CBC Television Series, 1952-1982
by Blaine Allan
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CBC Series Index
FABLES OF LaFONTAINE
Thu 5:15-5:30 p.m., 2 Jan-3 Jul 1958
French producer Marc Gaudart was responsible for this series of fifteen minute
fables with animal characters, based on stories by the l7th century poet La
Fontaine. The films employed the talents of animals from the farm of Lorna
Jackson in Mount Albert, Ontario. Gaudart set the animals--most the small,
relatively tame kind, such as parrots, frogs, cats, and pigeons- -in miniature
sets to "act out" the stories. Cinematographer Fritz Spiess had to spend
"hours studying each of the animals used in the series to get to know the
different problems posed by each--such as a mouse who refused to ride in
canoes, a bored monkey who was fascinated by studio wires and rafters, and a
rabbit who became so fond of sitting in a jeep that he refused to get out and
race with a turtle" (CBC Times [l3-l9 April 1958], pp. l, 5).
Wed 9:00-10:00 a.m., 17 Feb-24 Mar 1971
Created by Ed McGibbon and produced by Jack Nixon-Brown, The Family was a
series of four, one hour dramas on different issues in contemporary family
life. The Stranger Was Me (l7 February 197l), written by Dennis Donovan,
concerned a boy's experiences in a rural foster home. Douglas Bowie's You And
Me (24 February 197l) examined the conflicts in a young couple where the man
and woman have separate commitments and desires that keep them from funcionting
as a traditional family. Forever Amok (l0 March 197l), about a prolific, lower
class man who has children with several women, was a comedy written by Len
Peterson. Finally, George Robertson's Straight And Narrow (l7 March 197l)
concerned the generation gap in a typical, middle class family and a father who
discovers that his values no longer hold.
Sun 3:00-3:30 p.m., 7 Apr-9 Jun 1957
Patrick Watson was the producer of this Sunday afternoon series of half- hour
programs for the CBC, although the films that were broadcast came from Crawley
Films and the National Film Board. The program examined the development and
behaviour of children, through film and discussion. The Crawley films included
The Terrible Twos and Trusting Threes, The Frustrating Fours and Fascinating
Fives, From Sociable Six to Noisy Nines, and Why Won't Tommy Eat? Crawley also
produced From Ten To Twelve, and The Teens which MacKay Smith and Crawley,
respectively, wrote and Ed Reid directed. The NFB contributed Shyness, written
and directed by Stanley Jackson, to the series. The final segment, called
Family Circles, concerned the school and family in child development. The
program often included discussions with Joyce Wry and Donald Ritchie, and the
series consultant was Dr. Charles Stogdill.
A Screen Gems production, Family Court was a hybrid of a soap opera and an
effort in public service. The daily half-hour broadcast dramatized court
cases, and concerned conflicts and how they could be worked out in the family
court system. Unlike the continuing narratives of daytime dramas, the stories
tended not to stretch longer than two or three episodes. The regular
characters--the judge (from 197l to 1972, Judge Carlton, played by Bill Kemp,
replaced in 1972 by Judge Alan Cameron, played by Alan Mills), the probation
officer (Mrs. Scott, played by Mignon Elkins), and the court psychiatrist
(introduced in 1972 and played by David Phillips)--were all sympathetic and
sober figures of authority and understanding. Walter Massey was also a series
regular, as the inevitable court clerk.
Thu 9:00-9:30 p.m., 6 Oct-29 Dec 1960
Fancy Free replaced the summer series, Swing Gently, and producer Syd Wayne
incorporated elements of that show into the new, helf-hour, musical variety
series. Host Alan Millar introduced popular musical numbers of the past,
performed by Allan Blye, Ruth Walker, the Billy Van Four, and the Rudi Toth
orchestra. The Canadettes, a precision dance team directed by Midge Arthur,
appeared on a semi-regular basis. Guests included singer Doug Romaine, dancer
Joey Hollingsworth, comic Pam Hyatt, U.S. actor and comic Orson Bean, and
ventriloquist Senor Wences. Each show focused on a specific year, and
recreated that time through film clips as well as music and costume. The
program was written by Pat Patterson and Allan Manings.
Sun 10:30-11:00 p.m., 1 Jun-22 Jun 1958
The Farmer comprised four, half-hour programs, created and produced by Murray
Creed and Frank Nicholson, written by Charles E. Israel, and directed by Eric
Till. The first segment, titled The Farmer and His Farm, explored issues of
the farmer in relation to economic and technological developments. The Farmer
On Trial, the second segment, finds the farmer accused of bearing the
responsibility for high food prices. The Farmer and His World, the third
program, used a semi-fantasy format to deal with international wheat sales and
issues of food surpluses. The concluding show, The Farmer and His Future
projected the lot of the farmer forward to 1975.
Sun 10:30-11:30 a.m., Jan 31 1954
Sun 11:00-12:00 noon, 7 Feb-30 May 1954
Sun 11:00-12:00 noon, 20 Jun 1954
Sun 11:00-12:00 noon, 4 Jul-30 Aug 1954
This Sunday morning series presented one hour films, such as Angela, The Moody
Arctic Expedition, Driftwood (presented over two weeks), King of Kings, and
Thunder Rock.
Mon-Fri 1:11-1:30 p.m., 1 Sep-5 Sep 1980
Produced in Regina by Dave White, Feelin' Good was a daily half-hour on
physical fitness, with Judi Osborne.
Mon 10:00-10:30 p.m., 31 May-21 Jun 1965
Kenneth Bagnall, assistant editor of the United Church Observer, was the host
and interviewer for this four part series on contemporary changes in the
Christian church. The first half-hour program, on "Peace and Brotherhood,"
included features on the civil rights positions of New York's Rev. James
Robinson, the director of Operation Crossroads, an interview with Claude Ryan,
editor of Le Devoir, about the church in French Canada, and Dr. John Bennett,
president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York, on nuclear weapons and
war. The second program examined the "new Protestant reformation," with the
Bishop of Woolwich and Paul Tillich. The third segment concerned personal
Christian beliefs, and featured discussion with Father Paul Doucet. The series
ended with a look at the future of the church in British and North American
suburban centres, and included the views of Don Benedict, director of the
Chicago City Missionary Society.
Ferment was produced by Vincent Tovell.
Mon 9:30-10:30 or 11:00 p.m., 10 Oct 1960-19 Jun 1961
Mon 9:30-10:30 or 11:00 p.m., 2 Oct 1961-25 Jun 1962
Mon 9:30-10:30 or 11:00 p.m., 1 Oct 1962-17 Jun 1963
Wed 9:30-11:00 p.m., 2 Oct 1963-24 Jun 1964
Wed 9:30-10:00 p.m., 7 Oct 1964-30 Jun 1965
Wed 9:30-10:00 p.m., 15 Sep 1965-6 Jul 1966
Wed 9:30-11:00 p.m., 14 Sep 1966-10 May 1967
Wed 9:30-11:00 p.m., 4 Oct 1967-8 May 1968
Wed 9:30-11:00 p.m., 30 Oct 1968-26 Mar 1969
Festival, which followed in the tradition of Scope, Folio, and Startime, was a
weekly hour or hour and a half given over to quality drama or musical
programming. Its executive producer, Robert Allen, had had the same role on
Folio, Festival's predecessor, and became national supervisor for CBC
television drama. Allen controlled programming at Featival with the aid of
three story editors: Doris Gauntlett, Doris Mosdell, and Alice Sinclair.
Festival achieved considerable popularity: in the mid-l960s, Allen estimated
that the program reached about 900,000 homes, and 1963 surveys indicated that
the show gained audience shares of seventeen and twenty per cent in Toronto and
Vancouver, respectively, both cities with several other channels to choose.
Robert Russel noted in an article on television drama that Festival could have
been considered "our national stage" (Canadian Art [September-October 1962]),
particularly, one assumes, as a broadly disseminated venue for acting and other
performing talent. He cautioned, however, that the production schedules
prevented the show from achieving consistent excellence, and "often resulted in
superficial, over-busy productions, unfair to audience, actor, playwright, the
CBC. He added that the program also provided Canadian playwrights with a
national audience and high quality productions. However, in his 1966 study of
CBC drama, Roger Lee Jackson found that the number of productions written by
Canadians for the CBC's prestige drama show had diminished from ten in the
l955-56 and 1957- 58 seasons of Folio to an average of three per year in the
Festival schedule since 1960 (out of an annual average of twenty dramas) (R. L.
Jackson, Ph. D. "An Historical and Analytical Study of the Origin,
Development, and, Impact of the Dramatic Programs Produced for the English
Language Networks of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation." Wayne State
University, 1966, p. l09).
As early as 196l, writing about Festival, Mordecai Richler accused the CBC of
blocking adventurous and excellent programming, althoughout he was hardly
advocating nationalism: "This, God help us, is supposed to be the cultural
showpiece. But at the CBC these days they come to culture with lead boots and
determined philistine hearts. . . they trust the name brands only. Shakespeare
equals culture. . . TV drama will not come of age until it offers original
plays by good writers, regardless of nationality" (Maclean's [8 April 196l]).
In its first season, for examople, Festival offered of Shakeseare's Julius
Caesar, produced by Paul Almond; an adaptation of Dickens's Great Expectations,
O'Neill's The Great God Brown, Anouilh's Ring Around the Moon and Colombe, both
produced by Mario Prizek; Emlyn Williams's Night Must Fall, Henry James's The
Pupil, Ansly's The Dybbuk, and two operas, Electra and Falstaff. The season
also included the Stratford production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore,
directed by Tyrone Guthrie and produced for television by Norman Campbell.
Canadians writers' contributions included Rita Greer Allen's adaptation of
Oscar Wilde's story, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and Bernard Slade's adaptation
of Hugh Walpole's novel, The Old Ladies, produced by Eric Till.
Subsequent seasons continued this pattern of Canadian productions of
internationally renowned plays, operas, and ballet, as well as Canadian drama
and music. In addition to such pretigious presentations as Brecht's Galileo,
Anouilh's The Lark, Ibsen's The Wild Duck, producted by Harvey Hart, and Paul
Almond's production of Venus Observed, by Christopher Fry, the 1962 seasons
provided a number of Canadian offerings: W.O. Mitchell's story of music in the
restrictive Hutterite community, The Devil's Instrument, David's Chapter II,
written by M. Charles Cohen, produced by Harvey Hart, and starring Donnelly
Rhodes and Toby Tarnow, and--a rarity--a quebec play, The Endless Echo, written
by Robert Remillard, translated by Alvin Goldman, and produced by Mario Prizek.
The seasons also included another Stratford production of Gilbert and Sullivan,
this time The Gondoliers, the National Ballet's performance of Giselle, and
Glenn Gould's Richard Strauss: A Personal View and The Art of the Fugue.
The 1964-65 season featured modern drama, including Beckett's Waiting For
Godot, produced by George Bloomfield, and Pinter's The Birthday Party, produced
by Paul Almond, in addition to Eric Till's production of Ibsen's The Master
Builder, adapted by Peter Donat. Peter Boretski produced several programs:
Antigone, by Chrisopher Logue, The Furious Philipp Hotz, Ph.D., and James
Hanley's Say Nothing. Canadian works included an adaptation by Fletcher Markle
of Brian Moore's The Feast of Lupercal and a repeat showing of Paul St.
Pierre's Cariboo Country (q.v.) story, The Eduction of Phyllistine, originally
shown on The Serial. The seasons ended over the month of June 1965 with a
selection of Four Concerts in Praise of Great Performers: George Balanchine
and the New York City Ballet, Seiji Ozawa and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra,
the Stern/Istomin/Rose Trio, and Sviatoslav Richter and Maureen Forrester.
The next year included two adaptations of the Romeo and Juliet story: one by
the National Ballet and the other by--a Festival perennial--Jean Anouilh.
Viewers also saw productions of the Irish works, Juno and the Paycock, by Sean
O'Casey, and A Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers, by Edna O'Brien. Canadian dramas
included George Ryga's Man Alive, produced by George Bloomfield, and another
Cariboo Country film production, How To Break A Quarter Horse, written by Paul
St. Pierre. As part of its music schedule, Festival also aired the National
Film Board documentary portrait of Igor Stravinsky, by Roman Kroiter and Wolf
Koenig. As the year previous, the season concluded with a series of musical
performances, including one that paired Glenn Gould and Yehudi Menuhin and
another that showcased the winners of the CBC Talent Festival.
Most of the first-rank producers then working for CBC television made their
contributions to Festival, among them Harvey Hart, Mario Prizek, Paul Almond,
Franz Kraemer, Eric Till, George McCowan, Philip Keatley, and Norman
Campbell.
Sun 10:30-11:00 p.m., 4 Jul-29 Aug 1954
This summer festival was a half-hour broadcast of vocal music and dance.
Selections included El Amor Brujo, by de Falla (4 July 1954); Le Pauvre
matelot, by Darius Milhaud, with Hertha Glaz (25 July 1954); Kurt Weill's Down
in the Valley, sung by Jon Vickers, Jacqueline Smith, and Jan Rubes in a
program directed by George Crum and staged by Herman Geiger-Torel (l August
l954); Le Combat et madrigaux, by Monteverdi, with Maureen Forrester, Jean-Paul
Jeannette, Yolande Dulude, Adeeb Assaly, and Francoise Sullivan (8 August
l954); and The Marriage, a ballet by Joey Harris, with music by Poulenc, with
Harris and Annette Brand, the program produced by Loyd Brydon.
Mon-Fri 1:30-2:00 p.m., 7 Sep 1970-15 Sep 1971
One of those odd hybrids that television attempts, 55 North Maple combined
elements of situation comedy, talk show, and how-to-do-it program. The
fictional premise was that Max Ferguson portrayed a magazine writer who lived
in a comfortable house with his sister, played by Joan Drewery, and her
husband, never seen in the program. As they went about their business at 55
North Maple, they welcomed guests who could help them with whatever little
problem or project occupied them. On the first show, for example, Joan set
about to redecorate the living room with the advice of an interior decorator,
while Max showed his friend, composer Harry Freedman, how to make carrot
whiskey (a Ferguson specialty). Later, Joan also helped a friend choose a
dress pattern. Obviously, the chat at 55 North Maple was pretty light and less
than topical.
The program, which received favourable response for its ingenuity as well as
its entertainment and production values, relied most heavily on the informal
and attractive qualities of Ferguson and Drewery. The program was tapeed at
Robert Lawrence Productions in Toronto, and produced by its creator, Elsa
Franklin.
Then the head of Public Affairs at the CBC, Peter Herrndorf successfully
pitched the idea that CBC television needed a hard-hitting information program,
comparable to This Hour Has Seven Days or to As It Happens, on CBC Radio. The
CBC enlisted newspaper editor and columnist Ron Haggart and broadcast
journalist Gerald McAuliffe to design such a show for the television lineup.
Compared to the U.S. networks, the CBC had, of course, a strong tradition of
putting public affairs broadcasts in prime time. The CBS newsmagaine, 60
Minutes, had hung on in the schedule since 1968 and, having been moved from one
time slot to another, was building a loyal audience for its combination of
short documentary essays, personality profiles, and investigative and
confrontational newsgathering (and by the 1976-77 season it would break into
the top twenty rated series in the U.S.). CBC's the fifth estate (always in
lower case) aped its CBS counterpart in both appearance and attitude. The
graphic design of the shows connoted that 60 Minutes as a magazine and the
fifth estate as a filing cabinet full of folders that held the cases under
investigation. Each show had a set of host/correspondents (from two to five
for 60 Minutes, two or three for the fifth estate), who would introduce their
own "article" in the studio and then appear as the onscreen reporter in the
filmed or taped segments.
the fifth estate's first reporters were Warner Troyer, Adrienne Clarkson, who
shared duties as the program's hosts, and Peter Reilly, who worked as a
reporter-at-large. Troyer was a veteran of Seven Days and The Public Eye,
while Reilly was a senior reporter for the CBC. Both had also worked on CTV's
public affairs flagship, W5. (Reilly, in fact, had been hired away from the
national network to host the private network's show starting autumn 1966 and
resigned a month later, alleging the interference of John Bassett, chairman of
CFTO-TV, board member of CTV, and owner of the Toronto Telegram in editorial
matters.) Clarkson had built a considerable reputation as an interviewer on
the daily program Take 30. Glenn Sarty also moved over from Take 30 to take
the job of executive producer of the fifth estate. The first edition included
an examination of an Arctic air crash, an interview with two of Charles
Manson's associates, and an item on a Regina woman who organized a private
police force for hire.
The series weathered a rocky first season, which ended with the resignation of
Warner Troyer, after a contentious season with co-host Clarkson, and the
untimely death of Peter Reilly in 1977. Troyer was replaced by Eric Malling,
who remained Clarkson's onscreen partner, and survived her on the show when she
left in 1982 to become Ontario's cultural envoy to Paris. Bob Johnstone, one
of the CBC's tough talking, police reporter types, took Reilly's place and
joined Clarkson and Malling in the studio, from 1977-78. Ian Parker replaced
him and stayed with the show from 1978 to 198l. Bob McKeown took Parker's seat
in 198l, and Hana Gartner, also a graduate of Take 30, moved into Clarkson's
empty spot in 1982, and they and Malling remain the hosts and reporters. Robin
Taylor succeeded Ron Haggart as the program's senior producer and succeeded
Sarty as executive producer in 198l.
A battery of producers have generated the two or three individual segments
broadcast each week. Probably the best known and most widely publicized have
been the documentaries produced by John and Rose Kastner. The Kastners usually
choose a sensitive subject--such as breast cancer, leukemia among children,
physical deformities, incarceration--and approach them in a way that
demonstrates the friction between concerned, sympathetic investigation and
sensationalism. Their documentary on breast cancer, Four Women, won an Emmy.
The single best-known fifth estate program is probably Just Another Missing
Kid, Ian Parker's detective-like investigation a young man's traces, from his
home in Ontario to Colorado, where he disappeared, because the ninety- minute
feature won the U.S. Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary in 1983.
"Fighting Words is a program in which four people of assorted activities and
temperaments are invited, without any preparation or rehearsal, and often
without knowing one another, to identify the authorship of quotations which
they must then discuss. As a rule, three unrelated subjects are presented for
their consideration during the half hour. Each week the program either deals
with a new issue, or a phase of some subject never discussed before." That is
how the show's moderator described the program in response to criticism of its
similarities to the U.S. game show, What's My Line? Cohen argued that the
panelists on the CBS show simply repeated questions to determine the occupation
of each challenger, and gave "viewers the same article week after week." His
own show, he observed, "has a much higher opinion of audience intelligence,
[and] tries to provide diversity, stimulation, and good conversation"
(Saturday Night [30 March 1957]).
Fighting Words set a tone for the typical CBC quiz show. Viewers did not
participate in the quiz, but watched as intelligent men, usually, tried to
divine the author of a passage by discussing its meaning and style. The
panelists then further discussed the merits of the passage, its author, and
their values. Radio quiz shows, for example, the CBC's own Now I Ask You, have
often used similar formats, and television shows, such as Front Page Challenge
or Flashback have aimed for similar values of diversion and education. Few
successors, if any, have ever matched Fighting Words not only in literacy and
serious intent, but also in lack of glamour. It is possible to conceive that
had Fighting Words survived, it might still start with the cartoon of
stick-figure humans beating each other up and might still take place on the
small austere set with Cohen's and the panel's simple desks.
In fact, the show barely survived its first season on the air. By the end of
September 1955, the CBC was ready to give the show one more month to prove its
worth or to find a suitable time for it. The show did end on 26 October, but
reappeared on the lineup on 4 December, when the number of letters that
expressed objections to the cancellation showed the network programmers the
show had more viewers than they had known.
Many scholars and people of letters served on the Fighting Words panelists.
Among them were Morley Callaghan, J.B. McGeachy, Arthur Phelps, Ted Allan, and
the always contentious Irving Layton. In June 1958, the production moved to
the U.K. to produced two shows with a panel that consisted of Hugh
Trevor-Roper, Julian Huxley, Stephen King-Hall, and Lady Violet Bonham- Carter.
Starting November 1959, the show suspended its regular format and aired a
conversation between Cohen and a special guest. They included critic and
commentator Kenneth Tynan and U.S. educator Robert M. Hutchins.
In 1970, Cohen revived Fighting Words for a brief run. After the CBC ran a
couple of the original programs, Fighting Words reappeared in the 1982
television season, with Peter Gzowski as moderator, and panelists including
Gordon Sinclair, Barbara Amiel, Claire Hoy, Morton Shulman, Larry Solway, Bella
Abzug, Bob Rae, and, once again, Irving Layton.
The original idea for the program was formulated by Harvey Hart, and Mavor
Moore chose the title. Robert Weaver, the network's senior producer of
literary affairs, organized the program, which was produced by Gordon Babineau
(l952-l959), Cliff Solway (l959-60), and Don McPherson (l960-62). The theme
music was "Tillie's Tango."
Wed 5:00-5:30 p.m., 4 Dec 1974-15 Jan 1975
Tue 5:00-5:30 p.m., 5 Oct-26 Oct 1976
In the five episodes of this half-hour show from Ottawa, CBC announcer Brian
Smyth, fourteen year old filmmaker Bryan Stoller, his ten year old sister
Nancy, and their guests talked about and demonstrated processes of film
animation to their young viewers. Their guests included Montreal filmmaker
Sebastian, Don Arioli from the National Film Board, Winnipeg animator Ken
Perkins, and composer Ben McPeek. In one show, they also visited the National
Research Council to see what computers could do in animation. Brian Frappier
produced Film Fun.
Fri 9:00-10:00 p.m., 31 Mar-19 May 1978
This series of four, one hour programs presented the fifteen finalists (from
fifteen hundred entrants) in the Search For Talent competition sponsored by du
Maurier cigarettes. Five acts performed on each of the first three programs,
and the top five out of that group came back for a live broadcast from the
stage of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto. The CBC also claimed that it
intended to use this contest to develop talent and, to back up its intention,
guaranteed opportunities on the CBC for the five finalists over the two years
following the competition. Ray McConnell was the program producer, and Fred
Davis the host.
Tue 9:00-9:30 p.m., 1 Jun-6 Jul 1976
In this series of eleven half-hour programs for the summer of 1976, Mary Lou
Finlay interviewed and introduced profiles of Canadians in business, politics,
and the arts. Subjects included journalist Allan Fotheringham, Leader of the
Opposition Joe Clark, actor Susan Clark, Dennis McDermott, head of the United
Auto Workers, advertising executive Terry O'Malley, writer Adele Wiseman, and
J.K. Jamieson, the former head of the Exxon corporation.
Segment producers included George Robertson, Bev Korman, Bob Ennis, Alan Burke,
Colin King, Bill Cobham, and John McGreevy. The executive producer of the
series was Ain Soodor.
Wed 2:30-3:00 p.m., 4 Oct 1971-9 May 1973
Thu 2:30-3:0 p.m., 4 Oct 1973-9 May 1974
A weekly, half-hour program on pre-school age children, The First Five Years
featured Dr. Bette Stephenson and announcer Lloyd Robertson on a local CBLT-TV
broadcast in the 1972-73 season. Harry Brown took Robertson's place when the
program went to the network in the autumn of 1973. The producer was Dodi Robb.
Wed 10:00-1:30 p.m., 3 Oct-24 Oct 1956
Thu 9:30-11:00 p.m., 3 Oct-24 Oct 1957
Tue 9:30-11:00 p.m., 7 Oct-4 Nov 1958
In First Performance, an annual, short-run series of ninety minute productions,
the CBC presented television plays especially commissioned as part of the
Canada Savings Bond promotional campaign.
In the first series, viewers saw Time Lock, written by Arthur Hailey and
produced by Leo Orenstein (3 October 1956), a comedy by Joseph Schull, O'Brien,
produced by Melwyn Breen (l0 October 1956), Black of the Moon, by Leslie
MacFarlane, produced by David Greene (l7 October 1956), and The Discoverers,
written by Mac Rosenfeld and George Salverson, and produced by Ronald Weyman.
The second series started with John Drainie, Katherine Blake, Lloyd Bochner,
and Patrick Macnee in another new play by Arthur Hailey, Seeds of Power. The
second production was Ice on Fire, by Len Peterson. The series continued with
Cousin Elva, adapted by Leslie MacFarlane from the book by Stuart Trueman, and
featuring Helene Winston, Alexander Webster, and Araby Lockhart, and Lister
Sinclair's Janey Canuck, from the book by Byrne Hope Saunders, with Katherine
Blake and Lloyd Bochner.
The final series, in 1958, included Panic at Parth Bay, a drama by Lester
Powell, produced by Harvey Hart and starring Leslie Nielsen, Frances Hyland,
Louis Zorich, Leslie Yeo, Hugh Webster, and Alexander Webster (7 October 1958).
The second program, Marcel Dube's The Man In The House, was translated from the
French by Ivor Barry, produced by Adrian Waller, and starred Gratien Gelinas,
Collette Coutois, Ovila Legare, Germaine Giroux, and Clement Latour (2l October
l958). The final First Performance was Mario Prizek's production of Mavor
Moore's The Man Who Caught Bullets, which starred the U.S. actor Everett Sloane
(4 November 1958).
Wed 10:00-10:30 p.m., 8 Jun-19 Oct 1960
Wed 8A:30-9:00 p.m., 26 Oct 1960-8 Feb 1961
The half-hour drama program, First Person, started as a twenty week, summer
series and graduated in the autumn to a regular slot on the broadcast schedule.
The title implied the techniques of narration or voiceover commentary by the
protagonist or other characters in the story.
The summer 1960 series featured both original dramas and adaptations of stories
by well known, international writers. The premiere starred Kenneth Wolff in
End of Innocence, written by Vincent McConnor and produced by Paul Almond. The
series continued with The Magnet, by Hugh Garner, produced by Harvey Hart, and
starring Don Francks and Charmion King; Bill Glover and Deborah Turnbull in
Final at Furnell, written by Willis Hall and produced by Melwyn Breen; George
Salverson's Night River, which Basil Coleman produced and which starred Powys
Thomas and Terry Carter; At the Railing, by Robert Presnell, Jr., produced by
David Gardner, with a cast that featured Robert Goulet and Martha Buhs; Michael
Forest in The Man Who Knew A Good Thing, written by Herb Hosie and produced by
George McCowan; Fletcher Barry's story, Harry, adapted by Rosemary Timperley
and produced by Ted Pope; Bulgarian Bread, by Paul Wayne; Kukla, and Aunt
Jeannie and the Idol, both by Audrey Piggott; Earn Money At Home, by W.O.
Mitchell; David Gardner's production of Some Are So Lucky, by Hugh Garner; The
Anniversary, by Michael Jacot, produced by Basil Coleman; The Click of Beads;
and The Man With Two Hands.
The series resumed in October with a comedy by H.G. Wells, The Trouble With
Pyecraft, adapted by Douglas Cleverdon. Tony Van Bridge starred as Pyecraft
and Gillie Fenwick as Formalyn in Eric Till's production. First Person also
presented A Woman Called Anne, written about a true event in her life by Pamela
Lee. It was produced by Basil Coleman, and starred Norma Renault, Ruth
Springford, and Norman Welsh. Overlaid, produced by David Gardner, was adapted
by Wallace Christie from a stage play by Robertson Davies, and starred Alex
McKee and Aileen Seaton. Other stories included Guardian Angel adapted by Hugh
Garner from a story by Frederick Hazlett Brennan; Stephen Vincent Benet's The
Gold Dress; M. Charles Cohen's adaptation of Witness to Murder, a story by
Wenzell Brown; A Matter of Some Importance, by Roy Shields; a comedy by Herb
Hosie, Venice Libretto; and Man in Town, by John Gray. In addition to Till,
Coleman, and Gardner, among the producers slated for this series were Leo
Orenstein, Ronald Weyman, George McCowan, and Stan Harris. The executive
producer was Raymond Whitehouse.
Thu 10:30-11:00 p.m., 12 May-2 Jun 1966
Vincent Tovell produced this half-hour program, in which Adrienne Clarkson
interviewed astronaut Frank Borman, worker in mental retardation and
humanitarian Jean Vanier, botanist Pierre Dansereau, philosopher George Grant,
and director of the Gemini space program and lay reader in his church,
Christopher Kraft, Jr. The subject of the series was "belief in the space
age."
First Person Singular: Pearson - The Memoirs of a Prime Minister
Sun 10:00-10:30 p.m., 27 May-19 Aug 1973
Wed 10:30-11:00 p.m., 23 Oct 1974-15 Jan 1975
This documentary series recounts the life of Lester B. Pearson in thirteen,
half-hour episodes. Producer Cameron Graham and writer/director Munroe Scott
combined archival footage and photographs with Pearson's extensive filmed
interview with colleague Bernard Ostry to outline the story of Pearson's life
and career. (Pearson had also published the first of three volumes of memoirs
in 1972.) Although the programs were commended for their skilful presentation
of the former prime minister, and for their insight into his personal reactions
to the patterns of world events as he experienced them, they were also
criticized for the superficial level of Pearson's analysis.
The series was divided into segments titled as follows: l. Children and
Youth; 2. The Undergraduate; 3. Crossroads (l9l9-28); 4. The Apprentice
(l928-39); 5. Prelude to War (l930-39); 6. Diplomat At War; 7. To War And
Back; 8. Suez to the Flag (l956-65); 9. Confederation and Conflict (l963-67);
l0. Friends and Relations (l967-68); ll. Retrospect on Power.
Tue 4:30-5:00 p.m., 5 Feb-4 Jun 1974
Tue 4:30-5:00 p.m., 31 Dec 1974-15 Apr 1975
The CBC's Schools and Youth department created The Fit Stop, a half-hour
program, because, reports said, Canadian young people were among the least fit
in the world. Canadian schools also, evidently, devoted little time to
physical education, relative to other countries, and The Fit Stop tried to
redress the imbalance. Hosts Jan Tennant and Clarke Wallace talked with
experts on the subjects of physical fitness and sports for children. The show,
which stressed inexpensive activities, included instruction in tennis,
badminton, skiing, and other sports. The Fit Stop also featured Noreen Young's
puppets: a hockey helmet, a football helmet, a bottle of linament, an old
shoe, and a knapsack, all of which talked. On one program, for example, the
knapsack complained that it did not get enough exercise because people did not
walk any more.
The second season added, as a regular feature, a progressive exercise program
designed by Dr. Bruce Taylor of York University. Viewers started with gentle
movements and, over the thirteen weeks of the series, graduated to more
strenuous activities.
The Fit Stop was produced in Toronto by John Ryan, and the executive producer
was Ray Hazzan.
Mon-Fri 1:00-1:30 p.m., 18 Aug-28 Aug 1980
Fitness Is was a daily half-hour program, with Vic Hultquist.
5 X 3 was the collective title for several variety shows. See the individual
program titles: Applause, Applause; A Time To Sing; Montreal, Montreal; Jury;
and Country Sunshine With Myrna Lorrie.
Fri 8:30-9:00 p.m., 28 Jun-30 Aug 1968
Mon 8:30-9:00 p.m., 30 Jun-1 Sep 1969
Mon 8:30-9:00 p.m., 6 Jul-7 Sep 1970
Thu 10:00-10:30 p.m., 1 Jul-9 Sep 1971
Mon 7:30-8:00 p.m., 3 Jul-4 Sep 1972
The original plan for Five Years In the Life was to produce a series of
half-hour documentary films on ten families from different areas of Canada, and
then return five years later for a second look. The first series was popular
enough that the network modified the plan and produced further profiles of
Canadian families, while periodically looking back at families that had been
profiled earlier in the series's history. (The first show of the second
season, for example, was a review of the changes in the families seen in the
first ten programs.) As the program evolved, it also concentrated on
individuals as well as families, with profiles of Eskimo artist Kabluitok,
Jamaican immigrant John Whylie, architect Ralph Blakstad, Winnipeg Rhodes
scholar Dan Selchen, and Newfoundland lighthouse keeper Frank Cantwell. The
filmmakers minimized commentary (although the films did include some narration
by Allan McFee), and tended to use direct cinema techniques. Directors
included Elie Savoie, David Pears, Jack Emack, Rene Bonniere, Elsa Franklin,
Michael Rothery, Bill Harper, Jack O'Neil, Jack Long, Hugh Edmunds, Bill Bolt,
Peter Kelly, and Paul Lynch. The series was produced by Michael Rothery
(l968-7l), and by Nick Bakyta, with executive producer Peter Kelly (l97l-72).
Music for the series was by Ben McPeek, with a theme song by singer/songwriter
Bob Ruzicka.
Return to CBC Series Index
FIVE YEARS IN THE LIFE
Fables of La Fontaine
