Monday night, the cast and crew of This Hour Has 22 Minutes took over the Glenn Gould Theatre at the CBC Broadcast Centre. The occasion was the first-ever Toronto taping of the sketch series, which normally is based each week in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Toronto episode airs tonight at 8/7c on CBC and CBC
Another milestone in Canadian television is reached with the 50th anniversary of the launch of The Beachcombers. Canadians coast-to-coast were still buzzing over Team Canada’s last-minute heroics over the Soviet Union in the Summit series when The Beachcombers premiered on CBC Television on October 1, 1972. The series starred Bruno Gerussi as log scavenger Nick Adonidas
Last Monday’s coverage of the final services for Queen Elizabeth II drew a large daytime audience — but nowhere near as spectacular as has been hyped. There were initial social media reports suggested that this was TV’s biggest show ever, with a worldwide audience of four billion. People, please. According to the British audience research
Wednesday night, the puck drops on a documentary about a hockey series that blew my teenagee mind 50 years ago. Airing over four consecutive Wednesdays, Summit 72 is a four-part docuseries about the 1972 culture clash on ice known as Team Canada vs. The U.S.S.R. It pitted Canadian pros long-banned at the Olympics and in
Fifty years ago this month, the Canada vs USSR eight game hockey tournament of 1972 galvanized the nation. One of the standouts for Team Canada was Montreal Canadiens defenseman Serge Savard. While TV ratings were an even more inexact science back then, it is estimated that 16 million Canadians, out of a nation of 22
“Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she doesn’t have a lot to say.” So wrote Paul McCartney way back in 1969, as heard in a lick of music tucked in the final grooves of The Beatles’ album Abbey Road. The Queen’s 70-year reign spanned from well before Beatlemania through Brexit. With the passing of
For the past four seasons, Peter Mitchell has been doing Ryan Murphy-level duty. He’s the showrunner for the two primetime scripted Canadian series with by far the largest schedules: Murdoch Mysteries and Hudson & Rex. Murdoch, CBC’s historical whodunnit which returns for a 16th season next Monday, September 12, is currently in production in and
Back in the early ’90’s. before he became a late-night TV host, Conan O’Brien and his Harvard writing pal Greg Daniels (creator of the American version of The Office) decided to take a road trip to Vancouver. Turning on the TV in the hotel, they became mesmerized by this strange Canadian series about a B.C.