CBC Television Series, 1952-1982
by Blaine Allan
Return to
CBC Series Index
U.N. IN REVIEW
See United Nations.
See United Nations.
See United Nations.
See United Nations.
Sun 5:00-5:30 p.m., 3 Apr-26 Jun 1966
Sun 5:00-5:30 p.m., 9 Oct-18 Dec 1966
An adventurous program on the arts, The Umbrella brought some of the articulate
cultural commentary that had previously been the territory of CBC radio to the
television network. It was essentially the successor to Show On Shows (q.v.),
which included features by some of the same contributors and which was also
produced by John Kennedy. The host of The Umbrella was William Ronald, the
painter who had achieved recognition for his abstracts, as a member of the
Toronto group, Painters Eleven, in the 1950s, and whose status grew through the
l960s. The show's announcer and Ronald's on-camera colleague was Lloyd
Robertson.
The first show, perhaps typically, centred on Ronald himself; he talked about
his own work to art students. Subsequent programs moved to wider, different
subjects, both local and international in focus. In the first month, for
example, Ronald presented his interview with the legendary artist Marcel
Duchamp, filmed in New York, and a program on the burgeoning cultural scene in
London, Ontario, and interviews with painters Greg Curnoe and Jack Chambers,
and with writer James Reaney. Subjects included the visual, literary, and
performing arts, and regular contributors included Rita Greer Allen, Barry
Callaghan, and Timothy Findley. Allen interviewed choreographer Brian
MacDonald, Callaghan talked with the British writers Alan Sillitoe and Arnold
Wesker, and with Margaret Laurence during her stay in the U.K., and Findley
met, in different programs, actor William Hutt, preparing for the season at
Stratford, and British producer Michael Langham. The program also paid
attention to developments in film and television, and included interviews with
Sydney Newman, who had left the CBC in the 1950s and was now head of drama at
the BBC, and with New York underground filmmakers and purveyors of kitsch,
George and Mike Kuchar. (The Kuchars' Canadian friend and collaborator Bob
Cowan had produced a short, filmed hommage to introduce the Umbrella interview
with Duchamp.)
John Conway returned to the air with his puppets Uncle Chichimus and Hollyhock
for this filmed series. See Let's See.
Tue 5:00-5:30 p.m., 30 Dec 1952-
A program of songs and stories for young viewers, with Ed McCurdy. This series
was also called Ed's Place (q.v.).
Mon 10:00-10:30 p.m., 3/10/17 Aug 1964
Mon 10:00-10:30 p.m., 7/14 Sep 1964
This series of five, half-hour programs on family life, produced by Denny
Spence, was originally broadcast on Take Thirty in spring 1964. The program
organizers were Helen Carscallen and Margaret Fielder, and the researchers and
writers were Margaret Norquay, June Callwood, and Rose Wilcox. The
interviewers were Take Thirty hosts Anna Cameron and Paul Soles.
Tue 10:00-10:30 p.m., 25 Sep-16 Oct 1956
Jeanne Sauve' hosted this series of discussions with young people on topics of
contemporary public interest, such as bilingualism and biculturalism. The
programs were produced in Ottawa by Michael Hind-Smith.
Thu 8:30-9:00 p.m., 2 Oct 1958-2 Apr 1959
Wed 10:00-10:30 p.m., 28 Oct 1959-9 Mar 1960
As the anthology drama format eroded in U.S. television, it was modified into
series that had more unified approaches, even though they might not follow the
story of a single set of characters from week to week. The CBC anticipated the
example of The Twilight Zone, which started in 1959, with The
Unforeseen, which succeeded On Camera as the network's half-hour
weekly drama. As the title suggested, The Unforeseen presented suspense
drama, or stories with a surprise twist at the end, not necessarily futuristic
narratives or tales of the supernatural.
Previously, the supervising producer of television drama oversaw the production
of the half-hour drama, but Peter Francis was delegated responsibility as
executive producer of The Unforeseen. Although the thematic limits of
the series were pretty loose, they strained the capabilities of the
contemporary writers. Administrator Hugh Gauntlett remarked, "...we found that
by over- specializing the series it was difficult for us to get scripts from
our Canadian writers. We had a fair number of playwrights who could write a
story involving a personal situation with which they were familiar, but what we
lacked was the sort of skilled craftsman who could be given this sort of
assignment, think for a few moments, and the come up with the sort of suspense
story of mystery that the series demanded." (Quoted, Roger Lee Jackson, "An
Historical and Analytical Study...," 1966) Consequently, very few of the
scripts were original stories by Canadian writers; among the exceptions were
Donald Jack and Peter Francis himself.
Mon-Fri 4:30-5:00 p.m., 5 Oct-7 Nov 1953
Mon-Fri 4:00-4:30 p.m., 21 Sep-15 Oct 1954
Mon-Fri 4:30-5:00 p.m., 24 Aug-11 Sep 1953
Sun 12:15-12:30 p.m., 4 Jan-8 Feb 1959
Sun 12:15-12:30 p.m., 11 Oct-20 Dec 1959
Sun 12:00-12:30 p.m., 27 Dec 1959-27 Mar 1960
The CBC provided Canadian viewers with regular coverage of the United Nations,
direct from New York, and telecast on both English and French services,
starting with the Ninth General Assembly. At the time, of course, the Korean
War and the division of the country and the cold war were hot issues, as were
the questions of French colonialism in Tunisia and Morocco, the friction
between the U.K. and Greece over Cyprus, Indonesia's and the Netherlands'
conflict over Western New Guinea, and apartheid in South Africa. Coverage
during the first year included daily reports, titled At The U.N. or U.N.
General Assembly, with the CBC's correspondent at the U.N., Peter Stursberg,
and a filmed weekly summary of the proceedings, titled U.N. In Review.
The CBC continued to cover the U.N. proceedings on a regular basis until 1965,
usually in a fifteen minute or half-hour summary on Sunday afternoons or early
Saturday evenings, under such titles as Dateline U.N., Report From The U.N., or
U.N. Review. Correspondents after Stursberg included Charles Lynch (l956-57),
Stanley Burke (l958-6l), Tom Gould (l962), Peter Reilly (l963), and Randy
Kraft.
Wed 6:15-6:45 p.m., 7 Nov 1962-26 Jun 1963
Paddy Sampson produced this non-competitive talent show for young performers,
ages six to sixteen. Bruce Smith hosted the fifteen minute broadcast from
Toronto, which also featured guest appearances by such CBC personalities as
Fred Davis, Allan Blye, Joyce Hahn, Tommy Common, Denyse Ange, and Joey
Hollingsworth. Lou Snider and his group provided musical accompaniment.
Fri 9:30-10:00 a.m., 6 Apr-28 May 1979
Thu 10:30-11:00 p.m., 9 Oct-25 Dec 1980
Fri 2:00-2:30 p.m., 29 May-31 Jul 1981 (R0
Thu 7:00-7:30 p.m., 1 Apr-29 Apr 1982
Newfoundland-born Gordon Pinsent created this half-hour comedy/drama that
centred on a St. John's boarding house. Verna Ball, played by Mary Walsh,
owned the house, and Jack Howse, played by Ray Guy, was her long-standing
lodger. Janis Spence played Mrs. O'Mara, who lived next door, and Kevin Noble
was Dolph, the myopic driver of the Outport Taxi. Mrs. Ball's boarding house
attracted a number of troubled and eccentric characters in a series that trod
between humane relationships and comic treatment. Pinsent himself was featured
in one episode as a parish priest who came to St. John's and found his faith
tested and reconfirmed in his encounter with two young women, one a boarder at
the house and the other another runaway from an outport community.
The series was produced in St. John's by Kevin O'Connell, with episodes
directed by Walter Learning, Wayne Guzzwell, and O'Connell, and scripts by
writers from the Atlantic provinces-- Pinsent, Learning, Gerry Rubia, Michael
Cook, and Alden Nowlan. A twelve week series, Up At Ours was a rare example of
continuing drama produced in a regional CBC centre and that employed a
distinctive local milieu.
Tue 10:00-10:30 p.m., 23 Oct 1973-9 Apr 1974
Tue 10:00-10:30 p.m., 22 Oct 1974-25 Mar 1975
Up Canada tried to revive the form of the topical satire and public affairs
show for which This Hour Has Seven Days broke ground nearly a decade before.
It featured the work of talented and experienced producers, such as John
Zaritsky, Michael Callaghan, Don Cumming, John Kastner, John Martin, and Doug
Collins, under the supervision of executive producer George Robertson.
Regulars on-camera included Rob Parker, Rex Murphy, Patrick MacFadden, Valri
Bromfield, and singer John Allan Cameron, as well as Seven Days alumnus and the
network's resident political gadfly Larry Zolf. However, the satire was
criticized as dull and the reporting as slipshod and uninteresting.
Sat 7:00-7:30 p.m., 29 Jul-19 Aug 1967
After a Show Of The Week performance, the CBC brought back a vocal group called
the Numerality Singers to star collectively in their own musical variety
series, to run over six half-hours. The organization consisted of Miles
Ramsay, Corlynn Canney, Bob Hamper, Pat Rose, Patty Surbey, Brian Gibson, and
Brian Griffiths. Produced on videotape by Ken Gibson, the show combined
location shooting in the Vancouver area--for example at the Nitobe Gardens at
U.B.C., at Kitsilano Beach, and in Stanley Park--and studio work, on a set
designed by Murray Devlin to resemble a beach house.
Bill Hartley was the show's writer, and Brian Gibson and Brian Griffiths
provided musical arrangements for the group. Doug Parker conducted the
orchestra, which was kept off-camera.
Sat 6:00-6:30 p.m., 3 Oct 1970-26 Oct 1974
Update, a half-hour program for early Saturday evenings, provided background to
the news. It opened with five minutes of the day's headlines, and then moved
into more detailed reports (four or five stories a week, so as much detail as
could be worked into an average five to six minutes per item) and interviews.
Executive producers for the show included veterans Peter Trueman, Curt
Laughlin, and Tim Kotcheff, and the host was CBC staff announcer and news
reader John O'Leary, then George Finstad.
Tue-Fri 4:30-5:00 p.m., 9 Jan-
Tue-Thu 4:30-5:00 p.m., 26 Apr- 13 Jun 1968
Tue 4:30-5:00 p.m., 13 Jun-
Tue/Wed 4:30-5:00 p.m., 2 Jul-24 Sep 1968
Barney Boomer (q.v.) was retitled and expanded; Barney, played by John Clayton,
was phased out of the show as scripts paid more attention to the other people
of Cedarville. A number of other actors and characters remained from the
earlier show: Lynne Gorman as shop owner Florence Kozy, Franz Russell as the
town Councillor, Trudy Young as Trudy, Rex Sevenoaks as Barney's uncle, Captain
Boomer, Claire Drainie as Ma Parkin, Claude Rae as Mr. Andrews. (The program
also continued to include in its time slot the kids' quiz show, Swingaround.)
Several new actors joined the cast as new characters appeared in town: Jack
Duffy was Eddie Power, a hotshot newspaperman with his own column, The Power
Line, and Trevor Evans portrayed the always earnest copy boy, Harvey Fleetwood.
Gerard Parkes was the newspaper publisher Sam Oliver. Lynne Gorman left the
show, but Pam Hyatt replaced her as Mrs. Kozy. In addition, Ted Follows, and
Danny McIlravey appeared.
Written by CBC children's department veteran Ron Krantz, the program was
produced by Stuart Gilchrist and directed by Herb Roland and Flemming
Nielsen.
Return to CBC Series Index
UPSIDE TOWN/ SWINGAROUND
U.N. In Review
