You could not cover television in Canada for the past 40 years without encountering the great Gordon Pinsent. Thank God. Pinsent, who died in his sleep Feb. 25 at 92, was a towering figure in film and television. In his native Newfoundland, he was much more than that. I was out in St. John’s, Nfld.,
Tonight, with a special episode, CBC celebrated the 30th season of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. They really should have made it an hour-long special at least. Imagine trying to crunch over 600 episodes down to one 22-minute episode. That was the task handed to Matt Charlton, who has been associated behind the scenes with
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
After a challenging fall, CBC needed a little good ratings news heading into the New Year. They got it with the launch of Son of a Critch. The St. John’s based comedy is a major success story to start the year for the public broadcaster. On January 4, it opened to 941,000 total confirmed 2+
As Peter Mansbridge says on the current episode of brioux.tv the podcast, its been a great fall for Canadian authors. His book, “Off the Record,” has been near the top of the Canadian nonfiction bestsellers list since it was released by Simon & Schuster in September. Other books by Mark Messier, Jean Chretien, Judy Wilson-Raybould,
Canada’s longest-running scripted entertainment series is not The Beachcombers or Wayne & Shuster or even Murdoch Mysteries. It is This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Premiering in 1993, the Halifax-based sketch comedy made stars out of brash Newfoundlanders Mary Walsh, Cathy Jones, Greg Thomey and Rick Mercer. Turnovers in the cast and writing talent – a
NOTE: This story has been corrected below to clarify that the decline in Canadian ratings is true for all broadcast networks, not just CBC. How tough has it been for new broadcast network shows to crack through the clutter this fall? Tougher, so far this season, than trying to root for The Toronto Maple Leafs.
As my late ex-mother-in-law Teresa Darrah usd to say, Mark Critch is as ‘busy as a dog licking two pots.” He’s back tonight on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, snapping into wigs and costumes and behind the desk and in his 18th season on the Halifax-based sketch series. That places him second in time served