Born Feb. 22, 1918, Dominick George “Don” Pardo joined the NBC Radio Network as an announcer in June of 1944–or, as Lorne Michaels once pointed out, “before I was born.” Michaels hired Pardo in Sept. of 1975 as the original announcer for Saturday Night Live and, save for one season in the ’80s, he has
Some entertainers, you really hope that when you meet them, you like them. They’ve made you smile on TV or film and you hope for that same experience in a scrum or a press conference. The thing about Robin Williams was that, when you met him, you liked him even more. The surprise was how
Who knew Harpo Marx made a series of TV commercials for Labatt’s beer? That’s just one of the delightful surprises found in The Marx Brothers TV Collection. The collectible gem, graced with a terrific cover illustration by Drew Friedman, is from Shout! Factory and hits the street Tuesday Aug. 12. Order it here from Shout!
I was working as a busboy at a restaurant in Ontario Place at the foot of Toronto the summer Richard Nixon resigned from the White House. I was a high school student and it was a pretty good summer job; $2:10 an hour and all the chips you could eat. The restaurant faced East so I
There will be dozens of James Garner stories shared over the next few days. Here is one from the wings. About a month ago I was on the phone with Bill Daily, neighbour Howard from The Bob Newhart Show. The great ’70s sitcom is now available in a complete DVD boxed set from Shout Factory. Daily,
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post reported Bell Media pulled the plug on TV Guide Canada. That is incorrect. The decision to end TV Guide Canada was made by TC Media. Bell Media’s TheLoop was a content partner but Bell had no role in TV Guide Canada’s demise. Brioux.TV regrets the error. News this
There’s more from me on the newly-opened MZTV Museum of Television and Archives in the entertainment section of Saturday’s Toronto Star. The museum, located at Zoomerplex in Toronto’s Liberty Village, houses Moses Znaimer’s incredible collection of early television receivers, including the largest collection of pre-war sets in the world. If you visit the museum before the
My neighbour Doug asked me the other day if the whole world had turned to crap or was it just television. This is one of those transition weeks where, if you’re not into the Stanley Cup playoffs, or the last few new episodes of Louie or Fargo, for discerning viewers, there’s not a lot on.