Whenever Canadians are asked their opinion of Canadian television, they usually give you one of several responses, such as a) they tend to laugh out loud, and look at you very strangely, b) you get some variation of the response, "there's no such thing as Canadian tv", c) something along the lines of, "Canadian TV! It's all crap!", or d) "Oh, you're talking about Hockey Night In Canada?!" Not exactly the type of response you'd expect from your average Canadian, but perhaps more of an explanation of how many of us as Canadian's tend to make excuses that our television does not match up to the quality and quantity of such countries as the United States or Britain.

Today, the Canadian television industry is a major business with production centres all across the country with Vancouver often being referred to as "Hollywood North". Numerous Hollywood movies and television series are filmed here in Canada, in addition to a thriving industry of home produced product. You know, despite some of those responses mentioned above, Canada has produced its share of classic television series. Many of these series ran for numerous years and were so popular, that many are still affectionately remembered and loved today. Mention any of the following to most Canadian's and they'll at least illicit some kind of a response, and I'll bet you more than often, that response will be positive, and tinged with a "polite" form of Canadian pride.

Comedy

One of the most popular Canadian series of all time was The Wayne And Shuster Hour, which featured comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster. For those of you not familiar with these two gentlemen, they were Canada's equivalent of Morecambe & Wise or the Two Ronnies. Frank and Johnny met as teenagers in their Toronto high school. They first achieved fame during WWII, on the well known radio series, The Army Game ( not the British tv series ) and then their own CBC radio series during the 1950's. It was from here they began their numerous appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in the U.S. during the 1950's and 60's - they started in l958 with a contract for twenty-six appearances over the year, and their last appearance on the Sullivan show was their sixty-seventh.

Compared to the contemporary stand-up and sketch comics in the U.S. at the time, Wayne and Shuster's satires were notably literate and intelligent. They were influenced by the development of professional classical theatre at Stratford (Ontario) in sketches that became their own classics. "Kiss The Blood Off My Toga", was their edged reading of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, best remembered for Sylvia Lennick's Calpurnia and her warning to her husband, in a bleating Brooklynese, "I told him, I said, 'Julie, don't go!'" The flip side was their dialogue. In many of their sketches, they demonstrated that much of their material used anachronism or the application of one formula on another. Another of their l950s inventions, for example, took the well-known television phenomenon of the quiz show and applied the awareness of Russia that the cold war brought and produced a sketch about a confiscated recording of the famous Russian television show, The 64,000 Ruble Question.

Neither exclusively played the straight man or the comic in their team, although Frank Shuster often got the job of interviewing or reporting on the activities of one of Johnny Wayne's comic personae. Just about every comic team has a mad scientist to defuse the fears of a nuclear age, and Johnny Wayne's was Professor Waynegartner. Played with a broad, pseudo German accent, an Albert Einstein-style white fright wig, and eyes that rolled like Groucho Marx's, Professor Waynegartner was not always a physicist or natural scientist; he was whatever type of academic, scientist, artist, or specialist Wayne and Shuster wanted him to be. Other recurring situations have included the adventures of the Oriental detective Johnny Chan and the tales of the French Revolution and The Brown Pumpernickel (with Wayne as the Pumpernickel, a.k.a. Sir Percy Fynke, and Shuster as his nemesis, Francois Maldette).

They began their long association with CBC television in October 1954 with The Wayne And Shuster Hour, which was followed by The Wayne And Shuster Comedy Special (l968-l978), The Wayne And Shuster Comedy Hour (l978-l98l) and Super Comedy With Wayne And Shuster (l98l).

Variety

One of the earliest examples of Canadian variety series was the enormously popular Juliette, which ran from 1956-66. Each week the show opened with the star's name blazoned across the screen in superimposed bold script over a shot of a single rose laid across a page of sheet music with the theme, "Love and Marriage", playing. Announcer Gil Christie would then welcome viewers with the phrase, "Now let's meet, and greet, your pet.....Ju-u-liette." For ten years, Juliette was a fixture of Saturday night television and became a true Canadian television star.

Born Juliette Augustina Sysak (and later using her married name, Cavazzi), Juliette began to use just her first name from the age of thirteen, when she sang with the Dal Richards band at the Hotel Vancouver in the early l940s. She had performed on the Alan Young radio show, from Toronto, for a year. Juliette and husband Tony Cavazzi (who was also her personal manager) moved to Toronto in l954, where Juliette began making guest appearances on Holiday Ranch and was hired as a featured vocalist on The Billy O'Connor Show. It was during her time on this show where she steadily built a larger following than O'Connor's and after two years, which ended in friction between the two stars, Juliette left the show, and inherited the show's Saturday time slot, between the national news and late-night wrestling.

Like many Canadian variety shows of the time, Juliette's show used a strict and extremely modest programming format. The show's set was meant to represent Juliette's own living room which would help to convey easy familiarity to her audience as she welcomed viewers with, "Hi there, everybody!" She addressed the male musicians who shared the show with her as "Fellas," and ended each show with a reassuring, "Good night, Mom." Although a platinum blonde, she dressed more in what was once called "party dress" style, but over time, and with higher budgets, she gained more glitz and glamour. Her laid-back, no nonsense style endeared her to audiences across the country, and everyone felt as if they knew her, and could consider her their best friend, or next-door neighbour.

As the show developed, its budget increased although it was always a low-cost affair for the CBC. In its earlier years, the show featured trumpet player and novelty singer Bobby Gimby and a male vocalist, such as George Murray (l956-57), Roy Roberts (l957-58), or Ken Steele (l958-59), who were billed as Juliette's "escorts." Subsequently, the programme also included performances by two regular vocal groups: the Four Romeos (l959-65), and the Four Mice (l960-64). The series also featured appearances from guest singers from Canada and the U.S. including such people as: Earl Wrightson, Eleanor Collins, Marg Osborne, Peggy Neville, and Jack Jones. In the series' final season (1965-66), the show's format changed radically with more emphasis put on the guests. Unfortunately, the tastes of the audiences were changing and with the show's diminishing appeal and lower ratings, it was cancelled.

Another extremely popular variety series was The Tommy Hunter Show featuring Canada's "country gentleman". Guitar player and singer Tommy Hunter had joined King Ganam's band, and gradually assumed a centre spot on another variety series Country Hoedown. When that show ended, it essentially transformed itself into The Tommy Hunter Show, which assumed its Friday evening time slot beginning September 17, 1965. Many of the members from the Hoedown family continued on the new show and helped to establish it as the longest running national country show in North America (and likely in the world). The Tommy Hunter Show became a regular stop for the greatest stars of country music. An informal, though orderly and dignified production, it has continually presented the best of contemporary country music from the CBC's Toronto studios and elsewhere in Canada.

Hunter remained a consistent and stable figure and over the years he has been supported by Mike, Mark, and Jack, the Rhythm Pals, along with fiddler Al Cherney and the Bert Niosi Orchestra. Other singers and instrumentalists who have appeared regularly on the show have been singer Pat Hervey (l965-67), guitarist Jim Pirie (l965-70), banjo player Maurice Bolyer (l965-77), singer Debbie Lori Kaye (l967-69), the Country Guys and Gals (l967-68), the Allan Sisters (l967-77), the Coach 'n' Four (l968), the Traveling Men (l970), Donna (Ramsey) and Leroy (Anderson), guitarist Red Shea (l982), and Whiskey Jack (l982), along with, since l974, the OK Chorale.

But, perhaps the best remembered and most affectionately beloved variety series of all time in the history of Canadian television was Don Messer's Jubilee which ran from Aug 7, 1959 to June 20, 1969. This quaint, yet simple, series appeared on CBC in the same time slot for virtually a decade. Produced in Halifax by Bill Langstroth, (who would go on to marry Anne Murray), the series presented a selection of old-time, country, and Maritime-flavoured folk music, and gained the loyalty that characterizes audiences of traditional, country music.

Born in Tweedside, New Brunswick, Don was the youngest of eleven children in a musical family. Having started playing fiddle as a boy, he went on to organize the Lumberjacks in the 1930's playing on local radio stations and in towns and villages throughout the Atlantic provinces. When Messer took the job of director of old-time music for CFCY radio in Charlottetown, he took his band with him. They changed their name to the Islanders, and produced a radio broadcast three times a week. He, and the Islanders, eventually got tv work around November 1957 when they first began appearing on Country Hoedown. In the summer of 1959, Don's show got regular airings as a summer replacement series. His show proved so popular that when Country Hoedown returned in the fall, Don was given his own show on Monday nights, which became Jubilee.

As the show's musical director and arranger, Messer was the programme's musical focus. He was also its host, but Messer did not speak much and projected an unassuming on-air personality. The bulk of his show was given over to his ensemble of musicians and performers who characterized the show as much as he did. Charlie Chamberlain was the large and broad, bilingual singer who dressed in lumberjack's clothing, had served as a comic foil for Messer's show since he joined the troupe in the l930's. Another veteran was Duke Nielsen, reputedly a roustabout, fire eater, and bear wrestler who could play twenty-two different musical instruments. Marg Osborne had joined the Islanders as the second featured vocalist in l947, and conveyed a folksy elegance in contrast to Chamberlain's rowdier image. In addition to weekly guests, the show also featured organist Ray Calder and vocalists Catherine McKinnon (l964-66) and Johnny Forrest (l966-69). The Gunter Butcha Dancers, a troupe of ballroom, folk, and square dancers also appeared regularly on the broadcasts.

In 1969, the CBC chose to cancel the show. This practically caused a national uproar from viewers across the country. Although the CBC did not reconsider its decision, the show was picked up for syndication by private station, CHCH-TV Hamilton. Ironically when Don Messer's Jubilee was cancelled it was succeeded by Singalong Jubilee, also produced in Halifax by Langstroth. Though no less formulaic than the Don Messer show, it presented more current music as well as the traditional, and showcased younger talent, such as Gene McLellan, and a woman who would become a Canadian superstar; Anne Murray.

Drama

Aside from variety programs, drama series were extremely popular, and one of the better known was Wojeck. Created by Phillip Hersch, and inspired by the headlines that Dr. Morton Shulman made as Toronto's chief coroner, Wojeck set new standards for drama series on Canadian television. The series debuted as part of the Bob Hope Theater on March 9, 1966 with the pilot episode, Tell Them The Street's Are Dancing. In the pilot, coroner Dr. Steve Wojeck investigates the death - by caisson disease - of an Italian worker, an inquiry leads him to examine the conditions of the victim's workplace; a tunnel under construction. Producer and director Ronald Weyman and director of photography Grahame Woods, shot the black-and-white pilot on film utilizing a lightweight camera that was handheld, thus sacrificing conventional production values to create a down-and-dirty naturalism. The programme, and the series that ensued, tried to confront contemporary social issues through Wojeck's inquiries. The show's documentary style and the roots of the stories in the headlines of the day established standards and format that has filtered through CBC television drama ever since.

Wojeck was brought to life by John Vernon. Stalwart, often quiet, Vernon's Steve Wojeck was frustrated or driven to outrage by people, officials, and institutions that failed to provide answers or acknowledge responsibility. He regularly questioned the decisions he had to make and, though he was in some senses a typical hero, he was invested with a greater vulnerability and depth, and differed from the standard television hero. Of Polish descent instead of the typical Anglo-Saxon, he was also Catholic, an element of his personality that formed a part of his dilemma about abortion in a two-part episode titled The Cold Smile Of Friends.

The other regulars on the series were Ted Follows as Crown Attorney Arnie Bateman, Patricia Collins as Wojeck's wife, Marty, and Carl Banas as Detective Sergeant Byron James, with occasional appearances by Jamey Weyman and Tanis Montgomery as Stevey and Judy, the Wojeck's son and daughter.

Wojeck aired on CBC from September 1966 to March 1969. While in production it gained both critical and commercial success. The episode The Last Man In The World won the Wilderness Award as the CBC's best film production of the year, and an award at the Monte Carlo Film Festival. The series was sold to foreign markets in the UK, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, and Yugoslavia.

Sitcom

Both Britain and the United States has produced their share of classic sitcom's, and indeed Canada has too. King Of Kensington was one of the CBC's few successful attempts at a conventional situation comedy. Created by Perry Rosemond, King ran on the CBC for five enormously successful seasons from 1975-80.

Larry King owns and operates a variety store in Toronto's crowded, multi-cultural Kensington Market. In typical sitcom tradition, most of the action took place in one or two sets, principally King's store and attached house. Al Waxman ( of Cagney & Lacey ) played Larry King, the portly, garrulous fellow whose business was everyone else's business. He ran the shop with his wife, Cathy, (Fiona Reid), and his mother Gladys (Helene Winston).

Cultural conflicts between the Jewish Larry and the WASP Cathy were built into the characters, but most of the comic situations were derived from more general sources in the stories, with Larry's store as a meeting place for the district and Larry as something of a meddler and a mediator. Other regulars included Bob Vinci as Tony "the Duke of Milan" Zarro and Ardon Bess as Nestor "the Jester" Best, who were Larry's confederates in "the Club," a poker game that met in the basement between Manny's Strictly Kosher Butcher's and Da Silva's Portuguese Fish Market.

The programme was taped before a studio audience. Each episode was taped several times with different audiences before editing, and the producers and writers built a degree of flexibility into the scripts so they could be revised, topical references inserted, and, they hoped, improved.

In l978, the format changed when Fiona Reid left the cast. Cathy was replaced by Tina, Larry's girlfriend ( played by Rosemary Radcliffe ). Peter Boretski ( Jack Soble ) also joined the cast as Larry's father-in-law, who with Gladys, took over the operation of the store when Larry, who had slimmed down considerably, became athletic director of the Kensington Community Center. It became another principal location, with its own cast of characters: Gwen Twining the manager ( Jayne Eastwood ), Ron Bacon the maintenance man ( Robert Haley ), and Dorothy ( Linda Rennhofer ), the dance instructor.

Apart from its popularity in Canada, the series was sold to nine stations in the U.S. including outlets in the New York and Los Angeles markets.

Family and Children’s Entertainment

In October 1972, another of Canada's longest running series The Beachcombers debuted. Revolving around the character of Nick Adonidas ( Bruno Gerussi ), this show was about a middle-aged beachcomber who rented quarters above Molly Carmody's diner. Molly lives with her two grandchildren, Hughie ( Bob Park ) and Margaret ( Juliet Randall ). Nick shared his business with a young native partner, Jesse Jim Rae Brown ( Pat John ). Other characters included tetchy scavenger, Relic ( Robert Clothier ) who was always getting in trouble with the police after his silly schemes backfired, plus Stefan Winfield, Diane Stapley ( l978 ), and beginning in l980, Jackson Davies, Charlene Aleck, Dionne Luther, and Joe Austin.

Each week viewers got to know the characters and see them grow older through their exploits along the British Columbia coastline. The filmed series has proved continually popular in its early Sunday evening time slot ( it originally followed the Walt Disney show ), and it has sold widely around the world, from the UK to the Middle East to Australia.

And what would television be without those series that entertained us for hours while we growing up during childhood. Three of the most popular were Mr. Dressup, Chez Helene and The Friendly Giant.

Mr. Dressup was every kid's best friend. In each episode Mr. Dressup would invite you into his home where there was always things to do - songs to sing, toys to play with, and books to read. Ernie Coombs was Mr. Dressup; a bespectacled man with an engaging smile. Mr. Dressup first appeared on Butternut Square in 1964, but during the middle of the 1966/67 season, the programme was revamped to solely concentrate on the Mr. Dressup character.

The series, now titled Mr. Dressup, moved action from the town square of the previous series, to Mr. Dressup's own home, which he shared with Casey, a flaxen-haired, rosy cheeked boy and Finnegan, a small dog with big floppy ears; both were puppets operated by Judith Lawrence. Together, the three shared all sorts of adventures. Mr. Dressup was famous for saving string or yarn, any assortment of usable material, which he would use to create all sorts of fun projects and games. He always had crayons, scissors and paper on hand and was always ready for drawing pictures, painting, cutting and pasting. But, of all of Mr. Dressup's fun projects, most important of all was his 'tickle' trunk that was full of an assortment of costumes that he, Casey, and friends, could dress up in and play-act all sorts of stories. In addition to his 'roommates', Mr. Dressup welcomed other friends to his home including Susan Marcus, Beth Anne Cole, and, in l97l-72, Adrian Pecknold as a mime called Pogo.

Another popular and entertaining children’s series debuted on CBC on October 26, 1959 and ran for 14 years. This was the engaging Chez Helene. Each episode ran for 15 minutes and kids were greeted by the cheery and enthusiastic Helene Baillargeon. Helene introduced English pre-school children to the French language through songs, dances, games, and stories. Chez Helene's helpers were her young friend Louise,( played by Madeleine Kronby ), and Susie, a puppet mouse.

Chez Helene was followed each day by The Friendly Giant. Debuting in September 1958, this series aired for 26 years. The Friendly Giant was Bob Homme, one of the most genial and relaxed presences on television. Each episode was introduced by 'The Giant' with, "Once upon a time, not long ago, not far away. . ." The camera would pan across the main street of a miniature town until it stopped at an enormous boot, and the camera would then tilt up and pan to his face. Bob would then continue his dialogue with, "I'll hurry over to the castle and go in the back door so I can let the drawbridge down and open the big doors for you," he told us. "Are you ready?" he'd asked. "Here's my castle." Then, as a harp and tin whistle duo played the traditional English folk song, "Early One Morning," the drawbridge of a miniature castle lowered and front doors, marked with "Friendly Giant," swung open to invite young viewers in. In front of the fireplace, Friendly's gigantic hand always arranged "one little chair for one of you, and a bigger chair for two more to curl up in, and for someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle." Then, he instructed us to "look up. . . look waayyy up." And he would then call for Rusty, a rooster who lived in a sack that hung on the castle wall. They would be eventually joined by Jerome, the giraffe, who stuck his head through the window that Friendly always stood by.

For the remainder of the fifteen minute show, they would chat, read a story book, and play music and sing. Then at the conclusion of each episode Friendly would say goodbye to Jerome and Rusty, and to his young guests. He let them out through the front door and pulled up the drawbridge after them as, in the sky above the castle, a cow would jump over the moon.

The CBC chose to cancel the series in 1984. It was a sad day for thousands of children, and for thousands of parents who had grown up with The Friendly Giant. The CBC received an astounding number of calls and letters from viewers complaining about the cancellation who felt that the show's run was only ended as part of the massive budget cuts imposed by the federal government on the CBC, although the network denied that there was any connection.

As you can see, there have been numerous popular and long-running series of our own on Canadian television. So, the next time someone asks you about Canadian television, you can tell them a little about some of the series above.