Network. We get into the whole cowboy deal and spend a lot of time talking about the most important thing about being cast in a western – picking the right hat.
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In this special episode, we go beyond the scandal and into the storytelling of one of the most infamous moments in Olympic sports history with the cast of Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story.
Through candid interviews conducted at the red carpet preview, hear from Mark McKinney, Andrew Phung, Emma Hunter and other top Canadian sketch players who bring this audacious mocumentary to life. Also interviewed is writer/creator Andrew Q Farrell (The Office), co-stars Karen Robinson, Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor who plays preening American sprinter Carl Lewis, and even Ben Johnson himself, who spent more than 9:79 seconds talking to me.
Shamier Anderson (as Johnson), Ennis Esmer (as Johnson’s needle-happy sports doc), Ryan Bellville and Kristian Bruun also star.
The six-part series is streaming now at GameTV as well as on Paramount+.
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For over 300 episodes, Debi Drennan has been applying makeup to Yannick Bisson and all the leading actors on Murdoch Mysteries. She even works on bit players, such as, well, me. Twice.
With the series winding down its 19th season, Drennan looks back at her career as the head of makeup on the CBC hit series. She also hints that the season finale, set for Monday, April 13, sets up a nail-biter of a cliffhanger.
Before Murdoch, Drennan worked on several Canadian favourites, including Dragon's Den, Bomb Girls (which she co-created), This is Wonderland, and Due South. She won an Emmy working on the TV-movie Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. Her very first job in TV? Doing makeup on The Littlest Hobo -- and, yes, that included the dog!
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What’s up, doc? Well, for one thing, they are now showing classic Bugs Bunny cartoons on Turner Classic Movies.
I first saw these seven-minute miracles back in the 1960s on The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour. When I wanted to read more about them there were two guys who had the scoop: Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck. These two lifelong friends have been telling the story of Termite Terrace and other animation legends ever since.
Beck’s wonderful web site, Cartoon Research.com, is the place to get information on everything from Gertie the Dinosaur to Dino the Dinosaur and beyond. A professor at CalArts School of Film/Video, he has written 15 books on animation including “The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons” (2020).
He also shares some exciting news about a long-awaited book about a Warners legend that finally has a release date. Hear all about that as well as Beck’s daring rescue of a lost TV treasure from the 1950s on a very animated episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
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Seven hundred episodes of a Canadian TV series? Aside from Hockey Night in Canada, what could this be? Well, on Tuesday, March 3, CBC will air the 700th episode of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The satirical sketch series began way back in 1993. On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I speak with two of the current front five players -- Stacey McGunnigle and Chris Wilson. (Mark Critch, Trent McClellan and Aba Amuquandoh are the others.)
Over the past five seasons, Chris and Stacey been having great fun slipping under the skin of Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry; Pierre Poilievre and Karoline Leavitt; and Galen Weston and Pam Bondi, among many others. We had so much fun doing this episode we did it twice! (Well, that was mainly because I didn't record it the first time.) The good news is that this second version is twice as fun! Give it a listen here, or you can watch the video version of this episode over on YouTube.
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On a special mid-week episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, meet Tara Bosch. Like Monday's podcast guest Jay Klein, she is walking back into the Dragon's Den a Canadian success story.
Both came up with better ways to take sugar out of everyday snacks. Bosch, from Surrey, BC, had a sweet tooth but yearned for a healthier alternative. She started experimenting in her basement apartment kitchen, eventually selling her home made treats from the trunk of her car. The goodies were called SweetSnacks, tasty, low-sugar alternative candy that the Season 12 Dragon's Den judges couldn't resist. Four years after her pitch, Bosch sold her business for a jaw-dropping $360 million dollars!
Now she mentors other young women looking for early-stage capital through her initiative Bold Beginnings. She is also launching a new line of healthy fun foods under the brand name snackish.
Look for her, Klein, and three other returning "Full Circle Dragons" this Thursday night as well as March 5 on the two-part, 20th season finale of Dragon's Den (CBC, CBC Gem).
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Some of us just chew gum. While he was chewing it over, however, Jay Klein thought: how can I make gum better?
Klein is the founder and CEO of PÜR, a brand committed to making snacks better-for-you and still taste great and fun to chew.
Born in Florida, he moved to Toronto to study at York University and founded The PÜR Company in 2010. He took his sugar- and aspartame-free gum into the Dragon’s Den in 2014 (Season 9). Soon all the Dragons were chewing and chomping to deal.
Klein spun his business from one manufacturer and warehouse to a worldwide enterprise. PÜR has become the #1 selling aspartame-free gum in the world. Mints and popcorn are now part of the brand.
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, we talk about what a big deal this is to guys like me who have to watch their sugar intake. Watch for Klein Feb. 26 and March 5 when he and other Full Circle Dragons return to the Den to deal with a new generation of pitchers. It’s all part of the Season 20 two-part finale (CBC and CBC Gem).
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Who is that on the flight deck of the Starship Athena? Why it is none other than Raoul Bhaneja who has boldly gone on to wow audiences across Canada on stages as well as in feature films and television.
The Manchester born, Ottawa-raised actor-musician plays Chancellor Kelrec, head of the Star Fleet's War College, in Paramount +'s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Interviewed while finishing up production in Toronto on Season Two of the series, Bhaneja says he's having a blast acting opposite Oscar winner Holly Hunter, Emmy-winner Paul Giamatti and promising young Canadian Sandro Rosta, among others in the cast.
Hear Bhaneja turn his phasers on so-called critics such as Elon Musk and Stephen Miller, both whining about the multi-species, "woke" nature of the series. Their opinions are at odds not just with Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek, but also with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who deem it "Certified Fresh."
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The former Baronesses are back as Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill launch into Season Two of Small Achievable Goals (Tuesday nights on CBC; also streaming on demand on CBCGem).
The writer-producers play Kris and Julie, two women at different stages of peri-menopause and menopause, who talk about it on their peri-meno-podcast.
Hot topics include hot flashes, HRT's, and even cooling capes and collars. Also turning up the heat is a demanding King of Queens Studios boss played by Tamara Podemski (Reservation Dogs). Fellow Baronesse Aurora Brown guests this season, as does Jackie Richardson (Law & Order: Toronto). Jon Dore returns as Julie's husband Pete, who starts to lose his cool over the night sweats and brain fogs; Meanwhile, Kris has a new love interest.
Recorded in December at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto.
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Barbara Williams first media job was as a receptionist at the all-news radio station CKO. She quickly rose up the ranks, eventually becoming President of Shaw Media, COO of CORUS and for the past seven years Executive Vice President of CBC.
This month she retires, with former Paramount content licensing head Douglas Smith named CBC’s new EVP.
In this conversation, recorded in December at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto, Barb talks about the rewards and challenges of bringing a business approach to a culture institution. Did she know going in her CBC job would be as much about politics as programming?
“I thought I was prepared for how different it would be,” she says. "It was a big adjustment." Previous jobs were all bottom line driven. Williams found championing “public worth” values a very different leadership challenge.
Hear Barb on big issues such as the impact in Canada of multi-billion dollar takeovers of Big Media companies south of the border; the pressures of satisfying audiences now hooked on endless on-demand content; and the need, especially now, to open doors to more Canadian storytelling. Also: should the public network ditch advertising? (Spoiler alert: that would be no, sez Barb)
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In Part Two of my look at the return of Saint Pierre meet Robina Lord-Stafford. Not only does she have one of the coolest names in Canadian television, she is also, along with Allan Hawco, the co-creator of the CBC police series.
Plus she lives in the same town north of the GTA where I live, Orangeville, Ont. This podcast episode, therefore, was recorded right at my kitchen table -- a first.
Aspiring to write for television or currently in a writers’ room? Check out this conversation. Robina’s career has rocketed her up the ranks of players in the Canadian television community. Her first writing credits were on Frankie Drake Mysteries and Blood and Water, moving on to episodes of Hudson & Rex and Moonshine. Besides writing, she added producer credits on Pretty Hard Cases and Mary Murdoch before jumping to supervising producer on Wild Cards and now co-showrunner and executive producer status on Saint-Pierre.
Hear about the mentors who helped her up the ladder as well as a pet project she hopes to one day complete: a movie about an infamous relative who once flew the Jolly Roger as a Caribbean pirate -- and I don't mean a film pirate. It is all part of the story that is Robina Lord-Stafford.
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At the start of this conversation recorded before Christmas at the CBC broadcast centre in Toronto, Allan Hawco reminded me that I've been tailing him for 20 years -- back to the launch of Republic of Doyle in 2005.
Hawco and costar Josephine Jobert are back with 12 new episodes of Saint-Pierre, the highest-rated sophomore series on CBC. The police procedural is shot on location on a tiny part of France off the coast of Newfoundland. I keep asking Allan, what, did somebody steal another baguette? Is there really that much crime in Saint Pierre and Miquelon, an eight island archipelago, pop. 5,819? Mais qui, say the stars, with stories about international smuggling, among other things, based on real crimes.
This is the first half of a two-part conversation on Season Two of Saint Pierre. Next week, hear my interview with the co-creator of the series, Robina Lord-Stafford, who happens to be an Orangeville neighbour. Hear about her rapid rise up the ranks of Canadian content creators, from writing on Frankie Drake Mysteries and Moonshine (where she met Hawco) to work on Pretty Hard Cases, Wild Cards, and now Saint-Pierre.
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One actor/comedian I have had on my most sought-after list since this venture began in 2019 is my guest this week on brioux.tv: the podcast. Jonny Harris just happens to be a busy guy, working two CBC series at once. On Murdoch Mysteries, now in its 19th season, his character Constable Crabtree has been a fan favourite since the very beginning. His own series, Still Standing, starts its 11th season this Tuesday with Harris visiting the remote, desert-like terrain of the Osoyoos Indian Band in southern British Columbia.
At a time when all of Canada has its elbows up, Harris brings his folksy, community-first approach to towns across Canada trying to rebound from tough times. He visits St. Thomas, Ont., once a thriving auto centre. He heads to Acton, Ont., once worth the drive to visit the now defunct leather tannery.
Harris gets the entire town out for these TV showcases, and spreads good cheer and positive stories of rebirth. Along the way, he’s not above getting an elephant shaved into the back of his head. Murdoch Mysteries continues Mondays; Still Standing returns Tuesday, Jan. 6. Both are on CBC and CBC Gem.
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Did you hear about the lady lawyer who dropped her briefs and became a solicitor? No? Me neither but BC-born Kayla Wallace plays the kick-ass law shark on Landman, now streaming on Paramount+. The second season premiere of this Taylor Sheridan series was such a hit that a third season has already been ordered.
Landman stars Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris the titular Landman, the manager of a large Texas oil field. Sam Elliott plays his dad. Demi Moore plays his boss, overwhelmed after the death of her husband in (John Hamm). Andy Garcia plays the shady financier who launders drug money by bailing out oil companies. Tommy does not want his help but needs it, ane he'll need every trick that Wallace's savvy character, Rebecca, can throw at rivals looking to sue this oil enterprise into recievership.
If Wallace looks familiar she was a regular on When Calls the Heart before landing Landman. WCTH's Kevin McGarry is her husband. Attention all you Hearties and McGarries: the couple are expecting their first child in the new year.
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The year 2025 has certainly been a good year to stand up for Canada. Who better to turn that mission into a TV special than Rick Mercer?
The former This Hour has 22 Minutes and Rick Mercer Report firebrand returns Sunday, December 28, with Rick Mercer Stand Up for Canada. The hour-long comedy special, featuring fellow comics Sophie Buddle, Mayce Galoni and Julie Kim, was taped before a sold out crowd last fall in Saint John, New Brunswick. That show was part of a 20-city, cross Canada tour.
The CBC special opens with a song Mercer has used in comedy concerts for years – “Raise a Little Hell” by Trooper. On this podcast episode, Mercer tells how that association with the band led to him inducting them into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2023. We also speculate on the future of Montreal's Just for Laughs, and Mercer tells how he got former Prime Minister Jean Chretien to be his "voice of God" announcer for his string of comedy shows.
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Here is something I've been working on for a while -- a video podcast salute to a true TV pioneer: David Boreanaz, Sr. If you grew up in the '60s or '70s you may know him as Dave Thomas. No, not the SCTV comedy legend, but the host of Rocketship 7. Follow this link to blast off back to Mr. Beeper, Promo the Robot and the glory that was the space race. Buckle up for a nostaslgic ride back when TV shows flew through the air, on antennas, all the way to Canada from Buffalo's WKBW. My thanks again to David, a broadcaster and a gentleman who put kids first back when children's TV was a wild west fueled by cereal ads and imagination.
By all means listen to this podcast episode if you are traveling on foot or by car. For the full experience, however, check out the video experience which is more of a mini-documentary. See Dave the storyteller, ever telegenic even as he approaches his 90th birthday next Valentine's Day. There is also a short clip of Rocketship 7 towards the end -- a sad reminder that this is basically, like many early local children's TV shows, a lost series.
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Dick Van Dyke really has had the time of his life. Celebrate his centennial with three friends of the podcast: former New York Times TV critic Bill Carter, Dick Van Dyke Show expert and "Walnut Times" publisher David Van Deusen and Cinecon president and fellow film collector Stan Taffel. You'll also hear archival interviews with Van Dyke himself, original Van Dyke Show writer-producer Bill Persky, and a Canadian actress who guested on his later series, Diagnosis Murder, Claire Rankin (Son of a Critch). Enjoy this spoonful of sugar, then don't miss Van Dyke's 100th birthday salute December 12 at 8 pm on PBS's American Masters featuring Julie Andrews, Steve Martin, Conan O'Brien, Martin Short and others.
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Some actors are thrilled to land a role on a TV series that lasts six or 13 episodes. Then there are Melody Thomas Scott and Peter Bergman. As all soap fans know, they’ve starred for decades as Nikki Newman and Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless. The series is in its 52nd year on both CBS and Global.
Scott and Bergman, who were interviewed in Toronto this month, say the fact that these characters change all the time keeps things fresh.
Sometimes those changes include new actors being cast. This November sweeps, Nikki’s grandson Noah is bandaged up like a mummy after a car accident. When the bandages come off – poof! – there’s a new actor (Lucas Adams) to go with the new face.
Says Bergman, “It’s a miracle to me that the audience will buy this.” On the other hand, as he says, they bought it when Bergman replaced Terry Lester as Jack Abbott 36 years ago – and they’ve been buying it ever since.
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Who is this lawyer writing and producing hit medical dramas? He is David Shore, who got his start in Canada writing for Traders before crossing the border as a writer-producer on The Practice and Law & Order. Besides his hits he was involved with a few great misses, including EZ Streets, a short-lived series that was HBO before HBO, and two with great lead actors, Hack and Sneaky Pete.
This coming October 30 and November first and second he is being honoured in his hometown of London, Ontario, with the Forest City Film Festival’s lifetime achievement award. The Emmy and Peabody award-winner will be celebrated at a Hollywood comes to London reception as well as screenings of the pilot episodes of House and The Good Doctor.
I met Shore years ago with other critics when we toured the impressive hospital set of House in Los Angeles and found him to be a very welcoming host. On this week’s episode of brioux.tv: the podcast he makes an equally impressive guest.
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Twelve years after their storyline wrapped on NCIS, Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly have reunited as their crowd-pleasing characters on NCIS: Tony & Ziva. As executive producers of this series, the two actors had a say as to where this series would be shot, and they picked Europe -- smart move if you're going to be spending six months on the job. No wonder the actors, interviewed over zoom in Toronto, are so relaxed and friendly. Hear how de Pablo stepped up in fight scenes after two doubles went down. Thrill as Weatherly confesses to doing his own love scenes. Watch the finale of the ten episode first season now at Paramount+, with the finale premiering Thursday, October 23. Hear them now on brioux.tv: the podcast -- or watch the interview on YouTube here.
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Ryan Reynolds said he just didn't want to live in a world without a John Candy documentary. So he produced one, and it's a beauty. "John Candy: I Like Me" premieres Friday, October 9 on Prime Video. Colin Hanks -- whose dad Tom Hanks starred opposite Candy in 1984's "Splash," directs. Hear from both Reynolds and Hanks, along with, in an exclusive conversation, John Candy's children Jennifer Sullivan Candy and Chris Candy. It is all in this special episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, available for the first time in both audio and full video versions. Also featured in the documentary: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Conan O'Brien, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Steve Martin and Mel Brooks.
To see the video version of this episode, follow this link to the brioux.tv: the podcast YouTube page: https://youtu.be/DS42nfrEJvE
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Former New York Times television columnist and bestselling author Bill Carter joins me for a wide open discussion about the White House attack on late night talk show hosts. Me and Bill celebrate Kimmel, more than ever our hero for going Brooklyn-rogue and standing up to bullies Donald Trump and his FCC chairman Brendan Carr. Carter talks about going backstage during Kimmel's week of shows in New York, riffing on fake Gavin Newsom (Seth Meyers brother Josh), those adorable Three Tonys, and a late night triumph so robust it made Carter nostalgic for the smart silliness of Conan O'Brien at his best. Carter, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration on-line, does not hold back so we cut out the part of thre conversation that might have gotten him thrown into the Florida alligator prison. Everything else remains, so fasten your seatbelts, sit back and enjoy a free speakin' episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
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Have you ever made a bucket list of places around the world you'd like to visit? Eugene Levy did for Season Three of The Reluctant Traveler, streaming now on AppleTV+.
This season finds him flying to Mexico, India, Vienna, Ireland, Vancouver, Louisianna, Korea and even London. His tour guide in The UK was none other than The Prince of Wales.
“I was really taken aback with how at ease he made me feel.” said Levy.
The four-time Emmy award winner also got the royal treatment during the recent Toronto International Film Festival, where two documentaries he was appearing in were showcased. One salutes his old SCTV pal John Candy and the other looks back at the Toronto production of Godspell and the crazy convergence of young comedic talent who energed from that musical. Hear Levy's take on traveling abroad as well as back in time as this week's guest on brioux.tv: the podcast.
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In the '60s, Dini Petty broke ground with Toronto radio station CKEY as Canada's first female traffic reporter to fly solo in a helicopter. After 5,000 hours in the air she landed her pink chopper and went on to a stellar career as a news anchor at Citytv and as a talk show host at CFTO’s The Dini Petty Show.
Now, at age 80, she’s back with Trailblazing Talks with Dini Petty, a one-hour special premiering Monday, Oct. 13 on The News Forum Network (check Bell, Rogers, Shaw and Telus channel listings). The venture has already been greenlit to go to series.
“At this point in my life, I am drawn to deeper conversations about resilience, courage, and the true cost of leadership,” says Petty, adding, “it is never too late to step forward with purpose.”
Petty welcomes first guests actress Tonya Williams (The Young and the Restless) and three-time Olympic gold medalist and later senator Marnie McBean. Petty’s own story, however, sets the trailblazing bar high. Listen as she recounts the ten times so far she feels she has defied death! All this week on brioux.tv: the podcast.
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The Blue Ant founder and CEO and former Alliance Atlantis chief rang the bell earlier this month on the Toronto Stock Exchange. His company's reverse takeover of Boat Rocker delivered more Canadian content -- including top-rated The Amazing Race Canada -- to a diverse portfolio MacMillan already successfully shops around the world.
You'd think he'd be exhausted from counting all that money he made from the sale of his half of the CSI franchise and the rest of his Alliance Atlantis assets in 2007. Instead, MacMillan is once again ramping up at a time when many other Canadian media companies are holding on at best. He's doing it by feasting on Fast Channels and sharing the Love Nature. What makes him know when to zig when others zag? All that and more in a down-to-business episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
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Where do documentary filmmakers go to find that historic clip or interview nobody else has? Many turn to the CBC Archives in Toronto.
The vast, climate controlled vaults at the CBC Broadcast Centre are home to approximately 1.5 million hours of digitized material. Those restored holdings are drawn from over 90,000 cans of film, 215,000 videos and over 270,000 audio assets. Classic CBC shows such as The Friendly Giant, This Hour Has 7 Days, and Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts dating back to 1952 are among the holdings.
Two who oversee the operation are Dan Dimopoulos, Senior Manager, Content Lifecycle, and Ann Cox, Senior Manager, Library Services. They make sure these rare gems are fully restored and searchable for filmmakers from around the world.
Every month, thousands of hours of footage are retrieved for reuse. For example, the makers of the Netflix feature “Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan” found a mid- ‘60s interview with the variety show host conducted by Patrick Watson. Executive producer Margo Precht Speciale says it is the best interview her grandfather ever gave.
Other docs recently featured at the Toronto International Film Festival, including those celebrating the Toronto production of Godspell, Lilithfair and “Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert,” all raided the CBC Archives.
I admit, as a film collector myself, I kinda nerded out talking to Dan and Ann. Listen to us now at brioux.tv: the podcast.
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If you are a fan of comedy, film, television, movies, music, or even Bazooka Joe bubble gum jokes, join me this week in conversation with Frank Santopadre.
For over eight years and 600 episodes he brought comedian Gilbert Gottfied in like a tugboat to harbour in the truly amazing Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal podcast. Santopadre, as you’ll hear, just didn’t become the George Fenneman to Gottfried’s Groucho Marx by sitting around DeSota dealerships. His career as a joke writer for hire (for everyone from Bill Murray to Martin Short to Sarah Silverman to Meryl Streep to even the Boston Red Socks) led him to becoming an Emmy award-winning writer-producer on The View.
He’s just launched his own podcast, Fun For All Ages. Now you can hear celebrities in the mix with experts in various fields talking about their favourite obsessions. Did you know that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog master and Conan O’Brien wit Robert Smiegel owes much of his comedic perspective to Peanuts’ creator Charles Schultz? Just one example of the fun facts confirmed on this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
This is Part 1 of 2 with Frank; both posting on the same day.
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If you've already listened to Part 1 of my conversation with writer-producer-podcaster Frank Santopadre, you just know there was more to explore. This is the second half of our terrific conversation.
Here the focus is more on life after Gilbert Gottfried and Frank's eventual decision to create an entirely new podcast that would be Fun Fr All Ages.
If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, get back in line! Both episodes are now live and in full colour.
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I went into the vault this week to create a 3-Pack of favourite TV stars from the '60s. Two are from interviews conducted in 1997 at a Hollywood Collectors autograph show.
First up is Dawn Wells (Mary Ann), who was signing autographs with her old Gilligan's Island pal Russell Johnson (the professor). Wells was one of the stars who died (at 82) during the worst of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
The second interview is with Bob May. Bob Who? He was the guy who for three seasons was stuffed inside the robot suit on Lost in Space. May, who died at 69 in 2009, talks about the time he was nearly electrocuted in that tin can. Danger Will Robinson!
Behind Door No. 3 is Monty Hall, the co-creator and long time host of Let's Make a Deal. Hall was a spry 91 when I spoke with him in 2013 as he was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the game show. He passed away at 96 in 2017.
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Back in the 1950s and '60s, every Sunday night, families would gather around their living room TV and watch The Ed Sullivan Show.
The variety hour ran 23 seasons, ending 54 years ago in 1971. Now streaming on Netflix, the documentary Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan is not just another "best of" blast of nostalgia. It recognizes Sullivan as a social game-changer. As network television's top-rated variety showman throughtout the 1950s and '60s he introduced Black entertainers into living rooms across North America.
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I speak with Sullivan's granddaughter and the driving producer of the documentary, Margo Precht Speciale. She spent 10 years lining up interviews with Harry Belafonte, Dionne Warwick, Smokey Robinson and others, as well as clips from the CBS variety hour featuring everyone from Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley, Ike & Tina Turner, James Brown, Nat King Cole, Gladys Knight, The Supremes, Billy Preston and many others.
Please join us for a "really big shew!"
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Meet the star of the new series Pretty Blind. As described in her AMI-tv bio, Jennie Bovard is a running, beer-drinking, thirtysomething with albinism. She loves making people laugh and is very involved in accessible sport and recreation opportunities in her community. She has lived with partial sight all her life, has a diploma in film and tv production, and lives in Halifax.
She’s been recording a podcast for several years called Low Vision Moments where she talks about things that have happened to her as a partially sighted person … such as that time she physically distanced herself from a post because she thought it was a person. I think we’ve all been there with that one.
Showrunner Mark Forward and Jonathan Torrens – two cast members who worked together for several years on Mr. d – spun her stories into a six-episode first season of Pretty Blind, which premieres July 8 on AMI.
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Here is why Jonathan Torrens is the perfect Canada Day Weekend podcast guest:
As a producer, he is behind two new Canadian TV comedies: Pretty Blind, starring Jennie Bovard as a legally blind but supremely independent library worker (premiering July 8 on AMI); and 0-to-60 Driving Academy, steering headlong into a second season on Bell Fibe.
Then there are his IMDb credits. The PEI native has worked on the following CanCon favourites: Trailer Park Boys (as rapper J-Roc), Mr. d; Letterkenny and Shoresy; This Hour Has 22 Minutes; Wipeout Canada; Call Me Fitz; Moonshine; Degrassi: The Next Generation and The Royal Canadian Air Farce.
Before all that, he got his start at CBC as a teenager as host of Street Cents, which led to his own shows, Jonovision, and Jonathan Cross's Canada.
Had he been born sooner he also would have been on The Beachcombers and The Littlest Hobo. Join us for the ultimate deep dive into CanCon TV.
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In the digital age, the question is not only which tools are still available to support Canadian content production but which ones are still relevant. One with an insider's perspective is Pat Ferns, author of "The Big Picture: A Personal History of Independent Television Production in Canada" (Sutherland House). Ferns began his career with a formative stint at CBC, created award-winning series and documentaries as an independant producer and helped reform the Canadian television funding process. He later helped put the Banff World Media Festival on its feet. At a time when, it can be argued, Canada's story matters more than ever, Ferns wades into the battlefield between the CRTC and the new media giants of content distribution. Can we marry Canadian stories with global reach? That and more with Order of Canada member Pat Ferns, this week's insightful guest on brioux.tv: the podcast.
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By far, the biggest name in TV sitcoms this century has been Chuck Lorre.
This June, when I saw that he was going to be a keynote speaker at the Banff World Media Festival, I thought what the hell, put in a request for a podcast interview. So glad I did, because on this episode, we talk about the glory that is The Kominsky Method, Big Bang's Barenaked Ladies theme song, his take on The Sopranos finale, and his latest project -- a Netflix sitcom starring Leanne Morgan.
On a personal note, I tell him how Bob Hearts Abishola was a big winner with Lucia, my wife Sandra's Italian-born mother. Lorre wanted that series to salute the immigrant achievement in America -- a message that could not be more relevant today.
I even put Lorre on the spot by asking what he thought would be the perfect Canadian TV sitcom. Hear his three word answer and so much more, on a memorable episode.
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Jason Ritter is my guest this week on brioux.tv: the podcast. I spoke with the 45-year-old actor recently at the Corus Entertainment Upfront in Toronto. Ritter is so thrilled to be on Matlock -- last season's biggest rookie hit on both Global in Canada and CBS in the US -- that he's been dancing up a storm on TikTok.
We talk about that, working with Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, his famous dad John Ritter, his famous granddad Tex Ritter and what it's like being a third generation player in the Hollywood film industry.
Playing his dad on the series is another son of a famous actor, Beau Bridges. (His dad, Lloyd Bridges was in both the '60s series Sea Hunt and the 1980 comedy "Airplane!").
While the pilot for Matlock was shot in Toronto, the rest of the series is one of the few network shows currently produced in Los Angeles.
Ritter also talks about the joys of parenthood. He and his New Zealand-born actress wife Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets) have a young daughter.
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This 200th episode of brioux.tv: the podcast features a SCTV original who remains one of my favourite people to interview -- Dave Thomas. On this, our third podcast conversation, Thomas talks about his recent trip to Kyiv, a city where drone strikes and missle attacks from Russia have created a living hell for Ukrainians at war.
Thomas talks all about his decision to fly to Ukraine and answer a friend's call to help raise awareness and money for the cause. He was accompanied by a small film crew and ventured into territories invaded and claimed by Russia. On one mission the soldiers he was with helped bring Ukrainian infants and elderly citizens back from enemy hands.
Thomas even found time to check out a Ukrainian comedy club. There were no photos of Yakoff Smirnov on the wall. Thomas is planning a documentary about his 10-day, first hand account.
This is about as far removed as you can get from Thomas' old days spoofing Russian television on SCTV's hilarious "CCCP1" episode. Thomas's goal is to help raise donations for Ukrainian's under fire. Money goes to provide medical aid, training and vehicles for defence. Give now and qualify for a charitable tax receipt. Donate to the Ukrainian Freedom Fund at ukrfreedomfund.org.
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People who work television's morning shift could be forgiven for being a tad grumpy. That's never the case with Tim Bolen, who recently made the leap from co-hosting Morning Live on Hamilton's CHCH to pairing with Dina Pugliese on Citytv's national franchise Breakfast Television.
Add living in Toronto when he was on TV in Hamilton and now living in Hamilton and inching through traffic hell in Toronto and you have basically the seven tasks of Hercules. Or is it a genius move since he's basically commuting to work in the dead of night?
In any event, Bolen seems to bound into work, throwing himself into community events coverage and apron-ing up for hours of egg scrambling. Start your day with Tim and Dina and listen now as he wakes things up as my guest on brioux.tv: the podcast.
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My guest this episode is an executive producer who helped guide Schitt’s Creek to a canoe full of Emmy and CSA awards. He’s currently one of the executive producers on another wonderful sitcom, Son of a Critch, shockingly ignored -- nomination wise -- at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards.
Yes, it is Andrew Barnsley and he's just back from France where he attended Series Mania, an industry marketplace where stakeholders gather to discuss where this crazy business is all heading. These are challenging times not just for Canadian media companies but also studios trying to sell shows. Are half hours dead? Does Rogers have any money for scripted fare after that $11 billion NHL deal; and will a wall be built around the US market in this scary new age of tariffs? As Andrew said just before we started recording, “It’s a great time to be alive, right?”
As president of the Toronto Film School, Barnsley also talks about the challenges facing students keen on becoming the next generation of Canadian storytellers. Listen and learn!
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Bummed your invitation to Martin Short's cottage in the Muskokas was evidently lost in the mail? Save yourself the long drive and listen to this week's episode of brioux.tv: the podcast. One of my favourite guests, filmmaker Mitch Azaria, is back with his sixth in an annual series exploring the province of Ontario: Tripping The Muskoka Lakes. We talk all about the new documentary, premiering April 20 on TV Ontario and also streaming (even earlier) on TVOdocs.org and at TVO's YouTube channel.
This latest three hour, immersive, real-time documentary invites viewers to cruise along in a made-in-Muskoka Duke runabout, a mahogany classic converted to electric power. From the passenger seat you'll cruise past incredible boat houses along "Millionaires" and "Billionaires" row. Reel in a boatload of pop up info bites and dive under the water to visit an actual shipwreck. Travel tariff free from your own living room. All aboard!
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Jay Leno is Jay-walking his way back to Canada. The former Tonight Show host, who turns 75 in May, will join fellow late night rival Arsenio Hall as comedy headliners May 2 at Casino Rama near Orillia, Ont.
In an exclusive brioux.tv: the podcast interview, presented in partnership with latenighter.com, Leno says he was hesitant about accepting the booking given all the "51st State" and Tariff talk emanating from the White House.
"I almost wasn't going to do these dates," Leno says, "because I didn't want to be the ugly American coming in."
Don't worry about it I tell Leno -- we can use the jokes. The comedy road warrior has had to tweak his act just to straddle divided states audiences. That is working for him so far. "Ever since I took politics out of my act, ticket sales are up 20 or 30 per cent."
Leno also talks about how, back in the war for late night days, things weren't always so cozy between him and Arsenio. We touch on those nasty accidents Leno suffered these past few years, including a serious car fire which forced him to seek "a face guy." There is plenty of car talk (he's still hosting Jay's Garage on MSNBC) and we find out his take on the current late night landscape.
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People of Comedy: Celebrating 30 Years of the Nubian Show starts streaming April 9 on Crave. It features this week's guest on brioux.tv: the podcast and one of the true iron men of the Toronto comedy club scene: Kenny Robinson. Since 1983, he's been performing at YukYuks as well as at Just For Laughs and other Canadian comedy venues. Close to 30 years ago, he launched The Nubian Comedy Revue, a showcase for BIPOC entertainers which is performed on the last Sunday of every month at YukYuks in Toronto.
The documentary features several performers who see The Nubian Show as the Def Jam of Canadian comedy. Among them are Russell Peters (the "Brown Sinatra," as Robinson calls him), Hassan Phills, Crystal Ferrier, Marito Lopez and Zambrina Douglas.
Listen as Robinson, who is also the president of the Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame, reminisces about some of his comedy heroes and others he met along the way.
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These days it is not unusual for fans to wait over a year for a second season of their favourite series. But five years??
That is the situation for When Hope Calls, the spinoff to the popular period piece drama When Calls the Heart. The shot in Ontario series returns April 6 on Super Channel Heart & Home in Canada and on Great American Family in the United States.
A lot has changed in five years including the casting of the two leads. The two Canadians at the heart of the series now are Cindy Busby (best known for several seasons of Heartland) and Christopher Russell, my guests this week on brioux.tv: the podcast. Busby plays Nora, a lawyer who travels by stage coach to the western Canadian town of Brookfield. Russell plays the new mountie in town, Michael "Fearless" Fletcher.
Before you can say "1916," a pioneer romance ensues.
Returning to the series is Wendy Crewson as no-nonsense lady rancher Tess Stewart. The first new episode will also feature Morgan Kohan -- who has moved on to Sullivan's Crossing -- as Lillian Walsh. Busby and Russell, who first met a decade ago on the set of one of their many Christmas TV-movies, explain how they both got called to When Hope Calls.
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For this episode we go back into the vault for an interview conducted ten years ago with Joe Clokey. He was the son of the man who created and animated Gumby, the most bendable children's TV character ever. Joe grew up in California as "Gumby's little brother," watching his dad and mom stamp out dozens of brightly coloured characters out of plastercine in creating a unique world of stop-animation wonder.
TV audiences first saw Gumby on a short film tested during a broadcast of NBC's The Howdy Doody Show in 1955. That led to a full season order the next year, extended about once a decade on various networks into the '60s, '70s and '80s.
Clokey tells story after story about how the character evolved, who did the voices and even details about the theme song. It was his big sister and a friend singing, "He was once a little green slab of clay..." to a tune composed by a prominant jazz musician. The music played millions of times for a paltry one-time fee. Even Clokey lost out when a spinoff merchandising deal made a fortune -- not for him, but for the toy company.
We also talk about Clokey's other famous series, Davey and Goliath, a collection of suburban kiddie parables bankrolled by the Lutheren church. I saw both shows daily as a lad while watching Rocketship 7 and Commander Tom as they beamed across Lake Ontario from Buffalo, N.Y., on WKBW.
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Ali Weinstein is the writer/producer/director behind "Your Tomorrow," a look at Ontario Place the summer before it was shut down after 52 years. For over five decades a 155-acre Toronto waterfront sanctuary, it is being radically redeveloped. Gone are 850 West Island trees. Instead we get a spa with a killer view of Cinesphere.
In a moving, observational documentary,Weinstein captures the place in its final days as a full-on family retreat. Even after falling into disrepair, it was still treasured as a bird sanctuary and even a beach.
The documentary is rather personal for me. As a student, I worked there as a bus boy for three summers, 1972, '73 and '74. Out the front door of the West Island's Blockhouse restaurant, between shifts clearing tables for two dollars an hour, I watched the CN Tower rise above the Toronto skyline.
It never seemed possible back in those halcyon days of summer that Ontario Place would wind up, fifty years later, looking like an abandoned mall. Weinstein's documentary, shot mainly during the park's last active summer of 2023, throws a bright light on that reality.
Was Ontario Place purposefully left to rot? Hear Weinstein on that and the making of this doc, which premieres on TVO March 23 and streams on TVODoc starting March 21.
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Podcasts were invented for guests such as Malcolm McDowell. He is a smart, funny, generous man and as terrific as ever as Pop on CBC's Son of a Critch.
This conversation took place last summer in St. John’s, Nfld., in McDowell’s trailer which was parked outside the Bella Vista banquet hall. It had been an exciting 24 hours with the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau -- who was down the street trying in vain to save his job at the annual Regatta -- stopping by to say hello to the cast and crew.
Back in August, few suspected how Trudeau’s fortunes might change in six months. Wait till you hear McDowell’s take on Trudeau as well as the PM's mother Margaret whom McDowell first met 50 years earlier in London.
We touch on some of the actor's past performances in films such as “Clockwork Orange," “Caligula” and too many others to mention. We start off talking about a few of his past podcast hosts, one he loved and another not so much.
McDowell made sure I was offered a cup of English breakfast tea (milk; no sugar) and we were off to the races. Pour yourself one now and listen in.
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Two of the four Baroness Von Sketch Show players, Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill, are back with a new CBC series -- and it's a period piece!
The series is called Small Achievable Goals and it is about two women in midlife encountering all of the joys of menopause. Hot flashes, mood swings, homicidal trendencies and more.
Now, you can't swing a tampon in daytime TV without Drew Barrymore or Oprah menopausing for station identification. Even in primetime this has come up before. Remember that episode of The Golden Girls? Where Blanche thought she might be pregnant? That episode was called, "End of the Curse."
Well, Whalen and MacNeill wage war on the curse. Helping is a top Canadian comedy cast including Jon Dore (The Lake), Peter McKeleghan (Workin' Moms), Tricia Black (Pretty Hard Cases) and Paul Braunstein (Shelved). The two main characters are podcasters, so right there, I have a rooting interest. The eight episode series airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET on CBC and CBCGem.
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Claire Rankin says she's waited "a really long time...to land something like this."
The PEI native is talking about her role as Mary on Son of a Critch. How she landed the role -- after one of those remote zoom call auditions -- is just one of the stories she shares on this hour-long podcast.
Season Four finds Mary -- and Rankin -- out of the kitchen and in the thick of it. On this Tuesday's episode (CBC, CBCGem), Mary has a mid-life crisis. In a few weeks, she's going back to school. Later, she'll be getting back in touch with her beauty pageant roots.
The challenges are all welcome for this versatile actress who began her stage career at Stratford performing in Shakespean classics such as Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest.
During her Hollwood years, Rankin found gest starring roles in everything from House, Monk and Ally McBeal to The Drew Carey Show.
Those shows were all more fun and less stressful than one of her first LA jobs opposite a Hollywood legend, a "Wish" she wishes she had never made.
Way more fun was working opposite Dick Van Dyke on Diagnosis Murder, especially getting a chance to sing with the TV legend between takes.
Get to know Claire Rankin, this week on brioux.tv: the podcast.
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Saturday Night Live is celebrating the big 5-0. Who better to put it in perspective than the Canadian writer who was there at the start.
On this special presentation from brioux.tv: the podcast and LateNighter, Rosie Shuster tells how it all began. She was born with a funny bone as the daughter of Frank Shuster (half of the comedy team of Wayne & Shuster). She meets Lorne Michaels at junior high, he falls for Rosie, and Lorne then soaks up every showbiz lesson he can from her dad.
Together with their Toronto school chum Howard Shore, all three land at 30 Rock in New York, assemble the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, put together the next generation of comedy writers (including Rosie) and create the greatest live TV comedy-music showcase ever.
Shuster talks about the show that came before, CBC's Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour; writing for Gilda Radner (a joy) and John Belushi (a struggle), getting props from her proud poppa, and her on-again, off-again marriage to Michaels.
But will she get a dress in time for two galas in New York, including the three hour SNL50: The Anniversary Special as well as the hour-long red carpet show? Tune in Sunday, Feb. 16, on NBC and Global to find out.
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OK, Hearties, here he is, Jack Wagner who plays Bill Avery on When Calls the Heart. The former soap star has played the sheriff-turned-judge character for 12 seasons on the Langley, BC-based Hallmark and Super Channel series.
As viewers will see on the Saturday, Feb. 8 episode, Avery will be re-introduced to Georgie McGill, played by special guest star Melissa Gilbert whose credits date all the way back to her child star days on Little House on the Prairie.
'Bout time Avery got in on the romance on this series, says Wagner, a veteran of several soaps, including General Hospital, The Bold and The Beautiful and Santa Barbara. He also played a romantic lead on Aaron Spelling's frothy primetime serial Melrose Place.
All this and the guy is a scratch golfer, the only non-professional athlete winner of a major pro-am tournament. Listen for his story about golfing with Sean Connery. We also talk about his chart-topping mid-'80s hit "All I Need," his previous encounter with Gilbert (both were on Dancing with the Stars) and his theory as to why When Calls the Heart is the perfect show for 2025.
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If ever we needed some candid talk from Rick Mercer, we need it now. The CBC Hall of Famer didn't hold back when I spoke with him last summer in St. John's on the set of Son of a Critch. The native son plays Mark Sr.'s new VOCM radio station boss on the CBC sitcom. Catch the episode this Tuesday (also on CBCGem).
Mercer was delighted to be back before many familiar faces among the crew. He is, of course, an original alumni of Mark Critch's other series, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
After traveling across Canada last year doing stand up shows with his friend Jann Arden, Mercer questions whether the public broadcaster has lost its way at the worst possible time. He notes how Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's oft-stated goal to cut the CBC appropriation now draws applause breaks even on the East Coast.
Hear more frank talk from one of Canada's most popular entertainers as he returns to brioux.tv: the podcast.
SPECIAL ALERT: That bearded guy glimpsed in the background Tuesday in the bar scene with Critch and Mercer? The guy trying hard not to act? Yup, guilty as charged. Don't blink.
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This episode is the second to feature a cast member from Season 4 of Son of a Critch: none other than the son himself, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth.
Ainsworth, of course, plays young Mark Critch, circa 1990, on the CBC sitcom. The episode was recorded last summer on location in St. John's, Nfld. Ainsworth was shooting a scene on a residential street closed off for the production. Also there was Sophia Powers, who plays Mark's girlfriend Fox.
The two are trying to navigate high school this season, with scenes shot right in series' co-creator Mark Critch's old high school in St. John's.
It is fun to hear Ainsworth speak in his own lilting Liverpudlian tongue during this interview. He and his famous co-star, the great Malcolm McDowell, are often at the Duke of Duckworth, cheering on their favourite football club.
Ainsworth also talks about his upcoming feature film "Everything's Going to Be Great" which costars Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney.
Special note: at the end of this episode, listen for a tribute to one of my high school pals, Stephen Dudley. I recently learned that this brilliant pianist, whose music can be heard on most of these episodes, passed away late last December. Here, in a cassette recording made exactly 50 years ago, he gifts a folk night crowd with one of his own compositions. Stephen was 67.
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Monday January 20 is inauguration day in the US. So everybody raise your right hand, and for those listening here at home, hang onto those Canadian passports.
A dozen years ago The Donald was just another tanned game show host when I interviewed him in his 26th floor office at Trump Tower in New York. Now I've reached into the vault and fired up the time machine to bring you a conversation about TV, the world in general and why he feels both always need a bad guy.
The Apprentice host went directly into his signature charm offensive, saying he had checked me out with his friends at NBC who allegedly told him if he spoke with one reporter from Canada, I was “the guy.” (The same line he used on Elon Musk.)
Being played like this was a ton of fun, but that was then. Who could have known that this former real estate hustler would be a two-term US president and be seen by some as one of the most dangerous men on the planet?
Tune in to hear about The Apprentice, the late Joan Rivers (“she’s tough”), David Letterman (“great guy”), the Canadian economy at the time ("your banks were smart") and the war in Afghanistan (“a mess”).
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The second season of the slick crime series Allegiance begins January 15 on CBC and CBC Gem. The shot-in-Surrey, B.C., drama stars Supinder Wraich (Sort Of), Enrico Colantoni and Samer Salem. I spoke with all three in Toronto at the CBC Winter Media Launch in December.
Wraich plays Sabrina Sohal, a promising rookie police officer who fights to serve her hometown. Rico is the seasoned cop who mentors her past the hurdles of a flawed justice system.
In Season Two, Sohal graduates to the Serious Crimes Unit and has six months to prove she's got what it takes to be a detective. She's paired in that task with a more experienced detective, played by series newcomer Salem.
All three take part in this chatty podcast episode, taped live at CBC's Broadcast Centre in downtown Toronto. The discussion ranges from immigration and cultural clashes, fellow co-star David Cubitt (whom they all praise) and even which cast member caused the most outtakes.
No man is an island. Allan Hawco's new series, however, is shot and set on an archipelago of eight islands represented by the French government off the coast of Newfoundland.
Hawco, who played a detective on Republic of Doyle and was also on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, plays Donny "Fitz" Fitzpatrick. He's a cop who gets too nosy about police secrets and is therefore banished to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. There he is paired with local police officer Geneviève "Arch" Archambault (Joséphine Jobert from Death in Paradise). Sparks fly and plot lines ensue.
Hawco talks about creating the series with Robina Lord-Stafford and Perry Chaffe, and starting a TV production base pretty much from scratch with Saint-Pierre -- an even bigger challenge than getting Doyle off the ground years ago in Newfoundland. James Purefoy also stars in Saint-Pierre, which airs Monday nights after Murdoch Mysteries on CBC and CBC Gem.
This Hour has, well, not just 22 Minutes but a full hour as I catch up with Mark Critch, this week's guest on brioux.tv: the podcast.
The conversation was taped last summer in St. John's, Nfld., during production on the fourth season of Son of a Critch (returning Tuesday, Jan. 7 on CBC and CBC Gem). What a trip that was, including a visit from a guy who was once Critch's snowboard instructor -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Now both men are going downhill this winter!
Speaking of which, we also talk about Critch and the 22 Minutes cast tackling an hour-long New Year's Eve special this Tuesday, Dec. 31, at 8 p.m. ET on CBC.
As for Son of a Critch, look for it to be an emotional season. Young Mark (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) is off to high school, with scenes shot right in Critch's old alma mater. In fact, so much of Season Four is pulled from Critch's past, he was literally able to show the other actors video he shot in 1990 before certain scenes were shot.
All this and the latest Malcolm McDowell stories in a sweet and fun, on-location episode.
Genevieve Mushaluk, a 33-year-old corporate lawyer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, had her torch snuffed on last week’s two-hour, second-last episode of Survivor. Picked as the final member of the jury, she’ll be in LA watching the finale with the rest of the castaways when the season ends December 18 on CBS and Global.
Did she see her elimination coming? Does she have any regrets? Will she ever eat rice again? And what about all those snakes and spiders??
Mushaluk tells all in this shorter than usual episode of brioux.tv the podcast. Here she is, a true Canadian Survivor.
My guest this week has made over three dozen made for television movies, She also headlined Hallmark’s Aurora Teagarden series. Before that, as a child star, she was part of the long-running TGIF family series, Full House, as well as its streaming sequel, Fuller House.
Of course I’m talking about Candace Cameron Bure. In 2022, she broke away from Hallmark and joined the Great American Family network. There she is not just one of its busiest stars, she is also a very hands-on Chief Content Officer, making sure
these films touch on issues of faith and belief as well as on romance.
Many of these films are shot in Canada, including two premiering this month on Super Channel Heart & Home. “A Christmas Less Traveled” (Tuesday, Dec. 17) pairs her with Edmonton-born Eric Johnson, while another Canadian, Cameron Mathison, stars with Cameron Bure in "Home Sweet Christmas” (Monday, Dec. 23).
If all that isn’t Canadian enough, the California native is also married to a hockey player: former Canadiens and Flames sniper Valerie Bure. Hear her on all this and more this week on Brioux.tv: the podcast.
If you work in this industry you know how hard it is to keep ahead in a world that always seems to be pivoting. Streaming, fast channels, multi-platform media brands – who can keep up?
Well, one fella is Jamie Schouela, President, Global Channels and Media at Blue Ant Media.
I caught up with Jamie a few weeks ago in Toronto when I was asked to moderate a CTAM panel on the future of the industry from a cable perspective. He leads the strategic direction and operations for the company's streaming and linear networks, as well as digital, print and consumer event properties. The companies' brands include Love Nature, BBC Earth, T+E, Makeful, HauntTV, Cottage Life and many more.
He's also busy spreading Blue Ant content around the world. Here he is, one of the good guys, Jamie Schouela.
As we head into another frigid Canadian winter we bring you a podcast about a series that is set and shot in the hottest part of Australia. The series is called Troppo, a term used in north Queensland that means going mad from the heat.
Troppo is based on the best selling novel from Candice Fox titled Crimson Lake and it is about a disgraced American ex-cop played by Thomas Jane (HBO's Hung) hired to help an Australian private investigator. They are teamed together on murder cases in far north Queensland.
The actress playing the PI is Nicole Chamoun and we reached her half way around the world this week in Australia via a zoom call. Seasons One and Two of Troppo are streaming now in Canada on Super Channel.
After 31 years as host of The Fifth Estate, plus another decade winning Emmys for CBS and NBC News, award-winning investigative journalist Bob McKeown is ready to retire.
The Ottawa native never shied away from his assignments, especially when it came to reporting on football and head injuries. Back in the '70s, he was a CFL all-star centre for the Ottawa Rough Riders. He is without a doubt the only three-time recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award to have also won a Grey Cup.
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, the 74-year-old talks about how he lined up opposite the best the CFL and American college football had to offer. That he later went head-to-head with Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and even Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom host Marlin Perkins only added to his legend.
Then there's the time he got bitten by a shark! Sink your teeth into the whole story on this story-packed podcast episode. Then see the highlights as part of The Fifth Estate: 50 Years of Truth, premiering Friday, November 29 on CBC and CBC Gem.
Tyler and Jordie Schwartz started their business of selling retro toys and gifts in 2007 as the Canadian Leg Lamp Company. The idea came after shooting their fan film “Road Trip for Ralphie,” an homage to the kid from the 1983 classic, “A Christmas Story.”
Next they introduced Moose Mugs from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (1989). Seventeen years later, they’ve branched out to all kinds of retro goodies, including toys, candy, books, games, ugly sweaters and much more.
You’ll find them all packed inside their Oakville store, or on-line at retrofestive.ca.
Thanks to the Schwartz's, you’ll also find these nostalgic Christmas treats at the TV on Film Party screenings I’ve been hosting at The Westdale theatre in Hamilton. Awarded as TV trivia prizes, they make the perfect treats for fans who know all about A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
Tyler talks about how these retro reminders bring us back to an innocent time spent growing up in front of the TV. Hear him this week on brioux.tv: the podcast.
When Jess Salgueiro auditioned in person for the role of Eve on Frasier, she had to do it in front of a pair of sitcom legends: Kelsey Grammer and director Jim Burrows.
Pressure? Yes and no says the actress, who was born in Winnipeg, Man. She figured there must be hundreds of others lining up to try and win a role on this reboot of a TV classic. With nothing to lose by trying, she told herself, just have fun and see if you can make them laugh.
She did, and got the part.
Now after two seasons streaming on demand at Paramount+, Salgueiro feels right at home on the famed Paramount Studios lot in Hollywood.
This past September she and Grammer were in Toronto attending a public screening of the series. She was blown away when Grammer, speaking to the crowd beforehand, got emotional about having her as part of the cast.
Hear all about her climb up the TV ladder as this week's guest on brioux.tv: the podcast.
Stop me if you've seen this kind of Hallmark series before: an enterprising and attractive single woman (Sarah Drew from Grey's Anatomy) owns a Christmas store on the main street of a picturesque small town. She crosses paths with a handsome, newly single-police officer (Peter Mooney from Burden of Truth). Before you can say, "witness tampering," holiday sparks ensue.
Mistletoe Murders, already launched in the US on Hallmark Channel and premiering Nov. 18 om W Network and STACKTV, does stick to a familiar tinsel template. The murder mystery angle, however, raises the stakes.
Shot mainly in Pickering, Ont., the six-episode series is part of Hallmark's annual Countdown to Christmas. Every year, the production of dozens of festive flicks is an early Christmas present for many Canadian actors and even more local crew members. They shoot these films -- often in warm spring and summer months -- for November and December viewing.
Find out if Drew and Mooney like eggnog, real Christmas trees and which holiday film is must see in their respective homes.
If only The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was still around to help us through another turbulent US Presidential election. Pat Paulsen -- where are you when we need you?
A key writer/producer back on that 1967-69 comedy variety show was a Canadian -- Allan Byle. Before the Smothers, he worked for Fred Rogers as well as CBC songbird Juliette.
Tommy Smothers, who has a knack for spotting talent, insisted that Blye, then in his twenties, be part of the Comedy Hour writing staff.
The series became a mid-season, Sunday night hit. While tame by today's standards, controversial jokes, edgy guest stars and political pressure led to CBS firing the Smothers early in 1969.
Blye carried on as a writer/producer. He went on to bring out the best in David Steinberg, Sonny & Cher, Dick Van Dyke, John Byner and Super Dave himself, Bob Einstein.
The Winnipeg-born Emmy winner passed away in October at 87. On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I welcome his younger brother Garry who also worked on many of those landmark shows.
Garry's showbusiness credits are worthy of their own salute. He started as a talent agent, representing a couple of pretty good clients -- Elvis Presley and Col. Tom Parker. Garry's stories range from that 1968 Elvis Comeback Special to later on working with the likes of Redd Foxx, Cher, John Candy and more.
Join us for an hour-plus of amazing showbiz memories that will fly Blye.
In Part 2 of my conversation with Ken Levine, more evidence that the Emmy-winner is one of TV's top storytellers.
One of my favourite episodes from his excellent podcast, Hollywood & Levine, is the one where he told listeners exactly what he thought of the recent reboot of Frasier. Some might see this as sour grapes from one of the authors of the original series, but I for one was keenly interested in Levine's unvarnished take. He didn't hold back, and repeats what Fresh Hell he sees in the Paramount+ series.
He also talks about a sitcom he co-created over 30 years ago with writing partner David Issacs: Big Wave Dave's. The cast was outstanding, but the network ditched it after six episodes. Hear why, and also which episode from that series Levine feels is the funniest thing he and his partner ever wrote.
Also in Pt. 2: hear which episode from a classic TV sitcom from the '50s made Levine laugh the most as a youngster -- and also inspired an episode with a similar one-big-joke premise 30 years later on Cheers.
What hasn't Ken Levine done? He's an Emmy-winning screenwriter who has -- with writing partner David Issacs -- written for some of television's best comedies. You may have heard of MASH, Cheers and Frasier.
In his spare time (!) he has also been a disc jockey, a major league baseball play-by-play announcer, a cartoonist, a playwright, a director, a travel writer, an executive producer, a blogger and a podcaster.
His weekly podcast, Hollywood & Levine, helped make trips to the cottage fly by for me these past eight years. Recently, however, Levine stepped away from the mic. So I emailed him and asked: would he guest on my podcast?
Here is the answer. a very entertaining two-parter, with great stories about all of these amazing things he's done. Part One starts with his start in the baseball broadcast booth, calling his very first big league game at Exhibition Stadium, the not so fondly remembered early home of the Toronto Blue Jays. From there Ken
chronicles his path to success in the big leagues of writing for network sitcoms. If you love television you'll want to listen. If you want to write for television, you have* to listen.
This past spring, the CBS action-drama Tracker became an instant hit, emerging as the No. 1 US network series of the season. On this episode, I speak with the tracker himself, Justin Hartley, who was in Toronto last June promoting the series at the CTV upfront.
After a career in soaps (Passions; The Young and the Restless) as well as in primetime (Smallville; Emily Owens, MD), Hartley hit the TV jackpot as Kevin Pearson in This Is Us (2016-22). That led to the 47-year-old actor landing the lead as skilled survivalist Colter Shaw who helps others for money in Tracker.
In this shorter-than-usual episode, the Illinois native talks about his love of baseball (he enjoyed a Blue Jays game while in Toronto), finding success later in life, and about what to expect in Season Two. The Vancouver based series is back now on Sunday nights on CBS and CTV.
When you’ve been busy creating, writing and starring in TV shows and films for a couple of decades, who has time for a hobby?
That’s been the case for Mark McKinney. This son of a diplomat moved around a lot as a lad and says comedy has always been his hobby. Together with Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson, he’s been performing on stage, film and television as one of the Kids in the Hall since the late 1980s. McKinney also spent a couple of seasons as a writer-performer on Saturday Night Live, helped create, write and act in Slings & Arrows, and appeared in shows such as Man Seeking Woman and Son of a Critch. He also was the showrunner on Less Than Kind and for six seasons co-starred as manager Glen Sturgis on the NBC sitcom Superstore.
That didn’t leave much room for stamp collecting or skeet shooting. On Mark McKinney Needs a Hobby (Wednesdays on CTV and streaming on Crave), McKinney tries birding, fly fishing, puppetry and even tackled hockey playing robots. He’s joined by guests such as comedians Margaret Cho and Deb DiGiovanni, singer Billy Newton-Davis, Superstore co-star Ben Feldman, food critic James Chatto and Muppet puppeteer Trish Leeper.
As you’ll see in episode one, however, he drew the line when it came to tattooing. Hear all about McKinney’s hobby search adventures on this week’s episode of brioux.tv the podcast.
The first scene of the new Fox and Global series Murder in a Small Town is set at that most sacred of Canadian television landmarks: the diner from The Beachcombers, Mollys Reach.
Seated inside, shooting a first date scene, are two actors representing several generations of Canadian acting royalty: Kristin Kreuk, the Vancouver lass who went from Edgemont to Smallville to Beauty and the Beast to Burden of Truth to starring in this fifth network series, Opposite her is Rossif Sutherland. The late, great Donald was his dad; Kiefer his half brother. No pressure.
Series creator and writer Ian Weir (also Canadian) screwed up and made Rossif a Chief of Police, not a Mountie. Kristin plays a librarian/muse, not Anne of Green Gables. Otherwise, almost everything else about this series is so Canadian it apologises. Sorry.
Even one of our greatest homegrown actors, R.H. Thomson, plays a dead body in the pilot. That is so Canadian.
Kreuk, one of the most popular guests ever at brioux.tv: the podcast, talks about all of this and more. Get comfy on a chesterfield, open a bag of ketchup chips, and join us.
Ever wonder what it was like to be in Studio 8H opening night in 1975 on Saturday Night Live?
Director Jason Reitman wondered and his new movie, "Saturday Night," is a recreation of the hours leading up to airtime on that historic night. Somebody who was there, however, is my guest this week on brioux.tv the podcast: Lorraine Santoli.
No, she was never one of the "Not Ready from Prime Time Players." Lorraine, who worked at NBC, was on the floor, pulling cables for the camera operators during the broadcast. Lorraine went on to a spectacular career in entertainment. When we met 40 years ago in California, she was the main Disneyland publicist. Thanks to Lorraine, I had a backstage pass to a time when it was still possible to interview Roy Disney, animators Ward Kimball, Ken Anderson and Bill Justice and voice artists such as Jimmy Macdonald.
Meanwhile, Lorraine became close friends with original Mouseketeers Annette Funicello and Bobby Burgess, among others. She later climbed the corporate ladder and became Head of Corporate Synergy at Disney, managing up to 60 companies during the Michael Eisney era.
And wait till you hear her story about Pam Grier! Spend an hour with my friend Lorraine Santoli, this week at brioux.tv: the podcast.
TV schedules and programs are like the places where we live. Sometimes they need somebody to come in a do a thorough de-cluttering.
As CBC's Dragon's Den heads into a 19th season, who better to join the series as the latest investing entrepreneur than Brian Scudamore? He's the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. You know their slogan: "We make junk disapear. All you have to do is point!"
As a pack rat who moved in the past year I know all about clinging to too much stuff. Scudamore tells me on this podcast episode how he came up with the idea of decluttering for others when, as a student, he was stuck in a fast food drive-through lineup. Since 1998, the business has spread to three countries and over 250 franchises. Now this author and podcaster is tackling all the other jobs we don't want to do with Shack Shine, WOW 1 Day Painting and You Move Me.
Look for Scudamore to point and make other people's business dreams happen this season on Dragon's Den. The series returns Thursday, Sept. 26 on CBC and CBC Gem.
After a two year wait, our long national farmhouse facelift crisis is over! Designer/contractor siblings Carolyn Wilbrink and Billy Pearson are back with a new, third season of HGTV's Farmhouse Facelift.
The stylin' siblings--featured twice before on brioux.tv: the podcast--once again barnstorm through Southern Ontario, taking grim-looking concrete block bunkers and turning them, in Episode One for example, into custom country cottages. The eight new episodes also include a makeover of a cordwood farmhouse and a converted, one-roon school house. Plus hear what else Carolyn and Billy got up to during the two years between TV seasons.
The new episodes are premiering weekly now on HGTV Canada and will also be streaming on Stack TV.
About two hours northeast of Toronto stands The Highlands Cinemas, a hand made movie palace carved out of cedars and mosquitoes. Every summer for 40 years, families from neighbouring towns and villages in Ontario’s cottage country have braved bear cubs in the parking lot to see everything from “Barbie” to the latest “Despicable Me” flick.
It is entirely the vision of one of Kinmount, Ont.’s native sons, Keith Stata. “The Movie Man,” a documentary about this remarkable entrepreneur’s Don Quixote-like obsession with showing movies the way God intended — with an audience — is streaming now exclusively at Hollywood Suite.
On this shorter-than-usual summer episode, we hear from Stata as well as director and photographer Matt Finlin, plus one of the executive producers of the documentary, Barenaked Ladies' frontman Ed Robertson.
Finlin, Robertson and others came for the movies but kept cominng back for the incredible museum of movie projectors, film stills, drive-in speakers and other artifacts Stata has collected and displays in hallways that snake around the cinemas. This episode best enjoyed with popcorn.
Hugh Wilson talked his way into a job at MTM Enterprises at just the right time. When he arrived in the early '70s, they were busy making sitcom history with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Wilson, who had no prior TV experience, could often be found up in the rafters, taking a crash course in Funny 101.
The result was his first series as a creator and executive producer, WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82).
In this "From the Vault" conversation from 2014, Wilson -- who passed away in 2018 at 74 -- talks about what it was like to strike gold with just the right cast at just the right time -- even if his rock 'n' roll radio station sitcom was never a big hit in the States.
Among the surprising things he reveals:
"When the show first went on, it was struggling in the ratings in the U.S. But the ratings in Canada were great right from the beginning," says Wilson, who used the Canadian response to successfully argue that the series needed time to find its audience. "I've never understood that but I've always been super grateful for it."
The death of comedy legend Bob Newhart July 18 had me scrambling for this "From the Vault" conversation with Bill Daily.
Daily was one of Newhart's oldest friends from their Chicago days in the late '50s when Daily was directing and performing in television and Newhart was exploding onto the scene with, at the time, the biggest-selling comedy LP ever, "The Button-down Mind of Bob Newhart."
The two reunited on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), a perfectly cast, well-written gem from the glory days of the MTM Studios. Daily praises, among other writers, Glen and Les Charles who went on to create Taxi and Cheers. He also talks about how they all adored Suzanne Pleschette, as well as the incredible cast of zanies who stole scenes as Dr. Bob Hartley's group therapy patients. Then there's the story about how Newhart had to fire his best friend for getting the studio audience too heated in the warm-up -- Don Rickles.
"I was so grateful to have that show," says Daily, previously best known for I Dream of Jeannie. In this conversation from 2014 -- four years before he died at 91 -- Daily saves his most heartfelt praise for Newhart.
"He was the nicest man I've ever met."
He also tells three of the funniest jokes I've ever heard.
Welcome to a faster, higher, stronger podcast episode This week’s guest, Scott Russell, has medalled for years in Olympic Games coverage. He’s off to France for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, which runs July 26 through August 11. Russell will host the afternoon show, Bell Paris Prime, and he will remain host for CBC’s coverage of the Paralympic Games, which follows August 28 to September 8.
And then he will leave the podium. The Canadian Screen Award and Gemini Award-winning broadcaster has already announced that this will be his last Games as CBC’s host.
Russell has covered 16 Olympics for CBC, including six as host. He has also led the network’s coverage of the Pan Am Games, six Commonwealth Games, two FIFA World Cups and two FIFA Women's World Cups. He’s also been a host and rinkside reporter for 14 years on Hockey Night in Canada.
After the games, he leaves to become the fifth chancellor of Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, where he holds an honorary doctorate.
In a spectacular career that's gone everywhere from The Streets of San Francisco to "Wall Street" and beyond, two-time Oscar winner Michael Douglas currently stars in the epic, eight-part limited series "Franklin," now streaming on AppleTV+.
If you don't think Douglas looks like Benjamn Franklin, neither did the actor. He does an extraordinary job, however, disappearing under the skin of America's favourite founding father at his diplomatic best. These were the years where Franklin was tasked with trying to persuade the French to back the States in the War of Independence.
Does it help to be famous to play someone famous? Douglas acknowledges that he could tap into some of the built-in, "rock star"-like advantages Franklin enjoyed. That "Franklin" is also about a struggle for democracy, as well as a tale of truth, lies and the power of the press, well, how bloody timely is that.
Douglas also talks about one of my favourite series, The Kominsky Method, his farm in Quebec, the Canadian doctor who saved his life and, as he approaches his 80th birthday in September, gratitude. I'm just grateful for this candid, reflective conversation which is a Canadian podcast exclusive.
Man it was fun heading down to Niagara last October and catching up with Ron James. He was shooting season two of his comedy series 1 Man's Treasure, which is up now and streaming on Bell Fibe.
If this episode sounds different it is because it was shot outside in a park, and simply recorded on a Pixel phone. There is some reflection here about getting older, or, as James says, being in the "third quarter in the game and you're still trying to find the purpose in life."
Ron needn't look any further; his is to make others laugh. We were joined by actor-comedian-philosopher Pat McKenna, another Second City survivor who co-stars on the series. Guests this season include Jayne Eastwood, Paul Sun Hyung Lee, Tony Nappo and others. A dilly of a conversation. Pull up a lawn chair and listen in.
The licensing of American specialty brands in Canada went all WWE in June as Rogers swooped in and wrestled away rights to The Food Network and HGTV brands, among others, from Corus. The new deals with Warners Bros. Discovery takes effect in January. There are indications Bell Media can't count on re-upping some of their Discovery brand imports either.
What has sparked all the brand swapping? What are the ramifications for Corus and others? Daniel Eves, who for years was at the table negotiating licensing deals with American Studios while SVP at Corus, says the potential for all these specialty swaps has been there for several years. He explains it all as this week's timely guest at brioux.tv: the podcast.
As "Toad" in "American Graffiti," Charles Martin Smith took playing the school nerd to new heights. Over 50 years later, the California-born actor-director co-stars opposite Toronto actress Anwen O'Driscoll in "This Time," director Robert Vaughn's very modern road picture now streaming on Super Channel.
In between, Smith has acted with a Who's Who of Hollywood, including Burt Reynold ("Fuzz"), David Niven and Don Knotts (Disney's "No Deposit, No Return"), Sean Connery and Kevin Costner ("The Untouchables"), Jeff Bridges ("Starman") and Michael Keaton and Geena Davis ("Speechless").
His TV credits range from episodes of The Brady Bunch, Room 222 and The Streets of San Francisco to LA Law, Northern Exposure and The X-Files. He's worked on more Canadian shows and movies than most Canadians, including "Never Cry Wolf" and Da Vinci's Inquest. His directing credits include "Air Bud" and "The Snow Walker."
And then there are the roles that got away, including one he auditioned for -- Luke Skywalker in "Star Wars."
Then there are his dad and uncles -- "Golden Age" animation directors for Walter Lantz, Disney and UPA. Smith is a great story teller and man does he share some doozies here.
Hugh Dillon is a man of many talents, including acting, writing and rocking -- the latter done with his band, Headstones.
The acting writing and producing skills were put to the test this third season on the Paramount+ drama Mayor of Kingstown. Dillon and his series co-creator Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone; Tulsa King) made it their mission to put their lead, Jeremy Renner, firmly back on his feet again after the actor suffered a horrible accident in January of 2023.
Renner's Mayor "Mike" McLusky spends most episodes racing from crisis to crisis as he tries to settle gang wars that are constantly errupting in his prison town. Viewers will see McLusky pick up right where he left off at the end of Season 2, with Renner showing no signs of the damage he suffered as a result of being crushed under a seven ton snow plow.
On this episode, Dillon also references his former series, Flashpoint, his years growing up in his own prison town, Kingston, Ont., and his new album with the Headstones.
Here is another conversation I had in May at the CBC Media Upfront on Toronto. Allan Hawco and Josephine Jobert -- stars of the upcoming CBC series Saint-Pierre -- talk about shooting the series, which will premiere in 2025.
Currently in production on the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, the police procedural finds an out of favour St. John's detective (Hawco) teamed with a seasoned investigator from France. Can opposites arrest?
Hawco, who co-created the series, says don't expect another Republic of Doyle-style retro cop show. Look instead for something a little darker, more of a modern British approach to detective drama. French actress Jobert has also played a cop before, and is best known for the BBC/WNET drama Death in Paradise.
I've been to these small islands off the coast of Newfoundland which remain a territory of France. They are better known for tourism than terrorism, but the leads insist they are an intriquing setting for criminal behaviour.
One of the new shows on CBC's 2024-25 schedule is called Small Achievable Goals. It is a scripted comedy about female podcasters going through menopause. Those three words, however, coulld also describe, in a fiercely competitive and crowded media landscape, the only way forward for CBC.
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I speak with Executive Vice President Barbara Williams and General Manager Entertainment, Factual & Sports Sally Catto. We talk about new shows hitting the schedule, including series returns for Allan Hawco, Jennifer Whelan and Meredith MacNeill; shows that missed the cut, including Run the Burbs and One More Time, the upcoming Paris Summer Olympic Games and the uncomfortable fact that the leader of the opposition -- who has a wide lead in the polls -- has vowed to defund the CBC.
Attention Hearties! And especially Hickies! Yes, this week's episode of brioux.tv: the podcast features Ben Rosenbaum. For over a decade, he's played Mike Hickam on When Calls the Heart, the longest-running series on both Hallmark and Super Channel.
With Season 11 winding down, WCTH has already been renewed for a 12th season. Born and raised in the States, Rosenbaum has enjoyed his decade-long run working on the show in British Columbia so much he applied for landed immigrant status. He looks back over the years and talks about Hickam's slow and steady romance with Mei Sou (Amanda Wong) and how his character has grown from being, to use an Andy Griffith Show comparison, the Barney Fife of Hope Valley to more of its Andy Taylor.
Evanka Osmak helps us keep score most nights along with Ken Reid at the Sportsnet Central desk. She's taking her own shot now in the publishing world with her first novel, a cool book for kids ages 6-11 titled "Ali Hoops."
The PlumLeaf Press release is all about a young girl named Ali who loves shooting hoops with her schoolmate Leila. Can they both make the school basketball team? What if one of them does and the other does not?
Born in New Jersey and raised in Oakville, Ont., Osmak has an inspiring track record when it comes to stepping up to her own foul lines in life. Trained and employed in the world of civil engineering, at 25 she tore up those plans and took a chance on a broadcasting career. That led to opportunities on both sides of the border and a job she's loved for over a dozen years now at Sportnet.
Hear about her own two young readers at home, her love for the Toronto Blue Jays and how she cracked the Sportsnet lineup on this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
As briouxtv listeners know, executive producer Mitch Azaria loves to go Tripping. These past five years, he has taken us by mahogany lake boat up the Rideau Canal, sailing along the tip of The Bruce Peninsula, on a bird's eye view over the Niagara region and aboard a Budd train northwest of Superior to White River. This April, his latest immersive documentary is Tripping the French River. The mode of travel this time is aboard a cedar strip canoe as we travel from Lake Nipissing on a three-hour paddle towards Georgian Bay. If you haven't taken one of these TV trips before you'll get so close to nature you may find youself tripping outdoors all on your own! Mitch gets you ready with plenty of facts and surprises in this conversation. Did you know that the French River was the first waterway to be designated a Canadian heritage river? See the documentary when it premieres Sunday, April 21 on TVO, on TVO Today or on YouTube.
Stop doing whatever you are doing right now and listen to this podcast episode with Dave Thomas. The SCTV writer-producer-player looks back on his years working with the late, great, Joe Flaherty, who passed away April 1st at 82.
Thomas and Flaherty produced the series in its second season, taking their cue from Harold Ramis and putting more of a spotlight on the cast's ability to morph into famous celebrities. They also had an uncanny way of mashing together good and bad films with, well, Fantasy Island.
You will laugh, you will cry, you will kiss one hour goodbye but you will not find a better use of your time. Plus Thomas speculates on whether or not that Scorsese documentary will ever see the light of day. Tell it like it is, Bill Needle!
Terry Fox dipped his toe into the Atlantic off the coast of St. John's, Newfoundland, on April 12, 1980. And so began his historic crusade against cancer, the Marathon of Hope.
Forty-four years later, nearly a billion dollars has been raised to help people with cancer around the world in Terry's name. On this podcast, the man who ran with him halfway across Canada and who helped organize Fox's fundraiser, Bill Vigars, shares many first hand stories about this great Canadian hero.
You'll find even more of them in his bestselling book, "Terry & Me," available all this month of April at 15 per cent off from publisher Sutherland House.
Vigars, a previous brioux.tv podcast guest, gives the back story on all the Terry Fox statues across Canada, plus the whereabouts of Fox's running shoes and other artifacts from '84. He also talks a bit about his career as a network TV publicist, including a memorable encounter with the late, great Joe Flaherty back in the SCTV star's Maniac Mansion days.
Gotta sing! Gotta dance! Gotta watch the cast of Murdoch Mysteries do what no other scripted, dramatic Canadian TV series has done before -- present a full-blown musical episode.
It happens Monday, March 25 on CBC (see it after the 25th on CBCGem) and April 6 on Ovation in the US.
"Why is Everybody Singing?" finds our hero, Det. William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson), shot in the head while investigating a crime. In a coma, he watches, helplessly, while the rest of the cast go into their song and dance.
In the mix is Daniel Maslany as Det. Lewellyn Watts. After eight seasons, he's the new guy no more on Murdoch. The Regina native tells me it was a blast ducking into his share of the 14 songs written and composed especially for this episode by writer Paul Aiken.
Maslany says that, when he joined the series, his clue to his character was delivered in two words: "Think Columbo." Listen to the rest of our conversation to learn more about Maslany, his favourite Murdoch guest star (who returns for this special episode) and why being an actor is sometimes, yes, really, really fun!
Trish Stratus is a WWE Hall of Famer, eight-time WWE Champion, and was recently named WWE's Greatest Female Superstar.
Now she's heading into her third season as a judge on Canada's Got Talent, which has just been supersized with a million dollar payday thanks to Rogers. So if head judge Howie Mandel gets out of control this season on CGT, remember, he's just a body slam away from total annihilation!
The Toronto native has parlayed her success and passion into the Stratusphere. Through yoga and fitness she sticks to her philosophy of achieving wellness through balanced living.
This mother of two has genuinely been wowed by the level of talent she's seen so far on the talent competition, which returns Tuesday on Citytv. Listen as she gives some surprising details about her own background and how she wrestled her own way to the top.
Back in 1974, fifty years ago, there was no streaming, no cable, no news or sports networks. What there finally was, however, was a third national Canadian broadcast network.
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, Corus Entertainment EVP Troy Reeb looks back at a time when Canada went Global. Once known as "The Love Boat network," it is the longtime Canadian home of some of TV’s most enduring hits, including the Young and the Restless and Saturday Night Live. Over the years, it was where Canadians first watched SCTV as well as 90210. Canadian originals in prime? Global could have done more, but highlights include Traders, Super Dave, Ready or Not, Rookie Blue and Private Eyes.
Reeb talks about his own rise up the ranks from the news department to the executive
suite, as well as some of the high and lows of surviving in the ever-changing business of television.
The folks at AppleTV+ asked if I’d like a one-on-one with Eugene Levy. Before you could say Schitt’s Creek, I said yes!
Levy – beloved in Canada for decades as part of the legendary SCTV cast – had just been inducted into the Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame. The interview took place in February in Pasadena, CA. I also took part in a press conference with Levy a day earlier while attending the winter edition of the Television Critics Association semi-annual press tour.
What I didn’t know at the time is that Levy will be a recurring character on the fourth season of Only Murders in the Building. There he will join friend and fellow SCTV cast mate Martin Short. Another SCTV alum, Andrea Martin, was a recurring character on season three. Steve Martin and Selina Gomez, of course, also star on the series.
I’ve spoken with the 77-year-old Emmy winner in the past. He is a quiet gentleman by nature, happier to talk about his son Daniel Levy or anybody else really. And while he's still not crazy about travelling, he finds that there is a wee bit more Scotch in his blood than he realized when he visits, for the first time, the homeland of his mother. That happens in Episode Two.
My mom was born in Scotland as well, so enjoy this double scotch, or double half-scotch, podcast episode.
Have you seen The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down? The series is produced out of Grenville Island in Vancouver and among the executive producers is Seth Rogen. He is known more for pot than pottery but watch him get his hands dirty a few times on camera, making, of course, ash trays from behind a pottery wheel.
Now, there is a lot to pottery. You’ve got to fire up your creations in a kiln and then add colours and glaze. The contestants on the show on the episodes I’ve seen are very talented.
I sat down and recorded this interview with three key members of the series last December at the CBC broadcast centre in Toronto. Meet host Jennifer Robertson, along with judges Brendan Tang and Natalie Waddell. Catch up with the series by streaming it on CBC Gem, with new episodes airing Wednesdays on the main network.
One note: the room where this was recorded up on the 10th floor at CBC was echo-y and only one mic was used so the sound levels are a little wonky. Producer Phil Wong put the audio through his tweak machine but apologies for the less-than-perfect sound.
TV shows don't just write and produce themselves. That takes showrunners! Two of the best in Canada have been Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, the husband and wife team behind such hits as Flashpoint, X Company and Transplant.
Their latest is the new Wednesday night CBC police drama Allegiance. The series stars Supinder Wraich as promising rookie cop Sabrina Sohal. She's teamed with a savvy police veteran played by Enrico Colantoni, my previous guest on brioux.tv : the podcast. Stephen Lobo also stars as Sabrina's wrongfully accused politician father.
On this episode, I'm joined by Mark Ellis, who talks about the importance of casting, writing and setting this series in Surrey, B.C.
Ellis also talks about how he really didn't have much of a sense of Canadian identity until his family returned to Canada from England when he was a lad and he started watching The Beachcombers.
"I thought, okay, this is Canada," says Ellis. "Here we are in a boat with Nick and Relic and we're racing down the sunshine coast... and I thought, well, this is a lovely place." Hear how Mark is bringing that vision up to date now with Allegiance.
I had so much fun zooming with Karen Robinson, who lays down the law on the new Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.
"Toronto is its own character in the show,” says Robinson, who loves that the city is representing itself for a change instead of somewhere else. “This is about us.”
Robinson plays Inspector Vivienne Holness on this latest extension of the L&O franchise, which also stars Aden Young and Kathleen Munroe. And, yes, she played a zanier cop shop boss on another Tassie Cameron-helmed series, Pretty Hard Cases. If she had to count all the police characters she has played, well, “it’s been a lot.”
Robinson came with her family from Jamaica at 16, moving first to Alberta where she studied under the great theatre showman Robin Phillips. She has since shone in everything from Slings and Arrows to Schitt’s Creek.
Feel her joy and energy in this spirited conversation. Then check her out on Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent Thursday nights on Citytv.
One of Red Green's favourite sayings is, "If the ladies don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
Steve Smith may be the handiest fella ever in the history of Canadian television. Inspired by that ol' TV fishin' pal Red Fisher, Smith crafted Red Green out of duct tape and suspenders. The Red Green Show had humble beginnings out of Hamilton, Ont.'s CHCH, eventually airing 300 episodes over 16 seasons stretched across five different stations and networks, including CBC and 100 PBS affiliates in the U.S.
Smith used to appear on PBS pledge breaks and say, "If you like our show, send a little money. If you don't like it, send lots of money so they can afford something better."
Now 78, inductee Smith returns to Hamilton Feb. 23 in a live tribute show as part of the week-long Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame festivities. See him in person along with his Red Green co-stars Patrick McKenna (nephew Harold), Peter Keleghan and Jeff Lumby as well as comedy road warrior Ron James.
Catch up with Smith first as my guest on a fun episode of brioux.tv: the podcast. And keep your stick on the ice!
For years, actor/comedian Tim Progosh has wondered: with all the great comedians Canada has produced over the years, why is there no Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame?
Progosh has done more than wonder. He's made it happen. For more than 20 years, his efforts have been stymied by celebrations cut short by the 9/11 attacks, by deals falling through during a recession, by COVID and actor strike interruptions. Who knew saluting the funny was such a serious and challenging business?
On this podcast episode, Progosh tells how -- while still set on an eventual brick and mortar venue -- he was able to gain the political smarts to get a virtual Hall off the ground.
This year's inductees include Eugene Levy and Martin Short, the cast of SCTV as a troupe, Jim Carrey and Red Green Show star and creator Steve Smith and even late great Hilarious House of Frightenstein comedy chameleon Billy Van. Going even further back, early film star Marie Dressler and radio's The Happy Gang also made the Hall.
Festivities and live comedy shows take place in Hamilton, Ont., Feb. 21 through 24. Go see the shows (featuring Ron James, Shaun Majumder and other comedians) but first listen as Progosh salutes his Canadian comedy heroes on this week's laugh out loud episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
I’m old enough to remember seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. That "really big shew" happened on February 9, 1964 – 60 years ago. I remember my dad going on about their long hair and those so-called Beatle wigs. I could not, however, take my eyes off them, and neither could a then-record 73 million other people who watched that night on television.
That summer of ‘64, The Beatles came to Toronto for two performances at Maple Leaf Gardens. There for both shows and chosen to interview them the next day for the Toronto Star, was one lucky teen – Michele Finney. At the time she was the young co-star, opposite Alan Hamel and Howard the Turtle, of the daily, live afternoon CBC kids show, Razzle Dazzle.
Twenty years ago, on the 40th anniversary of Beatlemania, I interviewed Michele. This was back when I was the TV columnist for the Toronto Sun. She is just as fab now as she was then as you’ll hear in our conversation. Listen as she talks of many other adventures, including re-connecting with John Lennon during the Live Peace in Toronto concert in 1969.
Of the 137 podcast episodes I've done here over the past four-plus years, the most amazing conversation might be the second one we recorded. That was with one of my favourite actors, Enrico Colantoni.
The man has done very well since he left Etobicoke for the Big Apple as a student at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Distinguishing himself there led to memorable roles in "Galaxy Quest," Just Shoot Me, Veronica Mars, Flashpoint, "A.I.", "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and on and on.
We pick up where we left off with this episode as Rico talks about his latest project, playing a well-seasoned police officer mentoring a keen new recruit (played by Supinder Wraich) in the new procedural Allegiance (premiering Wednesday, Feb. 7 on CBC and CBC Gem).
Rico throws himself into a conversation the same way he tackles a role. He is 100 per cent all in and, as a result, up goes everybody else's game. We go all over the map as usual, talking hip replacements, his re-teaming with showrunners Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern (the husband and wife team behind Flashpoint) and, of course, Apache Burger. He even shares a story about his late-great Just Shoot Me colleague, George Segal. Please join us.
In this episode: two CBC Tuesday night comedies for the price of one.
First up is Andrew Pfung and company from Run The Burbs (Tues. on CBC). The sitcom returns for a third season with Rakhee Morzaria, who plays Camille, joining Phung on this round-table chat, along with showrunners Jennica Harper and Nelu Handa.
We start off talking yard sales, the focus of the season three premiere.
"Almost all the ideas on the show come from a very real place," says Phung.
Also noted is how the kids on the series (played by Zoria Wong and Roman Pesino) are growing up and are more involved in storylines. And, yes, hip hop neighbour Kardinal Offishall returns as himself.
Phung also says he was pleased by the response to such a diverse family from viewers watching in the U.S. last season on The CW. "We have such nice comments on the specify and the representation of this family."
In the second half of this episode, meet standup comedian D.J. Demers along with showrunner Jessie Gabe, the team behind CBC's One More Time.
Demers worked at a Play it Again sports store his last three years of high school in Kitchener, Ont. The experience "stuck in my brain and I drew inspiration from it all these years later to make the show."
Demers has worn hearing aides since he was four years old. Back in the sporting goods store, he learned to keep customers in front of him so they wouldn't think he was ignoring them. "I didn't want anybody going to my boss and saying, 'What's with that teenage asshole?'"
Like his character, he never learned American Sign Language.
"I grew up in a hearing family and went to a regular school, so I never was exposed to it," he says.
Among the people he did hear from were the casting folks on Conan O'Brien's former late night talk show, who invited Demers on three times. He's also been featured at Just for Laughs in Montreal.
Also starring is Geri Hall (This Hour has 22 Minutes), Dan Beirne and Elise Bauman.
One More Time airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC, immediately before Run the Burbs.
Two actors known exclusively for their work in the horror genre step off script and into their own real-life thriller on their quest to decipher if Canada’s most ghostly places are truly haunted.
Yes, Luke Hutchie and Matthew Finlan are the ghostbusters in this "factual" (CBC never uses the "R" word) series. Both have horror genre credits in their IMDb profiles, with Zack playing a killer gay vampire in the OUT tv series Ezra and Matthew in the cast of the Paramount+ feature, "Orphan: First Kill."
For Ghosting, they travel to places where spirits have supposedly been sighted, including The Merrill House in Picton, Ont., and the McDonald Log Cabin in Allison, Ont.
On each episode, they bring a special guest along on their quest to declare these notorious abodes, "Haunted or not."
Along the way, podcast host Bill Brioux tells his own hair-raising tale of an overnight visit to a supposedly haunted hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.
Ghosting premieres Friday, January 26 on CBC with all episodes available at 9am ET on CBC Gem.
To see your way clear to a new spin on a cop show is not easy. Sisters Karen Troubetzkoy and Nikolijne Troubetzkoy, series creators who've proven themselves on hits such as Orphan Black and Transplant, looked within themselves for inspiration.
Karen, or Kat, has struggled with vision loss requiring multiple surgeries since her twenties. Her story led Kat and Niko to come up with a unique angle: what if a homicide detective suddenly became clinically blind? Could she team up with a remote, seeing eye partner to continue solving cases?
That's the premise behind Sight Unseen, premiering Sunday, January 21 on CTV. The Vancouver-based drama stars newcomer Dolly Lewis as homicide detective Tess Avery. When her sight becomes badly clouded in the middle of a police chase, she relies on an app that links her to a remote seeing eye guide who lives 3000 miles away named Sunny (Agam Darshi). Together, they make a surprisingly effective team.
Sight Unseen, which moves to Monday nights on CTV (and eventually The CW), is a surprisingly suspenseful series. Kat and Niko explain how it all came about in this equally edge-of-your-seat podcast episode!
Series creator and star Mark Critch needed to replicate the bridge of the original Star Trek Enterprise for a fantasy sequence on his St. John's-based sitcom Son of a Critch. The episode airs this Tuesday, January 16 on CBC. Who did Critch beam aboard to do the job?
None other that my guest this week on brioux.tv: the podcast, Mark Steel.
True, that name sounds more like a Marvel superhero than a production designer. Steel, however, has been crafting the look of everything from phasers to flight decks as the production designer on the Toronto-based Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery.
Emmy nominated for his TV work, he was also the production designer of The Umbrella Academy and an Art Director on What We Do in the Shadows as well as Heroes Reborn and Beauty and the Beast.
Raised in Ottawa, Steel got his start back in the '90s as a set decorator on the original Kids in the Hall series, which he says was pretty much a great party every live taping.
Set phasers for stun as he talks about how he got into the business and how he brought the Enterprise to Newfoundland, one retro scene at a time. As Spock would say, "Fascinating."
When you are casting a he/she series, chemistry is everything. The producers behind the new Vancouver-based cop/caper hour Wild Cards struck gold with their leads: Vanessa Morgan (Riverdale) and Giacomo Gianniotti (Grey's Anatomy).
He plays a by-the-books, wrongfully accused cop trying to clear his name after being demoted to harbour duty. She plays a daring schemer who can con her way out of just about any corner. When the two are thrown together to solve a case, these wild cards make for a pair of Aces.
Surprisingly, when it came time to cast this series, the two actors did not meet in person for their initial chemistry read together -- they performed it over a zoom call.
Gianniotti, who was born in Italy and raised in Toronto, agrees that zoom casting and/or chemistry reads can be "difficult and strange." TV being an international business, however, the two were in different cities and had to try the remote route. Meeting for the first time over Zoom, however, didn't dampen their natural connection.
"It helps when you're actually friends and get along great with your co-star," says Morgan, who was born in Ottawa and was also featured on The Shannara Chronicles.
The former Junior Miss America might also be familiar to fans of The Amazing Race Canada. She and her sister Celina placed third in the very first season of that series.
Wild Cards boasts another Ace in recurring star Jason Priestley. The series premieres January 10 on CBC and CBC Gem and Jan. 17 on The CW.
Two thousand and twenty-three was a challenging year in the TV business. Inflation and higher interest rates had consumers thinking twice about streaming subscriptions. The writers and actors strikes put a cork in the content pipeline. Peak TV seemed to slip back from the summit.
The big success story in Canada, however, was the rapid growth of Pluto TV. In one year, the Free Ad-supported Streaming Television platform went from zero to pacing at over one billion total viewing minutes monthly. That rapid success might have had something to do with their catchy slogan: "Stream now, pay never."
What drew viewers to visit Pluto? A robust menu of fan favourites from the Paramount pipeline, including hits from the Star Trek franchise, CSI, NCIS, South Park, Doctor Who, Frasier, Cheers -- even Dora the Explorer.
On this episode, Doug Smith, SVP, Streaming and Content Licensing, Paramount Global, and Katrina Kowalski, SVP International Content Programming and Acquisitions, explain how they helped put Pluto TV in orbit and how they'll keep it growing in 2024.
Giddyap, pardner. This week's episode of brioux.tv: the podcast takes a deep dive into everything you need to know about collecting your favourite TV shows on DVD. My guest is archivist, curator and classic TV expert Andrew J. Klyde, executive producer of Bonanza: The Official Complete Series.
For many boomers, Sunday nights were spent with your family crowded around the one set in the house watching Disney, Ed Sullivan at 8 and then at 9, Bonanza. Throughout its 14-season, 431-episode run, Bonanza was the most-popular TV series of the 1960s.
Besides making sure every episode was restored and transferred from 35 mm camera negatives, Klyde packed extras and bonus materials into the Bonanza Complete Series DVDs. The result is a Master Class on the history of 20th century television.
For example: In digging through the background of Ottawa-born actor Lorne Greene, not the first choice to play ranch patriarch Ben Cartwright, Klyde sourced and added rarely seen profiles and documentaries from the CBC and other Canadian sources.
He even added an interview I did back in 1991 with Michael Landon, who played Little Joe on the series and went on to Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven. Sadly, Landon died of cancer three months after we spoke.
I'm proud to play a small role in such a handsome salute to this series. Listen as Klyde takes us back to the Ponderosa with dozens of behind-the-scenes stories. Then if you have a classic TV fan on your Christmas list, take note: Bonanza: The Official Complete Series DVD set is on sale now at Amazon.
At brioux.tv, most podcasts deal with the people who make television memories. What about, however, people who collect TV memorabilia? We’re talking toys and games, trading cards, comic books, autographs and puzzles?
Meet Canada keeper of every boomer’s childhood memories: Bruce Button. For close to 50 years, Button has been buying, selling and curating TV merch, specialising in pop memorabilia from the ‘60s. On this podcast, I visit his Hamilton, Ont., house, where four rooms are jammed full of Man from U.N.C.L.E. posters, Hogan’s Heroes and Beverly Hillbillies lunch boxes and board games based on everything from The Addams Family and Alf to Snagglepuss and Stingray.
His collection doesn't stop there. His Beatles, Charlie Brown, Marx Bros. and Three Stooges goodies, not to mention his comic book, TV Guide and record collections, could fill at least one room alone.
If, like me, you still have a full set of Batman cards from the ‘60s, or a Kenner’s Give-a-Show Projector – or even if you simply know what those things are – you’ll want to listen in as Button gives a guided tour of his broadcast booty. His stories about meeting everyone from Channel 47’s Chuck the Night Watchman (Chas Lawther) to Tiny Tim are, well, one-of-a-kind.
If you want to see some of his treasures, check out the photos posted at brioux.tv.
When he was asked to be president of the Toronto Film School a few years ago, Andrew Barnsley wasn't sure if he could take the job. After all, he was the executive producer of three network sitcoms at the time: Schitt's Creek, JANN and Son of a Critch. (A fourth, the reboot of Kids in the Hall on Prime Video, came later.)
The Emmy and Golden Globe award winner eventually figured it all out and now has his Emmys for producing Schitt's Creek on display at the Toronto Film School campus. It serves as an inspiration for the young TV and film students looking for a leg up in an industry that keeps booming in Canada -- even as Canadian broadcasters continue to reel from declining ad revenues.
Barnsley -- who has lived all across Canada -- is nevertheless bullish on our TV business. He offers encouragement to those entering that field. He also talks about that thrilling Emmy sweep a few years ago, seeing Son of a Critch take on the American market on The CW and the clever way Eugene Levy convinced nervous network executives to not change the name of Schitt's Creek.
The strikes are over. How will this affect the future of television? Who better to ask than Mister John Doyle?
The retired and distinguished Globe and Mail TV columnist returns to brioux.tv: the podcast to share his savvy and unfiltered take on the crazy business of television.
On this episode we tackle the following topics:
- The impact of the writers and actors strikes on the Canadian TV industry. (Our conversation took place hours before the U.S. guilds announced a deal had been done.)
- Which late night talk show has emerged as the best of the bunch since the writers' strike was settled?
- True or false: Bill Maher is a beacon of light in a sharply divided world.
- Which of these Canadian shows, either already cancelled or in their final seasons, will Doyle miss the most? Transplant, Letterkenny, ET Canada or Sort Of?
- Why do surveys show viewers are ditching newscasts? Maybe it is because, as Doyle argues, in the case of Toronto news, they are missing the story.
- Where did all the TV critics go?
All that and more in a rollicking-good TV shellacking. Don't miss it!
It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Canada's first lady of entertainment news, Cheryl Hickey. The big hit was learning that the series she has hosted for 18 seasons, ET Canada, was being shut down by Corus Entertainment. Hickey admits the move, which took effect Oct. 6, caught her as much by surprise as it did others in the industry.
The native of Shallow Lake, Ont. a very small town near Owen Sound, started her career at Global 24 years ago. That's pretty much the last time I interviewed her. That interview took place at five thousand feet -- Hickey was a helicopter reporter at the time!
This relaxed and fun chat was much more down to earth, with Hickey walking me through her star-studded career. I quiz her on her many Hollywood encounters and her stories about Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Quincy Jones and Kiefer Sutherland are all red carpet worthy.
Hickey's own story is loaded with drive, determination, hutzpah and plenty of family support. Her aspirations and example should encourage others in Canada to reach for the stars -- even though her series no longer will.
What's next for Hickey? She doesn't tell me everything now, but I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
He's directed Drake, Rihanna, Kanye West, Justin Bieber and Jay Z. Now, Julien Christian Lutz, a.k.a. Director X, puts a Hip Hop spin on a legendary folk hero with Robyn Hood. The Young Adult drama airs Friday nights on Global and can also be streamed on Stack TV.
This episode, we hear from two of the key players on the new series: Jessye Romeo, a young, British actress who plays Robyn -- a masked, hip hop vigilante and leader of The Hood. She's out for justice with her family and friends who are all under attack in their besieged, low-income housing development, Sherwood Towers.
Out to tear them all down is evil developer John Prince, who is in cahoots with the nasty Sherriff of New Nottingham. Before you can say, "Premier Doug Ford," this shot-in-Toronto modern-day parable seems ripped from today's headlines.
The vision behind it all is co-creator, producer and Director X, who explains on this episode how this series came about, why Romeo is perfect in the role and how he first got into directing music videos for today's biggest superstars. Plus he sings a few bars of his all-time favourite TV theme song -- and, yes, you will be surprised by the song he selects.
Fire up the Tiki torches and pass the Doritos. With Survivor 45 upon us, who better to deliver the scoop than Murtz Jaffer.
Murtz's day job is as Associate Producer of Global's The Morning Show. He's also well known as the world's foremost expert on reality TV, traveling to countless final episode tapings of many reality shows and attending and hosting multiple cast parties.
For this season of Survivor, Murtz has scouted the field and knows the 17 new contestants and one returning player vying for the million dollar prize. Who does he like to take the new title? So far, it's not the one Canadian in the field, a man from Vancouver named Keleb Gebrewold.
Jaffer salutes Survivor for continuing to diversify the cast, both in terms of race and age. He assesses whether or not the original winner, Richard Hatch, would stand a chance 22 years later on the new edition. He singles out his Top-3 all-time players, and, yes, of course, one of them is Boston Rob.
He also recommends a recent Netflix reality series he feels is even more shocking than Survivor -- Outlast. Says Murtz, "They cast actual criminals!"
Marie Clements grabs your attention with the opening scenes of her new series version of Bones of Crows (premiering September 20 on CBC, CBC Gem and APTN). A pyramid of caribou skulls are stacked high as crows circle overhead. It is a not so subtle symbol of the decades of horror, abuse and genocide that took place in Canada in the wake of the residential school system.
Clements has taken her festival film feature of Bones of Crows and expanded it with this five episode miniseries version. The writer, director and producer has cast well with this epic story that spans a hundred years, with Grace Dove one of three actresses who plays Cree matriarch Aline Spears, the main protagonist confronting her traumatic past.
Clements, a Metis filmmaker based in B.C., has been a storyteller in many genres, including stage, screen and television. In this conversation, we talk about the depiction of pioneering Canadian politicians in Bones of Crows, and whether the current, statue-toppling revisions go far enough when it comes to setting the record straight about the plight of the First Nations. We also talk about her filmmaking influences growing up and land upon her favourite all-time TV theme song, from a series that took its own hard look at history.
"Still Laughing" is the title of George Schlatter's new book and if you read it, you'll be laughing, too. There are first-hand, hilarious stories on every page and he shares many of them on this podcast episode. Schlatter went from being a Las Vegas bouncer (although he prefers the title, "executive in charge of emergency departures") to being a talent agent, where he struck up an early and valued friendship with Frank Sinatra. He eventually became a TV producer, handling top talent such as Dinah Shore, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Cher and many others.
When he wasn't meeting stars he was making them, especially as the producer of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Almost overnight, the late '60s, early '70s comedy/variety hour made household names of Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Gary Owens, JoAnne Worley and many others. He gave a young writer from Toronto a shot -- Lorne Michaels. Not sure whatever happened to him.
Phrases such as "You bet your sweet bippy," "Hear come de judge," and "Sock it to me," swept through schoolyards and suburban homes across North America.
Not everything he tried worked. Schlatter has great stories about his flops, including Turn On, a 1969 experimental series that was canceled on the East Coast before the show was even seen on the West Coast.
Schlatter also talks about his greatest achievement: his 67-year marriage to wife Jolene. The couple donated so many scripts and other artifacts to the National Comedy Centre in Jamestown, N.Y. the place named their theatre after them.
As Kevin McGarry says on this episode, the odds seemed stacked against When Calls the Heart lasting into a 10th season.
Yet last it has, with the 10th season now streaming on both Super Channel and Hallmark, and an 11th season already in production on the elaborate town set erected on farmland near Langley, B.C.
The series has weathered the loss of one of its main leads. Aussie actor Dan Lissing, who played original Mountie suitor Jack Thornton, opted to leave the series at the end of Season Four. Then there was the global COVID pandemic, which WCTH weathered mainly due to the fact that much of it is shot outdoors. A college admissions scandal involving another one of its leads, Lori Loughlin, knocking her out of the series and caused much of one season to be re-shot. This season, the writers and actors strikes halted production on most US-based series -- but WCTH managed work arounds for American born lead Erin Krakow and others.
This all has helped McGarry, a Kincardine, Ont., native who plays new Mountie in town, Nathan Gran. He is into his fifth season on the series. It is also where he met his finance, co-star Kayla Wallace, who plays Fiona Miller.
McGarry thanks the fans of the series -- the loyal "Hearties" -- and puts it all in perspective in this fun and lively interview.
Back in 1986, I had the good fortune to interview Joe Barbera at his corner office at the Hanna-Barbera Studio on Ventura Blvd in Los Angeles.
The savvy TV producer/studio head was 75 at the time and had plenty to talk about. He was getting offers to make live-action feature films based on The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Jonny Quest. He had a new, animated Bible series to promote on Home Video. He insisted that ABC, CBS and NBC would stick with his main bread and butter, Saturday morning cartoon shows.
I found the original cassette tape of that conversation. While it is a little fuzzy, hearing Barbera's passion for what he and partner Bill Hanna had accomplished in pioneering the field of television animation is still definitely worth a listen. Wait till you hear his story of how he sold TV's first prime time animated series, The Flintstones.
Barbera passed away at 95 in 2006. The studio he established has been sold several times and even the studio headquarters is long gone. Fred and Barney and George Jetson and Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo and the Smurfs live on, however.
Please enjoy this From the Vault episode with Joe Barbera.
Do you love watching classic films on TCM? Then if you live in the Los Angeles area, or will be there over Labor Day weekend, you'll love Cinecon. Described as a "7th heaven for cinephiles," Cinecon returns for a 59th year August 31 to September 4 with a playbill of rare goodies you can't even see on TCM. Among those programming the festival is this week's podcast guest Stan Taffel, president of Cinecon and a dedicated film archivist and curator.
One of Stan's innovations was introducing "Kinecon at Cinecon," an exhibition of very rare, often one-of-a-kind kinescope prints from the earliest days of television. This Labor Day weekend, Cinecon will be saluting CBS Television City, the mid-Los Angeles fun factory the network no longer owns. Long-time tenant The Price is Right was among the last to pack up and leave earlier this year.
Among the nuggets from Stan's own 16mm film collection to be shown at the festival is a 1953 film featuring famed CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, who takes viewers on a tour of Television City. Encountered there are such early tenants as Jack Benny and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.
The festival will also salute the 100th anniversary of 16mm film with rare silent treats from Laurel & Hardy as well as Harold Lloyd, all accompanied on a mighty Wurlitzer organ. Enjoy this trip aboard the film and TV time machine with Cinecon's Stan Taffel.
Quincy Isaiah says his basketball game has improved by leaps and rebounds since suiting up for the role of Magic Johnson in "Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty." The series is back for a second season on HBO Max and Crave.
The Michigan native plays the early '80s version of Earvin "Magic" Johnson in the series, which was created by Adam McKay. Isaiah had to do both an acting and a sports audition to win the part, and was coached later, as were the other actors, to look NBA worthy on the court -- not easy when you're called upon to dish like Magic.
John C. Reilly plays colourful Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss in the series. Isaiah calls him an acting "beast." Solomon Hughes plays NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The real Abdul-Jabbar -- now a terrific read as, among other things, a TV critic -- hates "Winning Time," dismissing it as "a bland soap opera." Hear Isaiah's reaction to that criticism and whether or not he's heard from Magic in this brisk podcast episode, recorded live and in person last June at the Bell Media Upfront in Toronto.
Me and hilarious actress/comedienne Sabrina Jalees connect over candy bars stolen from the CTV press launch as well as her two current TV gigs: hosting Farming for Love (Sunday nights on CTV) and acting as a judge on Roast Battle Canada (Mondays on CTV Comedy channel).
The Toronto native jumped out to a fast start as a teenage correspondent for The Toronto Star, a standup comedian at YukYuks and Just for Laughs and as a judge on MuchMusic's cheeky music roast, Video on Trial.
Recent credits include Search Party, Harley Quinn and as a young MD on the CBS Patricia Heaton comedy Carol's Second Act.
Hear why she feels some of these farmers, male and female, are genuine catches on Farming for Love. The BC-based series is already harvesting new suitors for Season Two. Jalees also talks about being a mom to young Wolfie as well as some exciting new projects.
It doesn't take long for Emma Hunter's frisky DJ Nora to jump back into action on Moonshine (CBC; The CW). As Season Three begins, she's having sex in a car with her police officer boyfriend (played by James Gilbert).
Sorry, America. You won't see that scene in the U.S. Hunter's auto erotic antics, as well as the occasional obscenity, will be cut on The CW. It seems that the Canadian brew of Moonshine is a little too strong for The CW's standards and practices.
The raunchy dramedy, from writer/producer Sheri Elwood, focuses on a dysfunctional clan of half siblings battling for control of a ramshackle lodge on the south shore of Nova Scotia. Hunter, previous podcast guest Jennifer Finnigan as Lydia, and Anastasia Phillips as Rhian play the three feisty sisters on the series.
As she says on this podcast, Hunter is thrilled to be flexing more than just her funny bone with Moonshine. Previous credits includes sending up Canadian news headlines on The Beaverton, playing a zany teacher on Mr. d and sharpening her sketch comedy skills on Air Farce.
When did the Toronto native first realize she had this gift to make people laugh? Find out on this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
When we left off in our two-part conversation with TV writer/creator Hart Hanson, he was make the career jump from Canada to Hollywood. Part Two is packed with stories from the U.S. TV trenches.
After shepherding both Joan of Arcadia and Judging Amy, Hanson's decision to bail on Snoops baffled colleagues and managers. Not his boss David E. Kelley, however, who admired Hanson's writing and gave him his blessing.
When Hanson went on to create the series Bones, he did the unthinkable -- he infused comedy in a CSI-like procedural. Only Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman got it and she quit the network shortly after the series launched.
Hanson names names as he recounts the sometimes torturous paths shows take before they are embraced by audiences. He stuck to his guns on Bones and it became the longest-running scripted success in the history of Fox.
Hanson is grateful for being in the right place at the right time with Bones, one of the last worldwide hits of the broadcast network era. He sometimes feels as if he "caught the last chopper out of Saigon."
I'm indebted to Hart for his insight, his candor and his, yes, his heart. Celebrate both Canada Day and the 4th of July with this wonderful Canadian-American storyteller.
Was he born in California or Canada? Even Hart Hanson's not 100% sure but here's what we do know: he has created hit TV shows in both countries, including the longest-running drama ever at Fox, Bones.
Pt. 1 of this two-part conversation looks at his start in Canada as a writer on The Beachcombers through his work as a writer and producer on Neon Rider, North of 60 and as the creator of Traders. Hart talks about earning degrees at The University of Toronto and The University of British Columbia, the summer he rode his bicycle clear across Canada and how he was able to get on Beachcombers star Bruno Gerussi's good side.
Anyone interested in pursuing a career in the crazy business of television, on either side of the border, should listen to this gifted storyteller. Also recommended if you're just interested in pursuing your dream.
Next week on Part 2: Hanson goes to America and enjoys success with Judging Amy, Joan of Arcadia and especially Bones.
Warning: there is a lot of Brampton talk in this episode. My guest, Jordan Gavaris, grew up in my town so brace yourself for a walk down memories of the Bramalea City Centre.
Otherwise the top subject is Gavaris' Prime Video series The Lake, which just returned for a second season on the Amazon-owned streaming service.
Shot in Ontario's cottage country, the story finds Gavaris -- previously best-known for Orphan Black -- as Justin, a gay dad with a 16-year-old daughter named Billie (Madison Shamoun). That’s what happens when you get your best friend pregnant at prom. The baby was given up for adoption.
Justin reconnects with his city girl by bringing her to the cherished cabin where he spent his youth. Trouble is, his back-stabbing step-sister, Maisy-May (Julia Stiles). has claimed the cottage and stolen it from him. A lot of canoe jousting ensues.
There are several other very funny people in this series, including Jon Dore as an obnoxious neighbour dude. Recent brioux.tv podcast guest Lauren Holly gets into the mix in Season Two as a mom-from-Hell. I wasn't sure about The Lake at first so I kept watching, and liked it more and more with each episode.
You'll feel the same way about Gavaris after listening to this fun and frisky conversation. Check us out and get ready to jump in The Lake.
This Friday, June 9, after 13 seasons, ever-popular radio and TV host Marilyn Denis concludes her long-running CTV daytime series The Marilyn Denis Show. Prior to that, she enjoyed a 20-year run in daytime TV on CityLine -- an incredible 33-year reign over two networks.
In fact, as she discusses on this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, Denis was so coveted by former Bell/CTV boss Ivan Fecan that he insisted she be part of the deal when a tug of war developed over her services.
The good news for fans of the broadcaster is that she is keeping her radio job. Denis can still be heard each weekday morning as co-host of Marilyn Denis and Jamar on CHUM 104.5. This fall, she also plans to resume her most recent project: Marilyn Denis Has a Podcast.
I'm just grateful she was a guest on this podcast, where she talks about some of the celebrity guests she has interviewed, including Elton John, Sally Field, Lionel Richie and Jane Fonda. Look for visits from more celebs in her final week of CTV shows.
Whoever she is interviewing, Denis always strives to, as she says, "put myself in the place of the viewer and ask what they would want to know."
She even sings! Listen towards the end as she treats listeners to a few bars from her all-time favourite TV theme song.
Now that John Doyle has retired as the TV critic of The Globe and Mail, how are we supposed to make sense of it all? Where is our roadmap out of the madness that is Canadian television?
It is all right here, friends, in this handy and convenient, click and listen podcast episode.
Hear Doyle on why he retired over six months ago from the newspaper he toiled at with distinction for 26 years. Does he still think the people who run the Canadian Screen Awards are idjits? That would be yes. What shows or issues, if any, does he wish he was writing about now? What shows are can't miss in the Doyle household these days? Does he think Ted Lasso has jumped the shark?
I miss reading John's unfiltered and outspoken take on this crazy beat. Lock the door, pour a pale ale and join us for some rousing blather between two lucky bastards who love and hate television.
Lauren Holly is an American-Canadian actress who lives in Toronto but works in Vancouver. Hers is every TV actresses resume rolled into one.
Vancouver is where she shoots Family Law, which returns for a second season Monday, May 22 on Global. The CW just announced that they've acquired the cheeky law drama for their summer season.
When she's not stirring things up as family matriarch Joanne Kowalski opposite Jewel Staite and Victor Garber on Family Law, she can be found in Ontario's cottage country. That's where she shoots The Lake, the Prime Video drama returning for a second season June 9.
Holly's credits stretch back to her breakout role opposite Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker on Picket Fences (1992-96). Several seasons on Chicago Hope and NCIS followed as did features such as "Dumb and Dumber" and "What Women Want."
Raised in upstate New York, Holly married not one but two Canadians, moved to Canada, became a Canadian citizen and has three Canadian sons. Does this not qualify her for the Order of Canada? Or at least a discount at Tim Horton's?
Hear her on the importance of acting on happy sets on this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.
Come on down for a fun conversation with John Ealer, executive producer, and Sarah Gibson, director and showrunner, of The Game Show Show. Their four-part docuseries from Toronto's Cream Productions premieres Wednesday, May 10 on ABC and continues Wednesday nights throughout May.
Episodes look at the evolution of TV game shows from their radio roots to the big money series such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Deal or No Deal. The series also looks at how competition and dating shows have become more popular in the 21st century.
There is also a discussion of the game show scandals of the 1950s. Also: why is it that Canadians such as Alex Trebek, Howie Mandel and Monty Hall seem to make great game show hosts? Mr. Ealer has a generous theory.
All that plus John and Sarah's favourite TV theme songs, including the one used years later by George for his answering machine on Seinfeld.
Eric McCormack is such a terrific podcast guest we're running this episode twice.
The occasion is the premiere, April 6, of Slasher: Ripper. This fifth season of the horror anthology series airs on the streaming service Shudder in the States and in Canada on one of our sponsors here at brioux.tv, Hollywood Suite.
Set in 1910, McCormack plays, in his words, "a ruthless son-of-a-bitch" who finds himself on the hit list of a vicious slasher.
The Emmy-award winner is known more for starring in urbane comedies such as Will & Grace than for playing nasty bad guys, but he's done it before. "It comes a little too naturally to me," he jokes.
On this encore episode, which originally ran in 2022, McCormack shares several terrific showbiz stories. Examples include the time he cracked up guest star Gene Wilder on the set of Will & Grace.
He also talks about plans to launch a Broadway show based on the hit Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner movie "The War of the Roses." First, however, McCormack will be directed first by Jason Alexander at the Hayes theater starting this July in the domestic comedy "The Cottage."
BONUS: at the end of this episode, hear McCormack belt out his favourite all-time TV theme song (hint: the two main character were "Doing it our way...").
I always look forward to catching up with Mitch Azaria. He's the executive producer behind the unique "Tripping" series of real time, immersive documentaries featured each spring on TVO.
In the past few years, and especially throughout the pandemic, these docs have allowed viewers to travel virtually throughout Ontario when real travel was not an option, or at best a very limited one.
The series all started with Tripping The Rideau Canal (2020) followed by The Niagara (2021), and last April, The Bruce (2022).
The latest adventure is Tripping Train 185, a remote route that runs northwest out of Canada’s mining capital and along the stunning Spanish River.
"It's a hidden gem," says Azaria. "I didn't know anything about it."
The route goes from Sudbury to White River, a 480 km trip. Best of all, it is aboard a stainless steel Budd Car, the last-remaining, post WWII vintage, diesel train in North America still operating on a regular route.
Part of the fun is the bond between the crew and the passengers. "It's like Old Home week every trip on this train," saysd Azaria. As you'll see, many canoes and backpacks are along for the ride.
For many, Train 185 is the only way to get to some of the best fishing sites in North America. For TVO viewers, thanks to Mitch and his crew, this is the only way to travel.
For the second week in a row, my guest on brioux.tv: the podcast is a judge on Canada's Got Talent. Listen up to Kardinal Offishall, the Toronto-born rapper and music producer who is now encouraging a new generation of talented Canadians on CGT. That series, which shoots at the Fallsview Casino OLG Stage in Niagara Falls, Ont., rolls into a second season Tuesday, March 21 on Citytv.
Offishall talks about his own experiences as a talent show contestant starting way back when he was not yet even a teenager. Since then, he's gone on to win several Juno and MMVA awards as he earned the title of "Canada's hip hop ambassador.".
In recent years, he's even branched out as an actor, with comic turns on both the first and second seasons of Andrew Phung's CBC comedy Run The Burbs,
Kardi talks about what to expect on the surprising second season of CGT and also reveals his choice for Favourite All-time TV theme song. It's a jingle he likes so much he uses it as the ringtone on his phone!
If you liked Season One of Canada's Got Talent, "You are going to be bowled over this year," says Howie Mandel, "because I don't think there's even a comparison." The talent search series returns Tuesday, March 21 on Citytv.
Mandel is joined once again on the judging panel by Lilly Singh, Trish Stratus and Kardinal Offishall. The talent on display hails from all across Canada, including, as Howie says, "The tundra!"
Mandel, of course, is one of the most successful and enduring comedy acts in all of North America. He started making audiences laugh at Yuk Yuks in Toronto and The Comedy Store in LA before taking a dramatic turn as Dr. Wayne Fiscus in the groundbreaking NBC hospital drama St. Elsewhere.
As he tells on this episode, young Howie loved watching daytime talk shows hosted by Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin, never dreaming he'd one day be a guest on these shows as well as The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Being on Merv, in fact, led to one of his first big breaks when he got a call from Gene Simmons of KISS. Listen here for the rest of that story.
Mandel's other credits include Bobby World, Deal or No Deal and his seven-year stint on America's Got Talent. Plus now he's helping make or break the next generation of comedians as part owner of Montreal's famed comedy festival, Just for Laughs.
It is not often that a series that is popular on Radio-Canada crosses over into an English language version. But that is the case with Plan B, a compelling new drama airing Monday nights on CBC. It can also be seen on demand on CBC Gem.
One of the stars is a Canadian Screen Award-winning actress who is as at home in English as she is in her native French. Her career has also taken her to Hollywood and onto American network tv shows such as Pan Am, and Revenge.
I’m talking of course about Karine Vanasse, a standout since her teen years. Her feature film credits include a breakout role in director Denis Villeneuve’s 2009 feature “Polytechnique.” She also starred for four seasons opposite one of my first podcast guests, Billy Campbell, in one of my all-time favourite Canadian dramas, Cardinal. Besides Plan B, where she shines opposite Patrick J. Adams from Suits, Vanasse is about to start shooting Season Two of another Montreal-based drama, Avant le Crash.
Towards the end of this episode, Vanasse digs deep to be the first to name one of the best theme songs of the early 2000s as her all-time favourite.
Born in Ottawa, trained at the National Film Board of Canada and winner of dozens of international awards, Peter Raymont has enjoyed a distinguished career as one of Canada's top documentary filmmakers. His White Pines Pictures has been behind such acclaimed titles as Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould. and Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band.
I first met him on the set of The Border (2008-2010), a CBC security forces series he co-created with his late wife Lindalee Tracy.
Raymont just received CSA Award nominations for two 2022 efforts: Buffy Sainte Marie -- Carry It On and Unloved: Huronia's Forgotten Children. He also recently teamed with previous brioux.tv podcast guest Robbie Hart on Ice-Breaker: The '72 Summit Series.
Raymont begins this episode by paying tribute to the late Peter Herrndorf, the universally respected CBC and TVO broadcast executive, Toronto Life publisher and CEO of the National Arts Centre. "He was like a second father to me," says Raymont.
The Emmy and Gemini award winner also shares his thoughts on a commercial-free CBC, at least in prime time and for all news broadcasts. Corporate sponsorship, such as in the PBS model in the United States (where several White Pines projects have aired), would provide a better environment both for the makers of documentary films and, he feels, for viewers.
Celebrate Peter's birthday Feb. 28 by listening all the way to the end, where he reveals his rousing choice for favourite all-time TV theme song.
The pandemic forced some longer-than-usual delays between seasons of many of our favourite TV shows. Mark Little, for example, had to wait over four years to launch the second season of his animated adult comedy Gary and His Demons.
The series, about an aging and very cranky demon slayer who wants to quit his job if his boss can ever find a replacement, was launched in 2018 on VRV. That service seems to have gone the way of the VCR.
The good news is that Season 2 and the original season can now be streamed on Prime Video. On this episode, Mark, who writes, produces and provides the voice of Gary, talks about the transition.
Little came to prominence several years ago as a member of the East Coast comedy troupe Picnicface. Many will also remember him as the math teacher in Gerry Dee's classroom comedy Mr d.
The B.C.-native also talks about his harrowing audition for Saturday Night Live where he killed with his opening joke. The next six minutes, however, not so much.
Also heard on this shorter-than-usual episode: Stephen Sloan, head of the Toronto studio animating the new season, Look Mom Productions.
This is the episode you've been waiting for, comedy fans. Dave Thomas tells how he almost became an ad man, a real life Don Draper, On the very day, however, that the young Canadian dazzled the ad men in New York, winning the Coca-Cola account, he got a call from his old McMaster University chum Eugene Levy that changed his life. There was an opening on the Second City stage in Toronto. Was Thomas ready to throw away a career in advertising for $145 bucks a week at the Old Firehall?
Yes he was, because it meant working with Levy, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, Paul Shaffer, Catherine O'Hara, Joe Flaherty and others. Thomas fit right in and helped shape the comic sensibilities of a generation.
He talks about how ad writing helped him understand how seconds count in comedy. He talks about how there were two sides to John Candy, and how, when Bob & Doug took off, he and Rick Moranis were ready to step away from SCTV.
"I don't think I had a single funny idea left," he says about the relentless challenge of filling 90 minutes a week for NBC.
Thomas also salutes the comic heros who inspired him, including Bob Hope and Johnny Carson. He speaks of his early days on the David Steinberg Show and shares Tom Poston stories from working on Grace Under Fire. He explains why he made the switch to writing for such TV procedurals as Bones and The Blacklist.
Plus: he picks one of the true TV classics as his favourite, all-time theme song.
Come on Back to the Future as we celebrate Episode 100 here at brioux.tv: the podcast. This installment boasts two wonderful guests, both starring in the new mystery hour The Spencer Sisters. The series launches Friday, February 10 on CTV.
Lea Thompson, forever known as Marty McFly's mom in "Back to the Future," stars as Victoria Spencer, famed mystery novelist.
Stacey Farber, who played Ellie Nash in Seasons 2 through 8 of Degrassi: The Next Generation, stars as Victoria's headstrong, ex-cop daughter Darby. Before you can say, "Murder, They Wrote," the two team up as crime-solving private investigators.
Does Thompson try to sing her all-time favourite TV theme song, which happens to be an instrumental? She does, and even acts out the main title sequence, although you can't see it because this is an audio only podcast. But trust me, it was awesome.
Does Farber wear a very cool, TV-themed, Keith Haring T-shirt for the interview? She does. The two bonded in Winnipeg during production of The Spencer Sisters. Thompson also talks about directing episodes of Star Trek: Picard, Young Sheldon and The Goldbergs. Farber talks about travels to Japan with her pal Dan Levy. It's a 100th episode Spencer-palooza!
Hugh Dillon was sick with worry after hearing of Mayor of Kingstown co-star Jeremy Renner’s recent snow plow accident. The crushing mishap put the Avengers star in the hospital with critical injuries.
Dillon’s fears were put to rest after speaking with Renner.
“I knew he was going to be okay because he was just so profane and so funny,” says Dillon. “That’s the testament to the kind of person he is because he wants you to not worry.”
The bracing prison town series has just returned for a second season on Paramount+. Dillon doesn’t just act on the series, he co-created it with his pal and long-time acting coach Taylor Sheridan. The two previously worked together on Sheridan’s Yellowstone, where Dillon played Sherriff Donnie Haskell.
Dillon based Mayor of Kingstown on his own hometown, Kingston, Ontario. Friends and family members worked in the prisons there and Dillon played hockey with prison guards. He reflects on how a few misdeeds along the way could have made prison life even more familiar to him.
He worked over a decade on his dream of making his prison series a reality. He even convinced producers to shoot the first season in a decommissioned prison right in Kingston. (Season Two wrapped on a larger prison field in Pittsburgh.)
On the podcast, Dillon also talks about his previous acting work on the CTV-CBS series Flashpoint as well as on other dramas such as The Killing and Durham County. He’s racked up close to 50 IMDb acting credits so far – not bad for a guy who has been rocking, recording and touring with his band The Headstones for decades.
We found him! The man who came up with Bob Loblaw's law blog on Arrested Development. Had to be a Canadian, right?
Chuck Tatham, from Listowel in southwestern Ontario, has had a stellar career in Canada and the U.S., writing and producing such shows as Less Than Kind, Arrested Development, How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family.
Lately he's been executive producing Children Ruin Everything and the animated series Central Park. He was also previously involved in a couple of fondly-remembered one-season wonders: Andy Barker, P.I. and Back to You.
Hear him on how one show led to another, as well as on a new project which brought him back across the border again: "Offside: The Harold Ballard Story." Yes, this is Part II of a podcast from earlier this week featuring Tatham's fellow EP's, Michael Geddes and Jason Priestley. Tatham still hopes to spin Ballard's outrageous adventures into a series based on his pilot script. Paging John Goodman in the lead, I say.
In the meantime, enjoy story after story from this talented and very funny Canadian writer-producer -- including the daytime show he most loved to watch as a child whenever he managed to stay home sick from school.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have not won the Stanley Cup since 1967. The reason? Two words: Harold Ballard.
The curmudgeonly owner ruined the team in the '70s and '80s with a tight-fisted reign of error that played out almost daily in that era's sports pages. The man who caused Leaf's captain Darryl Sittler to rip the "C" off his jersey and who lived in his arena, Maple Leaf Gardens, finally gets the documentary he deserves.
It is all thanks to this episode's podcast guests: executive producer Michael Geddes (Lone Eagle Entertainment) and Jason Priestley, who produces, directs and narrates.
Listen as the two tell how they met to develop a scripted series before realizing they better do the doc first. Priestley tells of interviewing many of his hockey heroes, including Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Wendel Clark, Tiger Williams, Rick Vaive and other players of the day. Don Cherry, Allan Eagleson and sportswriters such as Mary Ormsby, Allen Able and Stephen Brunt also weigh in on the tumultuous Ballard years.
Don't wait for Leafs to win another a Stanley Cup. Listen to this epic tale of woe now, then watch "Offside: The Harold Ballard Story" Sunday, January 22 on CBC and CBC Gem.
The CW is at a crossroads. Launched in 2006 by both CBS and Warner Bros, Nexstar Media Group is now the majority owner of America's fifth broadcast network.
A lot of The CW's legacy shows -- Supernatural, Batwoman, Charmed, Legends of Tomorrow -- have been canceled. Longtime network head Mark Pedowitz has retired. The search was on for a new visionary leader.
Enter Brad Schwartz, the clever Canadian who put the pop in Pop TV with the acquisition of CBC's Schitt's Creek. The Dan and Eugene Levy sitcom won nine Emmys in 2020, leading Pop to more wins that year than any other networks save HBO and Netflix.
On the zoom call for this podcast, Toronto native Schwartz proudly showed his Canadian allegiance by sporting a Tragically Hip hoodie. He talks about interning on Saturday Night Live at 21 and learning from the master: Lorne Michaels. Schwartz later paid his dues as SVP and GM for the Much MTV Canada Group. Mentoring him there were Bell bosses Ivan Fecan and Susanne Boyce, with Boyce urging him to "Take Canada to the world."
He took those lessons back to the States at the TV Guide Channel, helping to turn it into Pop TV. His new challenge: President of Entertainment Division at The CW.
Does this mean more Canadian shows could soon be enjoying some southern exposure? Listen as Schwartz shares his thoughts.
Christmas came early for me this year as I got to talk to Dick Cavett about Groucho Marx. The occasion is the December 27 premiere of American Masters "Groucho & Cavett" on PBS.
Dubbed "the thinking man's talk show host," Cavett emerged as a clear alternative to Johnny Carson's Tonight Show while on ABC from 1969 through 1975. (Other networks kept him busy into the '90s). His series set the bar for conversation and inquiry and featured such 20th century icons as Marlon Brando, Muhammad Ali, Woody Allen, Katharine Hepburn, Norman Mailer, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Orson Welles, Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Truman Capote and too many other names to drop.
One was Groucho Marx. As he tells it on this podcast, Cavett met the most famous Marx brother by "sheer accident." It happened in 1961 as they were coming out of a funeral service for famed playwright George S. Kaufman. Before you could say the secret word, the two became fast friends.
Cavett was 25 at the time, Groucho 70. Later, as he was closing in on 80, the comedian appeared many times on Cavett's shows, often wearing a ridiculous golf hat with three balls on it. He killed, especially on the early episodes, singing and cracking wise and owning every inch of Cavett's stage.
I was 12 or 13 at the time and saw much of it live. It was great, historic television and such fun to re-visit on the American Masters episode.
The story has a Canadian angle, though not a happy one. In his last few years, the aging comedian fell under the spell of a young woman from northern Ontario named Erin Fleming. Cavett, who had them both on his show, shares his thoughts.
Cavett remains witty and robust at 86. He talks about his early gigs writing jokes for Tonight Show hosts Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. He confirms getting to know another one of the comedy gods, Stan Laurel. We even touch on one of the Yale grad's proudest achievements: getting on Richard Nixon's enemies list.
Ladies and gentlemen, my guests on this episode in alphabetical order: Dick Cavett.
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Another podcast episode about the 1972 hockey Summit Series?
Yes and here's why: a second documentary looks at the landmark eight-game series from a very different angle.
"Ice-Breaker: the '72 Summit Series" premieres Tuesday, December 27 on Super Channel Fuse. The film, by director Robbie Hart and executive producer Peter Raymont, takes viewer deep inside the Iron Curtain of Soviet Russia.
Here's what Hart discovered two years ago after hatching the idea for the project. During those Cold War years, Gary J. Smith worked at the Canadian embassy in Moscow and had a hand in bringing East and West together for a "friendly series" between hockey's two superpowers. Hart discovered Smith was writing a book about the series (out now as "Ice War Diplomat: Hockey Meets Cold War Politics at the 1972 Summit Series").
The book became the spine of the documentary, which differs in many ways from last September's four-part CBC series.
First, Wayne Gretzky talks exclusively here about what this series meant to him as a hockey-mad 12-year-old in 1972. Second, Hart, accompanied by goalie Vladislav Tretiak, travels back to the Moscow Ice Palace where half the games were played. It hasn't changed in 50 years! Third, the CBC doc's exclusive use of restored footage from the series forced Hart and others to scour for other sources. What they found were some stunning, ice-level shots, from Russian cameras, of Phil Esposito and others in action that have never been seen before.
Fourth: the new doc makes great use of the inspired sketches made on the scene by Montreal Gazette editorial cartoonist Terry "Aislin" Mosher.
If, like me, you are old enough to remember watching the Summit series on TV, you'll see it from a whole new angle. If you were born years later, don't miss this chance to catch up on a mind-blowing part of Canadian history.
Mary Walsh says she was born to play the tart-tongued older "Missus" living downstairs from a sad sack young bachelor in the very funny comedy The Missus Downstairs. The award-winning series is back for a second season, including a special Christmas episode (featuring Andy Jones), on Fibe TV.
Co-starring is the man who lived the story, Newfoundland comedian Dave Sullivan. His character described the Missus as "like living above Joan Rivers only alive and without all the charm."
Walsh, of course, is a Canadian comedy treasure, creating This Hour Has 22 Minutes after co-starring in the breakthrough East Coast comedy CODCO. She's brilliant in comedy or drama, with "The Grand Seduction," "Closet Monster" and "Happy Place" among her more recent film credits.
At 70, the Order of Canada recipient finds herself busier than ever, writing, producing, directing and starring in "Missus" as well as directing fellow Fibe TV comedy troopers "HalfHandsome" in the Peak TV parody Jack TV.
Asked about mentoring the next generation of Newfoundland comedy talent, Walsh says she's just as grateful to the kids for giving her all the artistic challenges she can handle. All I can say is I wish there had been a Mary Walsh-like mentor back when I was doing "Etobichannel." Listen to this episode for the laffs, stay for the wisdom.
By far the most-downloaded episode of brioux.tv: the podcast has been a conversation I had two years ago with Murdoch Mysteries star Yannick Bisson. The actor is back to talk about "Baking All the Way," a new Super Channel House & Home/Lifetime original he stars in and directs this holiday season.
Bisson stars opposite Cory Lee on the festive flick, which is about a search for the perfect gingerbread cookie recipe. Lee's celebrity chef wants it, and Bisson's small town bakery shop owner is reluctant to share it.
Bisson says he pulled a few favours by asking veteran Canadian comedy stars Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath and Jayne Eastwood to join him in the movie. He wrangled another actress as well -- his youngest daughter Mikaela Bisson, who plays a news producer.
It's not the first time Yannick has stepped in with casting. He boldly reached out to add William Shatner to an episode of Murdoch Mysteries a few years ago.
We also talk about Murdoch, of course, which just passed the 250 episodes mark in this its 16th season. To Yannick's delight, the Shaftesbury-produced series is also currently the subject of a museum exhibit in Kitchener, Ont., featuring sets, costumes and all kinds of clever props.
Bisson also talks about his family's plans for Christmas this year and shares his not-so-surprising choice for best all-time TV theme song.
"Thufferin' thuckotash!" Have you heard Eric Bauza as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Marvin the Martian, Sylvester & Tweety and many other classic cartoon stars? He says his five-year-old son can tell his Bugs from that of Mel Blanc but I can't, and I've collected dozens of classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes over decades of 16mm film collecting.
Bauza, who grew up in Scarborough, Ont., started out working in the drawing end of the animation business. He talks about meeting a few of his voice over heroes, including cartoon legend June Foray (Rocky & Bullwinkle; Looney Tunes) and fellow Canadian Maurice LaMarche (Pinky and the Brain).
We also talk about his new series Stay Tooned, premiering Dec. 2 on CBC Gem. The six-episode documentary series finds Bauza in conversation with several of his 'toon talk peers, including Ben Schwartz, Lake Bell, Ken Jeong, Bobby Moynihan, Tara Strong, Lamorne Morris, Cree Summer, and James Adomian, among others.
BONUS: Hear a short clip of a 1983 interview -- my first at TV Guide Canada -- with the original voice of Donald Duck, Clarence "Ducky" Nash!
As a young Toronto school teacher, Linda Schuyler decided to introduce her Grade 8 students to the art of filmmaking. As it says on the inside flap of her new book, "The Mother of all Degrassi: A Memoir" (ECW Press), this was a momentous decision. "It set in motion a career of storytelling for an age group largely ignored by TV executives... and creates one of the most-loved television franchises of all time."
In all its incarnations, starting back in 1979, Degrassi has spanned several decades, many fan-favourite cast members and over 500 episodes. The various series have many admirers, including filmmaker Kevin Smith, who calls Schuyler, "The greatest ally in entertainment young audiences have had since John Hughes."
Listen in as Schuyler recounts her early struggles -- including a serious car accident -- and how she was able to stick to her vision in presenting a series that championed adolescents in all their diversity. Taboo topics including abortion, school shootings and other issues have all been fearlessly tackled on Degrassi. As Schuyler sees it, the series is really, "the world's longest-running anti-bullying campaign."
She also comments on recent reports about the future of the franchise, including HBO Max's decision this month to push pause on a brand new Degrassi incarnation.
Actors and actresses from When Calls the Heart have been among the most-listened to guests in the three years since brioux.tv: the podcast was launched. Clearly, "Hearties" are everywhere, and in Canada they subscribe to Super Channel.
The service has a fascinating history. Think of how the media landscape has lurched from one disruption to another this century. Super Channel nearly went under -- twice -- but CEO and president Donald McDonald can be credited with steering the Canadian-owned company to one of its best years ever in time to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
I'd like to think their recent success has to do with them being a brioux.tv sponsor. There are other factors however, and who better to point them out than my guests, McDonald and Chief Content Officer Jackie Pardy.
Among the topics discussed are the return of When Calls the Heart for a 10th season (probably early next year); the successful liaisons with the Canadian Film Festival and Blood in the Snow film festival; and plans to introduce, as both Netflix and Disney+ have announced, an ad-supported lower-priced Super streaming tier.
Listen right from the start when I call Don McDonald "Bob" several times. It's never a good move to blow the name of a sponsor on a podcast. Fortunately, Don is as good a sport as he is Super CEO.
If you could only talk with Charlie Hunnam for 11 minutes, what would you ask?
That's how long I had with the UK-born actor, who was recently in Toronto promoting his new AppleTV+ series Shantaram.
The 42-year-old former Sons of Anarchy star plays quick-thinking jailbird Lin Ford on AppleTV+'s new big-budget drama. Ford's motto: escape or die.
Hunnam is also a producer on the series, which is based on the semi-autobiographical international bestseller by Gregory David Roberts. Roberts broke out of an Australian prison and disappeared for several years in Bombay. Hunnam wanted to make sure the 12-episode drama captured every nuance of Roberts' book.
Why just 11 minutes? That's just how these press deals work. Other reporters were also waiting to speak with the actor, whose credits extend back to his teen years on Queer as Folk and Undeclared.
This episode does include a review of the series plus a story or two on the merits of saying yes to short interviews, including that time I was given five minutes to speak with Bill Maher.
I think I was about 35 before I figured out that Billy Van played all those crazy characters on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
The series, consisting of 130 episodes cranked out over nine months, premiered more than 50 years ago in 1971. It is one of the most eccentric and enduring, locally-produced, TV shows ever made in Canada. It broke so many rules in childrens television that you'd have to cut it down to about four minutes to get it on a broadcast network today. (Edited versions still play on Crave, Tubi and YouTube.)
My guest on this podcast is Mitch Markowitz whose older brother Raff Markowitz took the idea of a horror-spoof kiddie show to Hamilton's CHCH. Mitch helped produce but also, at his brother's urging, appeared on-camera in short segments as "Super Hippy." Vincent Price was flown up from Hollywood to shoot 400 introductory segments which helped the Markowitz's syndicate the series stateside. Jumbo-sized Fishka Rais played Igor, assistant to The Count, Billy Van.
Van, later a key comedy player on Sony & Cher, also played Griselda the Ghastly Gourmet, The Librarian, Bwana Clyde Batty, The Oracle, The Maharishi and the Wolfman -- the latter a werewolf disc jockey.
Van wasn't supposed to play any of them, but, as Markowitz relates, he stepped in when a Plan-A that would never fly today didn't pan out. Van's tour-de-force was an inspiration to Mike Myers, Jim Carrey and other Canadians who grew up with the series before hitting it big in Hollywood.
Markowitz shares those stories and talks about the recent animated spinoff in a Halloween party episode even "Brucie" -- a copyright-infringing monster The Count was always trying to revive -- would enjoy.
I like my podcast guests to feel comfortable. That's not always possible over a zoom call, but that didn't stop Jennifer Finnigan, currently back for a second season on CBC's comedy-drama Moonshine. For our interview, the Montreal native chose to stay in bed.
That is a level of intimacy and/or laziness usually reserved for close friends or relatives so I'm flattered. Really.
Besides, Finnigan has been spending long days in production on an already ordered third season of the series, shot on the southern shore of Nova Scotia.
Created by Sheri Elwood (Call Me Fitz), Moonshine is about a ramshackle summer resort run by one whacked out family. Finnigan plays Lidia, the prodigal sister who returns from America. When her hippie parents (Peter MacNeill and Corrine Koslo) retire, Lidia gets drawn into a battle with her freaked out siblings for control of the joint.
Lidia's life takes a turn when she finds out her lying douche of a hubby was cheating on her. Finnigan's real-life husband Jonathan Silverman stepped right into the part.
The couple and their five-year-old daughter moved to Nova Scotia to work on the series. They've been having a blast working on Moonshine with Anastasia Phillips, Emma Hunter, Tom Stevens, Alexander Nunez and others. This season, Allan Hawco plays Lidia's new biker boy.
We also talk about Finnigan's past roles, including The Bold and the Beautiful (where she won three daytime Emmys), Crossing Jordan, Tyrant and Salvation. May all future interviews be this relaxed.
With a one-year-old baby at home, Meaghan Rath says that, yes, she is living the joys of her TV series, Children Ruin Everything. The sitcom is now into its second season Monday nights on CTV.
The Montreal native confirms that "Mommy Brain" is a real thing but at least her son is sleeping through the night.
Meanwhile, she is enjoying year two on the series. Guest stars this season include Kim Coates, Anna Hopkins, and Aaron Ashmore.
We go through some of her earlier credits, including her three seasons on Hawaii Five-0 , her work on the BBC horror-comedy Being Human and her stint opposite fellow Canuck Hannah Simone on New Girls.
Rath also confirms that, yes, as a young lass, she did once ask her parents for an agent for Christmas. "They were like, we don't know how to get you that."
Her first professional gig was the cult classic, "Lost and Delirious" starring Piper Perabo, Mischa Barton and fellow Montrealer Jessica Pare. She was 12 or 13 at the time. "It was a very fun and wild first job."
Her favourite all-time TV theme song? Rath breaks with precedent by choosing a great theme from a current series. Check it out on this fun chat with the Children Ruin Everything actress.
Strays star Nicole Power is well known from her five-season stint as Shannon Ross on the CBC comedy Kim's Convenience. Last season, her character was spun off on her own series Strays, where she became manager of a Hamilton animal shelter.
On this podcast, besides her own series, she talks all about her latest role on Kim Cattrall's upcoming Netflix drama Glamorous, which is set in the world of the cosmetics industry.
Yes, the Newfoundland native has a lot on her plate. Season Two of Strays, airing Tuesdays on CBC, finds Shannon enjoying a little puppy love with a new character named Travis (played by Dennis Andres from Workin' Moms).
Power, who has a rescue dog of her own, also talks about growing up down the street from Rick Mercer's parents and the call she got from Rick to congratulate her on Season 2 of Strays.
Then there is the comedienne she most admires who was a star decades before Power was even born.
Finally, Power sings a line or two from her favourite all-time TV theme song, which is all about "the lady in red when everyone else is wearing tan..."
Another milestone in Canadian television is reached with the 50th anniversary of the launch of The Beachcombers. Jackson Davies, who played constable Constable through most of the 18-season run as well as two reboot movies in the early 2000's looks back at the iconic series. The CBC drama starred Bruno Gerussi-- who plays Nick Adonidas -- and Pat John -- who played Jesse -- as a pair of adventurous log wranglers working the B.C. coastline.
True story: Conan O'Brien, before he became a late night talk show host, was on a visit to Vancouver with writer pal Greg Daniels (who went on to co-create the American version of The Office). The two of them happened upon a Beachcombers episode on the TV in their hotel room. They became so transfixed with John's halting delivery and original TV presence that they tracked him down, and, posing as American producers, paid him a visit!
Davies tells that story and many more, including a look back at some of his later credits, including his work on Tom Greene's notorious flick of the '90s, "Freddy Got Fingered."
Eric McCormack's the perfect podcast guest. The Emmy Award-winning Will & Grace star has so many wonderful showbiz stories and is generous when it comes to sharing them. Hear some of them now before he saves them all up for his own podcast -- one of the projects he has on his plate for the new year.
Hear the Scarborough, Ont., native on the following:
The time he cracked up guest star Gene Wilder to the point they had to shoot a retake on Will & Grace!
His upcoming season-long arc on Slasher (Shudder, Hollywood Suite) where he'll play a murderous, turn-of-the-century swine!
His plans for a Broadway show based on a hit Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner movie "The War of the Roses."
His stint this summer directing Yannick Bisson and the rest of the cast on an upcoming episode of Murdoch Mysteries!
PLUS hear him belt out his favourite all-time TV theme song (hint: the two main character were "Doing it our way...").
Hudson & Rex's two-legged lead, John Reardon, joins Bill Brioux in conversation prior to the start of Season Five. The new season begins Sunday, Sept. 25 on Citytv and it's a big one with 20 new episodes. Guest stars? Road trips? Season Five has both. Murdoch Mysteries fans will spot Daniel Maslany crossing Rex's path. There's also a two-part storyline taking place not in St. John's, where the series is set, but in Northern Ontario.
Reardon, a Halifax native, played football for Mt. Allison before venturing into acting. His credits prior to Hudson & Rex include Vancouver productions Continuum and Arctic Air. He even survived an early stint on Trailer Park Boys!
It did seem pre-ordained that he would eventually star on Hudson & Rex; he and his wife welcomed their first born -- named Hudson -- just days before he was offered the part.
The new season will pick up the will-they or won't they romantic storyline between his detective character Charile and Sarah (Mayko Nguyen). Will they share custody of doggie detective Rex (Diesel vom Burgimwald)?
Reardon also talks about the sudden loss last April of Paul Pope, the executive producer who was a major force in the Newfoundland film and TV industry.
"It's amazing how many people on the show got their start from Paul," says Reardon.
As for John's all-time favourite TV theme song, you kinda had to figure he would pick music from another show about a dog. Listen for that at the end of this episode.
The Canada vs USSR eight game hockey tournament of 1972 galvanized the nation 50 years ago this month. One of the standouts for Team Canada was Montreal Canadiens defenseman Serge Savard.
Sixteen million Canadians, out of a nation of 22 million, watched the final game. Here is something I never realized back when I watched the series on TV with my high school pals: Canada never lost a game where Savard was in the lineup. He went 4 wins, one tie. A hairline fracture mid-way in the series kept him out of two losses, and a bad decision by coach Harry Sinden sidelined him for the opening blowout loss.
Savard, proud owner of ten Stanley Cup rings, looks back on the series with passion and insight. He hated the politics, but loved the bigger rink in Moscow and wonders how much of an impact a mobile Bobby Orr would have had on that larger ice surface.
Also joining me on this episode is author, rocker and documentarian Dave Bidini, the co-writer and co-director of "Summit 72," a four-part documentary premiering Wed., Sept. 14 on CBC and CBC Gem. Come for the drama, stay for cool music Bidini archived and the fully restored and seldom seen 16mm footage of the original series.
Writer-director-showrunner Peter Mitchell snuck me into a couple of episodes of one of his hit shows -- and yet he still talks to me! On this podcast, we have a great conversation about Murdoch Mysteries, back for a 16th season starting September 12 on CBC.
We also talk about the other hour-long Canadian TV drama he executive produces for Shaftesbury, Hudson & Rex. Mitchell supervises 24 episodes of Murdoch in Toronto, flies to St. John's, and cracks the whip on another 20 episodes of Rex. Some of his performers literally work like dogs!!
So does Mitchell, who took over Murdoch as that series found new life on CBC after five years on Citytv. He opened up the storylines on that whodunnit, taking full advantage of all the historical possibilities (electric cars? Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin? William Shatner as Mark Twain?) and stretching his ensemble well past 200 episodes and beyond.
We talk also about other highpoints in his career, which dates back to writing credits on The Campbells as well as Street Legal, Traders, Cold Squad, The Listener and Frankie Drake. He even wrote lines for Mister T on the short-lived Canadian series T and T. I pity the fool who was the showrunner on that series!
Here is one of my most valued interviews: one-on-one with Michael Landon, in his office in Culver City, Calif.
The conversation took place in March of 1991. As you'll hear, Landon is in top form: funny as hell, wise in terms of television and life.
What none of us knew at the time was that he had mere months to live.
On assignment for TV Guide Canada, I flew home to Toronto right after our talk. A few days later, the terrible news broke that Landon had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. By July 1, a little over four months later, the 54-year-old actor-writer-director-producer was dead.
Landon had the rare distinction of starring in three consecutive hit TV shows: Bonanza (1959-'73), Little House on the Prairie ( 1974-'82) and Highway to Heaven (1984-'89). He was shooting a fourth series, US, when I spoke with him, and when we got to Lorne Greene's horsemanship on Bonanza, he had me laughing out loud.
The conversation turns serious towards the end. We talk politics, and Landon voices his disgust at how polarized America had become. He also vents his frustration at political correctness. Landon didn't like where America was headed, and wanted his last series to speak to, "the people along the banks."
Hope you enjoy this visit with Michael Landon, coming to you straight "From The Vault."
I kid you not: there were Tonight Show hosts way before Jimmy Fallon was even born. If you thought late night started with Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, think again.
When the Tonight Show premiered nationally on NBC in 1954, Steve Allen was the man behind the desk. I interviewed him 30 years ago, in 1992, about Leno and David Letterman's fight for Carson's late night throne. Five years later, I had a longer one-on-one with the man who succeeded Allen in 1957, Jack Paar.
The two men seem like total opposites at first. Allen was a tall, slick, composer-author-performer who was not above wearing a T-bag suit into a dunk tank for laffs. Paar was a touchy, engaging bundle of nerves who once quit in the middle of his own monologue.
Still, they also had a lot in common. Both were exceptionally articulate, as you'll hear on these two interviews. They also shared a feeling that television was lacking in taste compared to their Tonight Show years.
This is a slice of audible TV history I've never shared before. Please enjoy this latest brioux.tv podcast episode, which comes straight FROM THE VAULT.
Before you say goodnight, Gracie, listen to my decades-old interview straight from the vault with comedy legend George Burns. The conversation was recorded in December of 1985, back when Burns was about to turn 90 and I was a rookie writer with the Canadian edition of TV Guide magazine.
The audio was recorded 37 years ago on a Sony cassette tape I've kept among dozens of others dating back to my days at the magazine. I spoke with Burns and his manager, Irving Fein, at the comedians office on a studio lot in Hollywood.
We talk about his incredible career spanning vaudeville, radio, television and film, including his nearly 40 year marriage and comedy team partnership with Gracie Allen.
He also talks about "these comedy kids today" (Billy Crystal, Bill Cosby, etc) and his Oscar win at 80 for "The Sunshine Boys." He also shares memories of vaudeville pals such as Harpo Marx, hints on diet and exercise (he lived to be 100) and why he only smoked cheap cigars on-stage and off-.
Travel back in time and listen to a true Hollywood legend -- as well as George Burns. Out of the vault now at brioux.tv.
Mary Mammoliti -- a home cook and a food blogger with a significant loss of vision -- has no trouble finding her way around the kitchen. She is also very at home in front of a TV camera. The second season of her AMI-tv series, Dish with Mary, just started airing on Tuesday nights and can also be streamed on demand on AMI.ca and the AMI-tv App.
Listen as Mary describes how she pivoted from being a financial advisor to a food blogger and eventually a TV chef as her vision became more and more limited.
Actually, there's nothing limited about her vision, or her reach, as you'll lean on this podcast. The Toronto resident tells how she copes in the kitchen and how her other senses help her create memorable meals. She also talks about the fellow food enthusiasts from across Canada that she has welcomed as guests on her series. So listen in and dish along with Mary!
We catch up with comedian Ron James as his bestseller, "Ron James All Over the Map," is nominated for the Stephen Leacock Award. If you haven't read it yet, the book is 100 per cent Ron, all in his voice -- 275 pages; four commas!
James is also pumped to be performing a rare standup set July 16 at the Avon theatre as part of the Stratford Festival. His post-pandemic schedule also just included a comedy concert swing through British Columbia. Then there's his role on the Nova Scotia-based series "Trapped," which John Doyle of The Globe and Mail recently raved about. All in all, these are peak times for James.
We also touch on some serious stuff: the recent passing of so many celebrated comedians such as Bob Saget, Norm MacDonald and Gilbert Gottfried. James also talks about his admiration for comedy legends Billy Connolly and George Carlin. We speculate on what the heck is happening with that SCTV documentary. And then there's his epic choice for all-time favourite TV theme song. Sing along with James on a sweet and lively conversation.
After a two year delay, The Amazing Race Canada is finally back on the starting line. Host Jon Montgomery returns and shares his thoughts with Season 8 set to kick off Tuesday, July 5 on CTV.
Jon's love of Canada is genuine and infectious as you can hear on this podcast episode. The Olympic gold medalist addresses the challenges in re-mounting Canada's most-popular summer series after a two-year pandemic pause.
Jon also talks about some of his favourite teams from past seasons as well as the destinations, both foreign and domestic, he enjoyed visiting the most. This year's Race is, as it was on Season 7, run in Canada only, a wise decision or the ten new teams would probably still be trying to get past customs at Pearson.
One thing that hasn't changed is the grand prize money: still a cool quarter million. Plenty of other prizes, too, including cars and flights.
Listen in as Jon also tells what TV shows he's currently binging, the series he enjoyed the most as a youngster and his favourite, all-time TV theme song -- which he even sings! It's always a blast catching up with Jon Montgomery.
"Henderson has scored for Canada."
Those five words, spoken by radio and TV legend Foster Hewitt, had me and five friends jumping up and down all over my parent's house on September 28, 1972. We had just witnessed history as Team Canada came back to defeat The U.S.S.R. in an eight game hockey summit series that put the Cold War on Ice.
This episode, I speak with author, sports commentator and former Toronto Sun colleague Scott Morrison. His new book, "1972: The Series That Changed Hockey Forever," is the A-Z on a dramatic and unforgettable event. Scott spoke with several hockey heroes, including Phil Esposito (who wrote the forward to the book), Paul Henderson, Brad Park, Bobby Clarke, Ken Dryden, Yvan Cournoyer, Ron Ellis and others and answers every lingering question -- including whether or not Pat Stapleton smuggled the winning puck out of Moscow.
Come back to September of 1972 in this conversation steeped in nostalgia -- not just for the days of a 14-team NHL but for a nation and a culture where colour TV was still a novelty and bitcoins was what you did to see if coins were real.
Part Three of "Battle of the Network Stars: Executive Division" features CBC Executive Vice President Barbara Williams.
Williams, a respected industry veteran who called the shots at Global prior to joining CBC, oversees all of the public broadcaster’s English language programming services. This episode finds her just back from the Banff TV fest and fresh off the news of a long-term deal between CBC and Toronto's historic Massey Hall. CBC also just picked up a Peabody for Sort Of, the Toronto-lensed comedy starring Bilal Baig that returns this fall to CBC and HBO.
On the podcast, we walk through several programming decisions with the focus on what's new for 2022-2023. We also talk about the future of Coroner, which ended after four seasons with the departure of lead Serinda Swan. Might it return? And what of Private Eyes? Did CBC make a play for the popular Jason Priestley PI drama unceremoniously jettisoned by Global?
Part II in our series, "Battle of the Network Stars: Executives Division," features Daniel Eves, Senior Vice President, Broadcast Networks, Corus Entertainment.
Eves helped guide the network to a breakthrough last fall when Global became Canada's No. 1 draw in Core Prime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.). While CTV still won the full, Fall/Winter/Spring season, Global's September through December run was their first fall victory in 20 years.
Eves took an unusual route to programming. He studied film at Waterloo ("I don't think they even offer it there anymore," he says), interned at Alliance/Atlantis and started working for Showcase.
“I started to realize that there was this whole other world where I can pick shows and buy shows and manage a schedule..." he says. "I abandoned everything else I ever thought of and said that just seems like the thing I want to do.”
Things seem to be working out so far. Listen in as Eves talks Hollywood screenings, Upfronts, and Survivor's lasting appeal.
Fresh off the Canadian Upfronts, we kick off our "Battle of the Network Stars: Program Executives Division" with Justin Stockman, VP Content Development & Programming and Pat DiVittorio, VP Programming, CTV & Specialty. They outline CTV and Bell's goals for the 2022-2023 season. New US imports include East New York, Rookie Blue: Feds and Alaska with Hilary Swank and later a Night Court remake set for mid-season. Bell also has plenty of Canadian originals set to join Transplant on their schedule. The return of The Amazing Race Canada after a two-year pandemic pause should jolt CTV's summer. Will it all be enough to insure a 22nd-straight year at the top of the Canadian network ratings?
When it comes to ratings and putting today's television landscape in context, I always call on the Programming Insider himself, Marc Berman.
The New York native has been a friend and colleague since he began attending the Television Critics Association's semi-annual network press tours in 1999. Back then, Marc was reporting for Mediaweek; before that, he worked in the research department for NBC.
Now his insights and analysis -- as well as his unbeatable knowledge of TV trivia -- can be found daily at his Programming Insider site as well as at his regular contributions for Forbes online.
In this conversation, we look at the recent TV upfronts in New York and ask: have traditional broadcasters simply surrendered the future to streamers? Berman doesn't think so but he does wonder if they didn't blow a big opportunity this fall by not offering a more dynamic content mix for consumers.
Listen in also for what he's binging now, his favourite shows as a youngster and Marc's all-time favourite TV theme song. Plus find out which famous TV star used to call him daily for ratings!
As fans old and new will discover, podcast guests Dave Foley and Mark McKinney, along with fellow troupers Scott Thompson, Bruce McCullough and Kevin McDonald, are sketchier than ever. Twenty-seven years after their last season, their brand-new re-boot of The Kids in the Hall, premiers Friday, May 13 on Amazon Prime Video. That's also where to watch "The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks," a two-part documentary premiering one week later on May 20.
Foley and McKinney have enjoyed successful careers in television on both sides of the border. Hear their take on staying relevant as they enter their sixties plus what notes they received this time around from executive producer Lorne Michaels. They also discuss how the lingering pandemic may have helped the writing process and how much they love their eternally cool theme song, "Having an Average Weekend."
Jay Baruchel, who visited here about a year ago, returns to talk about his latest project, We're All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel). The six-episode docu-series premiered April 30 on Crave and can be streamed now on demand.
The 40-year-old actor-director-filmmaker returns to his roots, going way back to his teen years when he was a correspondent for Popular Mechanics for Kids. Here he's on a quest to investigate various end-of-the-world scenarios, including an asteroid Armageddon; a nuclear catastrophe; a pandemic pandemonium; an alien invasion; a volcanic cataclysm; and a climate apocalypse.
This episode includes clips from the series plus a shorter-than-usual chat with Jay, who is hella busy. Besides his recent hosting duties on LOL: Last One Laughing Canada, Baruchel was in St. John's directing episodes of Mark Critch's CBC series Son of a Critch. He can also be seen in the new Kids in the Hall series, coming up mid-May on Amazon Prime Video.
Billed as "The World's Slowest-rising Comedian," Ronnie Schell has been making people laugh for seven decades.
His story began at The Purple Onion and the hungry i in the late '50s where Schell shared stages with The Kingston Trio and Phyllis Diller. From there, the now 90-year-old seemed destined for showbiz success.
His TV history starts as a contestant on "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx. The big break came with "Gomer Pyle, USMC" where he played Jim Nabor's army pal Duke Slater. He shared top billing with Montreal-born Joby Baker, Billy De Wolfe and newcomer Goldie Hawn on the radio station sitcom "Good Morning World" -- a series co-created by previous brioux.tv guest Bill Persky.
Schell went on to a string of Disney movies in the '70s and '80s starring some of the biggest names in comedy, including Don Knotts, Tim Conway, and Phil Silvers.
That was his voice on many Hanna-Barbera animated series, including versions of The Flintstones, The Smurfs and Scooby-Doo. Almost 50 years ago, a request came in to voice a character that was a hit with Canadians -- Peter Puck. The character explained hockey rules to Americans on NBC. In real life, Schell didn't know an icing from an off side!
Hear these stories and many more, including the names of a few famous headliners Schell was not a fan of, as he looks back on a half-century of entertainment history.
Are you ready to go Tripping with Mitch Azaria? The executive producer behind two very successful real-time travel documentaries for TVO is back with a third: "Tripping the Bruce." It premieres Friday, April 15 on TVO and repeats on Sunday the 17th.
Bruce Who? Bruce Peninsula, silly. That glorious, prehistoric Great Lakes land mass that separates Lake Huron from Georgian Bay. I've spent all my summers cottaging there and I still did not know most of the amazing factoids that flash upon the screen during this three-hour sailboat ride across the tip of the peninsula.
Did you know that the Bruce is home to it's very own sub-species of black bear? That a reported one thousand shipwrecks surround its coasts -- the world's largest collections of intact wooden shipwrecks? That it is home to 150 species of migrating birds?
Mitch knows all and shares more fun facts, including how he and a small crew were able to capture the Bruce in all its glory from the deck of a sailboat last summer. Listen in, and see you up at Flowerpot Island this summer.
Come on down Canada, says Phil Keoghan.
The New Zealand-born host of The Amazing Race is throwing the doors open to any Canadian who wants to prove themselves on his other show, Tough as Nails.
Canadian citizens 21 or older can now apply to be on the CBS series, which will be retuning next season on Global. Tough as Nails features competitors at work sites who are challenged to prove themselves as individuals and as team members.
Keoghan, 54, agrees that the war in Ukraine has raised the bar when it comes to toughness under fire. He created this series, together with his wife Louise Rodrigues, with an aim to present a positive salute to ordinary heroes.
There’s also a substantial cash prize: $200,000 – American – and a Ford Super Duty truck.
Keoghan is hoping Canadians do well. After all, at one time he enjoyed landed immigrant status. His family lived in Guelph, Ont., for nearly four years when Keoghan was a lad, and he’s been back many times since.
Back in the ‘90s, however, a Calgary border official tore up his Canadian status card. That was a drag, he says. “I was kind of proud of being a landed Canadian immigrant.”
Good thing he doesn’t hold any grudges. Canadians can fill out a CBS casting application for Tough as Nails by following this link. Listen to the podcast to get more information. You’ll also hear Keoghan’s inspired answer to how people of all ages can seize the day with his “No Opportunity Wasted” philosophy.
Those stylin' siblings, Carolyn Wilbrink and Billy Pearson, are back with a second season of Farmhouse Facelift (Tuesdays on HGTV and streamable on StackTV). They launch their ten new episodes by tackling a much-needed renovation on an Ontario farmhouse built in 1881.
Shooting a second season in the middle of the pandemic was a challenge, they say, not just in having to obseve all the production protocols, but also dealing with sharply-rising prices and supply issues. In some cases, projects started in summer did not get finished until winter and vice-versa.
Still, the wait was worth it for Ron and Jason, whose 141-year-old farmhouse needed a whole re-think. Carolyn and Billy had to put together a plan that would also accommodate Ron's 84-year-old grandmother, who raised her family in the cherished homestead.
The challenge for Billy and Carolyn, who were raised in a farmhouse themselves, was to combine country charm with 21st century convenience on a multi-generational level -- and on a $100,000 budget (stretched thanks to sponsor support).
It all leads to a sweet and satisfying happy ending. Hear more from Carolyn and Billy on a fun and free-wheeling podcast conversation.
Since 2008, HGTV host and handyman Scott McGillivray has helped homeowners throughout North America turn their properties into income opportunities. In his latest series, Scott’s Own Vacation House (premiering March 14), he applies lessons learned on Vacation House Rules (returning in April for a third season) to his newly-acquired cottage property in the Kawarthas.
There Scott and his family, wife Sabrina and daughters Myah and Layla, set about renovating three 40-year-old cottage structures plus a boathouse. Helping is his “secret design weapon," Debra Salmoni.
First up is turning the guest cottage into a beach house, a spectacular transformation that begins with the removal of a 100-foot-tall white pine teetering inches from the front roofline of the cottage. After hiring a chain saw whiz who scampers to the treetop like a circus trick, McGillivray trucks the giant trunk off to a mill and has the pine turned into a portico.
On the podcast, we also discuss the soaring increase in properties (and in renovation costs), the impact of rising interest rates and the “rental tax” being introduced throughout Ontario’s cottage country. Plus there’s Scott’s cheer-full pick for his favourite TV theme song of all time.
Last year, "Hearties" turned out in force to listen to our episode with two of the stars from When Calls the Heart, Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith. With the Langley, BC-based series returning for a ninth season March 6 (on Super Channel Heart & Home), it's time to hear from Andrea Brooks. This is her eighth season as (now doctor) Faith Carter on the ever-popular Hallmark series.
The Brantford, Ont., native grew up in Vancouver and has credits on several BC-based series, including a fun run as troublemaker Eve Teschmacher on The CW's Supergirl. Brooks shares stories working opposite Jon Cryer (as Lex Luthor) on that series. She also talks about her recent UP network movie "Fishing for Love."
Brooks drops a few hints as to what fans have to look forward to in Season Nine -- it gets a little Bachelor-y -- and agrees that, yes, the Hope Valley wardrobe has evolved from corsets to "Frontier Caszh."
The new mom also picks an animated children's show as her all-time favourite TV theme song -- sung by none other than the late '50s rocker Little Richard.
Ennis Esmer plays the grass is always greener guy on Children Ruin Everything. Unlike his married workmate James (Aaron Abrams), he’s the guy with no kids, no responsibilities, and no money worries.
It’s a character that should be hard to like but, when it comes to Canadian TV shows and movies, Esmer is always welcome.
Born in Turkey and raised in Toronto, the actor-comedian has been the secret weapon on several series. He played “Oz” on The Listener, “Maz” on Private Eyes, Nash on Red Oaks and Rich Dotcom on Blindspot. He acts in Canadian indie films with the sexiest titles, including “How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town” and, of course, “Young People F---ing.”
Now he gets to play a guy named Ennis on Children Ruin Everything. The CTV sitcom airs its season finale Feb. 23 and is already renewed for a second season.
Esmer has credits on a variety of other shows, including Man Seeking Women, The LA Complex, Covert Affairs and Schitt’s Creek. He’s been a host on everything from the Canadian edition of Wipeout to the Gemini Awards and, most recently, Roast Battle Canada.
Not bad for a guy who arrived in Canada with his family at three and learned to speak english from watching TV!
Arnold Pinnock welcomes viewers to step back in time 100 years with The Porter. The historical drama premieres Monday, February 21 on CBC and CBC Gem (and later this year on BET).
Based on true events, this is a little-known slice of Canadian history. This tale of Black porters working out of Montreal in the 1920s and battling to form their own union is a passion project for Pinnock. He learned about it several years ago while working on another project near Montreal's Little Burgundy neighbourhood. That area of predominantly Black settlement was home to pianist Oscar Peterson, whose father was a porter.
Pinnock teamed with Bruce Ramsay and Sienna Films to bring these stories to life. They pulled together a wonderful cast, which includes Ami Ameen, Ronnie Rowe Jr., Mouna Traore and Alfre Woodard, among others. Vintage trains stationed in Winnipeg, where production was based, add a great deal of authenticity to the narrative.
Pinnock himself has a history worth celebrating. Canada's first Black member of the Second City improv troupe, his comedy resume includes credits on The Royal Canadian Air Farce and Baroness von Sketch Show. In series work, Pinnock has appeared on Life with Derek, Combat Hospital, The Listener, Travelers, Cardinal and Hudson & Rex. In movies, he has starred opposite Chris Rock and Liam Neeson.
All aboard the Pinnock podcast express, the best way to arrive at The Porter.
When I heard who the ten comedians were for LOL: Last One Laughing Canada, my first thought was just give the trophy to Colin Mochrie now.
Coming to Amazon Prime Video Feb. 18, the six-episode series follows similar LOL reality competitions featuring the best comics from Australia, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Spain and other countries.
It features previous brioux.tv podcast guest Jay Baruchel as host and two other past guests among the competitors – Andrew Pfung and K Trevor Wilson. The others are Caroline Rhea (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Debra DiGiovanni (Humour Resources), Dave Foley (The Kids in the Hall), Jon Lajoie (The League), Tom Green (The Tom Green Show), Mae Martin (Feel Good), and Brandon Ash Mohammed (This Hour Has 22 Minutes).
That’s a strong field, but Mochrie would still seem to have the edge. All those seasons keeping a straight face next to Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady, Brad Sherwood and others on Whose Line is it Anyway should have him battle ready and steeled for success. Being married to a very funny lady, Deb McGrath, has also honed his skills working without a script. And, aye, being born in Scotland dona hurt either.
Mochrie has also watched all of the other LOL’s including the Australian one hosted by Rebel Wilson. We assess the competition, and both agree that Baruchel would be terrible at this game because he's an easy laugh.
“He’d win if the game was who can swear the most,” says Mochrie.
In March, Art Hindle will be saluted by his peers in the acting communuty with the Award of Excellence at the 20th anniversary of the ACTRA Awards.
It is a well deserved salute to a much-admired actor and crusading guild member with close to 200 IMDb credits and at least as many stories to go with them.
Over the years, I always sought out Art at industry functions just to hear again about his days on Dallas, E.N.G., "Porkys" and Paradise Falls and -- best of all -- his hair-raising adventures competing on Battle of the Network Stars.
We went overtime on this podcast episode just to get all these great career highlights in, including a previous high honour he received -- having his caricature drawn by the legendary Mort Drucker in the pages of Mad magazine.
Hear also about a part or two that got away, including a US network sitcom he was cast in with Kim Cattrall -- until some witch stole it from both of them!
All this plus his early feature film break as a hockey player doubled on ice by former Toronto Maple Leaf Jim McKenny. Art Hindle: living the Canadian acting dream.
Malcolm McDowell has a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
Growing up in Liverpool in the early ‘60s, he took his girlfriend to see The “Silver” Beatles at the Cavern Club. By the end of the decade, he was one of the beautiful people swingin' through London as the star of Lindsay Anderson’s “If….” and "O Lucky Man." In 1971, he drew raves for his electric performance in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.”
Fifty years later, he feels like a "Lucky Man" all over again for landing in Canada on CBC’s breakout comedy hit, “Son of a Critch.”
McDowell loved shooting in Newfoundland and immediately bonded with his young British co-star, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth. He praises the scripts along with the book the series was spun off from: Mark Critch's memoir about growing up eccentric on Canada's East Coast.
And what a life he has led in-between. Listen as McDowell tells story after story about the famous stage and film folk he has known, including three Sirs: Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and John Guilgud. Other names dropped include Peter Sellers, Robert Altman, Robert Mitchum, Michael Caine and George Harrison.
At 78, he's never been busier, having just finished shooting a movie with two actors he adores: Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
He's got stories about them, too. This is a podcast you don't want to miss.
Despite the title of his new comedy, Kurt Smeaton really does not believe that Children Ruin Everything. The Emmy-winning writer, exercutive producer and showrunner and his wife have, after all, three thriving young rascals of their own.
In creating this series for CTV, he wanted to show that, yes, kids can ruin some things, but that life also enters a surprisingly rich and rewarding phase with dependents in tow. In other words, all those surveys that show life is less enjoyable with children? Bunk.
Smeaton also talks about growing up in Ottawa, venturing onto sketch comedy stages and writing for shows such as Men with Brooms, The Hour and Mr. d. Besides contributing to Kim's Convenience, he won an Emmy writing and producing on the sixth and final season of Schitt's Creek, the one where, as he points out, they all won Emmys.
We also talk about shooting a comedy with kids through a pandemic. Plus we salute a little show he created called What Would Sal Do? We both agree it should have run longer, but at least it pulled him into the New Metric Media universe. That partnership continues to thrive with Children Ruin Everything (Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CTV).
You would be hard-pressed to find a more impressive cross-border comedy resume than that of writer-producer Tim McAuliffe. The Montreal native’s list of credits includes The Office, The Last Man on Earth, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, MacGruber, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Corner Gas.
His latest production is co-creating Son of a Critch, which is already off to an impressive start on CBC.
The Tuesday night sitcom stars Mark Critch and is based on his memoir about growing up in Newfoundland. McAuliffe and Critch first met as writers 16 years ago on 22 Minutes. After Critch wrote his book, McAuliffe said that is a TV show, and the two made it so.
McAuliffe did not set out to write for the likes of Critch, Will Forte, Jimmy Fallon, Brent Butt or Steve Carell. He was working in advertising when a video he made in an effort to unload his clunky ’88 Dodge Aires went viral. Soon he was helping to launch Video on Trial and other shows for MuchMusic.
Without an agent or a manager (or a Green Card) he managed to land a job writing for Fallon. It all started when he dropped off a package full of jokes at the 30 Rock reception desk in Manhattan. The rest of that story is one of the great eye openers of a fun conversation. Listen to it now at Brioux.tv the podcast.
When he was nine years old, Hamza Haq’s parents immigrated from Saudi Arabia to Ottawa. The young lad quickly acclimatized to Canadian culture. He turned on the TV and started rooting for WWE heroes such as The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and many others.
“We’re going to be here for the rest of the day,” he tells me in a fun and rollicking podcast, “if you get me started on this.”
Before that, TV was also a big deal growing up in the Middle East. For four years, he, says, he watched a lot of America’s Funniest Home Videos and Full House.
He was star struck, therefore, when, at 14, he ran into Bob Sagat at the airport. He has proof: his sister whipped out her flip phone and snapped a photo.
Acting fascinated him at an early age. Now fans are taking selfies with him. He’s back Monday nights on CTV as emergency room saviour Dr. “Bash” Bashir in the second season of the hit medical drama Transplant.
The Canadian Screen Award winner sets up the new episodes, which begin January 3. He also talks about the challenges of shooting a medical drama through a pandemic. The Montreal-based production, which also stars Laurence Leboeuf, Ayisha Issa, Jim Watson, Torri Higginson and John Hannah, spent eight months crafting 13 new episodes.
Hear Hamza on the film role he would take in a heartbeat, what he is binging now plus the piano jazz TV theme he singles out as one of the best ever.
Spread your tiny wings and listen to Canada's songbird, Anne Murray, as she looks back at her incredible 40-year career. The Nova Scotia native is profiled in "Anne Murray: Full Circle," a new documentary streaming on CBC and CBC Gem. Murray, 76, spins story after story, including the time John Lennon came backstage at The Grammys to tell her he thought her version of "You Won't See Me" was the best Beatles cover he ever heard. Murray looks back at her start on Singalong Jubilee, moving to Toronto in 1971 in her 1969, aquamarine Cougar convertible and breaking into the US market as a semi-regular on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. She talks about becoming a crossover country favourite while singing at the Grand Ole Opry and sharing dressing rooms with Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and a whole lot of hairspray. We also talk about her long-rumoured interest in owning a piece of the Toronto Maple Leafs and hitting a hole-in-one on the links in New York State. And, yes, she once recorded an episode of Family Guy, where she's adored by both Stewie and Brian.
The dean of Canadian sports broadcasting, Brian Williams, looks back at his 50-year career after announcing his retirement from CTV Sports and TSN. Among the highlights: 35 years coast-to-coast on radio with Don Cherry on "Grapeline" -- and not one controversy!
Williams, 75, hosted Olympic Games broadcasts for both CBC and CTV. His first game as a reporter, covering weightlifting, was in Montreal in 1976. His last as host, London in 2012. Vancouver 2010 was the pinnacle, says Williams, as Canada owned the podium with 14 Gold medals. It's also where he met up with that other Brian Williams, the NBC news anchor, also just retired in order to add to the confusion.
The Winnipeg native also distinguished himself for his coverage of all sports: Formula1 and horse racing, the CFL, Major League Baseball and hockey, everything but comptitive tiddlywinks. He saw them all from Jackie Stewart to Ron Lancaster to Ben Johnson, and worked with some of the greats, sharing stories about Dick Beddoes, Jim "Shakey" Hunt, Don Chevrier and Bill Stephenson.
We also talk about those "It's 8 am in Helsinki, 2:30 in Newfoundland," sign-ons he used to give every Games, and how he misses getting ribbed about that from the late Roger Abbott of the Royal Canadian Air Farce.
Can you actually make a Christmas TV-movie for $1.5 million Canadian?
Resourceful Robert Vaughn can and did. The Ontario-based director shot the charming holiday romance "Christmas Movie Magic." It is one of 24 new seasonal movie premieres streaming this month on Super Channel Heart & Home (one of our sponsors here at brioux.tv the podcast).
The film stars Holly Deveaux (Spun Out) and Drew Seeley and much of it takes place around one of my favourite neighbourhood cinemas, The Westdale in Hamilton, Ont.
It's about a reporter (played by Deveaux) who looks into a mystery in a small town: a leading man comes north in the '50s to make a "White Christmas" style classic. A local lady captures his heart. Who was she and why didn't they remain a couple?
"Christmas Movie Magic" will also air on Lifetime in th US.
Vaughn -- no relation to the actor who played Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. back in the '60s -- is already busy shooting his next holiday movie in southern Ontario and has another out this month titled, "The Enchanted Christmas Cake."
Hear how the producer-director became part of the prolific holiday movie machine that has sprung up all across Canada.
As a newspaper boy, Bill Vigars once almost set a school on fire -- which, in a bizarre way, eventually led to him running half-way across Canada with Terry Fox.
That's just one of the amazing true tales you'll hear from a master storyteller who truly has a million of 'em.
When I first met Bill, in the late '80s, he was the publicist for Night Heat, a CTV cop show that shot on an overnight schedule. It starred Scott Hylands and Jeff Wincott and was a rare, early example of a Canada-US cross border success, airing in both late night and prime time on the CBS schedule.
That series was co-produced by Sonny Grosso, one of the legendary NYPD cops whose multi-million dollar heroin bust inspired the movie "The French Connection." Vigars once pulled a toy gun on Grosso and lived to tell about it.
He tells other stories, too, about Donald Sutherland, Peter O'Toole, Kyra Sedgwick, David Foster and many others -- including Robert Duval, who played Vigars in a movie!
We also talk about a fundraising effort currently underway on behalf of Hylands, an actor's actor in need after a challenging diagnosis. Vigars, still very involved in the Terry Fox Foundation, has always been ready and eager to help spread the word for a friend or a cause.
Graham Yost is the Emmy and Peabody award-winning executive producer and showrunner behind such Peak TV hits as Justified and The Americans. As a writer, he was the screenwriter behind the boxoffice smash "Speed" and episodes of "Band of Brothers."
He is also, as he was called back in the day, "Son of Elwy," as in Elwy Yost, TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies host who was a one-man film studies course for many of us who grew up in Ontario in the '70s through the '90s.
Graham talks lovingly about his dad and the new documentary "Magic Shadows, Elwy Yost: A Life in Movies," premiering Sat., Nov. 27 on TVO.
He insists his enthusiastic dad really didn't like every movie he saw: "He just didn't talk about the ones he didn't like." Yost Senior was actually a discerning viewer who could tell in 30 seconds if a film had any merit.
Graham also talks about growing up in Etobicoke, studying at U of T's Trinity college and being the drummer for The Lava Men, a sideline he was into around the time we first met.
He also talks about his latest TV projects, including two exciting shows he's currently shooting in The UK for AppleTV+
If you’ve watched Hallmark movies in the past five years, you’ve probably seen several directed by David Winning.
The Calgary-born director made a name for himself early in his career for directing fantasy-horror films and shows – everything from Friday the 13th The Series to Are You Afraid of the Dark. He also was at home on sci-fi sets, including Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda and Stargate: Atlantis.
In recent years, he’s tapped into the lighter side at Hallmark, where he’s directed holiday heroines Erin Krakow, Lacey Chabert and Danica McKellar through multiple movies.
His latest, “The Nine Kittens of Christmas,” premieres Thanksgiving night (Nov. 25) on Hallmark Channel and Dec. 5 in Canada on W Channel. It stars Brandon Routh, Kimberley Sustad and Gregory Harrison.
It is Winning’s 20th movie for the Crown Media company. Many of them outdraw shows on the broadcast networks.
As someone who has directed everything from vampires and zombies to cute little kitties, why are these Hallmark holiday movies so popular, especially through a pandemic?
“In dark times, Hallmark does an excellent job of offering a safe harbour for viewers,” says Winning. Hear much more on this episode of brioux.tv the podcast.
“It’s not exactly ‘Angela’s Ashes,’” Rick Mercer says of his childhood. He writes about it in his engaging new memoir, “Talking to Canadians” (Penguin Harper Collins).
When he first sat down to write the book, something of a pandemic project, he worried that he lacked the harrowing childhood needed to pen a comedian’s memoir.
Brace yourself then, reader. Mercer’s tome is filled with mischief but also happy memories of growing up with his family in Middle Cove, Newfoundland, 25-minutes outside of St. John’s. Crowding around dinner tables were his mother, Patricia, father, Kenneth, an older sister and brother and eventually a younger sister adopted into the family. He writes generously about all of them.
I’ve been interviewing Mercer for over 25 years since meeting him way back when This Hour Has 22 Minutes first launched in the mid-‘90s. Like most, I know the story of his 25 years on CBC, right through the 15-season run of The Mercer Report.
It was fun, therefore, to read and talk about those first 25 years, leading up to a challenge a special teacher gave Mercer -- never exactly a fully engaged student.
“My life changed forever on that day,” says the 52-year-old, who stepped up to comedy at that point, “and that’s all I’ve done ever since except for a few stints washing dishes.”
Peter Mansbridge feels a tad uncomfortable being the story instead of reporting it. The retired CBC chief news anchor, however, has written a bestselling memoir titled, "Off The Record" (Simon & Schuster). And that's where he goes, spinning dozens of short, fascinating stories.
One of the best is his ridiculously unlikely break into the news business as a 19-year-old baggage handler overheard on a P.A. system by the right person at the right time in Churchill, Manitoba.
That led to a spectacular career involving prime ministers, princesses and At Issue panelists.
For the podcast, I reached Mansbridge in Scotland where he was finally tending to a farm property with his actress wife Cynthia Dale. We talked about the time CBS in New York backed up the money truck in an attempt to whisk him south as their new morning show host. He turned it down due partly to the generosity of his predecesor in the CBC anchor chair, Knowlton Nash. It's a story Mansbridge has told before, but it is so damn Canadian it has to be heard again.
We also talk about his gift of self-effacing photo captioning ("The hair days," he writes under an early shot of him in Calgary). He also names his favourite TV show growing up, and, yes, it's a western. He even singled out the theme song. I asked if Cynthia could sing it. "That will cost you," said Mansbridge.
Canada’s “Man Mountain of Comedy,” K Trevor Wilson, is finding it’s a great day for hay in Canadian television. Besides his regular gig as “Squirrely Dan” on the Crave hit Letterkenny, he’s now one of the three judges on CTV Comedy’s hilarious new reality competition series Roast Battle Canada.
Wilson has earned his spot on the judges panel beside fellow comics Russell Peters and Sabrina Jaleels. He’s gone deep on the original American version of Roast Battle, making the quarter finals before celebrity judges such as Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Rogan.
On this podcast episode, he talks about performing no-holds-barred insult comedy in woke times. Wilson basically says you have to be able to take a vicious joke to tell one, and his skin is roast battle ready.
After a "Letterkenny Live" North American comedy tour was cut short due to COVID in 2020, he’s looking forward to getting on the road again with Jared Keeso, Nathan Dales, Mark Forward and others starting in February. Shows begin in Kitchener in Canada before going on to Boston, New York, Chicago, Nashville and all over the United States. Turns out you don’t have to be from Listowel, Ontario, to get these chippy Canadian slackers and hockey toughs. As Wilson says, “Funny is funny.”
He also shares his current TV binge plus his all-time favourite TV theme song.
Mark Critch has not let a little thing like a pandemic slow him down one bit. The busy Newfoundland native is in his 18th season on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. He is also co-creator of the upcoming CBC series based on his book, Son of a Critch.
Meanwhile, his new book, "An Embarrassment of Critches: Immature Stories from my Grown-up Life," is just out from Viking.
Critch talks about all that and more including a discovery he made while visiting the famed Rockefeller Plaza studio in New York where The Tonight Show originated and what 45's he keeps spinning in his 1956 Rock-ola jukebox. Plus he reveals his favourite prime minister to ambush over the years on 22 Minutes -- and it's not Justin Trudeau!
As Canadian thanksgiving comes and goes, Zoie Palmer is thankful she's playing Jann Arden’s sensible sister Max on JANN. The Calgary-based sitcom is in its third season Monday nights on CTV.
The British-born actress and York University grad is also well known for her five seasons as Dr. Lauren Lewis on the boundary-pushing Showcase drama Lost Girl. There her role as a sometime sex partner to the show's leading succubus, played by Anna Silk, landed the two of them on CNN's list of all-time favourite TV Couples.
Before COVID curtailed set visits for reporters, I kept running into Palmer on productions across Canada. Between JANN seasons, the Canadian Screen Award winner kept busy on shows such as Wynonna Earp, Taken, Ransom, Private Eyes and Pure.
Earlier this year, she was cast alongside Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson and Max Minghella in the “Saw” inspired feature film “Spiral.”
Get to know Palmer a little better -- including her choice for favourite all-time TV theme song -- on this chatty podcast conversation.
Gerry Dee says he is thrilled to be back in front of a studio audience again as Family Feud Canada returns for a third season.
The game show, shot at CBC’s Toronto broadcast centre, had to turn studio audiences away last season as COVID safety protocols limited capacity to participants and crew. Dee, a seasoned stand-up comedy performer, suddenly had to aim his ad libs at camera and crew members only and, as he points out, “they’re trained not to laugh.”
This season a limited number of on-lookers are allowed back in for each of the 102 new episodes airing Monday to Thursdays on CBC.
Dee also talks about a series he did work on in Montreal during COVID times: The Moodys. The Fox sitcom starred Denis Leary and Jay Baruchel. Dee, a loyal defender of his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, says he talked hockey all day long between Leary, a big Bruins supporter, and Baruchel, who bleeds the Blue, Blanc Rouge of les Canadiens.
On the podcast, Dee also talks about his hopes for the Leafs this season, efforts to get back on the road with a series of comedy concerts and why he feels his teacher sitcom Mr.d, which ran for eight seasons on CBC, had too short a title.
Jewel Staite was five-years-old when an agent stopped her and her mom walking through a mall. Did the girl want to be in a TV commercial, the agent asked? Staite had no interest until her mom suggested that if she did it, she'd buy her some new outfits with the money.
And she's been working in TV and films ever since.
Mainly, she's been doing sci-fi shows that became cult favourites with fans, including Firefly with fellow Canadian Nathan Fillion, the spinoff feature "Serenity," and Stargate Atlantis. Since then, she's starred in The LA Complex, had a recurring role opposite Joel Kinnaman on The Killing and starred in the feature, "How to Have an Orgy in a Small Town."
Her latest project is Family Law. Global's new Friday night drama is set and shot in Vancouver and stars Staite as Abigail Bianchi, a once promising lawyer who hits rock bottom after another booze binge until only one firm is willing to take a chance on her -- her father's. He's played by Victor Garber, and the two and the rest of the cast have already completed work on the series' first two seasons.
Staite also shares what she's watching now, sings a bit of her all-time favourite TV theme song and answers whether or not she'd encourage her own five-year-old to get into the biz.
You know Thomas Craig as Inspector Brackenreid on Murdoch Mysteries, back for a 15th season on CBC. The Sheffield, England, native has been keeping the constables and detective William Murdoch (played by Yannick Bisson) in line for over 200 episodes. But did you know that Craig also logged over 200 episodes in two-and-a-half years as Tommy Harris on the world's longest-running TV serial, Coronation Street?
Get to know Craig a little better as he talks about his past TV roles in England, including a memorable one on a series which starred Edward Woodward, "Common as Muck."
The avid English football fan also hints at a few upcoming storylines on Murdoch this season, including one that intersects with a real-life historical character -- Toronto-born silent film star Mary Pickford. The Murdoch writers have apparently hooked up "America's Sweetheart" with one of the regular characters on the series in what can only be described as an early "sex tape" (although it would have been shot on film in those days). Craig says an intimacy coach was even brought to the set to coach the actors through their TV tryst!
Craig also says that while he and co-star Jonny Harris (Constable Crabtree) hear praise for their comedy chops, Bisson does not get enough credit for playing an excellent straight man. He also shares the name of the TV show he's hooked on watching now as well as what series first grabbed his attention as a youngster growing up in The UK.
It was 20 years ago this week when the biggest story of Kevin Newman's career broke wide open.
The Toronto-native was coming off a five year stint with ABC News in New York City and had just moved back to Canada's west coast to help launch Global National.
"It was 5:30 a.m. in Vancouver," he recalls, "when I got a phone call that something was coming up — a plane, they weren’t sure how big, had hit the World Trade Center and I should probably come in. So, I jumped in the shower, and then while I was in the shower, my wife yelled out that another plane has hit. And like everybody, it was when that second one hit you went, “Oh, that's no accident.”
Newman raced through traffic, got to Global's news studio, and took his place behind the anchor desk. For the next 16 hours straight he kept Canadians appraised of the horrors happening in the American city he once called home.
Kevin Newman has anchored newscasts on all three major Canadian broadcast networks as well as with ABC in New York. He helped launch Global National 20 years ago, premiering the Vancouver-based newscast just days before the attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere in America on 9/11.
He's now the executive producer of a new documentary airing Sept. 10 entitled, "Disruption: 20 Years of Global National." It airs on the main network as well as on-demand with Stack TV and on the Global TV app.
Listen in for much more about his Gemini award-winning career, including his early days on CBC’s Midday. Plus find out what fellow Canadian-born anchor Peter Jennings gave him when he left New York to return to Canada.
Former "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" standout Shaun Majumder talks about his latest TV effort, "Race Against the Tide," (premiering Sept. 9 on CBC).
The series is an outdoors reality competition with a pretty compelling twist: sand sculpters from around the world flock to the Bay of Fundy and then have six hours to create towering works of art before the tide comes in and washes their efforts away.
As Shaun says on the podcast, just don't use the "C" word in describing the finished works. (As in "Castles").
Majumder also talks about parenting through COVID times with wife Shelby and their adorable two year old daughter, performing virtual comedy shows for front-line medical workers, relaunching a long-planned standup comedy tour coming to Ontario this fall and other projects in the works.
Bill Persky helped save Carl Reiner’s life. That’s how the late, great creator-executive producer of The Dick Van Dyke Show saw it anyway. As the third season approached, he desperately needed steady help churning out 30 to 33 scripts a year for his hit CBS sitcom of the 1960s.
Enter Persky and writing partner Sam Denoff. The former radio men from New York had made headway as sketch writers for stars such as Steve Allen, Joey Bishop and Andy Williams, but they desperately wanted to crack the big time of sitcom writing. So, through their agent, they submitted a spec script to Reiner.
The only problem was -- he hated it.
Fortunately, he was kind enough to give them a second chance. That next spec script turned out to be one of the classics from the series – “That’s My Boy?”—the one where Rob thinks they’ve brought home the wrong child from the hospital.
Persky and Denoff went on to create That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas, in 1965, as well as write and produce other shows such as Good Morning World, Lotsa Luck with Dom DeLuise and The Montefuscos. Persky later concentrated on directing, helming over 100 episodes of the ‘80s comedy Kate & Allie.
Persky’s memoir is titled, “My Life is a Situation Comedy” and you’ll want to order it and read it after listening to the very spry 89-year-old spin story-after-story from the Golden Age of television.
Star, executive producer and director Jason Priestley talks about the fifth season of his shot-in-Toronto procedural, Private Eyes. It's a series that, no matter how many times it gets tossed around the Global schedule, always manages to return to loyal audience of over a million viewers.
The light-hearted detective series, which co-stars Cindy Sampson and returned July 7, was the highest-rated Canadian returning series of the 2020/2021 season to date (A18-49 and A25-54). It is also imported to 186 territories.
So how come this is the fifth and final season? And will viewers get a neat and tidy ending to the series, or did this ending come as a surprise to Priestley and others after Season Five was shot?
A durable star and director on both sides of the border, Priestley also weighs in on whether or not there will be another 90210 reunion. He also talks about his upcoming documentary, a profile of the late, unlamented Leafs boss, Harold Ballard.
Speaking of hockey, Priestley also talks about his most Canadian moment of all -- getting elbowed by Gordie Howe.
There's also a great story about Priestley's first directing assignment, at 23, on 90210 and the blunt words of advice he got from uber-producer Aaron Spelling on tackling that task.
The creator, writer, executive producer and star of Corner Gas Animated returns to brioux.tv:the podcast to set up the fourth and final season of his series. The spin-off from the live-action version of Corner Gas is the No. 1 Canadian original on CTV Comedy. So why is this the fourth and final season? Butt, who has been making TV shows for CTV since 2004, comes up with what he thinks is the answer. He also talks about getting back on the road after his standup comedy act has been shut down for a year-and-a-half due to the pandemic (a tour starts in Ontario this fall). What did he do with his time off the road? Write a book of course. Not the book you'd think he'd write, either. As for Season Four, several guest star voices are featured, including Mark McKinney in the opener as well as Kim Coates, Simu Liu, Rick Mercer, and former Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page. There's even a surprise Hollywood superstar who recorded a voice for the final episode. Who? Butt drops a hint or two but we'll have to wait to find out. The new season of Corner Gas Animated premieres Monday, July 5 on CTV Comedy.
Author Ira Wells spent three years working on "Norman Jewison: A Director's Life." A full year of that was pouring over Jewison's papers, annotated scripts and other manuscripts at Victoria College at the University of Toronto -- where Wells is an assistant professor of literature.
He writes that Jewison's 24 feature films "could just as easily have been a dozen, or three or none." Despite directing two films -- "In the Heat of the Night" and "Moonstruck"-- to Best Picture Oscar wins, landing the next film deal never got any easier. It helped that behind Jewison's nice guy, all-Canadian persona, beats the heart of a lion. As Burt Reynolds once mused, "He must be able to kick the shit out of people in meetings."
Jewison's other talent was to be the director he needed to be in relation to the talent at hand. He could be, as Wells describes him, "a nurturing father figure, a wise older brother, on old fling." Sometimes he was all three on the same film, as he was on the set of "Agnes of God."
Wells goes through Jewison's diverse catalogue -- "The Russians Are Coming...," "The Thomas Crown Affair," "Fiddler on the Roof," "Rollerball," "A Soldier's Story" and "The Hurricane," among others. He takes us through the director's early days at the CBC in Toronto as well as directing superstars such as Judy Garland and Harry Belafonte in American television. He addresses Jewison's passion for mentoring the next generations of filmmakers with the Canadian Film Centre.
The title of Jewison's own 2004 autobiography is "This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me" and he meant it. As Wells writes, "The image that emerges from the thousands of pages of letters, contracts, memos, production schedules, casting notes, draft screenplays and countless other documents is of a director fighting for every frame of his vision."
"We were going to do it in March, we were going to do it in April, we were going to do it in May and finally, come hell or high water, it's going to come off on June 6th," says John Brunton.
The CEO of Insight Productions is talking about the 2021 Juno Awards, Canada's annual music industry award show. Brunton and Insight Senior Vice President Lindsay Cox had already lived through one heartbreaking cancelation a year earlier when the Junos were a last-minute scratch due to the outbreak of the pandemic. They managed to find a way, with the help and goodwill of many of the biggest names in Canadian music, to program this 50th anniversary event as a virtual showcase.
Viewers tuning in Sunday, June 6 at 8 p.m. on CBC will see Anne Murray induct Jann Arden into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame as part of the show, with Jessie Reyez, Justin Bieber, Maestro Fresh Wes, Serena Ryder and more confirmed to perform. There will also be appearances by Alessia Cara; Andrew Phung; TikTok sensations The Basement Gang; Hall of Fame inductees Buffy Sainte-Marie and Gordon Lightfoot; Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy; Michael Bublé; Paul Brandt; Sarah McLachlan; Shania Twain and many more, including The Tragically Hip performing alongside Feist.
How did they pull such a tricky show together under the cloud of COVID? Listen in as Brunton and Cox tell all.
Bestselling author and former New York Times TV columnist Bill Carter is back to share more stories about making The Story of Late Night. The six-episode docuseries continues Sunday nights on CNN.
I asked Bill to return (virtually -- our previous conversation was so long ago it was live in studio) to talk about the sixth and final episode, one that was not in the original plans. The series was already deep into production when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. As CNN delayed the premiere of the series to stay with Donald Trump, last fall's US presidential election and the January 6 insurection at the Capital, the decision was made to created a new episode covering the virtual, at-home era of late night programming. Carter once again spoke with many of the main players, including Seth Meyers, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, Desus & Mero, Amber Ruffin andJames Corden. They share insights into cranking out shows from their attics and garages and also speculate on what may be next for the post-late night era.
Bill Carter literally wrote the book on late night television. In fact, he wrote two bestsellers: "The Late Shift" and "The War for Late Night." Now he's executive producer of the compelling documentary series The Story of Late Night, premiering May 2 on CNN. Carter shares the stories behind the making of the doc, including his latest conversations with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O'Brien, Seth Meyers, James Corden and many others. This was recorded in October of 2019, live and in studio in Toronto. It was held until now as CNN kept waiting for Donald Trump to stop hogging all the news headlines long enough to program this series. I've know Bill for 25 years as we've lurched from TCA press tour to press tour, so we do stray off topic here and there. Still, don't miss Carter's story about getting a phone call at the office from O.J. Simpson -- shortly after The Juice was acquitted. Podcast gold!
I finally learn how to spell his name and then he retires!
Slawko Klymkiw has spent over 40 years towering over the media landscape in Canada. His list of acheivements are many, starting in news at CBC and working his way up to head of programming and entertainment. Shows such as The Rick Mercer Report and Da Vinci's Inquest flourished under his watch.
Not everything he tried worked, but every time I would point out a misstep from my perch as TV critic at The Toronto Sun, Klymkiw would call me over to CBC headquarters in Toronto and point out all the things I didn't get right.
What emerged was an understanding of the multi-level chess game that was all part of the job of running the public broadcaster -- and what a good sport I found in Klymkiw.
After 25 years at CBC he moved on to have an even greater impact as head of The Canadian Film Centre. The past 16 years, Klymkiw took a visionary approach to managing the CFC, broadening the scope of the institution Norman Jewison built to include mentorship programs in television as well as in film.
He was also responsible for helping to raise an estimated $150 million in funds for the Centre, a legacy that will continue to inspire and help educate the next generation of Canadian media storytellers.
I first met Jay Baruchel 20 years ago in Los Angeles on a Television Critics Association Fox network reception in downtown Los Angeles, At 18, he was starring in Judd Apatow's college comedy Undeclared alongside another young Canadian, Seth Rogen. The two were pretty excited to have landed on a promising show; what they could not have known at the time was that they'd each won the comedy career lottery.
Baruchel was born in Ottawa and raised in Montreal. He grew up soaking up every bit of movie intel from the likes of Leonard Maltin and Siskel & Ebert; within a few years he would be reviewed by all three. He talks about his steps along the way -- his early Canadian work on Popular Mechanics for Kids (PMK) and Are You Afraid of the Dark; being directed by Cameron Crowe in "Almost Famous" and Clint Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby"; being reunited with Rogen on "Knocked Up" and "This is The End."
Also touched on is his his work on the FX series Man Seeking Woman, a shot-in-Toronto wonder, and his determination to act in, direct, write and produce projects in his home and native land.
One current effort is The Moodys, which premieres Thursday, April 1 on Fox. The Montreal-based production stars Denis Leary, Elizabeth Perkins and Francois Arnaud, with Gerry Dee recurring.
Because Leary is in it, the series has several scenes shot in a hockey rink. Baruchel, a lifelong fan of les Canadiens, says even he is less of an NHL nerd than Leary.
You'll hear more on other Baruchel touchstones, such as his own hockey movies Goons 1 & 2, where he also contributed as a writer and a director. I even try to pry a story out of him about his "How to Train Your Dragon" voice-mate Craig Ferguson.
That's Jay Baruchel, who'se gone from Almost Famous to a clutch player in TV and film.
Nobody makes me laugh out loud like Ron James. Canada's ultimate Road Warrior will be "Live from my Living Room" with a brand new comedy special on Sunday, March 21 at 8 p.m.
James' virtual New Year's Eve special sold over 3500 tickets. This new hour, co-written by a couple of comedy veterans, features all new material. Tickets are available at here with some proceeds going to the theatres and other venues James would normally have played in all across Canada.
"Live performance has taken a torpedo to the bow," says James, who last performed before an actual audience March 7, 2020, at Hamilton Place. "Given the relentless pummeling COVID 19 has delivered to our battered psyches, I figurethe best way to keep our sanity intact in the face of this madness… is by laughing at it!"
He's calling this latest virtual comedy show, "Spring Loaded."
Listen as he talks about his long road to the top of the Canadian stand-up summit, including his start with "Second City," his brush with SCTV, his year of starvation in the States and many other encounters and adventures. He singles out a couple of comedy heroes along the way, including Scottish funnyman Billy Connolly.
This episode is the best back stage pass on what Ron has planned for March 21. Listen in and laugh along with Ron's take on Canada at a COVID crossroads.
As "Kiddo the Clown," Trevor Evans was the biggest star on TV when I was five. His daily series (1962-65) was produced in what was then the brand new CFTO studios in Agincourt right off the 401 in Toronto. It was the kind of bizarre local kiddie show that would one day inspire the likes of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
Kiddo was the landlord of a zany apartment where laundry came down a shute (onto his head), mice typed notes under the stairs and a general sent his boots down a dumb waiter to be polished. The name of then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was frequently invoked. The strange way the series ended always haunted me.
Evans, who turns 85 in April, went on to be a top TV director. He worked with a Who's Who of Canadian TV talent including Wayne & Shuster and The Royal Canadian Air Farce. He gave future comedy icons John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O'Hara their starts before SCTV. He also directed specials for Rich Little, Stiller & Meara, Carol Burnett and Robert Kline as well as his hero, Red Skelton. He even once worked with Buster Keaton!
Evans is a one-man TV time capsule. The sound quality is less than stellar, recorded over the phone, but lean in and you'll hear stories you will never forget.
"Hearties" will be looking forward to the return of When Calls the Heart when the eighth season premieres Sunday, February 21 on Super Channel Heart & Home.
So will Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith, who return as sawmill sweethearts Rosemary and Leland Coulter.
The two Canadian actors returned to Hope Valley -- really a specially contructed outdoor set located East of Vancouver -- to shoot for the first time under COVID safety precautions. This was the first season, unfortunately, that fans were not allowed on the set.
They talk about that experience as well as what to expect during this eighth season, including the big decision ahead for lead character Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Krakow).
They also explore their own career paths, with Pascale talking about her start on movies such as "Ginger Snaps 2" and "Hollywood Wives: the True Story." Smith goes even further back to his days on the Canadian series Destiny Ridge.
Both single out their favourite TV series growing up as well as their all-time favourite TV theme song.
Hard to believe, but Kristin Kreuk has spent over half her life before the cameras, starring on Smallville, Beauty and the Beast and Burden of Truth .
Here’s something I didn’t know, however: she almost became half Klingon! In an engaging podcast conversation, Kreuk confides that, just before committing to play crusading lawyer Joanna Chang on Burden, she went after a lead role on a series shot in Toronto -- Star Trek: Discovery.
“I auditioned a lot,” says the Vancouver native, who, when she wasn't studying karate and doing gymnastics, grew up a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Kreuk also discusses shooting Season 4 of Burden of Truth in and around Winnipeg under strict COVID safety procedures. Catch new episodes Thursdays on CBC.
She’s currently working on a degree in History from Queens University. She's also binging one of the greatest TV shows ever made. (Hint: it's 20 years old!)
Like every actor on every series these days, Serinda Swan, who plays Jenny Cooper on Coroner, wore masks, shields and "bunny suits" in order to safely shoot scenes through this pandemic.
COVID is very much part of the storyline this season, which starts with an investigation of a Long Term Care facility. Did the fact all the actors had to gear up as a matter of course help her get into character?
"The physical toll creates a special awareness and an empathy for people who are doing this for the rest of us every single day," says the East Vancouver native.
Swan talks about having done her own share of "car crying" the past 10 or 11 months. "You can see it in people's eyes," she says. "There are a lot of emotions hidden behind masks."
This podcast, therefore, leans into the funny where we can. Like the time she accidentally ate a chocolate or two spiked with a little something extra.
That came up because Jenny Cooper unknowingly devours a Marijuana-laced brownie in one of the new season's lighter moments. Swan says she had to gobble down14 regular brownies in order to get the scene covered from six different set ups. She hasn't eaten a brownie since. She may never again.
The chocolate she ate by mistake after not landing a part in a Star Trek movie. You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out how that all turned out.
You want to talk Pretty Hard Cases? That's the title of the new Toronto-based detective drama premiering Wednesday, Feb. 3 on CBC. It stars Meredith MacNeill (Baroness von Sketch Show) and Adrienne C. Moore (Orange is the New Black). They were the first choices of executive producers, writers and showrunners Tassie Cameron (Rookie Blue) and Sherry White (Little Dog) -- a couple of pretty hard cases themselves. On this lively podcast episode, the producers break down why they felt the time was ripe for this series now, what cool, '70s tunes they pumped into the soundtrack and how a four month delay in filming due to COVID may have actually been a blessing in disguise.
This episode, TV critic Bill Brioux is in conversation with two of the stars of the Citytv series Hudson & Rex. They are Mayko Nguyen, who plays forensics expert Sarah Truong, and Kevin Hanchard, superintendent Joseph Donovan. The actors set up the third season and talk about the challenges of giving their canine costar cues and direction through COVID times while wearing masks. The St. John's based, hour-long drama airs Tuesday nights on Citytv.
Had a lovely chat right before Christmas with Hélène Joy, who stars opposite Yannick Bisson as Dr. Julia Ogden on CBC's #MurdochMysteries. She talks about her roots in Australia where she studied acting with Hugh Jackman. We touch on her roles in Canada on everything from Durham Country to the cult comedy Puppets Who Kill, where her character had to... well, I'll let her tell it. She also talks about how the pandemic year has impacted her personally as well as professionally. Murdoch returns Monday., Jan. 4; to get the scoop on Season 14, listen to the podcast.
It's the most wonderful time of the year for fans of Christmas programming. This episode, we learn from the top organizer how North America's oldest Santa Claus parade will carry on despite COVID. Director Dylan Pearce tells us about his Edmonton-based Super Channel movie "Christmas with a Crown," and there's even a visit from St. Nick himself--who sounds like my ol' comedy partner pal Pat Bullock. Yule be laffin'! Ho-ho-ho!
Ask anyone who has ever acted across from him in a scene: Nicholas Campbell raises the bar. Demanding the best of himself and others has led to stellar work on Da Vinci's Inquest, The Englishman's Boy and now on CBC's Coroner. Then there are the stories along the way; hear him on Laurence Olivier, Donald Sutherland, Gregory Peck, David Cronenberg, Sonny Grosso, Chris Haddock, Don Johnson and many others.
Ron MacLean had to interrupt our podcast to do a COVID test. The veteran host of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada has been the boy in the bubble of late, isolating these days as host of Battle of the Blades. MacLean talks about getting swabbed every 24 hours to do television, about the athletes, male and female, featured this season on Blades and, oh yeah, about where things stand with Don Cherry.
A conversation with Canadian comedian Brent Butt, creator of Corner Gas Animated, The sitcom is back for a third season Monday nights on CTV Comedy Channel. Butt explains how making an animated version of the series has one big advantage: it avoids any COVID-19 shutdowns. Special guests this season include Arcade Fire's Win Barron, SCTV legend Andrea Martin and WWE stars Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.
During a break in production on Season 14 of Murdoch Mysteries, Yannick Bisson candidly takes stock of these COVID times. The father of three, married to his high school sweetheart, talks about how this period of isolation and distancing has affected him personally and professionally. An intimate look at a leading man who never wears out his welcome on television.
The Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter is back with a second season of her CTV comedy JANN (airing Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET on CTV). Arden fulfills a lifelong dream and puts "Canada's Sweetheart," Sarah McLachlan, in a headlock in Season Two. She also expresses her recipe for living through these COVID times. It involves a good book, an old dog and bedtime by 8 p.m. C'mon, get happy, and sing along with her favourite TV theme song.
Who better to talk to about television than author, film critic and historian Leonard Maltin? After all, as the New York native explains, "TV was a living museum of movies when I was growing up." That's where he first encountered Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers and all those classic cartoons. Then along came "The Mickey Mouse Club" and before you could say, "Anything Can Happen Day," young Leonard was editing magazines and writing books. Meet the man behind the movie critic in an up close and personal conversation.
How do you explain to a dog that there is a pandemic? That's just one challenge facing Sherri Davis as she and the rest of the cast and crew resume production on Hudson & Rex. The shot-in-St. John's series co-stars Diesel vom Burgimwald, a four-year-old German Shepherd who plays police dog Rex. Sherri explains how she helps Diesel see past the masks in order to follow commands on the Citytv series. She also shares other stories from her dog-gone amazing career as an animal trainer for television.
Besides growing a COVID beard in 2020, I finally jumped into the deep end of the podcast pool. On this shorter-than-usual episode I recap some highlights including clips from conversations with Cardinal star Billy Campbell and Coroner's Roger Cross. There's also a quick look ahead at Season Two conversations with Hudson & Rex dog trainer Sherri Davis as well as author, former New York Times columnist and now CNN docuseries Executive Producer Bill Carter.
Roger Cross co-stars opposite Serinda Swan on the hit CBC drama Coroner. Premiering Aug. 5 on The CW, the series joins a select group of Canadian dramas ever to crack a U.S. network lineup. Raised in Vancouver, the Jamaican-born actor planned on a commercial airline career before roles on The X-Files and 24 changed his flight path. Listen as he tells of acting tips from Billy Dee Williams, meeting Muhammad Ali and 'tooning up as Green Lantern. Cross also shares his passionate views on racial injustice and how he was once told he was not "black enough" for a certain part.
What's it take to land on a top TV sitcom or drama? Here's the guy who knows: Jon Comerford. He's cast many of today's biggest hits, including Schitt's Creek, Cardinal, Star Trek: Discovery, Coroner and, further back, Due South. A fella by the name of Ryan Reynolds got his big break thanks to Jon, who I've known since we were both cub scouts in Etobicoke. Listen as he tells how far he had to cast himself to get to where he is today.
Who's in the middle of rescuing the Canadian television industry during this pandemic? None other than Canada Media Fund president and CEO Valerie Creighton. She very kindly found time to talk about several key issues of the day, including efforts to bridge producers through the pandemic with emergency funding and how television will best soldier on once safe practices are in place. Valerie knows; listen and learn!
Calgary native Andrew Phung recently won his third Best Supporting Actor award for playing Kimchee on the CBC/Netflix comedy Kim's Convenience. The one year he didn't win? The series wasn't eligible! With at least two more seasons on order, the emcee and comedian may have to make more room on his trophy shelf. Phung talks about the thrill of seeing Canadian stories play worldwide; his Vietnamese heritage and why "Star Trek" still rocks.
After four seasons, the Canadian detective drama "Cardinal" bows out on CTV. We reach Canadian Screen Award winner Billy Campbell in southern Norway. The actor, whose body of work includes "Once & Again," "The Rocketeer" and "The Killing," talks about why he considered this taut drama the best working experience of his life. The finale airs Monday, May 11; stream the series at CTV.ca.
For the first remote version of brioux tv: THE PODCAST, who better to guest than glib Globe and Mail TV critic John Doyle. We talk about TV's struggles to carry on through these pandemic times. Does it work when SNL and late night talk shows lose their live laughter? What scripted fare should viewers binge now and what does the future holds for networks rapidly running out of inventory – including the CBC?
A candid conversation with Christina Jennings, CEO and founder of Shaftesbury and Chair of the Canadian Film Centre. As she reveals in this podcast, Jennings took an unconventional path to the top. She didn't eat the other guy's lunch, she made the sandwich. One of the savviest visionaries in television, she combines a genuine passion for Canadian stories with a wide open worldview.
A warm and candid 90 minutes with Enrico Colantoni -- currently starring opposite Tom Hanks in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood" -- who tells Bill Brioux that the road from Etobicoke to Hollywood is indeed long and winding. It's also filled with incredible stories about Just Shoot Me co-stars George Segal and David Spade, "Galaxy Quest" alumni Tim Allen and Alan Rickman and some incredible teacher friends who helped make it all happen.
In advance of the final Royal Canadian Air Farce New Year's Eve special (Dec. 30 at 8/7c on CBC and CBC Gem), founding member Don Ferguson talks to television critic and columnist Bill Brioux about his 47 years with Canada's longest-running comedy troupe. Ferguson also shares his three-word formula for what makes a smart broadcast executive -- and it's not the three words you might be guessing. Don also offers his suggestions for a better name for Bill's brand new podcast.