Hey Moose

Edward asks about...Pies.

Christine McGlade — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:50:00 GMT

I'm baaaack. Lots of life got in the way there for a while. I'm going to try answering an email again, although I do believe that cutting and pasting some html-tagged email before was what caused some kind of clog in my blog.

Andrew wrote to me and asked:

"I have a question that I wanted to ask you about being pied. It seems that you took more pies to the face than anyone else on the show. What was it like to be pied? How did they shoot those sketches? Did you groan each time you saw another script that had you getting pied? In particular, I am very curious about the “Drugs” episode, where all those kids just barraged you at the end. What was that experience like, and can you give us some “behind the scenes” info on that episode? I also enjoyed the “malapropophobia” sketch where Ross hit you with “the next cream pie” even after he told you he wouldn’t, all because he suffered from a fear of telling the truth. Classic stuff. Who came up with that idea? Any insight on that sketch as well?"

okay, one at a time! I think you are right, I probably did get more pies than the other kids, and I chalk this up to 2 factors:
1) I was on every show, mostly, so the odds were simply greater that I would therefore suffer more indiginities than the others and
2) Roger Price had a secret strategy that by humiliating and otherwise causing me to endure great hardships, he would thereby make me more sympathetic, even though I was mostly portrayed as a bit of a sarcastic know-it-all (hang on-I think that was my true personality shining through!!)

The thing is, being pied was kind of...fun. They weren't real pies-hope this isn't revealing some kind of comedy trade secret. I can see it now: this will get back to the comedy mafia and they'll take a hit out on me. I knew there was a good reason to fear clowns...

but back to the "pies"...they were, in fact, shaving cream. This foamed up and was more creamy than whipped cream, and it didn't melt under the hot studio lights and get all smelly and old-dairy disgusting. The only downside was that certain kids, who shall remain nameless but who were younger than me and somewhat mischevious, often used the pie-ing with the shaving cream as a weapon, and indeed, I got a few in the face that were relatively forceful. Shaving cream in the eyes kinda stings. The drug ep is one where the pieing at the end was....robust.

Ross (Les Lye), being a long-time, inside member of the secret comedy mafia, was expert at all things slapstick, and could deliver a pie like no other, with just the right amount of force (it looked like there was force, but there wasn't) and just the right amount of squish at the end. A consumate comedy pro. I hope he never finds out I have revealed the shaving cream secret, he would be horrified.

technical difficulties!

Christine McGlade — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 02:08:00 GMT

for some inexplicable reason, I can't load my blog. I can get into the back end and create this post, for example, and a call to tech support reveals that my service provider can load no problem.

In any case...apologies for all the silence from my end...trying to figure this out...stay tuned...

small update: these problems began when I uploaded the fridge slime photo. Creepy. In any case, I am using this post to claim my blog on technorati, and will get back in here as soon as I can.

Technorati Profile

Taste the Slime!

Christine McGlade — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 01:23:00 GMT

Peter wrote to me:

"i was wondering who came up with the idea of the triger phrase for the slime i dont know. the 2nd thing i was
wondering was what the slime tasted like"

Peter, you have opened the slimy can of worms, my friend. First: the answers. Roger Price, I am almost positive, came up with...well...you know the phrase. This has the feel of classic Roger Price, but I invite anyone who has different intelligence on this one to chime in.

What I do recall is that the idea behind it was a kind of a satire on educational television, and on how the kids on those shows were such smarmy know-it-alls. I refer not to any of the quality educational TV we see today but rather to some classic 70's Canadian kids TV like a show called "Circle Square" which was beyond tolerable. So the idea on YCDTOTV was to immediately and in the most disgusting way possible, punish the kid who actually didn't know. How dare they not know!

The evolution of the recipe is a whole other story. As I recall, it took a while to bring the local Ottawa crew around to the idea of even working on the show: I think they thought it was, well, kind of disgusting. And the first slime recipes reflected a kind of experimentation that makes me kind of shudder when I think about it now.

For some time, there seemed to be a lot of oats in there. Delicious fibrous flavour, but REALLY hard to get out of one's hair. To make it easier to wash out, sooap was then added...really, really bad taste.

For some time I seem to recall there being a distinctly salty flavour. I'm not sure I really want to think about why this might be.

and here is the threat I live with every day:

Yes! It is slime, and it lives in my fridge; I am particularly afraid of the one on the left, which has, somehow, turned blue. Clearly this is why I am to this day such a know it all.

The Punk Look and Something Else

Christine McGlade — Fri, 25 May 2007 01:11:00 GMT

I only post this (likely too long) tome on hair, since Shane asked in a recent comment about the punk look. Let me explain. At some point in the 1980's, we had the chance to produce a pilot for Disney, called Bear Rapids. Roger Price wanted me to look different, so I got the go-ahead to cut my hair. This led to the much-hated (by me) wig years. Apparently, at one point, I took the wig out to the CJOH parking lot and ran it over with my motorcycle. This is fodder for another post, and will require some research, since I don't remember doing this and may well have been in some kind of psychotic rage at the time. But I digress.

Since the hair was cut, and the wig was bought, no one seemed to have a problem with me doing what I had always wanted to do: subject my head to all manner of interesting dye jobs in an effort to look ever-more punky. During this time, we also produced a local Ottawa game show called "Something Else", and, well, here's the picture:

Note the snazzy letraset job I did myself on the actual photo. Very 80's...post modern, I would venture to suggest. That's Geoffrey Darby in the picture with me.

Something Else was a crazy, completely meaningless show. It was as if a television station manager took some 17 year old kid and told her "here's an hour on Saturday morning: do whatever you like, just don't swear too much".

Hang on-that's EXACTLY what it was. We took every aspect of the classic "Game Show" model and threw it in there: live audience of kids? sure! heck, let's take a page from Let's Make a Deal, and have them show up in costume! Phone-in contests, free stuff...and if that wasn't enough, we even had bands. Yes, musical, performing, bands. More on Something Else in a future post. If I can manage it, I may even be able to upload some audio from one of our first bands, the ~~Bop~~ Trash Cats, a rockabilly ensemble composed of a few of my buddies from high school. It was short-lived, but a ton of fun!

Classic Les Lye

Christine McGlade — Fri, 18 May 2007 23:54:00 GMT

I took this shot during the summer of 1985 production schedule; this is classic Les, doing his announcer bits with an unlit cigar in his mouth, and deely boppers on his head:

He's marking up his script, underlining the words he wanted to emphasize. A real pro!

the "Moose" Moniker

Christine McGlade — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:46:00 GMT

When I was 9 we moved to Ottawa, Ontario. We moved in December, and driving North East on highway 7 was like a scene from Kamouraska; snow, woods, snow. For a kid from Toronto, it was a little alarming. At that age I was NOT pleased about moving (I am convinced that there are life changes at age 9 that rival those of the teenage years, and even menopause. I think there is an exit from childhood that is really tough. Carole Hay once said to me that "nine is the saddest age") and I wasn't keen on making friends.

The funny thing is, when I started at my new school, everyone thought I was this other kid's sister. This other kid was named Danny Burns, and he was this short, freckled, Irish-looking kid who everyine assumed I was related to. I was also short, freckled, and Irish looking, believe it or not, so of course we became friends. We carried this ruse that he was my brother all the way into high school.

Sometime in grade 6, Danny Burns started calling me "Moose", based on the fact that I was always the smallest kid in the class. I think he may have been referring to the character in the Archie comics, the giant blonde one, called Moose. I think I revealed this in a moment of stupid candour to Roger Price, and after gleefully rubbing his hands and likely compulsively combing his hair, he decided to make it part of the show.

Turkey Television Shipped My Motorcycle

Christine McGlade — Wed, 02 May 2007 00:07:00 GMT

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!

Kevin Somers: where is he now?

Christine McGlade — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 02:01:00 GMT

Questions were raised in another thread by Ashaki on the nature of my relationship with Kevin Somers. So here's the scoop, and sorry to say, no good dirt. This might be a little known fact, but Kevin and I both got "recruited" for YCDTOTV from the same middle school, and were 2 of only a few people who ended up in the same East end, Ottawa high school after that. Kevin lived on the same street as my best friend, and the irony of all of this is that I completely lost touch with Kevin for a long time there, and I figured he was off living in some exotic locale, like Australia or Alaska. Turns out Kevin lives not too far from where I do, in Canadian geographic terms, and he is doing some really interesting things these days. (another irony: both he and Ashaki are writers)

I didn't take this photo: I am 99% sure that it was taken by the lovely Carole Hay, our drama teacher. Kevin is in his show 2 clothes, I must have been shooting for show 3. I don't know if these shows ever made it on to Nickelodeon; these were the very first, live programs we made, when YCDTOTV was a local Ottawa show.

So where is he now? Well, as I mentioned, Kevin is a writer. When we first reconnected, Kevin was (and still is, I think) writing for Women's Post. Just before Christmas this year, he dropped by my office with a copy of his latest book, I'm Gretzky, which I promptly read and found hilarious, if not a little dark. And he also writes for Raize the Hammer, and recently mentioned YCDTOTV in an article.

Kevin has also offered to post here: Lemme know what you think!!

The Tyranny of The Brady Bunch

Christine McGlade — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:32:00 GMT

This past weekend I attended a children's film festival, and saw 3 films. 2 were from Germany, 1 from Denmark. I go every year with my kids, it is a fantastic opportunity to see really good foreign films and it's quite cool: they have a reader who reads the subtitles so even little kids who can't read can enjoy the movies.

What really struck me was how un-Disney these films were. The kids were not well dressed, they had messy hair, and their houses were small and often messy. Their families were decidedly imperfect: dads were unemployed, parents were divorced or absent, grandma's were not even a little bit nice.

It made me think about how bad the Brady Bunch made me feel when I was a kid: they were so perfect! And everything always worked out okay! AND they could even sing! I had a happy family, but the Brady Bunch just made me feel like my family was inadequate. It really made me appreciate these European films I saw on the weekend that were depicting families that were a lot more real than what we usually see on TV these days, on Disney or it's Cdn counterpart, Family channel. I think that shows like That's So Raven, or The Suite Life (can you tell I have kids??) are cute and funny, but damn, these people are so perfect!

I do think that one reason YCDTOTV was particularly appealing to kids (and why adults really hated it) was that it portrayed these incredibly disfunctional adults, especially dad. I think presenting kids with a reality where everyone is against them, or they are misunderstood, or they have to be especially sneaky or clever to get around the idiot adults that surround them, is pretty appealing to kids. I think the willingness to make a show that is totally from this kids' point of view is something that is missing in North American broadcast. I'd love to hear about what might be out there that I might be missing.

Channels above 13??? Naw, it'll never last...

Christine McGlade — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:01:00 GMT

Talk about short-sighted. I recall very clearly (which is a bit of a miracle, since I am painfully aware that most of those reading this blog recall waaaaay more than I do about episodes, plotlines, cast...) when we found out that YCDTOTV was sold to an American "cable" channel. It was so disappointing!! We were all like "what is this fly-by-night, CABLE thing"?? It didn't seem like real TV. We were convinced that channels above 13 would never fly.

This is incredibly embarassing, now. It's funny, too-I recall being far more impressed when Whatever Turns You On was picked up by our Canadian network, CTV, than by the whole Nickelodeon thing. At least CTV was a real channel (ie, on the "dial"). Little did I suspect that one day, people wouldn't even know what the heck a "dial" was.

How many people out there don't remember a time when you had to get up, walk across the room, and turn a "dial" to change channels??!!

YCDTOTV on You Tube?

Christine McGlade — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 02:05:00 GMT

I had an email from a 12 year old who has recently discovered You Can't Do That on TV: I think this is quite amazing. She sent me the nicest email, and because she's 12, I don't want to say her name, but she knows who she is and I'm thrilled to get emails from people younger than my children (!)

It's kind of funny because over the last few years there was a lot of talk of Nickelodeon possibly putting the series, or parts of it, out on DVD. For some reason (which I suspect is connected to inability to make a deal with the writer's guild, but don't quote me) The DVD's were never released. So I have a couple of questions:

-is this because they just wouldn't make their money back? Is there just no demand for DVD's and, a connected question:
-if you want to see old eps of You Can't do that on TV, can you find them online anyway?
To my mind, DVD's are great for collectors: people who really like to own the media, have a high quality copy, and have the added features that would go with. But if you just want to watch the show...can you do that online just as easily??

Coding a blog vs. just using what is there

Christine McGlade — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:14:00 GMT

After much feeling guilty about never finding the time to code my own blog (what was I thinking??) I have decided to just use what's available, and get going. This, therefore, is a welcoming post, a hello, a first of many. What will this blog be about? For me, it will be about memory: I will be writing down what I recall, and posting the photos that I took, and that I have and don't remember who took, of the behind the scenes that went into the making of You Can't Do That on Television. It's important to know that I'm Canadian, and we don't generally like to draw attention to ourselves (the ones of us that do usually move somewhere else where that's okay, like the U.S.) so it has indeed taken a while for me to decide that there may well be some people out there who may well find this interesting, and fun, and they might actually kind of like to see some of these pictures, and read about (to the best of my recall) what it was like to make this YCDTOTV.

I will likely then ramble on a little about where I see the media going today: TV, internet, and all the other myriad ways that things have changed into this new thing where we don't just sit around and watch TV anymore like we used to, which is good.

And, I am hoping that there will be questions and comment, and that those out there who are interested in chatting a little about their own recall of YCDTOTV, will talk to me.

More to come.