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
I recently was invited to one of the tapings for Season Two of Canada’s Got Talent (returning Tuesday, March 21 on Citytv). When I took my seat inside the large auditorium at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ont., Howie Mandel was just making his way to the judges desk. A row or two over, a
Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Paramount+ … so much streaming, so little money. You can spend a tidy sum on streaming services, to be sure. But you can also subscribe to streaming services that won’t cost you anything other than lots and lots of your time. They are the free streaming services, and in terms
Early on in this week’s brioux.tv: the podcast episode with Dave Thomas the St. Catherines, Ont., native talks about his brief career in advertising. One of the things he learned in that business that helped his comedy career, he says, is the importance of brevity or “seconds.” So let me get straight to the point:
Christmas came early for me this year as I got to talk to Dick Cavett about Groucho Marx. The occasion was the American Masters‘ special “Groucho & Cavett,” premiering December 27 on PBS. Dubbed, “the thinking man’s talk show host,” Cavett emerged as a clear alternative to Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show while on ABC from 1969 through 1975.
Bill Maher once said that, “Everybody who ever has done a talk show should pay a royalty to Steve Allen.” Allen would probably have agreed. He was the first host of NBC’s Tonight Show, starting with a local New York version in 1953 and then launching the series nationally in September of 1954. David Letterman,
You can draw a straight line from Mort Sahl to Dave Chappelle. Fearless, contentious, uncompromising and sometimes his own worst enemy. The Montreal native died Oct 26 at his home near San Francisco. He was 94. His rise in the mid- to late- ’50s was so pronounced it seems as if he should be older.
One of the great late night talk show guests of all time was Charles Grodin. Who else was cocky enough to slump down next to Johnny Carson and ask if he cared at all about any of his guests? (As he does in the above clip from 1990.) The studio audience and viewers at home