One man’s determination to remember his homeland and honour his new land is explored in “A Kandahar Away,” premiering Sunday October 20 at 9 pm on CBC’s documentary channel. Refugee Abdul Jamal left Kandahar, Afghanistan, with his family in 1990. They settled in Canada, and when the family patriarch discovered that there existed a Kandahar,
As tweeted by Conan O’Brien: “It’s smart of Trudeau to hold the election before Halloween, I mean why even tempt yourself?”
Thanks to the phenomenal ratings success of The Big Bang Theory, CTV owned Thursdays for a decade plus in Canada. Before that, Global owned the night for their own long winning streak. While scheduling and linear are no longer everything, as long as there are advertisers, Thursday nights are still a key battleground. Despite the
I finally got around to watching El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie last night. It is streaming on demand now on Netflix. You don’t have to have watched every episode of of Vince Gilligan’s terrific series Breaking Bad to get this two-hour movie but it sure helps to have seen some of them, particularly the
Over the past five years I’ve had the great good fortune to spend this week in the south of France, attending the annual international TV marketplace known as MIPCOM. I’ve truly valued that perspective, occasionally through the good graces of Canadian government agencies, on the rapidly changing business of worldwide content marketing. Also, the view
It’s not an overstatement to say that the most influential sitcom in the history of television premiered 68 years ago today — I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball, a one time RKO chorus girl who stood out in a string of feature film dramas and comedies in the late ’30s and ’40s, became TV’s biggest star
CTV enjoyed a decade of dominance in the English Canada weekly ratings race with their CBS import The Big Bang Theory — the tentpole that always stood tallest. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to assume that, without the Chuck Lorre sitcom, that dominance was in peril. The evidence is in with the release Tuesday
It’s not an overstatement to say that the most influential sitcom in the history of television premiered 68 years ago today — I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball, a one time RKO chorus girl who stood out in a string of feature film dramas and comedies in the late ’30s and ’40s, became TV’s biggest star
I referenced the passing of Rip Taylor this morning on The Humble & Fred Radio show. Taylor being a much bigger deal in the ’70s, “Humble” Howard Glassman suggested I explain exactly who Taylor was. So here goes. Before Donald Trump, there was Rip Taylor. Trump stole Taylor’s act, right down to all the shouting
I don’t recall Julia as being a remarkable show back when it first premiered in 1968. What did I know; I was 11, growing up in Etobicoke, Ontario. This was not a show about a witch, or being lost in space, or a superhero crime fighter such as Batman. It was about a nurse, a
Rod Coneybeare, the puppeteer and CBC radio host who brought Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the giraffe so vividly to life over 24 season of The Friendly Giant, has gone to the big castle in the sky. He passed away last Thursday in Lindsay, Ontario. He was 89. The CBC children’s classic, which ran weekday
We all knew Valerie Harper was dying. We knew it when she made her final Television Critics Association press tour appearance over five years ago on January 11, 2014. She was promoting a TV-movie she had shot in Langley, BC, called, “The Town That Came a Courtin’.” News that she was suffering from a form
Saturday, August 31 marks the 35th anniversary of one of Canada’s most successful TV ventures — MuchMusic. The popular specialty channel — which started out as a pricey Pay-TV service — caught the wave of the music video revolution just as it crested. The music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was released the December before