Up for debate: Canada’s all-time favourite TV shows

The issue of Canada’s all-time favourite TV shows has risen again thanks to Canadian History EHx, a podcast from Craig Baird. Mr. Baird, a Canadian history enthusiast living on Treaty 6 land, has over 53,000 followers on Twitter.

He set up a playoff format where shows went head-to-head over a number of weeks. There were 192 Canadian TV shows in the running, and over 600,000 votes came in.

The favourite Canadian TV show, the one that won the playdown, was the long-running children’s series Mr. Dressup. An award-winning documentary about that series, which starred Ernie Coombs, was a sensation last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival and later streamed on Prime Video.

Many of the Top-20 shows on Baird’s list suggest to me that the respondents were in a younger demo than I am (which is pretty much all of Canada at this point). There are some very worthy titles on the list, including long-running current favourites such as Murdoch Mysteries (No. 13) and Son of a Critch (14). I also applaud as well the inclusion of such recent shows as Schitt’s Creek (2) and Kim’s Convenience (18).

There are, however, some shows that fall further down the list that would appear near the top of mine. This sometimes happens as a result of the head-to-head format, where shows come up against an eventual winner and get eliminated early.

My own list reflects my own favourites as an older viewer with a long memory and also as somebody who has been on the TV beat for four decades. Some of it is nostalgia, but some of it is study.

First of all, the correct answer to what is Canada’s all-time favourite TV show is SCTV. That brilliant sketch comedy ran from 1976 to 1983 but it remains for me the perfect storm of great minds and artists being left to their own instincts to create outstanding television on a Canadian dime.

The rest of the list is up for grabs depending on how old you are and where in Canada you grew up. Here is my list, which is heavy on the oldies if just to give some lesser-known Canadian shows some love:

MY FAVOURITE CANADIAN TV SHOWS

1. SCTV
2. The Friendly Giant
3. Slings and Arrows
4. Party Game
5. This Hour Has 7 Days
6. The Beachcombers
7. The Royal Canadian Air Farce
8. Cardinal
9. This Hour Has 22 Minutes
10. Letterkenny

For me, Friendly stomps all over Mr. Dressup. This is admittedly a generational thing, but in my earliest years in front of my parents black and white, 19-inch Marconi, no adult on TV ever talked directly to me the way Bob Homme did. Puppeteer Rod Coneybeare’s two arms and one mind were Jerome the giraffe and Rusty the rooster. These men ad-libbed their way through thousands of hours of television and it was always a safe place for two of you to curl up in front of, or watch from a rocking chair. To find Friendly on my best-ever TV list, you have to look up — look waay up.

Slings and Arrows should be more accessible today. Set at a Stratford-like Shakespearean festival, this 2003-2006 dark comedy, which starred Paul Gross (Due South), Martha Burns and Stephen Ouimette, was recognized in its day with 13 Gemini awards. It aired on platforms long-defunct in Canada, The Movie Network/Movie Central, so not everybody saw it. But boy, it was whip smart and ahead of its time, with credit to writers Susan Coyne and Bob Martin. Kids in the Hall‘s Mark Mckinney was also among the players and writers.

Party Game is on my list not because it was brilliant, but because it was so ridicuously addictive and silly. Basically charades with cocktails, it featured a home team of Captain Jack Duffy, Billy Van and Dinah Christie that worked astonishingly well as one and always made you laugh. It also served as Canada’s unofficial star system, allowing Canadian entertainers from the ’70s to show up and be themselves out of character. That it originated on Hamilton, Ont’s CHCH, added to the wood-panelled, shag rug charm. Am I biased because this afternoon piffle fascinated me as a young teen? Guilty.

It is difficult to convey the scope and brash originality of This Hour Has 7 Days. Put it this way: it was so good it rattled parliament and its cancelation was politically motivated. The smart news magazine, which came of age before I did (but I caught up with it later) was hosted by John Draine, Patrick Watson and Laurier LaPierre. They would invite politicians running for prime minsiter and when they didn’t show up they would cut to an empty chair and mock them. They would invite Klu Klux Klan members on and then ambush them with Black activists. Watson traveled overseas to confront Orson Welles and was so in his face the segment was as good as one of Welles best movies. Because this was 1964-66, the woman on the series, Dinah Christie (she from Party Game), was reduced to a singing correspondent/Girl Friday role. Still, what was accomplished on this daring series, in the days when film was still used for most reports, was both a technical, intellectual and an emotional marvel.

The Beachcombers is on my list not just because it ran for 19 seasons or strictly for nostlgia. It earns its place with a sort of Canadian magic. Where else could you get so invested in a story about guys battling over retrieving logs down a river? The series had charm thanks largely to its cast, especially lead actor Bruno Gerussi but also Pat John, Robert Clothier, Rae Brown and Jackson Davies. They looked like neighbours and friends, not TV stars, and that was part of the appeal. Landed at No. 51 on Baird’s list.

Cardinal, I think, stands with the best of the short-order, Peak Age of North American or worldwide scripted dramas. Moody, dry for a procedural, these cops played by Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse said so much by saying so little. They both just seemed so damn flesh and blood. They could be as cold as the snowy landscape, as damaged as the rest of us. Fearless storytelling.

Letterkenny — you could put Trailer Park Boys here, but the latter just captured a language so unexplored up to that point, a weird South central Ontario vibe. These characters were defiantly funny and, like Norm Macdonald, dared you not to laugh. A game changer, it was bodychecked down to the No. 45 spot on Baird’s list. (Hudson & Rex just missed Baird’s Top-20 at No. 21).

Air Farce, 22 Minutes, you have to include them on the list. They’re really not at all alike, but they are part of the Canadian Shield of humour dating back to Wayne & Schuster and including Kids in the Hall. Pick the show that speaks to your funnybone. Me, I’m humbled by their longevity. 22 Minutes is in Season 32 and has evolved over time with about the same budget Saturday Night Live spends on craft services. Both shows were that rarety in Canadian television — shot before a live studio audience.

Not on my list is Hockey Night in Canada but that is because, to me, it is almost in its own category. It is more of a cultural heritage point hotwired into the Canadian psyche. That it has endured 72 years on Canadian television — longer than even the Toronto Maple Leafs Stanley Cup drought — is a mindblower.