Toronto Mike

TV Time Machine

Total 50 Posts

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
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Ontario PSAs

Man, did the PSAs of my youth ever leave an imprint. These public service announcements were frightening, I was afraid to light a cigarette, lose a limb or ask my old man to fix my toy General Lee. My bud Retrontario put together a fantastic compilation of the most shocking
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Watch it, Buddy!

Periodically, I'll break into my best Peter Silverman imitation and exclaim "Watch it, buddy!" At some point in the 90s I saw CityTV's Silverman do this during one of his Silverman Helps segments and it stuck. Thanks to Retrontario, I now have the exact clip. You'll hear it at the
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ParticipACTION

When I was growing up in the early 80s, ParticipACTION PSAs ran often. This ad, for example, is forever etched in my mind. I will sing this song on demand. Then, there's Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod. Their Body Break clips were everywhere. If they look like a couple, it's
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Battle of the Planets

Fables of the Green Forest was one of my very first favourite television shows. I watched it on TVOntario in the late 70s. I wrote about it here, and on Saturday morning, I awoke to a new comment on that entry informing me of a new Fables of the Green
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The Waterville Gang

As I just mentioned, few unauthorized YouTube clips survive the years with one pleasing exception.  Retrontario's clips have held up extremely well, which pleases this home-grown 70s child. Here's the opening of The Waterville Gang, a CTV show from the early 70s starring Billy Van.  Thanks, Retrontario!
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The Toothbrush Family

YouTube user Retrontario frequently uploads fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems.  These clips never fail to bring back a ton of memories for me, so I feature them from time to time. A couple of years ago I wrote about Polka Dot Door. In the comments of that entry, someone asked about The
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