CBC Television Series, 1952-1982
by Blaine Allan
Return to
CBC Series Index
EARTHBOUND
Sun 1:00-1:30 p.m., 6 Jun-19 Sep 1982
A half-hour, Sunday aftertoon, summer series, Earthbound examined questions of
the country's resources and related industries and the environment. Producer
Jane du Broy drew from material originating in different regions to explore
problems such as the failure of Canada's forest industry to compete in foreign
markets, the revitalization of the fisheries industries in the Atlantic
provinces, the debate over grain transportation costs and their effects on the
western provinces, and the comparative prices of oil in Canada and the U.S.A.
The host of Earthbound was Fred Langer. The show's executive producer was
Robert Petch.
Thu 5:00-5:30 p.m. 4 Jul-25 Sep 1957
Thu 5:00-5:30 p.m., 2 Jul-24 Sep 1959
In this half-hour, weekly broadcast for children ages eight to fourteen, Ed
McCurdy and Ross Snetsinger lived in a magical house. Snetsinger's hand puppet
pal, Foster, led them through the building's sliding panels into secret
passages. They all enjoyed themselves by making up secret societies, by
inventing and building gadgets, with music led by singer and guitarist McCurdy,
and with games. They also invited friends, such as jugglers and acrobats, to
come down to their place from upstairs and perform. John Kennedy produced Ed
and Ross in Toronto. Ed McCurdy and Ross Snetsinger and Foster were all well
known to the CBC's young television audiences.
Sat 7:00-7:30 p.m., 24 Jun-22 Jul 1967
Singer and actor Ed Evanko starred in his own musical variety show from
Winnipeg in the summer of 1967. The show's orchestra and chorus were led by
Bob McMullin. Evanko welcomed such musical guests--most from the Winnipeg
area--as Lorraine West, Miriam Breitman, Ray St. Germain, Peggy Neville, Hector
Bremner, Bobbi Sherron, Yvette, and guitar virtuoso Lenny Breau.
Tue 5:00-5:30 p.m., 6 Jan-7 Apr 1953
Tue 5:30-6:00 p.m., 14 Apr-28 Apr 1953
Tue/Sun 5:00-5:30 p.m., 5 May-15 Sep 1953
Sat 5:00-5:30 p.m., 17 Oct-19 Dec 1953
Sat 6:00-6:30 p.m., 2 Jan-17 Apr 1954
For several months, singer Ed McCurdy had two series running on CBC television,
one for adults and one for children. On the Sunday afternoon show, for
grownups, McCurdy was billed simply as "Canada's popular balladeer." On the
Tuesday and Saturday afternoon broadcasts, aimed at children, McCurdy acted out
stories that he illustrated with folk songs and his own compositions. A
contemporary reviewer noted concisely, "Ed McCurdy and his guitar and some
innocent comedy with firemen, postmen, and a talk with a shadow man. Very
good" (Maclean's [l5 January 1954]).
Sun 3:30-4:00 p.m., 10 May-17 May 1959
Education Today comprised two, half-hour programs on higher education, and
included talks with businessmen about young people who returned to school after
having spent some time in the work force.
Wed 10:30-11:00 p.m., 20 Jul-7 Sep 1966
Paul Wright was the executive producer for these half-hour, public affairs
programs about issues and people relating to Quebec culture. Jean-Paul
Desbiens was the subject of the first program, directed by Arnold Gelbart and
written by Howard Ryshpan. Desbiens, a Marist known as Brother Pierre- Jerome,
gained fame in Quebec as the author of a book called Les Insolences du Frere
Untel, based on letters he had written to Le Devoir that attacked Quebec's
school system, strict authority, fear of freedom, language, and the
restrictions under which brothers and nuns had to live. The second program,
This Blooming Business of Bilingualism, directed by Peter Pearson, dealt with
the conflicts of English and French language groups in the daily life of
Montreal. Between Two Worlds, the third program, charted the development and
present state of Montreal's Jewish community, and was directed by Felix Lazarus
and written by C.J. Newman. Confederation of Two, directed by Dennis Miller
and prepared by story editor Marion Andre Czerniecki, offered profiles of three
couples in which the wife was a Francophone and the husband and Anglophone.
The sixth program, The Ballad of Louis Cyr, presented a film biography of the
nineteenth century strongman from Montreal, directed by Arnold Gelbart, and
featuring music by the Sidetracks. Unlike the other segments of the series,
which were produced at CBC Montreal, the seventh program, directed by Ray
DeBoer, was produced through the CBC's office in London and in cooperation with
the French language program, Aujourd'hui. For comparison with Canada, the
show, called What Went Wrong With Belgium?, traced the develoment of
bilingualism in another country. The final program, What's the Matter With Old
McGill?, outlined the differences between English and French language
universities in Quebec, and examined the possibilities for the future of McGill
University. It was directed by Dennis Miller, and written by Richard Gwyn and
Sandra Gwyn.
Peter Desbarats appeared as the series host.
Sun 11:50-12:50 a.m., 11 Jan 1976
Mon 7:00-8:00 p.m., 2/9/16/23 Aug 1976
One of the hosts of CBC's public affairs show, Tabloid, in the 1950s, Elaine
Grand reappeared in the 1970s for a series of programs on people in the arts,
including television journalist and producer Patrick Watson, writers June
Callwood, Mordecai Richler, and Ted Allen, drama critic Herbert Whittaker, and
the television program Close-Up.
Sun 10:00-10:30 p.m., 19 Jun-11 Sep 1955
Sat 6:30-6:45 p.m., 1 Feb-28 Mar 1964
In her 1955 summer series, singer Eleanor Collins, pianist Chris Gage, dancers
Lennie Gibson and Denise Quan, the Ray Norris Quintet, host Alan Millar, and
their weekly guests performed music around a particular theme each week.
In the 1964 series, Collins was backed by a trio led by Chris Gage, and they
and guests such as trumpet and trombone player Cars Sneddon, alto sax and flute
player Fraser MacPherson, or trumpet played Clara Bryant did their renditions
of show tunes and popular music from the U.S.A.
Both series, simply called Eleanor, were produced in Vancouver.
Sun 10:00-11:00 p.m., 15/22/29 Sep 1974
Sun 4:00-5:00 p.m., 6/13/20 Jul 1975 (R)
Doug Lower produced, directed, and wrote this series of three, one hour
programs on the world food shortage and the population explosion. George
Finstad narrated.
Sun 9:00-10:00 p.m., 9 Jan-13 Feb 1983
Fri 7:30-8:00 p.m., 9 Aug-13 Sep 1974
In this series of six, half-hour shows, the CBC turned the spotlight on popular
Quebec muscians for the English speaking audience. Catherine McKinnon hosted
the concert performances, by Veronique Sanson, Claude Dubois, Tex Lecor,
Ginette Reno, Diane Dufresne, and Willie Lamothe, in different
locations--theatres, clubs, and even a barn and a church-- throughout Quebec.
Pat Cook was the show's producer and director.
Sun 9:00-9:50 p.m., 26 Jun-25 Sep 1960
In 1960, the CBC filled one of its summer replacement slots with thirteen
repeats of shows originally seen on Folio, General Motors Presents, or
Showtime. The series opened with a production of Christopher Fry's A Phoenix
Too Frequent, produced in 1958 by Paul Almond and starring Rosemary Harris and
Don Harron. Subsequent titles included: The Last of the Hot Pilots, by Andy
Lewis, with Alan Young; The Desperate Search, by Len Peterson, produced by
Harvey Hart, with Janine Sutto; The Oddball, by Bernard Slade, produced by
Melwyn Breen, with Tom Harvey and Corinne Conley; Love Story, 19l0, by Leslie
MacFarlane, produced by Basil Coleman, with Eric House, Frances Hyland, Barry
Morse, and Tony Van Bridge; How to Make More Money Than Men, by Bernard Slade,
produced by Norman Campbell, again with Corinne Conley and Tom Harvey; The New
Men, by C.P. Snow, adapted by Jacqueline Rosenfeld, produced by Ronald Weyman,
and starring John Colicos, Don Harron, and Barry Morse; Murder Story, by
Ludovic Kennedy, adapted by Leslie Duncan, produced by Leo Orenstein, with
Jeremy Wilkin, Barry Morse, and Eric Christmas; Conrad Aiken's Mr. Arcularis,
adapted by Robert Herridge, produced by Harvey Hart, with John Drainie and Lois
Nettleton; Here Today, written by Andy Lewis, produced by Melwyn Breen, and
starring Kate Reid and Robert Goulet; Sun In My Eyes, by Jack Kuper, produced
by Harvey Hart, and starring Al Waxman and Toby Robins; Aldous Huxley's The
Giaconda Smile, adapted by Rita Greer Allen, produced by Eric Till, with Pamela
Brown, Barry Morse, Tony Van Bridge, and Dawn Greenhalgh; Race For Heaven, by
David Swift, produced by Melwyn Breen, and with Hugh Webster and Chris Wiggins;
and Paul Almond's production of The Beckoning Hill, written by Arthur Murphy,
and featuring Michael Craig.
Except for the opening show, which ran a full hour, most of the productions ran
about fifty minutes. A program called Presenting Barry Morse filled the
remaining ten minutes. Here Morse gave dramatic readings or brief talks on
theatre history or dramatic literature. He discoursed on such subjects as "How
Theatre Came to Canada," "The Stormy Partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan," "The
Man Who Killed Lincoln," and "Charles Dickens: Would-Be Actor."
Sun 10:30-11:00 p.m. 9 Oct-18 Dec 1960
A half-hour interview show, Encounter replaced the panel show, Fighting Words,
for two months and featured its moderator, Nathan Cohen. Cohen talked with a
wide range of guests in business, the humanities, arts, and sciences: Justice
Samuel Freedman of the Manitoba Court of Appeals, chancellor of the University
of Manitoba; film producer and director Stanley Kramer; economist John Kenneth
Galbraith; poet and profesoor Karl Shapiro; media theorist Marshall McLuhan;
E.W.R. Steacie, the president of the National Research Council; Louis
Kronenberger, drama critic for Time magazine; author James Baldwin; and John
Coleman Bennett, dean of the faculty of theology at New York's Union
Theological Seminary. The producer of Encounter was Gordon Babineau.
Sat 6:06-6:30 p.m., 3 Jan-1 Oct 1970
Thu 10:30-11:00 p.m., 1 Oct 1970-30 Sep 1971
Sun 4:00-4:30 p.m., 23 Jan-29 Jun 1972
Thu 10:30-11:00 p.m., 29 Jun 1972-20 Sep 1973
Thu 10:30-11:00 p.m., 11 Jul-5 Sep 1974
Encounter succeeded Press Conference as the CBC's forum for questioning
Canada's major polical figures. In the 1970-l97l season, three members of the
press--CBC Parliamentary reporter Ron Collister, Southam News Services chief
Charles Lynch, and a guest--put questions to leaders such as Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau, former Prime Minister Lester Pearson, Real Caouette, leader of
the Social Credit Party, Finance Minister Edgar Benson, Labour Minister Bryce
Mackasey, Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, NDP leader David Lewis, former NDP
leader Tommy Douglas, External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp, and Progressive
Conservative leader Robert Stanfield. Reporters Doug Collins and Elizabeth
Gray took Collister's and Lynch's place for the 1974 series. The producers of
Encounter were Cameron Graham (l970-73) and Gordon Cunningham (l974).
Thu 4:00-4:30 p.m., 29 Jun-20 Jul 1978
Mon/Wed/Thu 10:00-10:30 a.m., 26 May-29 May 1960
Sun 2:30-4:00 p.m., 3 Jun 1973
Coverage produced by Bill Sheehan, with Tom McKee, Gordon Atkinson, and John
Wilson.
Explorations succeeded Exploring Minds and Scope as the network's site for
films, interviews, and demonstrations of aspects of the social and physical
world. It was perceived as a relative to the U.S. series, Omnibus. In its
first seasons, host Mavor Moore might present a selection of short features on
a particular subject. A 1956 program on different views of labour included a
vignette by Moore, a short play by Bill Brown, and the National Film Board's
short portrait, Paul Tomkowicz, Street Railway Switchman (23 October 1956).
Other programs in the first season included examinations of the crisis in
Canadian universities, a program on Utopias, and a play about women in
business, Adam's Rib, by Charles E. Israel. In the first season, Explorations
was broadcast every second week. Subsequently, it aired weekly.
In subsequent seasons, the series was usually organized with subseries of two
to six weekly parts. A six part series, produced by John A. Livingston and
broadcast in the summer of 1958, for example, examined The Balance of Nature,
followed, that autumn, by a four part series titled The Sense of Science, with
Moore's successor as the show's host, Lister Sinclair. (Eric Kierans also
served as the host of Explorations.)
Helmut Blume, of the faculty of music at McGill University, prepared several
series, sustitled Music To See. These sets of programs concerned such subjects
as music of the Romantic period, the development of church music, and the
psychology of music as it relates to the composer, the performer, and the
listener. (The network used the same title for a series in the 1970s.)
In 1959, Explorations presented three programs in 1959 that described elements
of the Renaissance as the origins of aspects of modern times. In the program,
producer Vincent Tovell, writer Ronald Hambleton, and writer and narrator Alan
Jarvis attempted to use the possibilities for television through a complex
weave of words, picturel, and music. Tovell wrote evocatively about the series
for Waterloo Review, 2 (Winter 1960), 23-29.
Subsequent series included Big Business, a six part examination of corporate
management, produced in 1960 by Eric Koch, followed by a four part survey of
changes in Canada's farming and fishing industries, and The Disordered Mind
(q.v.), Robert Anderson's programs on mental health.
Explorations started the 1960-6l season with a three part parodic look at the
idea of heroes in mass media. In each show, actor Don Francks played the hero:
a gunfighter in one, a private eye in the next, and the father in a segment
called The Hero At Home. In December 1960, Daryl Duke produced a three part
historical series, called Durham's Canada.
In addition to programs produced by the CBC, Explorations drew extensively on
films produced by the National Film Board. In 1960, the show presented the
NFB's six part series on food supply and world population, The Earth and
Mankind, produced by Nicholas Balla, directed by Donald Fraser, and narrated by
Stanley Burke. In the spring of 196l, the show broadcast six parts of the
Board's History Makers series, which dramatized episodes from the lives of Lord
Elgin, Lord Durham, Joseph Howe, William Lyon Mackenzie, Louis-Joseph Papineau,
and Robert Baldwin. That summer, the CBC also aired six parts of Crossroads of
the World, films on the Middle East and Africa produced by Balla and James
Beveridge, and directed by Beveridge.
Some of Canada's most distinguished people of letters prepared programs for
Explorations. In summer 196l, for example, host George P. Grant presented a
four part series in which CBC announcer Harry Mannis interviewed actors who
played Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine. In November of the same year,
George Woodcock presented two programs on the novelist and poet Malcolm Lowry.
A January 1962 series, with John Saywell, examined the 1930s in Canada through
portraits of three provincial premiers: Mitchell Hepburn of Ontario, William
Aberhart of Alberta, and Quebec's Maurice Duplessis. Subsequent series that
year explored such subjects as education, the Acadian people, the Doukhobors,
and family budget planning.
David Bairstow's National Film Board series, Arctic Circle, on the voyages of
Vilhajalmur Stefansson and Henry Larsen, aired in January and February 1963,
and the Board's series, Lewis Mumford On The City, based on Mumford's book, The
City in History, appeared in May and June. Five films from the Comarisons
series, which compared different aspects of life in Canada, Nigeria, and Brazil
went to air later that year, in September, and a further selection of five,
comparing life in Canada, Thailand, and Greece, appeared just short of a year
later.
Among the most regular producers for Explorations, within the CBC, were Vincent
Tovell, Cliff Solway, Katherine MacIver, Eric Koch, and David Walker.
Sat 7:00-7:30 p.m., 8 Sep-29 SSep 1973
Mon-Fri 2:00-2:30 p.m., 10 Sep-26 Sep 1974
Mon/Fri 2:00-2:30 p.m., 26 Sep-18 Oct 1974
Sat 12:30-1:00 p.m., 4 Jan-22 Feb 1975
Thu 6:00-6:30 p.m., 24 Apr-19 Jun 1975
Fri 7:00-7:30 p.m., 18 Jun-25 Jun 1976
The Explorers, narrated by Leslie Nielsen, collected documentary footage of
human challenges to the perils of nature. They included a man sailing solo
around the world, expeditions into the New Britain jungle or across a glacier
in Greenland, and a descent into the pit of the volcano Mt. Mihara.
Mon 7:30-8:00 p.m., 5 Oct 1953-19 Apr 1954
Sun 6:00-6:30 p.m., 3 Oct 1954-1 May 1955
Sun 6:00-6:30 p.m., 30 Oct 1955-15 Apr 1956
A series of college lectures, Exploring Minds was produced in several
production centres across the country. The CBC developed the program in
association with several insitutions of higher learning: Carleton and McGill
Universities and the Universities of Toronto, British Columiba, Ottawa, and
Manitoba.
After a full week of television viewing--his first prolonged exposure to the
medium--Robert Thomas Allen wrote, concerning a lecture by E.S. Carpenter of
the University of Toeonto, ". . . he debunks what he calls the 'little furry
parable' outlook on animal psychology. The camera does everything it can to
liven things up pictorially, by giving occasional shots of student's [sic]
legs, without getting very far. In spite of the pictorial limitations of a
lecture, this was one of the finest things I saw during the week" (Maclean's
[l5 January 1954]).
In a series on art, Peter Brieger and Charles Comfort lectured on the fresco,
art and approach to reality, and the Nativity in art. Historian Donald
Creighton presented two programs on Sir John A. Macdonald, with actor Robert
christie acting the role of the subject. Other shows dealt with such subjects
as aesthetics, the meaning of perception, the anatomy of humour, the free press
in Canada, satire, the environment as perceived by the city dweller, changes in
the classroom, and popular media.
Programs produced in Vancouver in November and December 1955 included lectures
on the concept of the mob, manipulations of semantics, and the concept of the
devil.
Among the series' numerous producers were David Walker in Toronto and Daryl
Duke (who produced the show on the mob) in Vancouver. The supervising producer
was E.S. Hallman.
Tue 6:30-7:00 p.m., 5 Jul-6 Sep 1966
To stir up interest and keep viewers informed about the progress of the
construction of the Montreal World's Fair, the CBC scheduled a weekly,
half-hour broadcast from Montreal the summer before the fair opened. Bob
MacGregory and Norman Kiehl brought viewers up to date about news of the
predecing week from the Expo site, interviewed the architects and other persons
responsible for the shape of the fair and foreign dignitaries or
representatives of the countries that would participate, and introduced
previews of what Expo would offer fairgoers. (MacGregor also reported from the
Expo site to CBC radio on a regular Saturday afternoon broadcast.) Frank
Williams and David Bloomberg produced Expo '67 Report for television.
Tue 9:00-9:30 p.m., 2 May-17 Oct 1967
For twenty-five weeks, Shell Canada sponsored a regular, half-hour, prime time
report from the site of the 1967 Montreal World's Fair. (Chrysler Canada was
an alternate sponsor for the first six weeks.) The colour broadcast, from the
International Broadcasting Centre, designed and guilt to CBC specifications,
was a digest of events from the past week. The program's producers used the
state of the art portable video equipment to cover performances, activities at
the fair and at the amusement park, La Ronde, and athletic competitions. The
report also included interviews with visiting tourists and celebrities. The
program's host for the first few months was Peter Reilly. He was joined in
July by co-host Chantal Beauregard. In September, Lloyd Robertson replaced
Reilly. Expo This Week had several producers: Jim Guthro, assisted by David
Pears (May-June), Peter Elkington, assisted by Wilfred Haydon (July-August),
and Bill Bolt (September-October). The executive producer was Thom Benson.
Mon/Wed/Fri 4:30-5:00 p.m., 9 Sep-20 Sep 1974
Mon-Fri 4:30-5:00 p.m., 15 Sep-30 Sep 1977 (R)
Eye Of The Beholder was a series of half-hour travel documentaries on Brazil,
Spain, Hong Kong, Siam, and the countries of the Andes, produced by Rick
Campbell.
Tue 10:30-11:00 p.m., 5 Jan-23 Mar 1965
Eye Opener presented experimental drama and other forms of performance to
examine and highlight contemporary social issues in North America. Executive
producer Mario Prizek assembled a selection of original works by Canadians and
adaptations of non-Canadian stories and productions. For adventurous
programming, the twelve half-hour programs constituted a successor to Quest.
The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear (5 January 1965) opened the new year. John
Vernon, Jane Mallett, Aileen Seaton, Cosette Lee, Maureen Fitzgerald, and Bill
Brydon were the cast in Melwyn Breen's production. Leslie MacFarlane based his
story of responsibility and conscience on the brutal New York murder of Kitty
Genovese, in which none of the witnesses intervened. The Black Madonna (l2
January 1965), produced by George McCowan, starred Hilary Vernon, Bill Glover,
and Mel Scott in Barrie Hale's adaptation of Muriel Spark's story.
A Borderline Case (l9 January 1965) presented the troupe of the Second City
company, from Chicago in a revue about Canada, as seen by Americans,
commissioned for Eye Opener. The show was prepared by Ian Davidson and Bernard
Sahlins for Second City, and produced by Mario Prizek. Hear Me Talkin' To Ya
(2 February 1965) was a "jazz oratorio," with a score by Ron Collier, and book
drawn by singer and actor Don Francks from the words of jazz players. The
producer of the program was Paddy Sampson. Uhu. . . Huh? (9 February 1965), a
revue, included sketches by Harold Pinter and N.F. Simpson. Helen Burns, Len
Birman, and Jennifer Phipps starred in the production by George Bloomfield.
The Tulip Garden (l6 February 1965) was a new play, written by George Ryga, and
produced by Mario Prizek. Blossoms, Butterflies, and Bombs (23 February 1965)
presented three animated films about war and peace: Playthings (Poland),
Boomerang (Yugoslavia), and The Red Trace (Czechoslovakia). The Trial of
Joseph Brodsky (2 March 1965), adapted and produced by Stan Jacobson,
dramatized the transcript of the Russian poet's ordeal, and featured Martin
Lavut, Frances Hyland, and Cosette Lee. Sarah And The Sax (9 March 1965), a
comedy written by U.S. writer Lewis John Carlino, starred Sophia Reinglas and
Mel Scott. It, too, was produced by Mario Prizek.
Budd Knapp and Paul Massie starred in The Golden Bull of Boredom (l6 March
l965), a play about a couple who make a deal to have their ennui relieved,
written by U.S> writer Lorees Yerby and produced by Mario Prizek. The
series closed with Rich Little in The Lonely Machine (23 March 1965), which
producer Paddy Sampson and Norm Symonds adapted from Jules Feiffer's cartoon.
The CBC had also announced that Prizek would produce an adaptation of LeRoi
Jones's groundbreaking play about racial friction, set in a New York subway
car, Dutchman.
Fri 4:45-5:00 p.m., 7 Apr-30 Jun 1961
A series of fifteen-minute documentaries about British Columbia, Eyes West
formed part of Junior Magazine (q.v.).
Return to CBC Series Index
EYES WEST
