As a child of television growing up in the west end of Toronto in the early 1960s, I was always confused about the opening of a local children’s show called Commander Tom. A narrator boomed off the top that the commander’s top secret headquarters was, “somewhere on the Niagara peninsula.” “Somewhere”? It looked like a 50-storey
George Maharis has taken his final exit from Route 66. I interviewed the actor on the phone in 2012 when he was promoting Route 66: The Complete Series, a 24 disc boxed set from Shout! Factory. Maharis, 94, died May 24 at his home in Beverly Hills. A decade earlier, he spoke candidly about his
Did you grow up with Mr. Dressup? How about The Friendly Giant or Polka-Dot Door? Starting today, those shows and many others are being saluted this spring and summer at the Myseum of Toronto. The exhibit is titled, “Mr. Dressup to Degrassi: 42 Years of Legendary Toronto Kids TV.” The retrospective goes all the way
If you are a certain age in Canada, and you still have your memory, you can name at least five members of the 1971 Toronto Argonauts. You know exactly where you were when Paul Henderson scored. And you know how many times the church bell chimed for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald. There was
Final thoughts, as Jerry Springer used to say, on Jerry Springer. When the news broke Thursday that the 79-year-old former syndicated TV host had died of cancer, requests came in from CTV News (see that report with Marcia MacMillan here), CP24, NewsTalk 1010 (listen to that conversation with Jim Richards here) and CHML. They all
Harry Belafonte made a lasting impression a dozen years ago on a visit before Television Critics Association reporters. The activist/singer, one of the last Black Civil Rights icons of the 1960s, passed away Tuesday, April 25. He was 96. Back in July of 2011, he stood out as a towering figure from a golden age
Len Goodman, for many years the head judge on Dancing with the Stars, has gone to the big ballroom in the sky. He passed away Sunday, April 23rd, just a few days shy of his 79th birthday. As a young man, the elegant Goodman was an apprentice welder for a famous British shipbuilding company. In
Robert Blake, who died March 9 of heart disease at the age of 89, almost didn’t get to be Baretta. The gritty cop series, which ran on ABC from 1975-78, began a season earlier when it was called Toma. That series was based on a real-life New Jersey police officer named David Toma, who was