FROM THE VAULT: comedy legend George Burns

Back in 1974, fifty years ago, there was no streaming, no cable, no news or sports networks. What there finally was, however, was a third national Canadian broadcast network. 
On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, Corus Entertainment EVP Troy Reeb looks back at a time when Canada went Global. Once known as "The Love Boat network," it is the longtime Canadian home of some of TV’s most enduring hits, including the Young and the Restless and Saturday Night Live. Over the years, it was where Canadians first watched SCTV as well as 90210. Canadian originals in prime? Global could have done more, but highlights include Traders, Super Dave, Ready or Not, Rookie Blue and Private Eyes.
Reeb talks about his own rise up the ranks from the news department to the executive
suite, as well as some of the high and lows of surviving in the ever-changing business of television.

Have you seen The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down? The series is produced out of Grenville Island in Vancouver and among the executive producers is Seth Rogen. He is known more for pot than pottery but watch him get his hands dirty a few times on camera, making, of course, ash trays from behind a pottery wheel.

Now, there is a lot to pottery. You’ve got to fire up your creations in a kiln and then add colours and glaze. The contestants on the show on the episodes I’ve seen are very talented.

I sat down and recorded this interview with three key members of the series last December at the CBC broadcast centre in Toronto. Meet host Jennifer Robertson, along with judges Brendan Tang and Natalie Waddell. Catch up with the series by streaming it on CBC Gem, with new episodes airing Wednesdays on the main network.

One note: the room where this was recorded up on the 10th floor at CBC was echo-y and only one mic was used so the sound levels are a little wonky. Producer Phil Wong put the audio through his tweak machine but apologies for the less-than-perfect sound.

The folks at AppleTV+ asked if I’d like a one-on-one with Eugene Levy. Before you could say Schitt’s Creek, I said yes!

Levy – beloved in Canada for decades as part of the legendary SCTV cast – had just been inducted into the Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame. The interview took place in February in Pasadena, CA. I also took part in a press conference with Levy a day earlier while attending the winter edition of the Television Critics Association semi-annual press tour. 

What I didn’t know at the time is that Levy will be a recurring character on the fourth season of Only Murders in the Building. There he will join friend and fellow SCTV cast mate Martin Short. Another SCTV alum, Andrea Martin, was a recurring character on season three. Steve Martin and Selina Gomez, of course, also star on the series.

I’ve spoken with the 77-year-old Emmy winner in the past. He is a quiet gentleman by nature, happier to talk about his son Daniel Levy or anybody else really. And while he's still not crazy about travelling, he finds that there is a wee bit more Scotch in his blood than he realized when he visits, for the first time, the homeland of his mother. That happens in Episode Two.

My mom was born in Scotland as well, so enjoy this double scotch, or double half-scotch, podcast episode. 

TV shows don't just write and produce themselves. That takes showrunners! Two of the best in Canada have been Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, the husband and wife team behind such hits as Flashpoint, X Company and Transplant.
Their latest is the new Wednesday night CBC police drama Allegiance. The series stars Supinder Wraich as promising rookie cop Sabrina Sohal. She's teamed with a savvy police veteran played by Enrico Colantoni, my previous guest on brioux.tv : the podcast. Stephen Lobo also stars as Sabrina's wrongfully accused politician father.
On this episode, I'm joined by Mark Ellis, who talks about the importance of casting,  writing and setting this series in Surrey, B.C.
Ellis also talks about how he really didn't have much of a sense of Canadian identity until his family returned to Canada from England when he was a lad and he started watching The Beachcombers.
"I thought, okay, this is Canada," says Ellis. "Here we are in a boat with Nick and Relic and we're racing down the sunshine coast... and I thought, well, this is a lovely place." Hear how Mark is bringing that vision up to date now with Allegiance.

I had so much fun zooming with Karen Robinson, who lays down the law on the new Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.

"Toronto is its own character in the show,” says Robinson, who loves that the city is representing itself for a change instead of somewhere else. “This is about us.”

Robinson plays Inspector Vivienne Holness on this latest extension of the L&O franchise, which also stars Aden Young and Kathleen Munroe. And, yes, she played a zanier cop shop boss on another Tassie Cameron-helmed series, Pretty Hard Cases. If she had to count all the police characters she has played, well, “it’s been a lot.”

Robinson came with her family from Jamaica at 16, moving first to Alberta where she studied under the great theatre showman Robin Phillips. She has since shone in everything from Slings and Arrows to Schitt’s Creek.

Feel her joy and energy in this spirited conversation. Then check her out on Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent Thursday nights on Citytv.

One of Red Green's favourite sayings is, "If the ladies don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
Steve Smith may be the handiest fella ever in the history of Canadian television. Inspired by that ol' TV fishin' pal Red Fisher, Smith crafted Red Green out of duct tape and suspenders. The Red Green Show had humble beginnings out of Hamilton, Ont.'s CHCH, eventually airing 300 episodes over 16 seasons stretched across five different stations and networks, including CBC and 100 PBS affiliates in the U.S.
Smith used to appear on PBS pledge breaks and say, "If you like our show, send a little money. If you don't like it, send lots of money so they can afford something better."
Now 78, inductee Smith returns to Hamilton Feb. 23 in a live tribute show as part of the week-long Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame festivities. See him in person along with his Red Green co-stars Patrick McKenna (nephew Harold), Peter Keleghan and Jeff Lumby as well as comedy road warrior Ron James.
Catch up with Smith first as my guest on a fun episode of brioux.tv: the podcast. And keep your stick on the ice!

For years, actor/comedian Tim Progosh has wondered: with all the great comedians Canada has produced over the years, why is there no Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame?
Progosh has done more than wonder. He's made it happen. For more than 20 years, his efforts have been stymied by celebrations cut short by the 9/11 attacks, by deals falling through during a recession, by COVID and actor strike interruptions. Who knew saluting the funny was such a serious and challenging business?
On this podcast episode, Progosh tells how -- while still set on an eventual  brick and mortar venue --  he was able to gain the political smarts to get a virtual Hall off the ground.
This year's inductees include Eugene Levy and Martin Short, the cast of SCTV as a troupe, Jim Carrey and Red Green Show star and creator Steve Smith and even late great Hilarious House of Frightenstein comedy chameleon Billy Van. Going even further back, early film star Marie Dressler and radio's The Happy Gang also made the Hall.
Festivities and live comedy shows take place in Hamilton, Ont., Feb. 21 through 24. Go see the shows (featuring Ron James, Shaun Majumder and other comedians) but first listen as Progosh salutes his Canadian comedy heroes on this week's laugh out loud episode of brioux.tv: the podcast.

I’m old enough to remember seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. That "really big shew" happened on February 9, 1964 – 60 years ago. I remember my dad going on about their long hair and those so-called Beatle wigs. I could not, however, take my eyes off them, and neither could a then-record 73 million other people who watched that night on television.
That summer of ‘64, The Beatles came to Toronto for two performances at Maple Leaf Gardens. There for both shows and chosen to interview them the next day for the Toronto Star, was one lucky teen – Michele Finney. At the time she was the young co-star, opposite Alan Hamel and Howard the Turtle, of the daily, live afternoon CBC kids show, Razzle Dazzle.
Twenty years ago, on the 40th anniversary of Beatlemania, I interviewed Michele. This was back when I was the TV columnist for the Toronto Sun. She is just as fab now as she was then as you’ll hear in our conversation. Listen as she talks of many other adventures, including re-connecting with John Lennon during the Live Peace in Toronto concert in 1969.

Of the 137 podcast episodes I've done here over the past four-plus years, the most amazing conversation might be the second one we recorded. That was with one of my favourite actors, Enrico Colantoni.
The man has done very well since he left Etobicoke for the Big Apple as a student at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Distinguishing himself there led to memorable roles in "Galaxy Quest," Just Shoot Me, Veronica Mars, Flashpoint, "A.I.", "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and on and on.
We pick up where we left off with this episode as Rico talks about his latest project, playing a well-seasoned police officer mentoring a keen new recruit (played by Supinder Wraich) in the new procedural Allegiance (premiering Wednesday, Feb. 7 on CBC and CBC Gem).
Rico throws himself into a conversation the same way he tackles a role. He is 100 per cent all in and, as a result, up goes everybody else's game. We go all over the map as usual, talking hip replacements, his re-teaming with showrunners Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern (the husband and wife team behind Flashpoint) and, of course, Apache Burger. He even shares a story about his late-great Just Shoot Me colleague, George Segal. Please join us.

In this episode: two CBC Tuesday night comedies for the price of one.
First up is Andrew Pfung and company from Run The Burbs (Tues. on CBC). The sitcom returns for a third season with Rakhee Morzaria, who plays Camille, joining Phung on this round-table chat, along with  showrunners Jennica Harper and Nelu Handa.
We start off talking yard sales, the focus of the season three premiere.
"Almost all the ideas on the show come from a very real place," says Phung.
Also noted is how the kids on the series (played by Zoria Wong and Roman Pesino) are growing up and are more involved in storylines. And, yes, hip hop neighbour Kardinal Offishall returns as himself.
Phung also says he was pleased by the response to such a diverse family from viewers watching in the U.S. last season on The CW. "We have such nice comments on the specify and the representation of this family."
In the second half of this episode, meet standup comedian D.J. Demers along with showrunner Jessie Gabe, the team behind CBC's One More Time.
Demers worked at a Play it Again sports store his last three years of high school in Kitchener, Ont. The experience "stuck in my brain and I drew inspiration from it all these years later to make the show."
Demers has worn hearing aides since he was four years old. Back in the sporting goods store, he learned to keep customers in front of him so they wouldn't think he was ignoring them. "I didn't want anybody going to my boss and saying, 'What's with that teenage asshole?'"
Like his character, he never learned American Sign Language.
"I grew up in a hearing family and went to a regular school, so I never was exposed to it," he says.
Among the people he did hear from were the casting folks on Conan O'Brien's former late night talk show, who invited Demers on three times. He's also been featured at Just for Laughs in Montreal.
Also starring is Geri Hall (This Hour has 22 Minutes), Dan Beirne and Elise Bauman.
One More Time airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC, immediately before Run the Burbs.