Turkey Television Shipped My Motorcycle

Posted by Christine McGlade at 5/1/2007 8:07 PM
Categories: TurkeyTV
The details are hazy, but I can tell you that in 1984, I travelled to Vancouver, BC, and purchased my second motorcycle.  This was a big deal; I bought it new, at a dealership under the big bridge that went between Vancouver proper and Kitsilano.  I was in Vancouver visiting my best friend (the one who grew up on the same street as Kevin Somers) so my trip was not supposed to be about buying a bike, but that's how it ended up.  At the time, I was driving a Honda 450, 2 cylinder, decent bike but not so great on the highway.  Highway driving is...necessary? essential? unavoidable?  in Canada, so when I saw that lovely Honday 550 Magna, 4 cylinder V engine, I had to have it.

Reality kicked in when I arrived back in Toronto and found out that yes, they could ship it to Toronto, on a train, but if I wanted that to cost less than something around a gazillion dollars, the bike would be shipped in pieces.  In a box.  This was not an option.

This was a time in my life when I had recently moved to Toronto.  I had wrapped up my 9...10...? year stint on YCDTOTV, and was lured to Hogtown by the promise of an agent, auditions, and big fat acting bucks.  What I found was a dubious fellow by the name of Bill (who later absconded with all of his cleints' money...'nother post, for another day), and demoralising sessions flipping my hair for shampoo manufacturers in a vain attempt to get a national commercial spot (uhhh-hello, I DO NOT have commercial hair.  Not.  even.  close.)  When Roger Price set up shop in Scarborough, and proposed that I come on board and assistant produce Turkey TV, I was in.  It meant a long, cold commute, on afore-mentioned 450 Honda in the dead of winter, but I just threw on some long johns and did the thing.

Turkey TV was an odd show: kind of a new concept, it was supposed to be made up of a whole bunch of different shorts, some that we shot, and some that we acquired.  We had odd names for the shorts, depending on where they came from, like "acq's" and "mod acq's".  I have no idea, now, what a "mod acq" might be.  The strangest thing was that we could never actually see a show: we don't get Nickelodoen here in Canada.  Another very strong, geek memory: we used these all-Canadian "portable" computers manufactured by a company called Hyperion.  I actually used to put my computer (probably weighed, oh, 20 lb) in this duffle bag it came with, hauled it up onto my back, and drove it home on my bike to work over the weekend trying to put show lineups together.

There were two giant upsides: one, the people I worked with were amazing.  Josh Morris, Mary Jo Eustace, and Jeff Berman come to mind.  Two, Roger Price offered to ship my new motorcycle, all in one piece, on a cross country train, in exchange for use of my 450 as a prop.  He even built a sketch series around 2 guys fixing a bike, to justify the need for bike as prop, to let me oblige, to ship my bike,  It was a gift.

Here's a shot of me directing the two guys fixing the bike (my old bike) as we anticipate the imminent arival of my new bike:



I don't recall the names of these actors, if anyone does...please let me know!
 

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