Toronto Mike

Television

Total 456 Posts

Video Stars

Several years ago, Joel Goldberg gifted me a poster of this cover of Graffiti celebrating Toronto’s new VJ superstars. Featured are FOTMs Shirley McQueen and J. Gold (Joel Goldberg) of CFMT’s Something Else, Samantha Taylor (who went from CFMT to CBC’s Video Hits) and John Majhor of
Continue Reading

The Deuce Theme Songs

Admittedly, I'm a sucker for anything created by David Simon. The Wire is my all-time favourite television show, ahead of Six Feet Under and The Sopranos. Another David Simon series is The Deuce which ran for three seasons. This post is about The Deuce's theme songs. I love all three
Continue Reading

Do the Work, Don

I do a lot over here at TMDS. First off, there's my flagship podcast Toronto Mike'd. For that show I book and schedule guests, conduct the research, host, record and publish the episode. Then there's the post-drop promotion on social media and TorontoMike.com. Then, there's my clients... and a
Continue Reading

Late Night

There was a time in my life when staying up and watching late night talk shows was rather important to me. The first late night talk show I dug was The Late Show with David Letterman. His irreverent sense of humour appealed to me, and he seemed to have interesting
Continue Reading

Move It On Over

When Six Feet Under first aired in the early 2000s, it was appointment viewing for me. Sunday night at 10pm I was there. I loved that show. My wife had never seen the show that currently ranks as my second favourite series of all-time, so last month we started watching
Continue Reading

Schitt's Creek Do-over

As a huge fan of SCTV, I really wanted to love Schitt's Creek, but I bailed after the first episode. It just didn't hold me, even with Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara and Get A Life's Chris Elliott! That was years ago, and now Schitt's Creek is the talk of the
Continue Reading

TV I've Dug in 2019

I watch a lot of pilots. I'll hear about a show people are digging, and I'll give it a try. More often than not, I bail after one episode because I'm not feeling it. Sometimes I'll give it three or four episodes before bailing, and if the show is as
Continue Reading

Shomi is No More

Rogers introduced Shomi as a Netflix alternative only two years ago, but is already shutting down the service. "We tried something new, and customers who used shomi loved it. It's like a great cult favourite with a fantastic core audience that unfortunately just isn't big enough to be renewed for
Continue Reading

The Problem with HBO's Vinyl

"A New York music executive in the 1970s hustles to make a career out of the city's diverse music scene." That's the description of Vinyl. With Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger on board as co-creators, they had my curiosity, but with the HBO seal of approval, they had my attention.
Continue Reading

Canada AM Cancelled

CTV has announced that Canada AM will broadcast its final episode tomorrow. Canada AM first hit the airwaves on Sept. 11, 1972 as Canada’s first morning television news program and ran for 43 seasons. Your final Canada AM hosts are Beverly Thomson, Marci Ien and Jeff Hutcheson. Bell Media
Continue Reading