Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bill Brioux: Toronto Mike'd #327

Episode Date: April 17, 2018

Mike chats with Bill Brioux about his years at TV Guide and The Toronto Sun and TV... lots and lots of TV, from Hill Street Blues to Breaking Bad.

Welcome to episode 327 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know that 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? GLB, brewed for you, Ontario. And propertyinthesix.com. Toronto real estate done right. And Paytm, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca. And our newest sponsor, Camp Tournesol, the leading French summer camp provider in Ontario. I'm Mike from torontomike.com,

and joining me is TV critic Bill Brio. Welcome, Bill. Well, thanks for having me, Mike. It's been a long time coming. We started talking about this, I'm going to say, six months ago at least. Yeah, probably about that long. That's how long it takes to book Bill Brio on your podcast.

I wanted to be number 327. That was my goal. That's your lucky number. Very pleased and proud and humble to follow Gord Stelic and Dan Schulman and all these fine people you've had lately. No, thank you. You know, Dan,

I'm not going to bust your chops here, but Dan, I said, hey, do you want to come on? Less than a week later, he was in my basement. Bill Brio, several months of effort and negotiation. He's got a jet, I think. I think so. He takes the Rogers helicopter and perks in the back.

No, great to finally meet you. Before, I want to talk a little bit about our Toronto Maple Leafs, but first I need to start with my dear friend, Joe Sini, because do you know, I'm an old man. Joe is, we're the same age. And of course, because we were best friends in junior kindergarten, Joe and I. Wow. Really? That's amazing. Here in Etobico I. Wow, really? That's amazing. Here in Etobicoke?

No, this was near the junction. Oh, wow. Okay. St. Cecilia is like a runnymede in a net. Oh, my dad grew up there on Beresford, just south of there, yeah. Bloor West Village area. Yeah, for sure, Beresford, of course. So I met Joe in junior kindergarten.

We became fast friends and we were best buds. But then after, no one knows who Joe is, except all that matters is, and that connection will be clear in a minute. But after grade one, I changed schools and I lost touch with Joe. But then in grade nine, I was off to high school at Michael Power and I was in gym class. And in my gym class was a guy named Joe Sini and he went up to me and said do you remember me and it's we there ever since we've been buds again and Joe and I have a connection to all aside from Michael Power which we all share yes uh Joe was the goalie on my hockey team this year uh for the um Louis League which is a collection of teams that are mainly teachers, like Joe is,

for Dufferin Peel. And yeah, he's, you know, we had not a bad season. Got off to a rough start. Joe was there every game, though. He played a great game. I was going to ask how he is as a goalie, because I haven't played with him since ball hockey near George Bell Arena,

I think we used to play. Oh, my God, yeah. But how is he as a goalie? Be honest with me. You know what? He's terrific, think we used to play. Oh, my God, yeah. But how is he as a goalie? Be honest with me. You know what? He's terrific, and he hates to lose. And we went into the very last game against a team we hadn't beat all year,

and I'd never seen him so worked up. We have to beat these guys. And we ended up, I think, tying, which was, to me, a fantastic victory. Joe was still not very happy, so you want a goalie that hates to lose. I like that. Yeah.

Fire in the belly. A little bit of a Ron Hex doll going on there. I can see Joe losing his cool there. Actually, you know, to be honest, and I never talk about Joe. Great guy. He lives very close to me now, too, which is a complete coincidence.

But I can't actually imagine Joe losing his cool. He's one of the very level-headed. Maybe you see the different side of Joe, but he's always kind of happy-go-lucky. I can't even picture him being really angry. You're completely right. In the dressing room, he's just fun and loose,

and then as soon as he pulls that mask down, it's all business. I love it. He becomes a superhero, so there you go. I love it. Hey, man, I don't even have to ask you this, but were you watching the Leaf game last night? You know what? I'm one of these suck fans that gets too nervous to watch at points, so I skipped much of it but was delighted to see them come back.

And this makes sense to me. They should be back in this series. And fingers crossed they'll keep going. Yeah, you're right. We haven't, I mean, they always say you're not down in a series until you lose at home, which is fine. But we could easily never lose at home and still lose this series. But that's another story.

But I think it's the way we lost those first two games. Like, I watched them both, and it was sort of like humiliating losses. It was like we were just annihilated. And that's, I think, a lot of Leaf fans, a lot of bandwagon people jumped off. I heard the ankles breaking. Well, also the ratings were down. The Saturday game was 1.7 million.

Saturday night, Hockey Night in Canada, playoffs, Leafs, that's low. And I think you're right. People got nervous and didn't want to look. But, you know, I think you can't write these guys off. Great offense, great coach. And it just looked, though, those first games that Boston was pushing us around, like the bad old days, and that was bugging you.

With Kadri out of there, you know, you just got worried. But thank goodness they stepped up. Now we just have to do it again on Thursday night. Yes. Absolutely. Here, your TV guy, we're going to have a lot of, you know, obviously TV discussions soon, including I'm going to talk further a bit

about the Rogers hockey ratings and stuff. But yesterday, Harry Anderson died. Yeah, 65. That's not, yeah, 65 is way too young. Something's going on there, but i won't speculate but uh he was great on night that was a great show night court it was uh it was different it stood out in that must-see tv lineup and you know i've been writing about tv for a long time and i started

a tv guide right around the time that night court was winding down. And so I remember I started, you know, I'm a writer, but I got the job there through the back door in the art department. And I remember the editor at the time, Ken Laron, lovely gentleman, the only adult working there. It was like a frat house. And he had all these slides on the light table, and he basically said to me, well, who would you put on the cover? And I picked, well, Marky Post. You know well you know come on for sure is this a choice and so i was like the first time i got to

pick a cover um but yeah i met most of that cast over the years and interviewed richard maul who was bull john larroquette i think was um the real bright light on that show he and it was a dark humor uh and he was perfectly cast. But all these folks, Selma Diamond in the early years, who goes back to your show of shows as a writer. So it was a very different beat on a night where it was all family comedies and things like the

Cosby Show. Family Ties, Cosby Show, eventually Cheers. Cheers is that night too. Hill Street. Well, here. I Cheers is that night too. Hill Street. Well, here. I'm glad you... Okay, it's almost like we rehearsed this, but we didn't rehearse this. Nice.

What a great show. Well, I was going to bring up Hill Street because we also recently lost Stephen Bochco. Stephen Bochco. My God. I talked to him a few times. Again, I'm a TV guy, and it was the Reader Poll. This Mike Post theme is... I was going to say, I was a bit young for a it was the Reader poll. This Mike Post theme is... I was going to say, I was a bit young for a lot of Hill Street Blues, to be honest.

But when I hear this, and I was listening to it earlier today as I set it up, tremendous theme, takes you right back regardless. Great theme song. Yeah, and Post and Bochco had a meeting. And Bochco, they sat down, and a lot of people would say, it's a cop show, give us that wah-wah guitar, the Starsky and Hutch thing. And Post said, well, what if I go the other direction? You know, the only cue he got was a garage door coming up and a cop car coming out.

That's all he got. And he said, let's make it more of a lilting theme. And Bochco said, go for it. And literally, Post went home and a half hour, he calledchco said, go for it. And literally, Post went home and a half hour he called him and said, come over.

And he played him the theme to Hill Street Blues. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's great. And throughout this episode, when appropriate, I do have a few other TV show themes

loaded up. Nice. You can't get enough of that. And Bochco, what were his other big ones? L.A. Law right after that. Of course, NYPD Blue. You know, he had a run

there that was just gold. A lot of shows didn't work. Cop Rock got a lot of criticism. Hooperman with John Ritter. Right. He did an animated series. But he would hook up. He was smart enough to get in business with David Milch and David E. Kelly. You know, he really had a unit there

at MTM for a while that was to drama, what MTM had been doing for comedy. Yeah, great stuff. And without this, we don't get our law and orders and all that stuff that follows, right? I don't think you get Breaking Bad.

Like, I really do think... Right, you don't get Homicide, which means you don't get The Wire. We could go on, right? There's a whole web here. Bochco kicked the door down in terms of putting a serial element into a procedural story and, you know, like casting...

I've talked to the cast members of Hill Street. They all had potato faces, except Veronica Hamill, you know. Right. It gave jobs to folks and that added some realism to it and just the writing, it was a great show. Absolutely. So we lost Harry Anderson yesterday. I remember Harry, I remember watching Cheers.

He came on there all the time as the magician. He was Harry the Hat and that's where he got his start. Yeah, you know, I that um he was kind of the not the best actor on that show and he was the first to admit that uh but he was that character he was amiable is that the word he's exactly and he loved uh you know the velvet fog there mel torme he was introduced me to mel torme i never knew mel Torme until Harry Anderson. A quirky show that was on for a long time. And you're right about the John Larroquette.

He was your perennial Emmy winner, right? He was the actor. That was a great character. It was, and I thought the show he did after the John Larroquette show, which only ran maybe three seasons, the first season and a half is brilliant and a very dark comedy,

very ahead of its time. And again, a great cast. That's where he really shone. You mentioned you went to Michael Power. That's where Joe and I went. So we're all Power grads, much like, I don't know if he graduated. Do we know, did Brendan Shanahan graduate high school?

Because when you go off the OHL, you don't always finish high school. The Shanahans, I went to Our Lady of Peace grade school, and I think a lot of them went there too. I'm not sure. All I remember is there was a guy on the Toros who pulled in with a white Corvette with a Toro sticker on it,

and he was a hot flash for a season and a half. But there was a number of hockey players. Shanahan, yeah, that family were big at the Catholic high school, for sure. Absolutely, and I always talk about, you know, I don't know your age. I know you were at power before me, and like Shanahan was ahead of me too,

so I never actually overlapped with him at power, but I always refer to Brendan Shanahan as the, I know Cynthia Dale and Jennifer Dale were there as well, but Shanahan I always point to as the most famous graduate. And as I speak to you now, though, I realize he might not have actually got that piece of paper. Like, you know, sometimes

these guys get drafted and they're in the OHL and they don't actually finish the required credits. I think the Bazillions just gave you the certificate if you were a hockey player. That was how that worked. I fall the Bazillions just gave you the certificate if you were a hockey player. That was how that worked. I fall right between the Dales or the Turlawinis, as we knew them back in power. Right. There was a sister, Loretta, and she was in my year. I'm as old as the school. I'm 60. So Jennifer was older. Cynthia, much, much younger. And yeah, that's my era there. So Shanahan, I think, was a year or two

or maybe more older than I was, I think. Gotcha. Now I have a note from somebody who, so this is from a guy who goes by the name Rock Golf. Oh, yeah. I went to high school, Michael Power, with Bill Brio.

He's an amazing political cartoonist and as a teen had a professional stand-up comedy act. Pray tell, what is, so do you uh still draw her political cartoons well let's out rock galt his name is pat and i know pat from michael power absolutely and and pat was um like a quick-minded he was like the leader of the debating club you know uh we were all in that same nerd pack. But very kind of Pat to make that note. I used to do some stand-up with a friend of mine, Pat Bullock.

Right. And we were known, funny enough, Bullock and Brio. Our fame stretched over several streets in Etobicoke. Well, you're being humble because this was on Cable 10, right? We could watch Brio and Bullock. Yeah. Sorry, Bullock and Brio. Bullock and Brio, yeah. Bullock and Brio, you could watch them on Cable 10, right? We could watch Brio and Bullock. Yeah. Sorry, Bullock and Brio. Bullock and Brio, yeah.

Bullock and Brio, you could watch them on Cable 10. Yes. Well, yeah. I mean, and that was back in the day when there wasn't cable, really. You know, it was before HBO. So there really was just, you know, you had the same 12 options as everyone else on TV. So we would do this crazy Cable 10 show at McLean Hunter Cable, which was way up near the airport. And

we would go in the middle of the night and have the run of the place. And basically we were the $1.98 version of SCTV. We just worshipped that, those guys. You got another theme coming, I think? No, I don't actually have the SCTV. This is actually, I was... Let me tell you. So

I had this great idea. I have to plead ignorance. I wasn't sure of what Bullock and Brio was, but I did watch... People who watched had that same problem. Okay. So I watched Puck Soup, and I enjoyed Puck Soup. I enjoyed it.

But as I realized very quickly that I cannot put this on a podcast because it's no spoken word, right? It's just visual. This would never work. It would just be the theme song. And then I was thinking, it kind of reminded me,

I know you mentioned SCTV, but there must have been a Monty Python influence. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But that's how not cutting edge Pat and I were. We made silent comedies in the 80s. Right. You know, like we were trying to bring back vaudeville.

Right. It was bad timing, but that's what we were into. And it was more even Keaton and Chaplin and the Three Stooges than Monty Python. Monty Python was too hip for us. And so, but SCTV we loved and we tried to, without a budget, make a shtick like that and amuse ourselves. I love the story. Like, I had Ed DeSoc on here.

Steve. So, yeah,Soc on here. Steve. So yeah, Steve Kersner. And I'll have Mike Wilner. And I have these people on who got their start doing what you just described, having run in the middle of Cable 10 shows. And we can all talk about the famous examples, like Tom Green, for example. But Cable 10 played a big role in these guys. Well, because there weren't a lot of options, there was no internet, you couldn't stream

stuff, and you had no cable to watch, I would go to Sherway Gardens and go to buy batteries at Radio Shack, and the guy would say, oh, funny show last night. And I'm thinking,

you weren't at my house, you know, how did that happen? But there were a lot of, we got more viewers than you'd get now on CBC. Like it was, it wasn't as fragmented.

It was in a fragmented universe, which we will talk about later because I suffer from a paradox of choice delusion, if you will, which we will talk about later. But you're right. And I remember even, I remember as a kid sitting down and watching,

I guess I was a teenager, watching The Buzz with Mr. Moe and Darren Jones on Cable 10. And we treated that the same as you would treat Night Court on NBC. It was a television show that we enjoyed watching at a certain day and time. Well, I remember Gino Retta was a big presence on Tobago Cable, I think, for a while, doing sports with a big mustache. He coached the Ford brothers. I believe he coached Doug and Rob Ford in football or something.

Wow. Is he even old enough? He's got a lot to answer for, Gino. No. Yes. I've had him on this show. Firstly, I'm upset that he got rid of the mustache. Yeah.

Come on. Don't do that. No. A lot of the great mustaches from the 80s are gone. I know. There should be like a memorial website. Yeah. No, you're right.

So, Gino, it's still time. Bring it back. Not just for Movember. Let's keep it permanently. So, Rock Golf also it's still time, you know. Bring it back. Not just for Movember. Let's keep it permanently. So, Rock Golf also brought up something else. Oh, yeah, before I leave the, I don't know why you guys didn't make it. You guys could have been the next Bob and Doug McKenzie here. But I want to ask you, you guys performed with people like Jim Carrey.

Is that possible? Yeah. You know, Pat and I did stand up for a few years. And we, like, you know, in 80, 81, 82, we went to New York and did some stuff at Catch a Rising Star. We did Yuck Yucks. And in that era, it was quite an exciting time. Mike McDonald had just passed away.

He was the dark, angry guy in the clubs, you know, but he was also the most respected. But Howie Mandel was sort of just leaving. Kerry, though, was up at Tickles in Barrie. And so we did weekends there on the bill with Jim Kerry. And that was really, I think, why we quit. We saw this guy do an hour, and we just thought, what is the point? Why are we even trying?

He was so talented and back then mainly an impersonator, impressionist, and he would do like Ebony and Ivory with Michael Jack or... Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. And flawless, you know, but he would do the cast of On Golden Pond, you know, he'd do things like this. I remember his Jimmy Stewart.

Like I remember... Oh my God, yeah. The Nuclear Holocaust one and he would go into his Jimmy Stewart, looks like we're having a Nuclear Holocaust. I don't do a good Jimmy Stewart, Like I remember. Oh my God. Yeah. The nuclear Holocaust one. And he would go into his Jimmy Stewart. Looks like we're having a nuclear Holocaust. I don't do a good Jimmy Stewart. But yeah, Jim Carrey was. It's amazing how good he was at the impressions and how he just sort of dropped that entire shtick.

Yeah. He wanted to reinvent himself and create his own voice. And that's what Pat and I were too lazy to do. But when we first met Carrey, Pat also did impersonations. And he said, oh, who do you do? And Cary said, and he mentioned the amazing Kreskin. And Cary put on glasses and slapped his head

back, and it was fantastic. And we're leaving, and Pat goes, God, that guy's not very good. What are you talking about? He goes, that's not a bit like Khrushchev. Another reason why. But here is Pat Bullock's best impersonation. I'll do an impersonation here is Pat Bullock's best impersonation. I'll do an impersonation of Pat Bullock doing his best impersonation.

And it was the announcer at Maple Leaf Gardens, Paul Morris, back in the day. So Pat would go, Geronimo goals, scored by number 27, Daryl Sittler. Time, 5.04, unassisted. This would get a bigger laugh than anything else we did. And he did it much better. And I'm pretty sure, that's one of those things, everyone over a certain age,

every hockey fan over a certain age does a Paul Morris, I think. You're right. And depending on your age, that's what you'll call. For example, I would probably drop like a goal scored by number 93, Doug Gilmore. Right. Assist by number 17, Wendell Clark. Right, exactly.

Your Daryl Sittler is perfect for you. Number 22, Tiger Williams. And number 21, Boreas Salmon. Right. My 22 would be Rick Vibes. Right. See how that works. That's great.

You're right. I love it. But rock golf again, since this is the rock golf episode. He wants me to ask, see, right now you're sitting in New Toronto. Yes. So this is New Toronto, which is sandwiched. It's the Forgotten. We have a complex in New Toronto because everyone talks about Long Branch and Mimico,

and they forget in the middle is New Toronto. So tell me about the Mimico independence movement. Yeah, there was 13 municipalities and then six, right? So there was the three of them down at the bottom of Etobicoke, New Toronto in the middle. As a joke, literally, there was all these clubs at Michael Power, and there was this one priest who was like this surreal, you talk about Monty Python, but I don't know if Father Leo Burns was still there when you were there. Father Burns is still with us. He's with the Bazillions. I think he's the last Bazillion,

but his class was basically a theater of the absurd. He would literally write down 45 announcements every day and have somebody read them. And most of them had to do with these clubs. There was the Figlia d'Italia. There was all these different clubs. So I just, a few of us decided, let's form the Mimico Independence Movement. And we worshipped Mayor Hugh M. Diggs or Griggs or whatever his name was. The bird of Mimico is the pigeon.

Like that's not even made up. We made a flag. We had meetings. It was just sort of something to push back against this crazy bazillion. That explains the pub that opened on Lakeshore called The Pigeon. Well, there you go.

It all makes sense now. I actually went to Wiki one day because I was curious about New Toronto and Mimico and the whole history. And apparently there was this... Mimico wanted to unite with New Toronto, like amalgamate or whatever, back in, I don't know when this was,

the 60s or something. And the New Toronto residents voted to stay independent at the time. Wow. Always a fiery independent bunch. And it's funny because I can throw a rock from here and it would land in Mimico. But it's like this... Nothing makes me more irate than somebody telling me, I'm going to visit you in Mimico.

And then I just, my fist is in the air and I'm like, it's not Mimico, it's New Toronto. Wow. What is the border? Seventh? No, it's Dwight. Okay. There you go. So Dwight, where the McDonald's is.

And so once you hit the numbered streets, one, two, three, the numbered streets only exist in New Toronto and then in Long Branch. Well, there you go. They go all the way into the 30s, right? Yeah. Yes. When you get to Marie Curtis, it stops. So whatever's before, I think it's 40 or something.

Yeah, before Marie Curtis. Awesome. You know, this whole podcast is just going to be about Mimico and Michael Power, if that's okay. Do you, at Michael Power, did you take French or just the mandatory up to grade 9 French? You know, I took it up to grade 12 because I have a French surname

and I just, French aunts and uncles, but I just always felt embarrassed that I couldn't speak French, so I kept trying and trying. We had René Lecavier. Remember René Lecavier was the French CBC announcement. Well, maybe you don't remember, but at one point his nephew taught French at Michael Power.

And we kept trying, but I never really did get the hang of it. Too bad you didn't go to a Camp Tournesol French camp. This would have changed your whole approach to French. So if anyone out there listening has a child between the ages of four and fourteen, there is a Camp Tournesol camp for your child.

Seriously, this is the way you send them off to camp and when they come home they're fluent in French. It's a great way for them to transform their appreciation

for the language. So your call to action, my dear listeners with children aged four to fourteen, go to campt.ca. I would say go to Camp Ternesol,

but you don't know how to spell Ternesol. So go to campt.ca. Seriously, there's like, I'm just looking at the list here, but there's an introduction to French day camp and there's a day camp for children who are francophone or in French immersion, like from SK to 6.

There's overnight camps if your kid's between 8 and 15. There's leadership programs for grades 6 to 8. There's this 13-day trip to Quebec, which I'm going on. I don't care about the age restrictions. They even offer tutoring in French via Skype. So go to camptea.ca,

and when you make your purchase, use the promo code Mike, M-I-K-E, and you can save yourself a few bucks by doing that. So, CampT.ca, Camp Ternasol. Nana Muscuri is playing. Did you know she's still touring, Nana Muscuri? I did not know that. Is she still wearing those glasses?

Yes, of course. Wow. Gino Reddick can remove the mustache. We might forgive him, but if Nana Muscuri removes those glasses, there'll be riots in the street. And just to endorse your sponsor there, my kids, Dan and Katie, both went to French schools. Katie lives and works in Montreal.

They're both bilingual. And it's really paid off. So I encourage anyone to look into that. Did they go to the French school in Royal York? I always bike by it. No, we live in Brampton, so they went to schools there. I just assumed everybody who went to power

lives around here. My apologies. It sounds terrible. I did move away and I came back. I just want to say for the record. But Camp Tournesol, fantastic. And Bill, I have a six-pack in front of you. I see this. Wow. What kind of beer is this? That's my favorite. You pulled as random.

So I tried to give you six different beers just to keep life interesting. This is a boxing octopus. That's the Octopus Wants to Fight IPA. They just brought it back. So later when you check the bottom of that can and find out when that was canned, you're going to find out how fresh it is. That's the one thing about these. It's like playing Russian roulette because one day you're going to get burned.

But every time I look at the bottom of a can, I find out, oh, this was canned like eight days ago or whatever. Like it's always super fresh. Now I'm looking and I can't find that information. It should be on the bottom of the can. It says don't drink this one. So you see the ink there? So, okay, so I'll do this on microphone.

So this one, for example. Oh, I see on this other microphone. So this one, for example... Oh, I see, on this other one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, now I'm also going blind, but this one is April 3rd, it looks like. Wow. Oh, April 11th, actually. April, yeah, April 11th.

Holy smokes. That's like five days ago. Yeah, and that's... Amazing. Okay, thank you so much. And don't be offended. I gave you the pompous ass there. I'm not trying to...

No, no. Joe told me I should give you a pompous ass. You are what you drink. Right. So enjoy it. They're a South Etobicoke staple, and they've been around now 30... I guess this is year 31, because we did all the 30th birthday celebrations last year. So 31 years in South Etobicoke.

And fiercely independent. Good for them. Harry Porter, I notice, even here. Harry Porter. Don't tell the rights holders. I don't think they got permission. All permission, but we'll keep that between us. But enjoy that beer. Thank you so much.

And when you're enjoying that beer, you're going to want to pour it into a pint glass. I see this. That's yours as well. Oh, the six. My goodness. Propertyinthesix.com. That is the website that belongs to Brian Gerstein, who's a proud sponsor. Brian actually recorded a message for you,

and I love it that it lets me play another great TV show theme song. So let's hear from Brian. Hi, Bill. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mic'd. Enjoy my pint glass to use with your GLB. Once we get past winter, which looks to be tomorrow, and put it behind us, I fully expect a very active real estate market with lots of buyers coming out approved and ready to buy.

Call me at 416-873-0292 about listing your home, as now is the best time to get the most money for your home. I need one week's notice to arrange my pre-sale home inspection, professional floor plans, and get the photography and videography ready. Bill, my favorite comedies pre-Seinfeld were from the 70s, and if I had to

rank them, I would put Mary Tyler Moore number one, Taxi right behind at number two, with honorable mention to Soap, which had a cult following and was way ahead of its time. Do you have a favorite from this era? Yes, I do, actually. And I'll tell you, Brian, that's a good one. Beautiful theme song to Taxi.

But one that should be on that list, I think WKRP in Cincinnati. That was late 70s, early 80s. And there's just something about that cast. They're irresistible. So they would be on my list as well. I loved WKRP. I just loved it. Yeah. Wasn't that a great show?

If you get the box set from Shout Factory, you will watch everything. All 77 episodes. It's just tremendous. Oh, but tell me, with the Wonder Years, there's this issue, the music rights. Right. That's the big W. I remember, because I watched them in syndication and we had the original music.

And then I guess, well, you know better than I do, but there's an issue of DVDs and different distribution where they had to replace some of the music. Yeah, that's right. And that always irks me. Well, the good news is, if you can find that, I don't know if it's still, I'm sure you can go on eBay and buy it or wherever, but look for the Shout Factory box set of WK. The guys there found some lawyers, they worked on it for years, and they got virtually all the original music. The only holdout, one of the holdouts, Pink Floyd, but they got like McCartney and Michael Jackson. Did they get Kiss? Because I remember, is that the scene?

Give it to me straight, Doctor, I can take it. Like when they go rock for the first time in Dr. Johnny Fever. It's a great pivotal scene. I think it's in the pilot. Great scene. And I'm pretty sure he kicks into a Kiss song. And I remember some reading that it was no longer a Kiss song. And it was like so disappointing.

Well, there was a period in between where somebody released WKRP with alternative music so it was horrible. You're right. But now and I don't know about that specific one but it's almost 100% the original rock they played back in the early when it aired.

I remember as a young man thinking that Bailey Quarters and WKRP looked an awful lot, different actress, but looked an awful lot like Mrs. Cotter from Welcome Back, Cotter. You're right. Put them in your head right now. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I think I had a bigger crush on Bailey Quarters, though.

Listen, that's the thing. It's almost like the Betty and Veronica story, right? Yes. Because you had your Jennifer, and she was the voluptuous blonde. What was her last name on the show? Jennifer Marlowe. Jennifer Marlowe. No, she was beyond approach. She was too perfect. So you and I were smart enough to aim

a little lower? Is that what you're saying? We would go for the Bailey? That wasn't that much. I mean, come on. Goodness. But I know where you're going. I've met most of those folks and talked to Hugh Wilson, who created that show. And he just passed away a year ago.

So great stories he had about casting those folks and making that show. Perfect. Like Herb Tarlick and Les Nesman. And just yesterday, Michael Hainsworth was in here. He doesn't like sports. And he's a business news guy, and he just quit his job, actually. But he doesn't like sports.

And I referenced, he was talking about, I can't remember, something like I said something about Go Leafs Go or something. He's like, yes, go local sports team, right? And I made some Chai Chai Rodriguez reference. Nice. That was yesterday. That's how much I think of Debbie Kerby. Les Nesman, yeah.

And I love the tape on the floor where walls would be if I had walls. No, no, it was brilliant. But now we're going to find out why Hainsworth has walked away from BNN by listening to your podcast. Oh, look at you. It's good back selling there. I love that. I love that. And yes, so WKRP.

And what was the other show? Yeah, Taxi. Oh, yeah. Mary Chowder Moore. Obviously, Taxi. Oh, yeah. Mary Tyler Moore, obviously. Anything from MTM back then. Rhoda, I think, is an underappreciated show. But aren't we missing... I was going to say, aren't we missing...

Rhoda is the spinoff of Mary Tyler Moore, right? And Phyllis was another spinoff. And of course, New Heart, the Bob New Heart show. You know, so many brilliant comedies. I collect 16mm film, and I have many of these titles on 16, and some with the original commercials. And so on a big screen, you can really study them. And if you look at the Rhoda episodes,

very challenging what they tried to do. They were dealing with divorce and marriage failure, and it was a sitcom kind of ahead of its time. It wasn't entirely successful, but it's underappreciated, that show, I think. Well, speaking of ahead of its time, whenever people talk 70s sitcoms, All in the Family is usually the granddaddy of them all.

Yeah, no, I mean, imagine Norman Lear today. He's still making television, and there's a great documentary about him on Netflix now, which if people haven't seen it, it's about a year old. It's terrific. What he did is astounding. And today, everything is so sensitive and politically correct. You know, the big controversy about Apu on The Simpsons. I was going to bring it up later. Yeah. And here you've got this guy who literally took on every ethnic stereotype and exploded it with Archie Bunker.

And when you watch that show, your jaw is on the ground. I remember seeing that new and my dad looking at it and going, that's terrible, and laughing his head off. He couldn't take his eyes off it, but he was squirming. And that's what television should do. It's brilliant. That was a show so ahead of its time in sort of pushing the envelope

that when they aired that in syndication, I think they had to censor it. Like, I think there's an N-word that's dropped in that show. Oh, my goodness. Things like that. That you simply, they wouldn't. Oh, there's no doubt that there is.

And on The Jeffersons, too. Oh, my goodness. You know, like what happened was, you know, you had the creator of that show make Good Times right after. Yeah, but that really wasn't working, you know, it was a little too much white guys cooking up a black show. By the time you got to the Jeffersons, though, that was a lot more real and that was pretty

groundbreaking and Norman Lear acknowledges that in that documentary. Oh, before I forget, you mentioned WKRP and we talked about the trouble getting licensing for the original music used. So my question is, do we have an update on one of my favorite sitcoms from the 80s was The Wonder Years. And that's a show that, I mean, they couldn't use the doors, the doors light my fire. So they had a sound alike and it's like they simulate in these alternatives and it's, oh my goodness, you should see the scene with Light My Fire, okay? No, it's too bad.

And they couldn't even use the original cover. Do they have Joe Cocker? No. Oh. It's a sound alike. And it's not even, I think it might be a cover of the Beatles song, but it's not the Joe Cocker cover. Oh, see, that's wrong.

When I was watching that for the first time, it came out in 68, I think. Wait, no, 68. No, see, that's wrong. When I was watching that for the first time, it came out in 68, I think. Wait, no, 68. No, no, it was set in 68. Right. It came out in the 80s, I believe. I remember it as a, I remember it, Mel, you mentioned, I remember it as a late 80s show, but maybe it leaked into the 90s for sure.

It probably did. But it was set in 68, so it spoke to me specifically because Kevin was pretty much my age in 1968. So aside from there were no bazillions on the show, it related to it quite a bit. But it gave me chills when that theme came on and the whole movies ran because that so much was my childhood, The Beatles, Cocker.

And so to take that song out of that show would be like taking the Hill Street Blues theme out of that show. You just can't do it. Let's explain for the audience, because I've been laughing at it and totally getting the bazillion references, but I don't think anyone listening is getting it. The bazillion fathers were the priests who

taught at Michael Power. It's a teaching order. There was a housing, like an apartment next to the school where about a dozen or so of the priests lived. You knew they lived there because the beer truck would pull up every four hours and unload the trucks. But sadly, the order, Father John Redman has a school named after him down here not far from us.

Several of those guys. Father Michael Gates, who I knew well and was just an amazing person. But they all died fairly young. And I remember running into one of them, Father Williams, who's also died. He was the principal when I was there. Was he? Okay. Well, he was the librarian when I was at Michael Power.

And I saw him on the street. I said, Father, where's all the bazillions? And he goes, cemetery. Very tris sense of humor. And so that, you know, this was at Islington, Dundas, because that's a weird kind of area.

We call it the Spaghetti Junction. Right, right, right. Because it's Kipling, Islington, and Dundas. No, Kipling, Bloor, and Dundas. They're tearing it all up, putting it all in a new way now. Well,pling, Bluer in Dundas. Right. They're tearing it all up, putting it all in a new way now. Well, yeah, we should point out years ago.

So I believe I was the last graduating class from that location. Oh, wow. I believe. And that was in- You got the old campus. Good. Right.

And I graduated in 93. So that means after that, they move to somewhere near Centennial Park, right? Right. So just north of there, they moved about seven miles west. And it's weird. I was at the reunion last year. They had a big 60th

last fall. And, you know, it's come on back to a school you never went to. You know? Yeah, I got invited to that. To me, I want to see the old building and walk the old hallways and see my old locker. I actually, the school to me, it sounds kind of terrible, and I have

a lot of friends. On this street, I have people I went to high school with on this street. Hi, Shem, sounds kind of terrible. I have a lot of friends on this street. I have people I went to high school with on this street. Hi, Shem, if you're listening. Joe's not far away, and I'm still dear friends. For listeners of this podcast know Rosie, who I did a lot of shows with in the early days. Rosie was at Michael Power with me. But to me, I didn't have a lot of interest in the school. I wanted to go to the physical school that no longer exists.

And a bizarre moment for me happened a few years ago. My son was playing in this Lithuanian basketball league, believe it or not. And they had their games and he was playing center and their games were in the basement

of a church that was built on the site of the old Michael Power school I went to high school. Oh my goodness, right. Yeah. Well, they have like just tons of apartments and condos and even there's an old photo. They call it Michael Power Place. Right. They. Well, they have just tons of apartments and condos, and even there's an old photo. They call it Michael Power Place.

Right. They tore it down and put up a sign. It's terrible. It's sad. You wouldn't want to walk down the Center Portable now, because that place was made out of cardboard. It was starting to stink when I went there, and it was just a place for raccoons to have families.

Did you have North Portable when you were there? I'm sure we did. There was all kinds of kooky little houses that were still there. Well, the chaplaincy, that's where, yeah, the chaplains, they had that little house in kind of the center, and then there was all the portables,

and St. Joe's, of course. So when you went there, though, was it Michael Power and St. Joe's were united when you were there? It did, and when I was there the first two years, I believe it was just a boys' school still, and then the third year, thank God, we had these amazing creatures

who just smelled so fantastic sitting in front of us. And after that, everybody had to behave and sit up straight. Who knows where I'd be now if it wasn't for that. The official name of the school was always Michael Powers slash St. Joseph's. But nobody called it that. Everyone just called it Power. slash St. Joseph's. But nobody called it that. Everyone just called it Power. Of course, St. Joseph's didn't get their due.

But it's all, like you said, it's all gone. I feel like Joni Mitchell should write a song about it. I'd listen to that. Okay, speaking of, you mentioned that the Pink Floyd song didn't make it too. No. But I'm going to play this in honor of Paytm. Because Paytm, I was at their office the other day uh on simcoe and uh adelaide adelaide and university i guess is where it was and great great people

they're a app so paytm if you don't know they're an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot so you go to paytm.ca and you download the app paytm and with this app you pay all of your bills and i don't care like i have you pay all of your bills. And I don't care. I have to pay property taxes for the city and they don't accept credit card. But using Paytm, I can use my MasterCard to pay my property taxes. And what does that mean, Mike? It means I get Paytm points, which is great because I can use that and redeem that. But I also get points on my MasterCard. So I'm double dipping here. So I pay my bills. I get points on my MasterCard. I get Paytm points. And you can get Paytm cash by using the promo code Toronto Mike, one word.

So when you download Paytm.ca and you set yourself up, which is really easy, and you make your first bill payment, click promo code and put in Toronto Mike, they're going to give you $10 and you can use that $10 towards any other bill. So it's free money just sitting there, completely free, $10. Just use the promo code TorontoMike. And Mike, can you use PayTM to buy GLB? Excellent question. If not, I can make that happen.

I'll broker the deal because absolutely you should be able to buy GLB with PayTM. That's a great point. Let's bring you back. Tell me, how do you end up at TV Guide? Oh, my goodness. Okay, so what I was at after Michael Power, I went to St. Mike's College at the University of Toronto.

So did I, by the way. Did you? No kidding. Wow, okay. Well, here we're on parallel paths all along. And I used to do editorial cartoons for the Varsity, which was the U of T newspaper. And so I would do all these editorial cartoons and caricatures of different folks. And the editor at the time was this fellow, BJ Del Conte, who was on Business News Network for a while there, another reported at CP24.

And BJ was buddies with this guy, Andy Ryan. And Andy is still at the Globe and Mail. This is a long story. No, I love it. Andy got a job at TV Guide. This is like 1982. And he got in touch. Back then, I think he sent me a letter

because there was no email. And he said, hey, you know I do the cartoons. He said, they're looking to add a cartoon strip in TV Guide. Why don't you make an appointment, bring a portfolio in? So I did. And I went in and met the editor. And the guy said, no, we're not going to do that. But our layout guy just quit. Can you do paste up an assembly? And I said, oh, of course. So he says, we'll be back on Monday and meet the art director. I got a book at the library on paste up and assembly. I met the art director and said,

my portfolio's in New York. They didn't care. Just if you could work a knife, go to the room next door and start cutting pages. And so that was the back door I came into TV Guide. That's the old fake it till you make it. It was. And monkeys could do, obviously, what they asked me to do.

And I just started attending meetings and story meetings and eventually ended up in L.A. for a year and a half as an art director slash writer down there. Now, TV Guide, I mean, today we look back and it seems kind of quaint. You know, everything's digital and we get it on our smartphones or whatever. We go to the website or we have, of course, the digital receivers have guides built into them. But, I mean, TV Guide, that was a big deal. Like, that was a popular magazine. It was the largest selling magazine in the world. In the United States, there were years where it would sell 30 million uh copies uh a week and uh you know it

was all owned by the guy who had the racing forum uh walter annenberg and he made he sold it for three billion dollars wow in 1989 to rupert murdoch about 10 years later it was worth about a dollar and that's how fast things had changed but murdoch uh an-Annenberg worked out very well for him. Wow. And so I can imagine at the time you're at the TV Guide that money's flying around, right? Is this the good old days? Money's just... It was, except when it came to paying us. But yeah, they would waste a lot of money if somebody...

Again, this is pre-computers, really. you know, again, this is pre-computers really. So they would send out to have somebody draw a baseball and pay them $800 to draw a circle with stitches on it. And they would pay Pierre Burton three grand if he just typed up anything and then we ran it. You know, we would pay well-known writers very, very well. Now as a freelance writer, I can only fantasize about some of the money

that was spent that way. And so at some point you're going to these, what are they called? The junctions? What are they called when you go to... Junkets.

Junkets. That's the word I'm looking for. So who was on here? Richard Krauss was on recently and I asked him about the junkets because he does these and you're in a room and it's kind of crazy and repetitive, and you kind of have

to get some morsel of something out of it. Can you tell me a bit about going down to L.A. and having to do these press tours and everything for TV Guide? Yeah, happy to. That was a constant for me. There's one big press tour for TV critics. It's the Television Critics Association TCA tour. It's in LA twice a year, usually in July and

January. Half the year it's in Pasadena, the other half downtown. I think they asked four other people who couldn't go. When I was at TV Guide, they said, okay, will you go? And I said, yeah. And I went down to Phoenix, Arizona. Very first press tour,

1984. I sat at round tables with Angela Lansbury, who was back with Murder, She Wrote. Flip Wilson, who was trying to come back. Red Fox, who was trying to make a comeback. Folks like that.

And Larry Daryl and Daryl from the Bob Newhart show, or the Newhart. It was such an eye-opener. I have to tell you, that one, you sort of never forget that first tour, and it blew my mind. But there must be, I mean, first of all, Angela Lansbury is still with us. Like, that's amazing. Yeah. I think about it. She's still working.

I think she was coming to town for some theatrical play or something. She's astounding, yeah. And she wasn't young then. No. Red Fox, he was so bitter. He'd had a bad experience with his show. He had a lot of bad press. And he literally put his own tape recorder in the middle of the table

before we started because he said, I don't trust any of you guys. And away we went. Turned out, I have these old cassette tapes and I listened to that one. He was actually very insightful. It's fascinating to hear his take on Amos and Andy, folks like that. Because I think at that time in the mid-'80s, there was a rumor that Bill Cosby was trying to buy up all the old Amos and Andy was a show in the 50s. It was written by white writers,

and it was about these black characters, the Kingfish, and it was a raging popular hit on radio. But it was racist to a lot of folks. And Red Fox actually stood and said, listen, I stand on the shoulders of those guys. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. So he didn't denounce it. He recognized it as a historical step.

And I think there's lessons there when we look at Apu and characters today. Interesting. I remember in that era, like 84, I remember when Song of the South was re-released by Disney and there was a it might have been the last time that thing hit theaters, actually. You can't get it on DVD or you couldn't get

it on tape. It's very much in the vault Disney, yeah. Because it didn't age well. It's got some stereotypes in there. It does, but you know, so does Jungle Book. So does Huckleberry Finn, right? Well, yeah. There's a very funny scene.

They did a show, Amazon, I think, had a series with Jean Van Damme. And they're doing a remake of, he's an actor in the show, which is already cancelled, but they replaced the name of the character in Hawk Finn, and they just call him N-Word Jim.

It's a funny joke. I'm from Songs of the South. As a kid, I adored Zippity-Doo-Dah, the song Zippity-Doo-Dah, Zippity-Day. I thought that was the greatest song ever. It's actually a very entertaining film. For its time, the animation combined with live action was groundbreaking and deserves to be seen.

Now, when you go to L.A., you said twice a year, and for decades, I guess, you did these press tours or whatnot. Did you have to, not kiss ass, but is there any pressure to be positive with your reviews or risk not having access? That was just with my editors. No.

No, I know what you're saying. Certainly, the thing with the press tours, which kept it above board, is that it was all done on the magazine's dime. Unlike Richard Krauss, um you know above board is that it was all done on the magazine's dime that uh we unlike uh richard krauss those junkets for movies were all the dunn warner brothers or paramount would pay for the tca was uh you you had to pay for the hotel and you had to pay for the flight mind you once you got there the networks would feed you like crazy. And it's almost like a fantasy camp. The hotels are lovely and everything else.

So you can't, as much as a lot of writers would say, oh, we're in the ivory tower, we're above taking anything, come on, every time you took a plate of food there, it was 100 bucks. And I can only, I've never been in that position, but I can only imagine that if you saw something awful and you were going to write a scathing piece about it, but they, man, was that, did they ever serve you well?

Like that was some top-notch wine, it was lobster, whatever. Like I can see you having that second thought, like maybe I'll soften this a little bit. What was different then, it was when I started, there was still newspapers. So it was a room full of 150 hard-nosed reporters who grew up in the Watergate era. These guys were out to bring down the

networks. And so the eye-opener was how much pushback the networks got that the head of the network would be there. And nowadays, you don't get this opportunity even if you're a shareholder we would literally go after them and just rip them for anything they might have done that seemed wrong that is changed you're right and it's a little less you know in fact the networks don't even bother showing up with their leading guy anymore their executive because they don't have to and even at the time though I'm sure the publicists would watch you guys like a hawk. Is it

fair to say that they, would you get taps, would they ever speak to you about something you wrote or whatnot? You know, going back beyond my day, there was a fellow, Jim Bodden, who used to write, cover TV at the Toronto Star. Have you had him on? No, I haven't had him on, but I used to

read Star Week. Right. Every single Saturday. Have you had him on? Well, no, I haven't had him on, but I used to read Star Week. Right. Every single Saturday. He was the guy. You should have him on. He's in Hamilton. His stories are astounding. I'd have him on for sure.

Yeah, so he started in like 1972 going down. And he said back then, some of the U.S. network publicists would say, well, here's your copy for this story. You know, they would literally give you the story or they'd go, here, please accept this lovely attaché case. It would be with money in it. So it was a different time at the start,

but that was when the networks were paying for the whole deal. I think the critics, that's why there is a Television Critics Association. They wanted to form a group. Clean that up. So they didn't come off looking like the Foreign Express for the Golden Globes, you know. It's a bit like payola, right? Right. Pay to play.

Now, TV Guide Canada, this is a world famous brand. You mentioned the value it had at one point and then Rupert Murdoch bought it. You wrote a piece, TV Guide Canada, burying a world famous brand. Could you share with us some thoughts on the demise of the brand?

Well, back when I was there, I was there up until 1997. If you walked into any restaurant or any store in Toronto, nine out of ten people would know that red logo. It was as famous as McDonald's. It was everywhere. Now, they ran into this problem. How many trees do we need to cut down to put to cover all these channels it just got impossible it was ridiculous they had 83 different versions of tv guide across canada to to follow what what tv was like in new toronto and and brampton and everywhere else so it wasn't

a practical magazine anymore. But they still could have racked it as a little book with stories about your favorite TV stars. And they still have a presence in the U.S. as a website. In Canada, there's neither anymore. So I thought they threw away. You know, you'd cash out anywhere to buy your groceries. There was TV Guide. Absolutely.

It was prevalent. It TV Guide. Absolutely. It was prevalent. It was everywhere. Absolutely. And why do you end up leaving the TV Guide in the late 90s? You know, I had been there for like, oh my goodness, way too long. 13 years. And everything was changing

there. The economy had started to catch up to that magazine, and there was about 12 of us who were let go at one point. I look back and feel, why did I stay there that long? I really kicked myself because I got a lot out of it the first five or six years. And then, you know, we have kids and you're raising a family. You get comfortable. You get comfortable. So I wish I had not been taking that comfortable chair. The way I look at it, because I'm going through something similar right now, is you get comfortable

and sometimes you need a push, like you need a push to kind of go do that next thing that you're supposed to do. And I've been downsized twice and it's a great wake up. You actually, it's the only time you sort of get to look around and see the big picture. You get a little bit of money that goes to a pension fund. It's a great wake up. It's the only time you sort of get to look around and see the big picture. You get a little bit of money that goes to a pension fund. Now I'm working for myself. I wish I could fire myself so I could get a little of that again.

That's right. No more packages for Bill. But let's get you to the Toronto Sun. So how do you end up at the Toronto Sun? Well, I freelanced for two years in between. And, you know, that was a lot of hustle. As you know, it's like, you know, it's work just to get stories sold to different people. So I was fortunate that a friend at the Toronto Sun, Claire Bickley, had been at the Sun for many years as a reporter. I used to see her on the press tours all the time. So Claire was getting tired of covering

TV. And she called me out of the blue and said, what do you think? Would you like to do my job? And I said, yeah. And so I was able, they were looking to replace her. I had met with her bosses at The Sun. John Crick was the entertainment editor. Kathy Brooks. Brooks had been at the telly. She was a wonderful editor. And managed to fool them into hiring me back in 1999. I used to know Claire Bickley. She lives in, I don't know if she's still there, but she was at Bloor West Village. Yes, that's right. Yeah, exactly.

And she went to Henry Carr, another school in the power chain there for a while. And when I told you I left St. Cecilia's, where I was best friends of Joe, to go to another school, where I went was St. Pius at Jane and Bloor. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. It's all connected here.

Small world. So tell me about what you were doing at the Sun and any, I mean, the little paper that grew. I love the Sun stories. Sun was fun, you know, and I got there in 99. And right away they're telling me oh you missed it all the good stuff came in the 70s you know it's boring here now and it's horrible and i thought i'd died and gone to heaven from tv guide to this was uh literally i remember walking in and it was just before christmas and they said oh friday we're all going to a leaf game we got a

box i thought oh my god this is amazing this happens so we're all going to a Leaf game. We've got to box. I thought, oh my God, this is amazing. This happens. So we're all there and I turned to Bruce who wrote the film reviews and I said, how often do you get to do this? He goes, well, I've been here 25 years. This is twice. So it didn't quite turn out that way

but if you wanted Argo tickets, you got those for coming in late. They had tickets to everything. Argo tickets, you got those for coming in late. They had tickets to everything. Argo tickets, oh, I can get those. Yeah, well, okay. Leaf box tickets. Leaf box was pretty damn good. And then at Christmas time, we went up to the sixth floor, lined up,

and there was the publisher there and a couple of sunshine girls in bikinis. And they're handing us rum in a plastic glass, an envelope full of money, which was like your bonus for, because at the end, it was sort of owned by the workers, the place. And then you also got an annual Christmas bonus. I thought, my God, this is astounding.

And I was grumbling about how crummy it was there at that point. And that ended like two years later. Quebecor came in and bought the place, and the screws started to tighten right away, and a union came in, and things slowly went to another direction. So I always have the sports writers from The Sun on. That's my go-to. But, like, for example, Bob Elliott, he's no longer there, but he

was a long-time baseball writer at the Sun. Great National Newspaper Award winner. That guy is... Nice. He did two hours on this show, and I said, just tell me baseball. Tell me stories about the 80s Jays or whatever. Tell me George Bell's story. Yeah. I think Jim Hunt

was still there when I started. I just had Stelic on this show. I know. And Shulman. Yes, of course, you mentioned that at the top. But Shulman worked with Shakey on Primetime Sports when Bob McCowan went to Mornings. I used to listen every single time.

And those two guys, Shulman and McCowan, would be talking. And then Hunt would go, however, well, there was a day in 1958 when the Argo was, okay, this is the 12th time I've heard this, but you know what? It was entertaining every time. I love hearing it. No, you can't teach that, right? That's something you can't teach. But the other gentleman

who's still at the Sun, he might be there. I think he's going to turn out the lights when it's all done. Steve Simmons. Steve. Steve is, yeah, a guy I got to know a bit. The sections were very segregated. We were in the playpen with entertainment. We were literally at the end of the place. When you went to the Toronto Sun at 333 King,

it got less and less impressive as you got to my desk. The desks we worked on looked like they'd fallen off some truck. But nonetheless, as the sports guys had it, they were sort of the biggest read in that newspaper and still are. Most people buy the Sun to read the sports section. And we were number two, and it always bugged us. The editor would come by and go, you finished second, and we'd go, we lost.

Right. But I really enjoyed my time there. I learned so much from the editors, Kathy Brooks. My goodness, what a great copy editor. And different things from Crick and other folks. I got to sit next to Liz Braun and all of these guys, Jim Slotek. We just had the best time. It was like being in detention at Power with all the smart kids. Right.

Every day. It was awesome. That's a great analogy. That's fantastic. So do you have any, can you share any stories about like television? So, you know, you have your overhyped shows of the 80s and 90s, but then in the 2000s you get the reality shows and like you mentioned, the hundreds of channels and everything kind of changes.

Anything regarding that sort of transition you can share? Like it seems like... Yeah, I mean, to me, you mentioned The Wire and Homicide. That's when you started to really notice it. And then when The Sopranos came and HBO started to really ramp up, that's when things were different. And David Chase, my goodness, what a genius. The acting, the the writing the direction

everything was it felt like a movie every week right it was cinema yeah yeah it was great and um i think what happened is and you saw the historically all those folks who were creating those things used to make independent films and there was less and less of a market for those things everything had to be tights and capes. So we got all those guys on the TV side, like, you know, FX, John Landgraf, brilliant, brilliant executive, president of FX for a dozen years. He saw more film guys through his door daily than, you know, you would ever have seen in the 90s or, you know, turn of the century.

Well, like I was a big fan of Six Feet Under. And that's the American beauty guy, right? Right. Alan Ball? He's got a new show coming out, yes. So you're right. That was a show that changed things. It has one of the great finales of all time.

That last 10 minutes, Sia's Breathe, I think, is playing. Yeah, that might be. You know, the Sopranos ending is notorious because it's so open. But I mean, we kicked out the jams, Michael Hainsworth and I, yesterday, which means he brought his 10 favorite songs of all time, and we played them and talked about why he loves them.

Maybe one day, hopefully, you'll come back and do that. Yeah, awesome. By the way, everyone listening, we're going to play one of Bill's favorite jams later in this episode, so there's a teaser. But one of Michael Hainsworth's jams is Journeys Don't Stop Believing.

Yeah. And I told him, I can't hear the song anymore without Tony's at the Diner. Absolutely. Yeah, I know its own. And here's a story. So that aired on June 10th, 2007.

And I'm heading to Banff where they have an international TV festival. And it was my first time there. And just before I left, I got a package from TMN, the movie network, with that final episode on a disc. They sent it to me before it aired. I put it in my

pocket, got to the airport and flew to Banff. We got there thinking, oh, we can hardly wait to see this tonight. They don't have HBO at the hotel, the Banff Springs, flew to Banff. We got there thinking, oh, we can hardly wait to see this tonight. They don't have HBO at the hotel, the Banff Springs, the beautiful Banff Springs. And I said, well, I've got it. And so there was a theater in this place and in that room were

the who's who of TV. Chuck Lorre was there. Wow. The woman behind CSI. You know, all these different producers, plus Bill Carter from the New York Times. And like it was a who's who of TV sitting in a room in the dark. On goes that show. We're watching, we're watching.

And then, boom, lights out. It cuts to dark. And everybody's like, and so they all look at me going, they gave you a disc without the ending. You bastard. You've ruined this experience for us all. You are responsible. And I said, no, this is, come on.

So I remember Bill Carter phoning his editors at the New York Times. They said, no, that's how it ends. And the discussion in that room afterwards was fascinating. Like on this, you could ask Chuck Lorre, what do you think? Yeah. And it was just mind-blowing.

What a story. Yeah, it was really cool. I remember reading that David Chase wanted that black screen to be on longer, and HBO kind of talked him down to whatever it ended up being. I don't know what it ended up being, six seconds or something.

It felt like a long time. But I know he wanted substantially longer, but HBO was like, people are going to think they lost their signal. Right. You know what I mean? Which is what happened, right? Yeah, no, a lot of us sitting there thought what happened.

But I love that ending. Yeah. And it gets better every year, I think, because you look back, it leaves it all up to us, and you never forget that moment. The guy in the members-only jacket going in the restroom, and then Meadows trying to park that damn car. And watching that first time, you don't know what's going to happen.

You're squirming. Yes. It is the least comfortable. Yeah. Even that whole episode, if you look at it happen. You're squirming. Yes. It is the least comfortable. Yeah. Even that whole episode, if you look at it again, you're squirming all the way up to that because they cut it, cut it, cut it. There must be hundreds of cuts to that episode to keep you off guard until you get to that moment.

So that would be one of those memorable finales, one of the most memorable I've ever seen. And then you mentioned the Six Feet Under finale, which is sort of the most satisfying. I think that's the most satisfying. For the fans, it gives you everything just as Breaking Bad does.

That was very much like that. Can we talk about Breaking Bad for a moment? I loved Breaking Bad and that finale irked me in this way. So, spoiler alert, okay? I don't know.

Is anyone out there? Is it too late? Go on. What do you think about spoiler alerts? Is there, would you, I had this, so Roz Weston hosts a show, Roz and Mocha.

It's a popular morning show. Yes, of course. And he loves Grey's Anatomy. And there was an episode of Grey's Anatomy where McDreamy dies. Right. Significant. And the very next morning,

he talked about last night when McDreamy died. Right. And my wife, who isn't a diehard Grey's Anatomy fan, but watches it was upset because this was like 2016, whatever the hell it was people don't always watch it

it's not the olden days what do you think? Was that a dick move by Roz Weston? No and I think that with all due deference to your wife that had happened for a while. I think that it sort of like, oh, my God, Bobby's alive. He's in the shower.

I just found out. So it's always a spoiler if you don't know, right? That could be 50 years later. But I think there is a period where things are great. Let's go. It's the internet age. So there's a stage. But I agree with you.

There is a period where it's fair game. But the very next morning of a show that airs at like, I don't know what it airs at, 9 or 10 p.m., and then the very next morning at 6 a.m., you can talk about McDreamy dying last night. It was the very next morning? Yes. Oh, well, apologies to your wife.

It was the very next morning. That's a good question. If I'm writing a story, even I knew that something was up recently and I wrote a story about it, and I kept that detail out of the story because I didn't want to spoil somebody else's enjoyment of watching it for the first time.

So that soon is too soon. But I think if it's, you know, they have live plus seven is the ratings data that's gathered. Yes. I think it's after the seven days. If you still haven't watched it, then you can talk about it. Now, I have Crave TV, and I'm going to get by. What was it?

I have to get back to something here. What show are we? Oh, yeah, it's Breaking Bad. Don't let me forget. Make sure I loop back on this. But I have Crave TV, and that's how I watch Game of Thrones, which means I only have three seasons,

and this is a recent development. So I've seen three seasons of Game of Thrones, and I'm patiently waiting because they promised in 2018, they said more seasons are coming. If you know the dates, let me know., they said more seasons are coming. Right. If you know the dates, let me know. Winter is coming.

I can't find that. Winter is coming. That's what I heard. But I spend my life dodging Game of Thrones spoilers is what I basically do. Like anytime anything's talking about Game of Thrones, I just avoid it. It's hard. It's difficult. No, but I mean, I stopped watching Game of Thrones after the second season. By the way, I'm with you. Okay, you finish your thought and then I'm back to you.

There's so much TV I can't keep up. And literally all I do is watch screeners of stuff. I don't even know if you've heard of these networks before. Trying to keep up so I can't watch anything more than ten times. It's just I've got to keep up with what's new. As a guy who came to Game of Thrones late, it's a show where the hype was too much, I think. And we're going to get to it in a minute.

I have a box set of The Wire sitting right there. Oh, nice. And I'm a big, huge, and I've watched it two times in its entirety, and I'm going to do a third with my 16-year-old very shortly because it's on tape TV too. Oh, yeah. And it's in HD now.

The education season or the police season? Season four is education. They're all great, but some of them are just crazy great, aren't they? Yeah, it's five seasons and all five are great, to be honest. It's 60 episodes, I think. It's tremendous.

But we'll get to that. So Game of Thrones, to be honest, I find it's a show where if I pay attention to the last five minutes of the episode, I kind of get my fill. I know a lot of people, because I told this to my last five minutes of the episode, I kind of get my fill. And I know a lot of people,

because I told this to my brother and he says I'm crazy because he says every minute of that show is amazing. I'm not feeling it. It kind of bores me. I'm with you. It's like watching basketball.

You just have to watch the end. Right. And I, yeah, I mean, I watched, I remember the very first episode. They threw a kid out of a cave. First episode. Yeah. So I just, boom. And I watched, I remember the very first episode. They threw a kid out of a cave. First episode. Yeah, so they just, boom.

And I thought, what the hell? So I was sort of off the bus early. But, you know, The West Wing is a show that's revered. A lot of people, oh, the greatest. That show sucked, always sucked. I hate The West Wing. Even the first season. First season, the very first.

It went downhill after the actress who was cast as the prostitute who was in bed with Rob Lowe, when she left, that show went downhill. She was only in the first episode. So I just found it was such a ridiculous flag waver. I just couldn't stomach it. They were sitting on a stoop singing the Stars and Stripes Forever, and they had the president chewing out characters, and it

was just so high and mighty, I couldn't take it. So I don't like that show. But they had that great episode where Martin Sheen is smoking in the church, and then they play Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. I know. It had its moments. Game of Thrones had its moments, too. One of the

last episodes I saw was, they call it the Red Wedding episode. Oh, so you saw the Red Wedding. Yeah, that's near the end of season three. And I saw that. And I was thinking, yeah, like, that was, I didn't see that coming. That's very interesting. But again, that's the last five minutes of the episode.

Like, just give me the last five minutes of every episode of Game of Thrones. I'll be okay. Someday I'll get caught up. My son, who's 25, he and his friends, oh my goodness, you know. And maybe not so the last season, but up his friends, oh my goodness, you know, and maybe not so the last season,

but up until then, they never missed a minute of it. So there are certain generational things about that show, I think, that really connect.

Now I'm going to go back to Breaking Bad so I don't punch myself later. Breaking Bad, the finale. So, Walter White is Connecticut?

Where is he? Some snowy place. He's outside a diner or something. I think it's Vermont or Connecticut or Maine or somewhere. Probably. I can't remember. Brampton. He's sitting in the car and he's

I think the cops are coming and he turns the ignition and the keys fall into his lap. He's in this car. It looks like he's ready. He's resigned to his fate, which is, I guess, either suicide or he's going to be arrested and go to jail forever, whatever is, I guess, either suicide or he's going to be arrested and go to jail forever, whatever.

But the keys fall onto his lap for this old car, and he starts up the car. And from that moment on, that episode loses me because everything that takes place after that moment takes place so unplausibly pro-Walter White, like everything. He's supposed to be the most notorious, most wanted man in the country, all over

CNN and everything. And he goes into a busy diner and has a conversation at a table and walks out. He goes up to Skyler. There's so much happening in that episode that was so fan fiction fantasy to fetishize for fans. It just seems so ridiculous. It's a valid

point. And he does find redemption in that episode, and does he deserve it? So I don't know. I do know that it started out this guy was Mr. Chips who turns into Hitler. And so I guess you feel for Mr. Chips, and then you pull for that guy, but I do think

does he redeem himself by kind of sacrificing himself for his colleague, you know, and other folks there? Right, Jesse. Yeah. So that, it worked for me. It worked for me. It's, if you were to, like, get a super fan to

design, like, what would be his, like, wet dream conclusion to Breaking Bad. It would play out like that, I think. And there is a, I think it was Norm MacDonald, somebody tweeted something about how

Walter White dies in the car and everything after, when the keys fall into his lap, everything from there on is like in his dream

of like, in his mind. And then the creator said no because it's the guy from X-Files, right? Vince Gilligan? He said no for the record. But I don't know if I believe him.

That to me is a better finale. If you think about him dying in that car. Well, was he clever enough to plant that so that guys like you might still see a nice way out of that show? I don't know. Norm and I. Yeah.

You're right. It's a little too pat perhaps. I remember thinking that at the time. But there's still something satisfying about giving fans that satisfaction and that you don't get in a lot of other shows, you know, at the end. I'm still bothered by the final episode of Wonder Years

where in one line Kevin says, when Dad died, like he just said, like the narrator is Stern, right? Daniel Stern. He's talking about whatever. And then, which we did two years later when Dad died. Like he just said, he said, like the narrator, Stern, right? Daniel Stern, he's talking about whatever. And then, which we did two days,

two years later when dad died. And it's just this one line about saying like two years after what you're seeing now, that guy's, the dad's going to die. And that really like saddened me.

Even now when I think about it, it made me very sad. No, I know, because you were into that family. You related to them and it was a bit hard. Dan Lauria was great on that show, but that

wasn't the best finale. For me, the best finale was the end of the Bob Newhart show or the Newhart. Oh, when he wakes up in bed. Emily wakes up in bed with Bob and says, Bob, it was a dream. That to me was pretty darn good. That was great. I was just about to ask you what your favorite

finale was but is there any other finale? I mean, everybody talks about the MASH finale because there will never be. Hated it. Interesting because most watched show of all time or something? It was garbage. Two and a half hours, I'll never get back.

That went on and on and on. It was sappy and weird. I didn't like it at all. You could have done that in half an hour, just had the helicopter take off and have goodbye spelled in rocks. A lot of the other stuff about basically the main character is having a nervous breakdown and you're sort of watching that play out.

Um, I, it wasn't the show. Like it should have been those guys going out the way they came in. Uh, they brought a madness to it that we embraced and instead they made the madness look, um, you know, um madness look very negative. So didn't like it. What did you think of the Seinfeld finale? I just saw it again recently. It was on, you know, reruns are on forever, right?

Right. Or you'll go to YouTube. That one, again, it's an all-star show. They packed every single character who's ever been on it. That lawyer, Johnny Cochran, is pretty hilarious. But again, it goes on too long. And the gag of the four of them in jail at the end, spoiler alert, 25 years later, playing cards and whatever, still picking on each other. Okay.

It was all right. I mean, Larry David came back to write that one. So you got to give it up. That must have been what they had in mind. But that conversation in the jail apparently harkens back to the very, in the pilot episode, the conversation

they're having at the beginning. Well, that's why it's no good because the pilot's terrible. So the first four episodes aren't very funny. And I believe that's when it was called

the Seinfeld Chronicles. Seinfeld Chronicles. There was another series, the Martin Chronicles, that launched like the same week. And that's why they had to change it to Seinfeld to drop Chronicles that launched like the same week and that's why they had to change it

to Seinfeld to drop Chronicles because there was another show that no one remembers with Chronicles in the title. And I think I have this right. There was no Elaine in the first episode, I don't think. I think Elaine might be added later. That's a show where I, it's a show I mean, we'll talk in a minute about my two

favorite shows shortly since it's all about me, Bill. I still I don't work for Bell Media so the show. I mean, we'll talk in a minute about my two favorite shows shortly since it's all about me, Bill. Sure. I still don't work for Bell Media, so the Crave TV promos are not paid for or anything, except I do enjoy the fact I get Seinfeld, but you get and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Curb Your Enthusiasm. Oh, yeah. And two of the greatest shows ever. And Curb is funnier than Seinfeld, in my opinion. I agree. Yeah. Curb is just howlingly funny, and there's some brilliance to some of those seasons. The ones where Larry goes to New York, the episode with Bill Buckner. Oh, my goodness.

You know, it's just jaw-droppingly great, and I love Super Dave every time he's on there. Yeah, Einstein. Yeah. Bob Einstein. Great, great, great show. And Seinfeld, too, one of the greatest comedies of all time, I think. Super Dave, who used to be on Bizarre, which filmed in aging courts. Markham.

Markham, not aging courts. I went to a couple of tapings, believe it or not. But I was at TV Guide, and I saw, who sang Sammy Davis Eyes or Betty Davis Eyes? Kim Carnes. Kim Carnes. So she was the musical guest, and I saw Super Dave there. And, you know, just a one-joke show that ran in Canada for like six seasons. And still funny.

John Biner, right? John Biner. John Biner. If you watched the early Bazaars, you can't believe they aired that. Like, it's just stunning, the stuff, the shtick they pulled. There's a skit where a guy is running down a hall, and he's holding his pants, which

are soaked, and there's steam coming off of them, and he's screaming. And then you cut to the doctor and nurse, and the doctor turns to the nurse and says, no, no, no, I told you to prick his boil. I won't bore the audience with my bizarre story, except that young Mike, there's a great scene, maybe I will bore the audience with my bizarre story except that

young Mike there's a great scene maybe I will bore the audience a well endowed woman would remove her t-shirt right there was always a t-shirt underneath it

and she would do this like I don't know 25 times yes and it was I called it because at the same time on WUTV

at I think 6pm they would air Benny Hill oh my goodness what a one two at the same time right and they were very similar very risque on WUTV at, I think, 6 p.m., they would air Benny Hill. Oh, my goodness. What a one-two. At the same time, right. And they were very similar,

very risque. Sure. But you could not tune out the girl with the T-shirt. No. Because you wouldn't walk away after T-shirt four. No, I was hooked.

Yeah. So, I mean, it was such a brilliant concept. Fun fact for you, past guest of this show, Ziggy Lawrence from Much Music, got fired from, she was one of the pretty gals on Bazaar and she got fired from that.

Did she get fired from Bazaar? I know, yes. What a badge of honor. So how did I get to Bazaar? Oh, yes. Okay. So we're going somewhere here, Bill. Okay.

So Bob Einstein, do you know who his brother is? Yes. Albert Einstein. Albert Brooks. Albert Brooks. Yeah. Who is really Albert Einstein. Do you know who their dad was?

It's a 25-point bonus question. Crap. It's an Einstein, but tell me. His radio name was Park Your Carcass, I think. Oh. Yeah, and he literally was doing a roast for Lucy and Desi in the 50s, and everybody was there, Milton Berle and all these folks, and he wasn't feeling that well,

but he went and he killed the audience. It just was a really funny bit. He sat down and died on the dais, and Einstein was there. He was like 13, and you know, you can find this on YouTube. There's a clip of him talking about that moment, but it came from a comedy family.

But you're right. Bob Einstein is great on Curb, for sure. Yeah. Curb your enthusiasm. Great show. Do you have a story here? I just went to my buddy Joe and I said, hey, your teammate Bill's coming over.

And Joe said, Mike, make sure you ask him about the Donald Trump interview. Oh, okay. Yeah, absolutely. I guess I told... The dressing room, you know, I'm the non-teacher with the TV stories. They're all asking me what to watch on TV.

Half of them have seen more than I have on TV, by the way. I was in New York seven years ago, maybe now, and I was interviewing... They had all these, you know, real estate shows where hosts were selling Manhattan, I think was the show. And I was there on Global's Dine, probably. And I was done early.

And I was there another day. And I literally called their PR people and said, hey, I'm here. Is there some other New York person that's on one of your shows I could talk to? And they said, well, hold on. They called back like 20 minutes later. Do you want to talk to Donald Trump? He was host of The Apprentice, of course, back then. And I said, well, yeah. Where do I go? Go to his office. I said, what? I said, go to the Trump Tower.

And so I do. So I go up the 25th floor, and the woman who's his secretary, I guess, or office manager, who you saw on TV, welcomed me in. And then I was taken into Donald's office. And there is the messiest office you've ever seen. It's on this 25th floor. Out the window, a view of Central Park, the Park Plaza, unbelievable, just amazing. The king and his palace out the window. But XFL football trophies on the floor and pictures and broken trophies and it looked like he hadn't moved in.

pictures and broken trophies and it looked like he hadn't moved in. So we're talking and this is, even though it was seven years ago, he had already started making noises about running for president and that if he was president, he would build a wall across Mexico. I said, well, look, I'm from Canada. Would you build a wall across the Canadian border? And he goes, oh no, we love you people. We like, no. We love you people. We like you people. We like you people. Right, right. So we have our conversation.

He's nothing but flattering and cordial, charming. I sit down. He goes, you know, I phoned down to my pals at NBC, and I said, who's this guy, Bill Brio? And they said, if you speak with one journalist from Canada. I thought, oh, OK. He's buttering you up there. I left his office,

had to immediately go pee. You know, it was like a little dog that had been petted. And so I leave there, and I go down the elevator, pass the security, and it's like going to the airport, getting in and out of there.

I'm on the street thinking, I can hardly, and then I think, oh my God, I left my tape recorder running on his desk. Oh! And he had these three guys with attache cases come in after me and sit down. He had three tiny red chairs in front of his desk that were lower than his chair. Of course.

So I thought, I've got to go back. So I go to the front desk downstairs, and they arrange, they call, and they go, okay, go on up. I go up very sheepish, and she says, go on and get it. And I got a picture taken with him, too. He was great. And I knock on the door. He goes, come in.

And he's got these guys, and he's going, he has my tape recorder. He hands it to me, and he goes, that old trick, that old trick. Well, I was going to say, who knows what's on there? Right, and I said, oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry. He says, ah, go on. And he was joking, and he was great. Down the elevator, I get on the street, I duck into a corner, and I think, oh, my God, what have I got?

Are these guys Russians? Is there some collusion going on? I probably didn't think that then, but I wondered if I had something on the tape. And it's like, so, Bob, how's your kids? How's the wife? How was Disneyland? How was the trip? And it was just nothing but innocuous happy talk with Donald Trump.

That's like this is the most positive Donald Trump encounter I've heard about in quite some time. Well, he wasn't president. He was harmless. He's a reality show star. Relatively harmless. And we talk mainly about TV. But I had no, having had that experience experience it never, I couldn't consider for a minute that he could possibly be

President of the United States. I was going to ask you if you had left that meeting and somebody said we'll give you a million to one odds would you put $20 on winning the presidency, you'd probably say I'll keep my $20. I still don't believe it and I remember sitting there thinking

he has too much too many skeletons in his closet. There'll be scandal after scandal that will emerge. This can't ever possibly happen. And lo and behold. It turns out Americans aren't that particular. They don't care about the skeletons if certain other things are in their favor. I guess.

It's interesting the trades they'll make. But I can't believe that the religious right has adopted him as some kind of moral authority in families, etc. That is outrageous, but we can go on and on about that. I have one other Donald Trump story. I was with the group of critics

on the press tour. It might have been season one of The Apprentice. What he did at that point is he would visit with gatherings of reporters in groups of four or five in a, I can't remember where we were, outside at some reception. He got to our group and he started to tell us the most outrageous story I've ever heard

about Frank Sinatra. Literally, he's standing there dishing with us about he and his wife at the time, Ivanka or whoever it was, they went to pick up Frank and Barbara and they were going to go out to dinner. They got to the suite, and he said, Frank and Barbara, I have the worst fight I've ever heard. Great storyteller, by the way, Donald Trump. The worst fight I've ever heard.

There was just screaming. We could hear it in the elevator. I said, Frank, we don't have to do this tonight. No, we're doing it. We're going out to dinner. Okay, so they get in a limo and they go to this place and they're having a dinner, the worst dinner of all, the worst dinner. No one's eating. No one's looking at each other. No one's saying a word. Finally, this guy,

young man, approaches the table. They're all eating and he comes up to this Frank Sinatra, Frank and Barbara. Frank's getting on at this point and he's like, Mr. Sinatra, I can't tell you what an honor this is to meet you. You've been my idol. My lovely bride, Brenda. And he points, and there in the doorway is this woman waving. We just got married here in, wherever it was, Atlantic City or something. And

we got married to your song, My Way. We had to, and it was just so thank you for everything you've done and represent. I love your music. It's such an honor, and just thank you for everything you've done and represent. I love your music. It's such an honor. And just thank you for letting me tell you this today. And Trump says, Sinatra goes like this

and snaps his fingers, not even looking up. And Jilly, his henchman, who's somehow there, grabs this young man and beats him with an inch of his life. Holy smokes. And here's Trump telling it. There's blood all over the walls.

The woman, oh, the bride, she's on her hands and he's begging. She's crying and wailing. Oh, I couldn't believe. Anyway, nice meeting you guys. And then he left and went to the next group. Oh, wow. I wasn't sure which way that story was going to go. I mean, we're all sitting there with our mouths open.

Why did he tell us this story? It doesn't make any sense that Frank Sinatra brought his bodyguard, Jilly, to dinner with him. Anyway, just a horrible, horrible story. But none of those people, aside from Donald Trump, are either alive or a member of his family. So you can't really verify it. Now that story sounds more Trumpian, I think, than the last story. That's great. All right.

Before I forget, I have to find out, why did they, I guess they restructured you out of the Toronto Sun? Why did you leave the Toronto Sun? Is that the term we use now, restructure? Oh, my goodness. You know, there's a long story and a short story. Basically, you know, the newspapers were going down the toilet, and I was sort of last in the door.

So I'd been there seven, nearly eight years, I guess. And that was, everybody else had been there 30, 35, you know, like there was folks that had just started, and they were lifers. And so I was closest to the door. And once the union got in, things got very nasty between Quebec Corps and The Sun. And also, I started to goof on. I was the TV critic. So at the time, there was a show, Canadian Idol, was on the air. And it was hosted by Ben Mulroney. And I would point out from time to time

that he had no talent. And this seemed to anger his dad, who was the chairman of Sun Newspapers at the time. Right. And I sort of found out later that might not have been the smartest career plan for me to have done that. Even though it is astutely accurate.

I pointed out at the time that I was not the lone voice in the room at this point, but still, you know, so, but, you know, it was a great time. I loved working there. It taught me a lot.

And upon leaving, you know, the Canadian press had called when they heard the news and said, come write for us. And I've had enjoyed the last 10 or 11 years freelancing for them and other people. And I do think that what I would have missed most about the Sun isn't there anymore. You know, like the sitting with those guys. Well, they changed offices too, right?

They're with the Post guys. Yeah, no, no. They're now part of the National Post. And even Jim Slotek took a package last year. There's almost nobody there left who I knew when I worked there. Yeah, it really is sad.

I joke, it does feel like Simmons will just shut off the lights. And here's another thing, Mike. I felt at the Sun, first of all, I never felt like a newspaper man, which a lot of them were. These guys were real. I was this typist from magazines. And so I had

to learn how to do that, which was great. But I never felt like I was one of these guys. And also, I felt like I was a Tobacco and they were all Scarborough. There's a difference. All those guys really came from the East End and they would meet at the Legion and have beers and they were,

they were so into that community. And it, and I may, I don't know why, but that's how I felt. I just felt I was on the wrong side of Yonge Street. I, it's funny. I often joke with my buddy, Bob, uh, Bob Ouellette, who is, he's on the Danforth somewhere and he's an East of Yonge guy and he, his whole life is East of Yonge and he doesn't really know West of Yonge and I'm the exact opposite. Like my whole life is West of Yonge and he doesn't really know west of Yonge and I'm the exact opposite. My whole life is west of Yonge. When I get east, and I do bike rides to the Portland, so I will go in the south. That's probably, Scarborough I haven't been

in in years, to be honest with you. But I'll bike to the Portland and stuff and when I cross over Yonge, my wife happens to work at One Yonge Street, not at Toronto Star, but she works in that building. If I go east of there, I'm like, oh, I'm here, there's Chorus Quay, and oh look, I go east of there i'm like oh i'm uh here you know hey there's chorus key and oh look i'm east of young it feels funny like this is a different planet

very interesting how that works now okay so you you said you uh ended up at the the canadian press and how often can we find your uh writings in the with uh your columns I do a TV column for them once or twice a week. I just sent one off this morning, and it's fine. I've literally been in that office twice. Once I was still at the Sun, I went in and had my picture taken. I spoke to some folks.

So I'm literally just sending stories, typing them up and sending them to editors there, and it's been a great run. I've been very grateful. But it was interesting going from the Toronto Sun to the Canadian Press because at the Sun I would write a line like balloon-breasted bimbo Pamela Anderson

blah, blah, blah. And I would write that for Canadian Press and they would change it to Canadian actress Pamela Anderson. Of course, right. So there was a different culture and message, and the Canadian Press, they sell to everyone. They sell to the Catholic Register as well as newspapers and

cbc.ca and Canoe and everything else. So you had to find a voice that suited a very wide room, and that was something that was a lesson for me, certainly in the early days. But you can also,

you contribute to, like you mentioned, you're freelance, so we can see your stuff in the Toronto Star sometimes, right? Yeah, it's sold directly to them, some stories. Also, CAA Magazine,

they've got a piece on Russell Peters coming in on their summer issue, right, for movie entertainment. If you subscribe to HBO Canada, for example, you get this magazine right for them. And Hello Canada sometimes, a few other places. So you definitely, to make a living in this business,

you have to try and write three or four stories a week and sell to as many people as you can. And when I want to know what you're up to, I go to brio.tv. Yes, also known as TV Feeds My Family. And I started blogging that after the sun, so it's been almost 11 years of doing that. When I started that, that was a thing. You did a blog.

You know about all of this stuff. Since 2002, I've had Toronto Mic Drop. Well, there you go. So now I know back then, that was, you were really getting a jump. That was something. That was, you know, I remember I would go to TV Barn and read Aaron Barnhart in Kansas City, because that was

the guy. Now there's 5,000 Aaron Barnhart. He doesn't even do it anymore. So I remember, give people advice now, I don't know if I would even do a blog anymore. I think I would just write stuff and put it on Facebook. I think that that climate has changed. Well, can I tell you, I give this a lot of thought because the thing is with your blog, Brio.tv and the blog there,

that slice of the web, if you will, is owned and operated by Bill Brio. You own that. Those are your bytes. They'll be indexed by Google and the traffic is yours. You own that those are your bites they'll be indexed by google and the traffic is yours and like you own that real estate and if you you write your stuff on you know facebook now you're privy to like facebook algorithms and you're sort of at they control now they own that those bits and bytes are theirs so i i know what you're saying fish where the fish are like i hear you know they're on facebook but i gotta say i uh i'm the guy who thinks you you you your heart

the heartbeat of your digital universe is that piece of real estate that Bill Brio owns. And if that's brio.tv, that's the heartbeat and everything else just complements that. Well, it is handy to have a place to send people to. You know, if somebody wants to do a story or they're talking and you say, well, why don't you go here and read what I've written? It is, you know, something that's there's a frequency to it. It's a muscle that I used at the Sun that I get to keep using. And I got to get home

and finish a piece on Harry Anderson, right? It's a place to put opiates. So when Harry Anderson passes away, is there, we talked about Richard Krauss because he was here just last week, but like a Richard Krauss, when somebody in the movies passes away,

he's on all the Bell Media stations, right? Is there a, hey, Bill, will you jump on our station and talk about Harry Anderson? I run into Richard Krauss constantly. It's him and I going in and out of doors at CTV, at the news channel, at radio stations. At 299 Queen? Yeah, no, I'm constantly, literally,

that's where I see him. Or if Letterman is retiring or, you're right, it's generally. Tell him to get off your turf because Letterman's a TV guy. That's a Bill Brio one. You know, I'll let you to make that. It wouldn't seem right for me to say that. He should stick to the movies. Stick to movies, exactly.

And another guy that came, I think, from that Cable McLean Hunter beginnings, right? I think Richard's roots go back to Community Cable. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think so. But, yeah, no, we see each other a lot. And, yeah, especially in Hamilton, CHML radio stations there or CHCH TV will have me on, talk about the new fall season or whatever. And I used to go on with Mark Hepshire. Hepshire's a big friend of this show.

Well, Mark is great, and I would go on, and we would have the best time. For all 11 years, I would go and talk to him, and we just always hit it off and had fun on the radio, on TV. He's now a Bloor West Village guy. He's right around the corner. He's doing stuff with

Humble and Fred's studio, isn't he? Yeah, with Liz West. Yeah, yeah, Liz, exactly. He's right around the corner. He's doing stuff with Humble and Fred's studio, isn't he? Yeah, with Liz West. Yeah, yeah, Liz, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, no, this is my universe. Yeah.

In fact, I have another podcast called TMI and there's a countdown because I do like four things you should know and he's the voice of the countdown

on my other podcast, Mark Hempshire. That's really shitty what happened to CHCH. It's horrible what happened to Mark specifically. He has an ease and a style

and a way of communicating to audiences that's very personal and unique. And he's just a real survivor. And I always enjoyed every minute I was talking to him on TV. Okay, so I'm with you in that I think he's got great stories. He's a great natural-born storyteller, and he's a great presence.

But I've got to ask, so yes, good for him doing the podcast with Liz West and working that muscle or whatever, but you mentioned TV feeds your family. I don't think that podcast feeds Mark's family. Like, why can Mark—and this is respectless. I'm Mark's biggest fan. TV feeds my family, doesn't feed my family. I'm so lucky my kids have moved out and they're doing well. They're not eating as much as I'm telling you.

But why can Mark Hebbs not get a gig like other, talking Blue Jays baseball, which he used to do and he's great at? I don't understand why he can't get back in the mainstream media game. I think it's part of what makes Mark great, while we're talking about Mark here, is that it's part of maybe why it's a little difficult for him to transition. He's a very type A guy, right?

And probably there's been some bosses he's worked for who didn't appreciate that. You might be right here. I love it as a listener, as a viewer. That works. That's what you want. So somebody smart will hire Mark again. And just like you look at Jim Taddy.

It used to be Taddy in Hempshire, right? Years ago. Yes, guy. Yeah. So Jim has managed to figure out different things to do. Took him a while to sort of sort that out. But you see him now having gigs that are important ones. And I hope that if that's what Mark wants, maybe he's happy.

I will follow Mark on Instagram. He's always going on hikes and looking at falls. He's got a beautiful wife and he's golfing all the time. I don't think he's got any complaints here. The fire is probably not in the belly as hot, but I would be happy to watch him

whatever he wants to do. That's funny. You mentioned early in this episode, SCTV, and I loved SCTV as well. And there's a doc coming from Martin Scorsese. Oh, my goodness, yeah. So they're going to meet on May 13th at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto.

They've got five or six of the... But they're missing you-know-who. Rick Moranis. Rick Moranis. I have a Rick Moranis story, too. Please, because he's a Chum FM guy back in the day. And Jimmy Kimmel, I've gottenum FM guy back in the day. Yeah. And Jimmy Kimmel, I've gotten to know a bit over the years.

He's going to be hosting this. So I messaged Jimmy about it, and I said, wow, for a Canadian, this is like talking to the Beatles. And he messaged back, I'd rather talk to these guys. And I have to agree with him. So when I was at TV Guide, Rick Moranis was doing the Juno Awards, and we needed a cover story for TV Guide Canada. So my editor at the time, John Keyes, they set it up,

and they said, you go to New York and interview Rick Moranis. And Rick's people said yes, or the CBC had set it up. And then literally the night before I'm set to leave, we get word back saying, no, he doesn't want to do it. And at this point, he's starting this reputation of being kind of, you know, someone who doesn't want to be that accessible, you know. And I remember I talked to my editor, John,

and he said, what do I do? And he goes, you know what, go anyway. Say you didn't get the message. Sort of like what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis, you know, when Kennedy and... Never mind. You mentioned Khrushchev. So I get on a plane, I go there, and I show up,

and it was at a photo shoot. He was being made up to be on camera for promos or something. And I get there, and then, well, who the hell... Well, no, we told him not to come, and blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, I'm here, I'll no, we told him not to come and blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, I'm here, I'll sit outside, you know,

I know he's busy, if it takes an hour or two hours, I'll be right here. So I just wouldn't go away. So finally the door opens and he says, okay, Rick,

I'll give you five minutes. I get in and this is a long time ago. This is my daughter Katie. This is before Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and all,

and that. Well, it's around, it's around, no, no, he'd already done Honey, I think. Okay. So I'm and that. Because it's a pre-Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and a post. No, no, he'd already done Honey, I think. Okay. So I'm going to tell you it's 1990. Okay.

Because my daughter, Katie, is born in 1990. Gotcha. And it ended up, I mentioned to him, I had a baby picture. I think he had just had his first child. So it was just two dads talking about kids and how our lives had changed and how awesome it was and how crazy it was. And then for the next 45 minutes, we had just a lovely conversation

because there's no bigger SCTV fan, and him in particular. So this was a dream assignment for me, and I was so glad to get it and not have missed it. So it worked out really well, and we got the cover story. And I hope Scorsese, if he can't convince Rick Moranis to be part of this. Because Rick did do something recently, right? He did. He's come out

of the woodwork. And there was a story in Variety about how he's come out of the woodwork. I think he's still reluctant. Dave Thomas, one of the best interviews. If you ever get a chance, talk to him. He'll talk. I'd love it. He's an expert on everything. Huge Star Trek nerd.

He tried to get Rick to partner up as Bob and Doug a few times for an animated version, and at the last minute, he bailed. So he doesn't want to do a lot of that stuff, I guess, anymore. I think I'd have a better chance of getting Dave Thomas' brother on this show. Ian. Ian. Sure. Why not?

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I'm working on this show. Ian. Ian. Sure. Why not? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I'm working on that one. Now, Rick Mercer's report, the Rick Mercer report is a show that, how many years did that run? 15 seasons. And it wrapped up last week, right?

Just last week, yeah. This is going to sound terrible because I love the CBC and I am a proud Canadian, but I missed its entire run. I never caught an episode of the Rick Mercer report. Well, you know, that doesn't make you a bad person. Oh, good. You're not going to take my passport away. And you're like millions of other Canadians.

Literally, Rick would draw a million, a million and a half viewers pretty much that entire run. So there was 32 million who didn't join in. But I think some of us, I started interviewing him almost 25 years ago when 22 Minutes began. I went to Halifax. I got an assignment for TV Guide again.

Spent a week there watching them build a show from newspapers on Monday to studio taping on Friday and had a great time with that and Mary Walsh and Greg Toomey, who's crazy, and Kathy Jones. So that was fun. And so I always followed Rick's career. And he's been very good to me in certain instances. When I left The Sun, he taped a goodbye that was shown at a little gathering we had. Yeah. And he's always been a gentleman. He gave me the story when he decided to leave last September. I wrote that for Canadian Press.

So I did not, like many other shows, watch a lot of the Rick Mercer Report. I would check back a couple times a year. And I liked when I watched the parts where he was in a canoe or whale watching or on the side of a building or in a jet, one of the fighter jets. I thought that he had the best job in the world, and so did he. Like, it really was a pretty cool job. Some of his rants would go viral, I guess,

and I'd catch them, like, just catch the clip of the Rick Mercer rant, and I always thought, I think I'd like this guy. Like, I think I'd like him. For some reason, I just never caught the show. For those of you who remember the old Rick Mercer, there was that minute where he gave you political commentary. But the rest of the show was very much about Canada. And that was...

The people that watched it, I think, enjoyed that connection to it. People who were looking for the political satire may not have enjoyed the Rick Mercer report because it wasn't the show they had seen him do before. Did you catch any of this Roseanne revival? Oh yeah. And I was at the TCA session in January when everybody flipped

out. The whole... TCA has a tendency to make it all about one issue. And it was, Roseanne loves Trump. And she tweeted her support of the president. So they're all up on stage and it's just Trump, Trump, Trump questions and she was getting more pissed off.

It was fun to be. It was the best session by far of the TCA this year. I can imagine. And the thing is though, so a lot of people who are political about this show won't watch it. It's fabulous. It's a great show and I didn't think it would be any good. I thought, oh my, another remake. We're bringing this family back. Really? Aren't we going to see them

again? And they're bringing back John Goodman who they killed off in the finale, right? Right. Right. But you don't have any excuse to bring John Goodman back. I love the guy. So the good news is it's a wonderfully written show and acted. These folks, there's something, there's a connection there as a viewer that you really bonded with, I think, this family that has all these problems. And the reality of that now in Trump America, the time is perfect.

And it's a very balanced show. There's folks around that table who think Roseanne Conner is nuts for having support of this president. And there's others who get it. And I find it's far less abrasive or shrill than the Will & Grace reunion show, which very much has a liberal agenda that's just, there's no medium ground on that one. I will say, I did thoroughly enjoy the first run of Roseanne. I thought it was great.

So did I, up until the last few seasons. Well, when the millionaire, yeah, they blew the whole... It got crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You blew the whole... It got crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't make them rich. No. Yes, but then they did fit that back in. She said she made that up

to feel better when Dan died or whatever. Never, yeah. Dan never really died. They retrofitted or whatever. I know. I don't know. Do they address the fact that Dan's alive in this show?

Right, the very first moment. They're in bed, and they wake up, and he's got one of those sleep apnea machines on his face and she looks at him and says, I thought you died! Okay, there you go. That's one way to do it. The CBC

is the national, so of course Peter speaking of Cynthia Dale from Michael Power, her husband was the host of the national forever. He steps down and they replace him with four people, right? Yeah. And there was some recent article I read that said that they were disappointed with the ratings. Do you have any insight into how the new national is doing?

Well, yeah. I think that unless you have a reason for four people, it's going to look like you don't have a reason. And that's the problem with that show. I think if you've got somebody in Ottawa, you better have them interviewing a politician that night. If you've got somebody in Vancouver, cover something that's happening there. But I find most nights it's just these four people that you're bouncing back and forth

in. It might as well be some other kind of show. It doesn't seem like a... And you've got Arsenault, who's tremendous in the field. Don't put her as the anchor. Don't weigh her down with that. Let her do what she does best. Hannah Mansing is a tremendous anchor. I just assumed he was getting the gig, to be quite honest with you.

Same here. Yeah. I wrote him. I interviewed him earlier before they announced anything and I said, so when are you going to get this gig? We talked a lot. He's very good. He's very good. They're all good and Barton is good too, but there's something about that show that I find is not

working. And if you look around the world, look at the BBC, look anywhere in Europe, you don't have four people. It's not a gang tackle thing. On CTV, they got Lisa LaFlemme as their face of that show and there's no second fiddle there. It's Lisa's show. Yeah, very curious decision. And maybe as the numbers come in and they realize it's not working, they'll retool. It takes CBC at least three years to admit they were wrong. So don't hold your breath. I won't hold my breath. Okay, Rogers, you mentioned early in this episode,

you mentioned the number of viewers of a Saturday night Leaf game in the playoffs. And you're right, those numbers should be really high. But you mentioned it was 1. 1.7 overnight estimate for the Leaf game on Saturday night. I think it was a little higher. It might have been 2-point-something for the first game. So there had already been a few people stepped off, which is a bit chilling.

Now, they won last night. I don't have that number, and that'll probably be interesting to see what happens when they won last night. I don't have that number, and that'll probably be interesting to see what happens when they play again next. The Leafs, though, if they were to stay into a third round, would pull $4 million a week easily,

and maybe $5 or $6. And is that an average? Because I noticed when the press releases come out, they'll say, this is the average number, but here's the number of unique eyeballs that we had. That's how you word it. You know, lies, damn lies, and statistics. So the damn lie is reach.

Just throw that out. Oh, 10 million people reach. Well, that means 10 million people have their TV on. Okay. So there's some numbers. And really, with live sports, it is a live number. You don't have to wait seven days to get the total. It's pretty much there.

No plus seven or whatever. Right. So, you know, they're only getting half a million for Pittsburgh, Philly, or Vegas and, you know, some great hockey games. Yeah, Vegas and Kings. I loaded up on Kings in my hockey pool, and I'm getting hammered. They're going to go out in four, I think. They're down 3-0 in-0. Oh, my goodness.

Wow. It didn't look like a bad move because this is Vegas' first time. I kept waiting for Vegas to collapse. At some point, this Cinderella story has to end. I don't know. They can win the cup, right? That's what I'm now convinced of. I'm really impressed by them. Defense and offense

and goal, they're tremendous. They just come. I went with a bunch, four guys, four of us, all from Michael Power. Two Bullocks and a Kerwin and myself. We went down to Vegas three or four weeks ago. Could not get tickets to see the Knights. Wow. No. They're so embraced by everybody in that community.

I went and did a story with the Pawn Stars. Okay. You know, Chumlee and all these guys do that show where they're... I know of it for sure, yeah. Okay, so they got Chumlee and all these guys do that show where they're... I know of it for sure, yeah. Okay, so they got Chumlee. They put him in hockey gear as a goalie, and then he took shots at him, and it plays at the games. That whole community just loves the Knights.

It's quite the success story. Unprecedented. Crazy. I mentioned the paradox of choice. Right now, I'm actually watching a lot of NBA and NHL playoffs right now, but when that dries up, I'm going... I like like my blue jays but you can't watch every regular season jay's game you gotta diversify there and i like to watch shows and like i just said we watched my wife and i watched the first three seasons of game of thrones but we're always kind of sampling

things but i'm having difficulty because it feels like there's too much choice out there this is my personal feeling is that everything is awesome and I don't know what to start. So I end up re-watching something I liked 20 years ago. I'm exactly the same way. And it's even worse for me. I get sent screeners for stuff on Amazon and, you know, antenna TV.

AT&T has a network now. Like it's crazy. And some of these things are really good. Yeah. You know, Netflix has some great shows has a network now. It's crazy. Some of these things are really good. Netflix has some great shows and Crave, Letter Kenny, of course,

but I can't keep up with it, so I'll go down to the basement and thread up the projector and watch an old episode of the Dick Van Dyke show. Yes. It's funny to hear you. There's so much great new stuff sitting there that's delightfully and everybody loves, and I'll go watch an episode of The Chappelle Show from 19...

I want to calm it down. I just want the pace that I grew up with. I don't need everything kinetic coming at me. And there was something about that theatrical quality of those old sitcoms that took place on two sets over 24 minutes that I

relate to and it's part of me. So I don't know if it works for my kids or millennials, but I know what you mean by feeling overwhelmed by the choices and how many great choices there are today. It sounds like you have nostalgia for simpler times. I guess I do. I mean, I've always been out of know, out of sync with the current. So that's, I just lagged behind.

But I do think there's lessons there in some of that stuff. I show, my mom is a resident in a long-term care center up in Brampton and doing well there. And I started to show films to seniors. And it's been an eye-opener to see them respond to Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges and W.C. Fields, and it gives me an opportunity to see these films again, and it's kind of cool.

That's a great idea. I always talk about music this way when I talk about these Kick Out the Jams episodes, and if you have somebody, let's say, they're in a long-term care facility, and they're getting on, and then you play them a song that they liked when they were a teenager, like, it could be the

Swing the Mood or whatever, I don't know, right? Just give them something from their youth, and they light, you can see the spark return to their eyes. It's like a magic. It was great to hear that there's a couple of people there in their 90s who laughed, laughed, laughed, and they don't do a lot of that there, you know, so I was happy to see that response, and it was great.

No, that's fantastic. Now, holy smokes, I could easily do three hours with you, so let me get to this here. I have my theme song here. Just touch on this while you're here. Theme song here. Just touch on this while you're here. Some Tom Waits. Way down in the hole. The Wire. I say it to... I am annoying in the frequency.

I will tell people when they're looking for TV shows, I'll say, you should watch The Wire. It is the greatest show in the history of television, I will say. Because in my humble, subjective opinion, I've never seen it. Even Sopranos, which I loved, I've never seen anything as good as The Wire. What did you think of The Wire?

And tell me why I'm right. Well, I won't disagree with you. I might say that I probably like The Sopranos slightly more as a TV series, but not much else. And The Wire, I just think that that guy, David Simon, is a genius. And again, he partners up with smart people.

As a storyteller that is a journalist, as a newspaper man, he brings that sensibility to his storytelling that it's very factual and real, and those folks are flesh and blood. They really are deep, deep characters. So that's so intriguing. So much of TV is procedural. It's just like solve the crime.

Run the DNA tests and find room for eight commercials. The character-driven stuff is much more of an English thing. It's more British. That's what I like about The Wire. It spends time with these people like they are your kids,

neighbors, neighbors, friends, so that you feel it when bad things or good things happen to them. Absolutely. And there's,

you know, every once in a while for fun, I will rank my favorite Wire characters and it really does depend. Like there are 50, you know,

I don't know how many characters on the show, but there's so many great characters. Here, let me just play a little clip of Lester Freeman real quick that kind of surmises the show nicely. We's so many great characters. Here, let me just play a little clip of Lester Freeman real quick

that kind of surmises the show nicely. We're building something here, detective. We're building it from scratch. All the pieces matter. There's a character. He was in that Three Billboards. Yeah, it was good to see him.

I've been in situations where the actors have been at these press tours I was talking about in L.A. And at the one hotel where often the press tour is, it used to be, it's the Langham Hotel. It used to be another hotel. But anyway, it's a very regal, lovely old place. And they have grand pianos in various corners of it. And some of the kids from the school episodes were down at the press tour,

and I remember walking by, and there was one guy, one of them playing the piano, and four of them singing. And it was chilling to see how talented these kids were. It was beautiful. Like, you could have taped that and dropped it into one of those shows.

So Simon is casting, and direction and writing, of of course is just such a quality product that he makes and uh the wire is if you haven't seen it people resisted i think because it doesn't star one guy you know like it's it's a it's like you said there's 50 people it's a real show yeah it's a real community and um it's a bit harder to sell. What I love about it is that he could literally look at a city from five different perspectives, the police, the

politicians, the school, and give you such a rich storyline each time. The newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, and then you've got the drug dealers, the coroners. And all of them really good. Literally, that city represents America. It's not even about Baltimore. It's about the decay

of America, and it's a very smart show. And of course, even season two at the docks with Sabaka and everything, so is it, you know... Crime, yeah. All these guys are great. And all the pieces matter, like Lester Freeman said, and it all fits together, and it's just too good to be television, and I

can't believe it's in HD now on Crave TV because that box set over there is the SD. Well, in any format, watch it. It's compelling, and it's easy to catch up now. You can binge and stream and get into things that even if they are 66 episodes, make room for them. 60 episodes, absolutely.

And before we leave quickly, just a little McNulty and bunk here. Jesus, what the fuck did I do? Be happy now, bitch. A little McNulty and bunk. I find Simon, the next series he did, I think, was Treme.

Actually, I think he did Generation Kill. You're right. Very good. David Simon, guys. But the one in New Orleans, it was a little less accessible because it was, he's gone to a place now that's he's outrun me because

it was so real. When he would be at a parade in the middle of that square, it just felt like a camera shooting live me because it was so real. When he would be at a parade in the middle of that square, it just felt like a camera shooting live, and it was less structured. So it wasn't quite as easy to get into that show, but it was, I think, maybe a show that will be more appreciated years from now. I love Treme, and you're right.

Nobody talks about it. I don't think anyone watched it, except maybe you and I, actually. But John Goodman did the first season, and he was great in there. Oh, God, and the parades and stuff, yeah. The guy who plays Bunk is in that, and the guy who plays Lester Freeman,

who we played all those clips, he's in that. And I personally, I find it's almost like, so I'm a Toronto guy, and this is a New Orleans show, and they always have the locals, local musicians there there and i feel like it gives me a chance to like play local guy there like it seems so inside baseball for new orleans it feels like uh like so a lot of this guy kermit will be playing there and i'm like i don't really know kermit but i know they know him and he's a

big deal there and it just feels really authentic and cool and i love the music in that show music is great and it is authentic and cool, and definitely, if you can catch it, catch it. And even Generation Kill wasn't bad, because Ziggy is in that, right? The Ziggy from Season 2. Well, that's a sign, I think, you know, we talked about Bochco earlier, and he kept

reusing folks over and over and over again. I think you get an in-house set of players, just as Ryan Murphy does now. He does it more than anybody with all his shows. You see, obviously, he loves these folks and he keeps putting them in different roles in different shows. And The Deuce

is the new David Simon show. Yes. Another pretty good show. Yeah. Yeah, Gyllenhaal. Very brave role for her, yeah. And the guy, there's a great, I mean, they show up. Slim Charles will be there

working behind the counter in The Dews. He's in The Tremeids. He's a guy in jail in Tremeids too, but anyway, that guy's great. They're all great.

David Simon, fantastic. But I'm playing this song because I... Now, what show is this? You haven't heard of this one. It's coming soon to Amazon television. I know.

This is The Simpsons. And I used to see them on the Tracy Allman show. I would see them. Me too. And I was there for the first episode, The Simpsons. Christmas one. Yeah. And I worked at the C&E that summer, a game booth where we gave away.

Bart Simpson blew up and we had these Bart Simpson dolls. And it was the big thing to have. And Joe Sini came over and I rigged the game for him so he could win a Bart Simpson dolls, and it was the big thing to have. And Joe Sini came over, and I rigged the game for him so he could win a Bart Simpson doll. This is the summer of... God bless you. See, Joe's getting all the breaks. I don't know. Now, I have a story along those lines. Go ahead, yeah. So I'm down on a press tour,

and the Fox network used to take us to the Santa Monica Pier. You know, we would have a little party at the end of the day, and we're there with some of the folks from the Simpsons. So I'm there with the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright.

And we're playing a game. It's one of those boardwalk games where there's a booth and you squirt guns to hit the target and the thing goes up the thing. And the prizes are Bart dolls. All hanging up. So I'm sitting next to her and there's this kid running the game

and she's going, oh, I don't have a cow, man. She's doing Bart and this kid is freaking out, doesn't know what's going on and she wins and wins a Bart Simpson doll. That's amazing.

Yeah. So before it became the Homer show, it was the Bart show. That summer of 89, so not the summer of 89 summer of 90 okay summer of 90 so I did three years

of the X and I got to get it right it was 89 so the summer of 1990 the Bart craze was everywhere don't have a cow man he barely said that

on the show but it was on the t-shirts right and cowabunga did he even I think he said it maybe once in the show I don't know

I carumba I carumba right right right oh my god the Bart Simpson I spent three years working at Ontario Place. Oh, that's funny.

Yeah. That's funny. Way back in the 70s. Oh yeah. No, yeah, that was great. My first ever paying gig was at the C&E Game Booth Attendant.

But I was bringing up The Simpsons just to say that I loved that show. I used to record them to VHS and I had different I recorded all the episodes.

The first, and I would say it's, I own the first 10 seasons on DVD, 10, but it's the first six seasons I recorded to VHS and I started falling off after six, but I still liked it

and then something after 10, I felt it was done. They've done 30 seasons or something. I know, but you're right about the timing. To me, it's, you want the Phil Hartman years.

Oh, my God. Lyle Landley. His contribution to that show was pretty unique and great, and it has been missed ever since. And I think he was on the first nine. I'm Troy McClure. Troy McClure. But also those early years with Conan O'Brien,

the monorail, all those stuff. Monorail. There's just some brilliance there to them. My son and daughter have never known life without The Simpsons. Katie's 28 now. And so I was again at one of the TCA parties. And there was the creator of the comic strip,

Matt Groening. And I went up to him, we're talking, and I said, listen, I got to tell you. Life in hell. Life in hell, exactly. Now Magazine, did they carry it? Or somebody in Toronto had it. Maybe, it might have been now. Years ago. So I went up to him and I said, listen, I got to tell you. Life in hell. Life in hell, exactly. Now Magazine, did they carry it? Or somebody in Toronto had it. Maybe.

It might have been now. Years ago. So I went up to him and I said, look, my son, when he was seven or eight, came running into the room to me and he goes, Dad, Dad, there's a guy on TV right now. He sounds just like Mayor Quimby. And it was newsreel footage of John F. Kennedy. Oh, yes. Right.

The Boston accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Grady looked at me and he goes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, that's great. Ciao da, ciao da. Yeah.

And I don't remember the last time I actually saw a Simpsons episode, but I'm kind of glad it exists because I have this vision of me, like maybe I'm on my, like a prolonged deathbed or something as an old, old man. And maybe then I just stream episodes

of The Simpsons and there would be, like, so much material there for me to catch up on. Like, maybe this can happen. There's 630 episodes. It's already there. It's, you know, but it, you know, again, we talked about greatest sitcoms, Seinfeld, Curb, definitely The Simpsons, just

for brilliance and for longevity. It was funny as all hell, but there was a tender side, and I don't know if it's still there, but that first six seasons, first ten seasons, there was a tender side to The Simpsons, like a heartwarming tender side that I really liked. That was Jim Brooks, and

I think even Simon who passed away, Sam Simon, but Brooks in particular, he made you care about Homer and Marge and the kids. And I think they got away from that a little bit when they just made Homer insane. Made him stupid.

Yeah, they made him insane. I read these things with the Simpsons and they'll be like, oh, when Homer went to space that was it or whatever. And you're like, oh yeah, Homer went to space. That's a great episode though. Yeah, I know.

And James Taylor has his, his 3D ones and stuff. Oh, that's great. And that's where you get the great, uh, uh, the answer on the camera

and, uh, Ken Brockman makes his plea to the, our new overlords or whatever. But please, uh, Bill,

we need to kick out a jam. I've taken two hours of your precious time here. Oh, I'm having a great time. No problem. Let us hear a little bit of this and talk about why kick out a jam. I've taken two hours of your precious time here. Oh, I'm having a great time. No problem. Let us hear a little bit of this and talk about why you love this jam. This is Charles Wright.

Charles Wright, no. The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. This is the medley of their hit. You can't listen to this. We're both sitting here moving our heads, right? And that bass line is incredible. The drums, the horns, and Charles Wright. Oh my God. Every little grunt. It's not what you look like when you do what you're doing.

What you're doing when it looks like you're doing it. There it is. That's all you need to know. There aren't a lot of lyrics to this song, but they're all right on the nose. I think part of it is nostalgia for me. I think I was a grade 8 when this song came out in 1970, I think. And it's a sound I never forgot. And if I ever got my own radio or TV show, I'd want this as the theme song, Express Yourself. Funky as all hell.

Funky as all hell. express yourself. Funky as all hell. Funky as all hell. There's something about that sound like that Stax Records in Memphis had the same kind of, those horns instead of a choir. And that was just a sound

that was so identifiable for me. And I think growing up in Toronto too, and especially I'm older, we got all the Motown stuff first, it seemed, after Detroit. And that was just a very, that was the beat I grew up with maybe more than even the Beatles at that time. Interesting. Now, you're well aware that the song was used in a rather popular NWA song. And a lot of kids today hear this.

Right. I say kids, like the 35-year-old, 40-year-old guy is the kid who would remember NWA. But what's even funnier is I think it's been used in commercials and other things as well. So the NWA did take it into another direction. But this Charles Wright is still with us. He's, you know, and God bless him.

I hope he never stops singing this song. This is, it's fair to say, even though I hear they had a string of hits, but this is their biggest hit, Charles Wright. May have had more. I'm only really aware of this one. And his, listen to this guy. It's so infectious and live. Imagine if you could play bass like this.

That's all you'd ever want to do. It's got a little like James Brown influence. Absolutely. You are so right. You're right. So there are folks listening to this saying, well, why are you listening to The Imitation? It's because I grew up with this song and I was probably 13.

You know, those are the things you cherish. You find those touchstones and they stay with you. I say it every week when I kick out the jams of somebody that if you ask anybody what's their favorite music, it's the music they loved when they were a teenager. Like that never leaves you, never. No. It's why I got a Public Enemy shirt on the wall

because of the recent stuff. No, because I listened to, and speaking of James Brown, they took a James Brown grunt and made it a lyric and it was so multi-layered, that Public Enemy stuff and a lot of James Brown influence in there for sure. I remember talking to Roger at Chum AM. Roger Ashby. It's so multi-layered, that Public Enemy stuff, and a lot of James Brown influence in there, for sure. I remember talking to Roger at Chum AM. Roger Ashby. Roger Ashby has been around forever and ever.

So when I was a kid, he was probably queuing this record up. And I talked to him about all these. You could ask him. He's like a living jukebox. What about Resurrection Shuffle? A bunch of songs from this era that stuck with me that have disappeared, and he told me who did it and when and where they recorded it.

But it's definitely music I love. Yeah, Ashby's been on this show and that was a treat because my mom was a 1050 chumbug. Oh wow, really? And then you got Ashby and it's like, we all know him from

Roger, Rick and Marilyn. Even though Rick hasn't been there in like 15 years. We still call it that. And yeah, he had a long history with Chum AM when that was the biggest station in the country for music. I still have the Chum Charts with Roger on the front. And definitely, yeah. Hold on to them because when Bell bought Rogers, the Chum charts that were online disappeared and they aren't archived anywhere. So those chump charts are a treasure there. That's a shame.

And it's the same with TV Guide. It's not archived. And they threw out all the hardbound copies they had at the building. If you go to the public library in Toronto, they have microfilm copies of American TV Guides. go to the public library in Toronto. They have microfilm copies of American TV guides. But it's a history of CH and CFTO and all those channels that it's kind of lost. When we're finished, I'm going to show you my CHCH posters

that are actually right behind you against the wall. Mr. Eleven? You want to check out those guys? Yes, I'm looking at this poster, and this was CHCH. For some reason, they were able to scoop the big guys, and they had full policewoman, medical center, bronc, dyna. They were the first channel in Canada. The next one, even better, you've got Starsky and Hutch,

and you've got Little House on the Prairie, and you've got Beretta. Hawaii Five-0, they totally kicked ass. And they were the first station to have to show in Canada Gone With The Wind because the booker was an old film booker and he had a relationship

with the studios and that's how they sort of jumped the pack but they were huge you have to promise me you'll come back and kick out the jams

and we can do more of this chat I could easily do this for several hours we can come back my pleasure Mike it's great hanging with a fellow Michael Power grad.

A Trojan. And a Tobian. So thank you very much for having me here. And that brings us to the end of our 327th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Bill is at, is it at BillBrioTV? BillBrio, at BillBrioTV for Twitter, yeah.

And the website you should go to is Brio at Bill Brio TV for Twitter yeah and this website you should go to is Brio.TV yeah spell Brio for the people B-R-I-O-U-X-T-V so I wanted to make it

really difficult for people to find so I used my spelling of my own name that's great our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer

propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee Go Raptors Go that's tonight Paytm is at Paytm Canada. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true