Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Christmas Crackers, Vol. 3: Toronto Mike'd #558

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

Mike and Ed Conroy present Retrontario Christmas Crackers Vol. 3 featuring Dave Duvall, Uncle Bobby, Just Like Mom, CityPulse, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Wayne and Shuster, and The Silent Partner.

We know things are bad, worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radios, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone. Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad.

What up, Miami? Toronto. I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad. Welcome to episode 558 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Ryan Master from KW Realty, and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com, and joining me this week is Mr. Retro Ontario himself, Ed Conroy. Good day, Mr. Boone. Long time no see. Look at you, beautiful Christmas angel. I'm looking over at you.

And it's been at least, it's been a year, right? You were here for Christmas Crackers Volume 2. And I looked out my window every week, just like pressed my nose against the window looking for ed but here you are in the flap so happy to see you it's great to be back man thank you for having me i have a lot of questions i want to catch up with you but you got a which brew ski do you got there i've never even heard of this one monty with a nice dog on the front uh. Okay, your job is to crack that open and let us know how it tastes.

It's got a nice aroma. Yeah, you're like a... What are they called? Those people who... Beer connoisseurs? Yeah, there's another word. Solomier or something. I'm butchering that word.

That's a tough word for me and I'm all burnt out here. Okay, thank you right off the top to Great Lakes Brewery for, they're really literally fueling this Christmas cheer here today and Ed's taking a six pack of Great Lakes beer home with him today.

If there's any left. Yeah, really? Are you kidding me? Because Ed's not driving so this could be gone. That ride from Mimico to Scarborough goes a lot quicker when you're on the GLB. I'll bet, I'll bet.

So please enjoy, and thank you, Great Lakes. We were talking before I pressed record about the winter ale they have over here. You picked some up yesterday? I did. I mean, I think the first time I ever had it was during a Christmas cracker, and I wait for December to hit

so I can go into the LCBO and get it. I'm sorry I don't have any here today, actually, because I do enjoy sharing the winter ale with you on these festive episodes. How are things? Now, there's a lot here. I have some notes and some quick hits here. But let's start with the mighty 1010, News Talk 1010. Do we still hear Ed Conroy on 1010?

Yes, you do. If you're a 1010 listener, I'm on the Jerry Agar show. I do the Wednesday morning panel with usually with George Smitherman and Randy Rahamin. She's a spin doctor.

And of course, George Smitherman was the old Liberal Party of Ontario. If I may, Mr. Conroy, if I may, we have a regular commenter on the open mics named Cheryl. Cheryl visually impaired, but she's been commenting for, I want to say for a decade,

just every single day. Today is her birthday, and she will never hear this because she lets me know she doesn't listen to podcast. She just loves to comment and read the open mic comments on TorontoMic.com. But her favorite politician of all time is Georgeorge smitherman wow i can see that he he he actually reminds me of another george george the animal steel oh get out of here he kind of looks like he used to eat the turnbuckle yeah and he had the green tongue and i had used to have a figure

like a plastic action figure of him yeah because it would be the most like mass in king kong bundy those would be the most mass. Yeah, that's right. In King Kong Bundy. Yes. Yeah, and he was in, if you ever listened to the wrestling album, when The Origin of Music or whatever, Captain Lou Albano opens with kind of some grunting

from the great Georgie Animal Steel. That's right. Yeah. So it's quite a bear pit in there, especially when the news is hot, as it's been a lot lately. And right now it's hot because... I know.

I wish I was on there today. Andrew Scheer has resigned because he was apparently using conservative party money to fund his child's private school education, as people do. Right. Ethical people, Michael. If you were a multimillionaire,

would you put your kids in private school? If I was a poor man, I would try and put my kids in private school. I went to a private school. Because I am a poor man. Oh, you went to a private school. I went to a private school. My parents weren't rich,

but it was, I think, a very good experience and I would hope to be able to give the same opportunity to my kids. Okay, but you have kids. Are they in public school or private school? They're in public school right now. Listen to what you just said. If you are poor, I would put them in.

Early days, right? I mean, let's be honest here. You don't actually need to go to school until grade three. I think that's when the real stuff starts. It's really just a hangout club until then. When did they introduce Uncle Bobby to the curriculum? Is that grade three? Are we going there already? No, no. I'm just a hangout club until then. When did they introduce Uncle Bobby to the curriculum? Is that grade three? Are we going there already?

No, no. I'm just a little teaser of things to come. A little teaser. So 1010, Jerry Agar, who obviously heard you once on Toronto Mic and said, that sounds great. I'm going to steal that and put that on 1010. I'm happy for all of you.

No, it's great. I do another segment on 1010 with him that's more focused on retro Ontario stuff. So we talk a lot about the history of the city. And I always try and tie it, obviously, to contemporary events. So, like, for example, yesterday we were talking about Vision Zero and why I think things like the Elmer, the safety elephant should come back and Blinky should come back because those things worked in the past. There's no reason why they were retired. And those are, we mentioned

Uncle Bobby off the top there and now we talk about Elmer and Blinky and these are really like retro Ontario on Toronto mic staples. They're like pillars, the pillars of this whole iconic pieces of our lore. Especially because we are of course Toronto kids

and I'm going to ask for more updates on all the other stuff you're up to but I just want to tell you prior to your arrival today I spent an hour with Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall and that was a big deal to me because I loved Kids in the Hall like this is my first kid on

Toronto Mic'd and I was like it was like a bucket list stuff it was amazing and he was really great. And he revealed that, okay, so we all know this is the theme song to Kids in the Hall. This is Having an Average Weekend by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. But it was revealed to me by Kevin that they were voting, I guess the five of them were voting on two songs by Shadowy Man and a Shadowy Planet. And four members voted for that. But Kevin voted for this.

So we were pretty close to having this as the theme song to Kids in the Hall. This is called Bennett Surf. Surf is spelled C-E-R-F if you're looking to dig it up. But, you know, I mean, if this had been the theme, we probably would have grown to love this just as much. But it's hard to think back on what it would have been like if a different song opened up that iconic Toronto

comedy show. So there you go. I only learned that today, and I'm excited to share it with you. That's cool trivia. You can use that maybe in one of your newsletters, because tell me, I know, as you know, the mighty Mark Wiseblood visits once a month. Yes. Yeah, I look forward to every one of his visits.

And he's a Mr. 1236, where you're Mr. Retro Ontario. But you guys have something in common with regards to Substack, right? That's right, yeah. You know, I was obviously a huge, I am a huge fan of 1236. I love the newsletter as a concept. Mark hit me up earlier in the year and asked me if it was something I'd ever thought about.

It actually wasn't something that I had ever entertained as a concept to get the Retro Ontario stuff out. And he kind of held my hand through the initial stages. And now we do it almost every week. It's incredible fun. It's an absolute honor to work with Mark, somebody I always wanted to work with on something. And so this has just been a great opportunity to do that. And he gets it, man. I mean, he understands that platform. He understands, you know, just as an editor, right? Like I, I send him a bunch of junk every week and he molds it into this, uh, I think a really tight little newsletter. So it's, it's really, uh, you know, it's a, it's, it's both of us. It's, it's, uh, it's a joint effort.

He gets it. That's why I give him two and a half hours every month. He gets it. And I know that, you know that. And if I may say, you get it. I've said this so many times. I have to say it again because it's been a year since I saw you. To me, the two most important people when it comes to this nostalgia merchant, what we're doing here, the two most important people

to me are Mark Wiseblood and Ed Conroy. Oh, bless you, sir. I can't imagine doing what I do without you guys doing what you do. I, bless you, sir. I think, I don't, I can't, I can't imagine doing what I do without you guys doing what you do. I'm telling you right now. Well, yeah, we play off each other a lot, don't we? And even though I haven't been here in a year, I feel like I'm here all the time because

I listen to your broadcast and I, and I follow you on social media and I get excited about all the stuff you get excited about. So there you go. Look at this mutual admiration society. It's funny because since you were last on, I had to redo the whole Chum 1050 retrospective with somebody who was there, Doug Thompson. So thank you, Doug.

And I always remember that's when me, you, and Mark, we ended up in the same room. Yes. We gave that a go many years ago now. So I had to redo it. Not that ours was so terrible, but we needed somebody who was there. And that was early days.

I mean, that was a long ass time ago. And in fact, later on, hopefully in the show we get to it, a little bit of a throwback to that was something else. But that's a great little bit of history. I plan to get to everything. I'm just going to warn you right now.

So you'll have to tap your head if you need a bathroom break through this, because, you know, you're going to be down in some booze there. Now, what about Moses? Are you doing anything

you can tell us with Moses Znamier? Moses Znamier? Yeah. Did I butcher that? Znamier? Why isn't it Znamier? You know what?

It's funny. A lot of people pronounce it different ways. I've met people who call him Mr. Nimer. Like the Z is silent. Can I tell you? I have trouble coming up.

First of all, it's a Z. I just want to point it. I have trouble coming off the Z into the N. Like there needs to be something between the two in my, like a vowel is missing. You know what I mean? So I struggle with that. And I forget about the Amir versus Imer. Like I'm too focused on the Z.

Anyways, you say the name and tell us what you're doing with that visionary. He is indeed a visionary and he never sleeps and he's always got a million things going on, as you might imagine. Like any other visionary that you're working with, you come in and out of their life. You know, long periods of time go by where I don't see him and then I'll be in his office like multiple times in a week. It's always surreal to be in there, to be listening to him,

to see him laugh at things I say or twig some memories that he might have about something from 40 years ago. And do you still see my good friend Jay Gold, Joel Goldberg? I see Joel all the time uh primarily because we were working on something uh that unfortunately blew up uh are you are you allowed to tell us yeah now you've got my attention sure i like when things blow up i don't wish them to blow up well you know i mean it was it was a sad story ultimately It was, I think I told you about this two years ago. We had got the rights to make a documentary

based off of Christopher Ward's book about the first 10 years of Much Music. And we worked very, very hard over two years with Bell to sort of put this deal together. And unfortunately, it was totally untenable and it was officially canceled two months ago. That's heartbreaking to me. I need you to tell me about that.

And I was quiet. I thought it was off the record, so I haven't said it anywhere. But I've been thinking about it a lot since you told me about it because it's for me, right? This is on the target audience here. Wow.

Okay, so what? Just what? They don't think there's enough interest? No, I mean, again, I have to be slightly diplomatic how I explain how it all went down. I mean, what was ultimately the most heartbreaking thing about this for me is obviously I see a lot of stories like this that I think merit a feature-length documentary.

And the Much Music story was like a no-brainer. I mean, they actually kept all of the footage. The footage is all there. Most of these things are gone, but Much Music, it's almost all there. They had people there at Bell that were really passionate about doing this. You had Randy Lennox, a guy from the music industry running the network. Everything was lining up. What ultimately sunk it, and what worries me about doing anything like this in the future, is the cost

of licensing the footage. It literally came down to that. Is it just that it might include a song? I'm assuming that's all you have to license, right? Is that music? No. It was the actual footage. And even though this was going to end up on Crave,

it was going to be a Bell product. Which Bell owns, right? Right, Bell owns it. It was why we took it to them. It made sense. You've got the footage. It's your streaming service. They still had to, on paper, charge us to use clips.

And it literally got to a point where it was going to be so expensive there was no way an investor would put their money into it because they'd never get it back that's infuriating because you think they could charge a penny or something like you think that this is just a line item they can someone has a admin privileges and can change it to a penny joel and i and another fellow by the name of Christopher Hope, who is one of the great sort of... Did he lose all hope in this endeavor? He's one of the great legal minds.

He's a lawyer, but he's a copyright lawyer. And he worked on this fantastic documentary about the Wrecking Crew. I don't know if you've ever seen that. You should check it out. All your listeners should check it. It's a great music documentary. It's not the Muscle Shores one. No, not Muscle Shoals.

The wrecking crew was the backup band for everybody from Beach Boys to Elvis to Frank Sinatra. They did all this. So you can imagine a movie about them had to use all of that music. And I mean, on paper, it was like, I forget the number, but it was so ludicrous he was able to go in figure out how to game it to get it down to a reasonable amount he tried his

hardest we all tried our hardest and it was not not meant to be unfortunately maybe one day somebody will figure out how to do it and and make a killer doc I know there's lots of people that were touched by much music that want to go back and celebrate that time. I know your work and I know how not only excellent at your craft but you're passionate about this subject matter and it just knowing who's kind of behind this

and what it could be and the fact that it doesn't happen because of licensing expense and it's as a person who wants to uh absorb this you know uh content that's super frustrating man that is super frustrating that said uh what's happening out there right now i'm sure you're well aware is the major networks uh the major corporations are all struggling because they're not as nimble as players like yourself, players on YouTube, people that are doing their own thing. And those people

are not paying attention to copyright in the same way. Obviously, they should, but they don't. And so I don't know where it's all going to end up. But I like to think that it's a fluid situation so i never give up hope i hopefully one day like i said the documentary will get made it it deserves to be made i mean the story is is a magnificent story and it's just as timely now now you need to make the documentary about this uh with maybe ed the sock or somebody like you know what i mean well you know it's funny ed the sock kersner obviously was a big part of much music but you know what i mean well you know it's funny ed the sock kersner obviously was a big part of much music but you know he was later right he's like the the third or fourth wave the sort of 90s late 90s yeah like the george strombolopoulos yeah

totally that that era and that's a fascinating era but i feel like that's not my era do you know who was on uh within the last few weeks in, this person returned to guest on another show I'm producing for Ralph Ben-Murgy. So she's been- Oh, Laurie Brown. Laurie Brown. That was a great episode, mate. Yeah, Laurie Brown, an absolutely phenomenal person with so many wonderful stories. And she's the third female VJ in the history of that station, as you know, but very few

people know this because everybody thinks she's the second. The second, but I think Erica M was the first. This poor old Kathleen McLennan? Yeah, that sounds right to me, but yes. And that's an answer to a trivia question that nobody asked, but okay. By the way, I guess you've heard that there's a consortium of former VJs

that are trying to sell a syndicated show. So I know Steve Anthony, Erica M, I want to say Master T, Christopher Ward, I think. Yep, yep. Who else? You know? I think that's it. That's a pretty good crew, though.

No, it's OG, right? And it's, I believe, modeled after the Sirius Radio 80s on 8, which is all the old MTV first wave VJs. Oh, Michael Williams, I think Michael Williams, of course, how could we forget Michael Williams? Um, and I mean,

it makes perfect business sense, right? But again, they're struggling with it as, as far as I understand, they, they have a distribution, but it's not through bell proper.

It's through like a secondary bell. Well, what I last update I got was a facebook post by erica i think in which she said that no station in toronto picked it up like yeah what nonsense hey i mean this is the kind of thing that we bump up against every day and joel and i have tried on the much music project and other projects to push this through and it's like on one hand the world is blowing up with nostalgia and hollywood films and streaming services. Everything's making money off nostalgia.

Nostalgia is so hot right now. And yet you try and sell local Toronto nostalgia, and people sit around going, oh, I don't know. I don't know if there's an audience for that. So it's terribly frustrating, but we keep at it, right? Well, good at you,

because you're doing it above the board legally, and I always wonder like you could go rogue and just go underground and these things would just release like banksy style or something it'd be like oh here's a rogue unauthorized documentary available on this uh dark web channel well we might have to do that we'll be forced i will help share the love when that happens that's when that's when i'll get excited so So between the 10-10, the Moses, the 12-3, by the way, a shout out to JJ. And she likes to be mentioned on the 12-36 episodes. And this is not a 12-36 episode,

although it sounds like one, doesn't it? But I think she was worried that I had made comments to Mark Wiseblood that he had stolen you from me because I felt like we had this thing and you were going to come on. I was dreaming of a Retro Ontario podcast. And then Mark swoops in and he's working with you on this newsletter this uh subzack so i think just for the record um he didn't steal you from me like we both uh share you and one day one day and i don't

even care if it's with tmds or by yourself whatever but could we one day have a Retro Ontario podcast? I would love to do a Retro Ontario podcast. I actually had slash have one in development with Newstalk 1010. But like everything else, at the corporate level, it moves like a tortoise, right? And I guess this would be like part of the Bell Media podcast. I don't even know what they call theirs. But I'm sure it's like, so there part of the Bell Media podcast. I don't even know what they call theirs, but I'm sure it's like, so there's probably a Bell Media podcast. Yeah, again, it's a little bit unusual.

It's not the iHeartRadio podcast network, which is a different thing, which I believe licenses a lot of American podcast content. No, they've got one with the lady who ran lady who ran against tori keys matt oh yeah yeah jennifer jennifer keys matt has has a podcast on 10 10 there might be a few other ones you know like i said the radio stations are really scrambling because they see guys like you uh and plenty of other interesting people that are eating into their world, right? But the problem is they can't move as quickly as you can.

And so they're in a weird place right now. I don't feel sorry for them. I'll be honest with you. My heart's not bleeding for Bell Media. But I do hope that we can get something from you in the much music front because I think it would be amazing. So you're drinking your beer from Great Lakes.

I have in the freezer upstairs, I have a frozen lasagna for you courtesy of Palma Pasta. Amazing. My family is going to be like blown away by this. Where were you last Saturday at TMLX 5 at Palma's Kitchen? I looked amongst the crowd,

whereas Ed didn't see him out i saw the pictures i listened to a bit of it i was at the hbo christmas party my wife works for hbo so unfortunately that had been in the calendar for like the last four months that's a good excuse i'm going to accept that one for sure you would have liked it though because uh gene volitis from jcg showed up uh larry fedorik who's on tom rivers peter gross was there with the man who credits peter gross with his career which is mike wilner oh yeah there was a great exchange there uh humble howard showed up from humble and fred uh perry lefkoe came in with uh some great uh frank d'angelo stories has he sent you any more uh cease and desist he's the one who uh didn't

like you using his uh d'angelo apple juice with wendell that's right you know it's funny i've gone many times i've had that clip loaded up to put it on facebook or put it on instagram and i i'm still kind of afraid of that guy and yeah you know his whole shadow over the whole uh murder that big berry and honey the sherman murder case and i just you know what i love the wendell clark 80s 90s commercials but it's not worth it right so you know what your instincts are good there yeah same instincts that keep him from coming down the stairs here so trust your instincts okay so you got your lasagna you got your beer sticker you they just opened the world's largest sticker store on Queen and Bathurst. We're going to have a TMLX

there. I'm going to say it now. I'm going to say it now. TMLX6 will be at Sticker U at Queen and Bathurst. Nice one. Maybe you can get some pads. Some pads. Paper pads. Pads, pads, pads.

Oh yes, paper pads, yes. I don't know if Sticker U does paper pads, but maybe they do. But I't know if sticker you just paper beds but they probably maybe they do but i do know that they do stickers and they do more than that because we gave out these great magnet badges at tmlx5 by the way they have a pop-up store in square one so if you're a person go to square one and check out the sticker you uh pop-up store because stickers make great holiday gifts and stocking stuffers so So thank you, StickerU, for this. Yeah, you took it already. The Toronto Mike sticker that Ed now has in his possession. Brian Master. I want to shout out Brian Master, who's been a great friend of the show these past

few months. Here's a Christmas greeting from Brian. Hi, I'm Brian Master, sales representative from Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage. It's great to be on Toronto Might, and there's so much going on in the real estate market. Email me at letsgetyouhomeatkw.com. We'll get you hooked up to our client appreciation program. No obligation, great information once a month, and we'll stay in touch with you. And speaking of stay in touch, we're glad you're in touch with Toronto Might, and we're wishing you a very Merry Christmas, happy holidays, however you're spending it and a very prosperous and healthy 2020. Brian was at a Palmer's kitchen for TMLX five as well. Great to see him there.

And Bo shout out to again, Doug Mills who sent me a note yesterday to say he, he was arranging a catering for a party of 70 people. And they're going to Palma's Kitchen. So on palmapasta.com, he did it all. And he put in the notes, because you sponsor my favorite podcast. Wow.

So thank you, Doug. A wonderful FOTM, that's for sure. I'm now playing some TTC Skedadler before we get to Christmas Crackers Volume 3. There's still a Stompin' Tom Christmas Ornament giveaway going on, courtesy of Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. So go to whiskeyjackmusic.com, click Store on the top of the page, and if you buy a copy of Duncan Fremlin's book, My Good Times with Stompin' Tom, or any of the Whiskey Jack Stompin' Tom CDs,

you get entered in a draw to win the Stompin' Tom or any of the Whiskey Jack Stompin' Tom CDs. You get entered in a draw to win the Stompin' Tom Christmas ornament. They're going to do the draw on December 15th and they'll express post the ornament to you the next day. Alright, my friend. Do you want me... I know where we're starting. Do you want me to play it or do you want to

set it up first? This is the Dave clip. Mr. Duvall. Yeah, let's rewind we're starting do you want me to play it or do you want to set it up first this is the uh the dave clip uh mr duvall yeah let's let's rewind a little bit um i had the great pleasure of working on a really cool project uh the last few months with uh with a fellow named dave hodges great guy uh producing a series about the history of game shows in Canada. And his last name is Hodges with an S? Yes. So close to Dave Hodge.

And he looked me up and said, we're doing this thing and we'd love to interview you because we know that you know about some of these wacky old game shows that used to air that were filmed in Toronto. And then he also offered me the opportunity to help them transfer a bunch of tapes because they had all these weird old tape formats that they needed to get clips from. So I had the great privilege of spending many, many hours looking through all of these old game shows

and then to go and to be part of it and be interviewed and talk about it. And they did the interviews down at Zoomer in the television museum. It's a great location to do docs and to interview people because you get all the televisions in the background. And he told me, I got the call sheet you know be here at this time and blah blah hair makeup and i saw that directly after me they i forget who they interviewed before me but i had like a two-hour slot and then after me was dave devol wow and i kind of flipped out like i was like like the real dave devol like i mean i knew he was still around but he's a pretty private guy i i knew other people that had tried to get him to do things

and and they just couldn't get a hold of him and and my friend dave was like oh yeah it's it's him yeah he's coming down to talk about his role in definition right of course the great cfdo glenn warren agent court studios definition and so you know i did my bit i did my interview right? The great, the great CFDO, Glenn Warren, Adrian Court Studios definition. And so, you know, I did my bit, I did my interview and I was like nervous. I was, I, I felt like those people probably feel it, uh, you know, Star Trek convention when Shatner like is around and you're like, Oh my God, he's, he's over there. He just walked in the room and, uh, he was in hair and makeup and I could hear his voice. I could hear room and uh he was in hair and makeup and i could hear his voice i could hear him talking to the ladies in hair and makeup and it was just like slaying me

because you know obviously he was the voice of that channel of cfto and as a kid watching flintstones at lunchtime or watching uncle bobby in the morning or watching any of those things he was the mark daly of cfco absolutely and then he also was the weatherman right on on nightbeat news and then he was also you know a commercial guy who did television commercials and he did game shows he did all this stuff so it was like you know absolute living legend. And I guess now is as good a time as any to drop that clip. Good morning, boys and girls. It's time for Cartoon Playhouse. With all kinds of fun and adventure.

We'll have act one in just a moment. So yeah, what, I mean, the pipes. Wow. The pipes are calling. When Ken Shaw just announced his retirement, and somebody linked to a YouTube clip of a very young Ken Shaw. He's been there a long time. Oh, yeah. And it was him talking to Dave Duvall

at some kind of a fundraising thing or something. And was just yeah I was just hearing Dave Duvall's voice just takes you right back it takes you right back and I cannot tell you Mike you know obviously I've gone over my fanboy nerves and I spoke to him at length I probably freaked him out because I was like, there was some inside baseball questions. But he was the nicest guy I've ever met. I mean, even if I didn't know who he was, he just was this absolute

gentleman and so polite and so knowledgeable and was all young people on the set. I don't want to sound like an old dude, but it was all very young women in the hair and makeup. You were surrounded by millennials. It was millennial city, right?

And there's Dave Duvall, and he's making them laugh, and he's telling jokes, and it was just so great, right? So, of course, what do I ask him when I get the nerve up to go talk to him? Can I guess? Please do. Did you ask him about Uncle Bobby? Of course I asked do I ask him when I get the nerve up to go talk to him? Can I guess? Please do. Did you ask him about Uncle Bobby? Of course I asked him about Uncle Bobby. Of course that was the first thing.

Not, you know, what was, you know, how long did you do, how many takes did it require for the sign-off or the sign-on or, you know, what was your favorite pun on definition? No, no, no. It was what's you know, what was your favorite pun on definition or no, no, no, it was what's going on? What's your best Uncle Bobby memory? And of course, he dropped a great one on me. He said at the Agent Court Studios back in the day, I guess they had sort of a control room, sort of head office, I guess. And he said, that's where all the beautiful secretaries were. All the prettiest young secretaries were all up in that room.

Like Jennifer Marlowe. Yes, totally, totally. That's all I can think of. And also in that room, there was the master, not master control, but a master audio for the whole whole building so if they had to do a fire drill or if you know the president had to make an announcement he went up to that room where all the secretaries were and did it so of course he said uncle bobby was up in that room all the time oh i bet all the legend holy but he wasn't, the way that Dave was telling me the story wasn't salacious. It was very, oh, you know, of course, he was Uncle Bobby.

He was making them laugh. And he would go on the PA system and he would make funny jokes. And we would be on the set and we would all ha, ha, ha. We would all laugh. Why? This is your documentary, Uncle Bobby. Well, let's talk about uncle bobby i mean i've every time i come here it's like you know i found out a little bit more information and why is it people

always why are we so obsessed with uncle bobby and i think it's maybe because uncle bobby represents he you know he's the best example of how different maybe things were then and how you and i would have grown up watching it and not really thought much about it then but now it's like looking back into this bizarro world and and how did it happen why you know this guy who who didn't sweat sweat he sweat glenn livid uh you know how did this guy get to be in this position and and the best part of it is always with these guys the rise and then the fall right like any great story you need the rise arc in the fall and the rise of uncle bobby was a little bit before our time we were there for the fall right we were there for the the sad end of it when he was driving the school buses to supplement his income.

And he was the butt of jokes. However, I've been doing a lot of research for the rise. And I posted a little bit on Twitter there last night. I never knew this, but he used to drive around in a double-decker red London bus, okay, in the early days. That was his shtick and he would roll up to events and there was literally i found this it's like a menu if you want to hire uncle bobby

all right and the prices started at ten dollars if you just want uncle bobby to come and show up at your kid's birthday party or at your Christmas party, it's $10. What's that in today's dollars? I need to know because that sounds like a bargain. Yeah, it was. I mean, I think it was even. This is like $71, $72. Wow.

And then it started to get a little bit more expensive. He just drives by and waves out the window for $10. Well, no, no, no. The $10 is he takes a cab and shows up. $50, he shows up at your party, but he does magic tricks. Wow. Okay. $150, he brings the double-decker bus.

Wow. And that was his going rate. So you had the three tiers of Uncle Bobby. Because there's this whole side now, and then I'm thinking of the double-decker bus. I'm thinking one deck for the kids and one deck for the moms is what I'm thinking here. I'm sure.

I mean, the double-decker bus precedes the shagging wagon for sure. And, you know, I didn't have the, it wasn't, I intended to ask Dave Duvall about the shagging wagon, but I didn't have the heart because he was just such a nice guy. And it was like, you could tell he never would say a bad thing about anybody. Right. He was just one of those cats. You got to read the room.

Totally. I'm with you. I know this from experience. So, you know, I'm fairly interested in the Uncle Bobby legacy. And here's the kicker, Mike. I had the best Uncle Bobby story ever, literally under my nose for my whole life, and I only found out about it recently.

I was at my parents' house, and I don't even remember what it was, but I was talking about Uncle Bobby, and my dad said, oh, did I ever tell you the Uncle Bobby story? And I was like, what? No. What Uncle Bobby story? What are you talking about? So this one, a little bit of rewind rewind a little bit of setup for this one um long before i was born my parents had uh an old english

sheepdog and mr muggs exactly like mr muggs okay taught me to read they were well english sheepdogs were a big thing in the 70s it was a very like a lot of people had them you don't really see them that much now but in the 70s they were a big deal i don't know why like shag carpeting what a wild decade man and you know corduroy hat there yeah well corduroy shag carpeting uh english sheepdogs and And smoking butts everywhere. You know, that was the decade. So yeah, they had this sheepdog. She was named Crunchy.

And I remember a little bit, because I was born in 76, it was when she was quite old. But Crunchy was so talented, she had been taught basically how to dance, which is so weird. But my parents had taken her to this trainer who taught her to do a dance and she'd roll around and go on the ground and get up and do all these things and the way that the trainer got her to perform was to feed her grapes okay

okay and so my parents were having this christmas party again long before i was born and they had all these people in the house. Probably everybody was smoking butts. And they brought the dog out and she did her party tricks. And there was this one guy there who just freaked out. And he goes, oh, my God, I'm a I'm a commercial television commercial director. And I'm doing a spot for Ford next week, and we need a dog for this commercial.

Like, can we basically rent your dog? Right. And my parents were like, yeah, sure. Like, groovy. Like, Crunchy's going to be on TV. That's amazing, you know? Yeah. And so he goes, okay, well, if you bring her down,

we're shooting it at Agent Court Studios in Scarborough. At the time, my parents lived in Cabbage Town. So they're like, OK. So they show up at Agent Court and they're shooting on some some studio. And, you know, they got the Ford car and they got a bunch of kids and the parents in this commercial and they're giving crunchy grapes. And she's doing her party tricks and jumping in the car. And somebody walks by and goes, oh my God, is that an old English sheepdog?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, we're using her in this television commercial. And the guy goes, okay, hold on, hold on. And then he runs away. And then in through the door comes Uncle Bobby. And he's like, oh my God, I love this dog so much. I love it. we're shooting downstairs we're we're in the middle of doing an uncle bobby episode we're just on a break right now can we

when you're done with the dog can we bring it down and and introduce it to all the kids so my parents are like sure you know why not groovy um so they keep doing this television commercial and they keep feeding the dog grapes. Okay. So when they wrap up the commercial, you know where this is going, right? Oh, God, it's great. At this point, Crunchy's probably had like 100 grapes. And if you know anything about dogs,

you're not supposed to feed them grapes. It's like the worst fucking thing you can give to a dog. So they bring crunchy down and the cameras are on and uncle Bobby's on and he got all the kids around. And today kids, we've got an old English sheep dog in the studio and crunchy runs out and just starts spraying diarrhea. Oh my God.

All over the carpet, all over my god everywhere all over the carpet all over the couch all over the cameras like a literal shit storm mike and unfortunately this is before vcrs existed so there's no video of all this mayhem but it happened happened. And I said to my dad, why did you wait this long to tell me this story? You're right. The best Uncle Bobby story was right under your nose all along. Like you're kind of part of that story. That's too good to be true. That's incredible.

It was. That's your documentary. A literal shit storm. Unbelievable. So today's PSA, do not feed your pets grapes. I'm sure most people know that. This is the trainer's fault that tied the grapes to the trick. Probably some European weirdo or something.

Better than like chocolate glossettes or something. Right, right. Yeah, you don't give them chocolate. Would you like to hear some Uncle Bobby? Well, yeah. I mean, I brought the piece of music that he used for his theme song. And that's Spooks in Space? That's right. Yes, sir.

Flashback City. yes sir flashback city so i mean what's really funny about that is that it's uh it's actually a piece by jean-jacques pre who was a french electronic composer sampled by the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim and, you know, really recognized in the Moog world. But when we were kids, we didn't know that. Right. That's the Uncle Bobby theme. No, it's not the Uncle Bobby. It's some guy at Agent Court Studios had a record that had this on it and they just used it. And there's no credit given to Jean-Jacques Bray anywhere that I've seen.

That's how it was back then, right? It was the wild west. As we talked about with something like fashion television, for example, and was it Obsession, right? Obsession by Animotion, yeah. You just sort of, it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. But even then, you know, back in those days,

there really was no concern about it because people didn't you know there's where it's not like now where there's litigious it was a one and done type thing right like it was it would air once and then that was sort of it was done well no i mean uncle bobby was on repeats oh that's true no right until the early 90s but no i mean that you know it just it kind of represents that uh how different the the whole culture of music and sampling and all that. But it's a gaz. And this whole record, it's a compilation of some of Paré's work.

And it's amazing. It's really cool stuff. And another thing to big up the Uncle Bobby show is they had great taste. Whoever picked that out had great taste in music. They had great taste. Whoever picked that out had great taste in music. But while we're on the subject of age in court and Uncle Bobby and Dave Duvall, when I was going through, I had to go through a whole bunch of Just Like Mom tapes for this game show doc.

Because obviously Just Like Mom was a big part of the game show culture in Canada. As kids, we all watched it. Mark Weisblatt was on Just Like Mom. That's right. Fortunately, his episode wasn't amongst the ones that I went through. I would love to see that episode. I'm sure it will turn up at some point, and you'll be the first to know if I find it. I will share that with the world.

But yeah, so you know a little bit about the host and all. We can get to that in a minute, but I came across this clip and it was kind of nice. Now Ryan, I know you've got a joke. You could hardly wait to see me in the studio today to tell

me about this story. You want to tell me your joke? Okay. Okay, fire away. Knock, knock. Who's there? Uh. Uh who? Uncle Bobby's underwear. What? Where did you learn that? I made it up. Oh, you made it up? Did it take you long to do that? No. Why did you use Uncle Bobby? Poor Uncle Bobby. What animal at the zoo reminds you of your mother? Poor mom.

Never mind Uncle Bobby. I was kind of entertained. Let the child answer the question. Why did you pick Uncle Bobby? You saw Uncle Bobby's underwear on the floor of your mother's bedroom? Well, it seemed to be going in that direction, right? It's funny how things out of context and you listen in with different kind of perspective and how like innocent, sweet, innocent things can sound awfully sinister. Yeah, creepy.

Well, we know from the infamous just like mom supercut uh there's a lot of smoke there with fergie over well i want your because i i had a deep dive with kate wheeler on this very topic and uh we me and kate came to the uh agreement that out of context with editing like that again something pretty innocent and could appear very, now I want to hear your take on this since you're closer to the subject. Yeah, I'm glad that you're interested in it because I had to talk a lot about it when I was interviewed for this show. What has ended up happening because that superhero cut blew up?

I mean, it went viral a long time ago i mean i think it was like 2010 and people don't know what we're talking about like it slows down and you know and like lingering he would be like kissing young girls like well parts of it slowed down but what it was okay is somebody went through a bunch of episodes and cut out all the parts where fergie oliver the host of just like mom was let's say a little bit creepy with some of the girls the young child guests on the show and he would ask them to kiss him or he would steal a kiss or he would say something inappropriate or right here's the worst part is he would say things like give me a kiss the kid would say no and then he would say

well do you want to go up and spin the wheel you want to go to disney world you give me a goddamn kiss it ages like milk not not cool at all i'm sorry i don't think it's out of context i mean i think that when they do things like slow down the video good point good point good point it is it is a little bit weird um so what ended up happening is that super clip went everywhere, and technically that's the best-known Canadian game show in the world now because of that super clip. So this program had to address that, right? It's no longer just a local thing that you, me,

and a couple other people remember watching at lunchtime. It's this global phenomena. And what's really funny is the original person that uploaded it took it down but it's been yeah it's been copied and everywhere it's all over the place and there's some places where you know it's it's somebody says it's an american game show and you know the the original source is long long long gone now fergie still with us right he is he is still alive he's gotta be an old man he's probably quite old his daughter uh i believe was on sportsnet or she was she was in the business she was a host oh i did not know this i would love to know who that is i don't know yeah

um she's around and of course his co-host on just like mom was his wife they got divorced a little while later and i think that added to the creepiness of it all. And she was like a beauty queen or something? That's right. I believe she was like a, maybe even like a Miss Canada or something like that. Yeah, that would make sense. She was gorgeous.

Yeah. And of course, Fergie was doing the Blue Jays, right? I mean, that was the other thing was that there was this- How about those Blue Jays? There was this nexus of just like mom toronto blue jays and walt disney because disney sponsored like they gave them they gave just like mom a lot of prize packs and there's this a phenomenal piece i found earlier this year where ernie witt goes to disney world uh and fergie oliver or it's because Epcot had just opened.

Yes. And it's like a promo video for Epcot with some Blue Jay players and Fergie Olivers. It's surreal. It's like a crossover between those three worlds. And remember Ernie Witt was involved in that consortium that owned Mother's Pizzeria. That's right. So it really does hit all of our- They're all implicated in this fergie oliver

what an age we lived in uh i'm glad we're preserving all this well yeah but you see this is the the problem now with the just like mom is that uh you know how do you deal with this now in in the me too era and i was asked that on camera and i don't think i gave a particularly good answer because i wasn't I hadn't really thought about it before. And I've thought about it a lot since. And that's when you have a situation where you have a guy like that acting totally inappropriately and flash forward 40 years later, he's no longer in the business. He's totally retired. He hasn't been charged with anything. None of the victims have come forward and said anything, yet he's been totally crucified online, right? I mean, you type his name in anywhere and it's

pervert this and molester that and it's like he's done. But what does he do? I mean, should he be held accountable? Should the victims be given a platform to call him out on it i don't know i mean it's different when it's somebody current you know like a host that's still on the air and then they get fired and they get charged and all these things happen i think this is why we like the uncle bobby story so much because uh uncle bobby uh was attracted to adult woman and it was there's something refreshing about it. You know what I mean? It's so quaint.

Because you have the British guy, right? Oh, Jim will fix it, yeah. Right, Jim will fix it. Yeah, Jimmy Savile. He was having sex with corpses, man. Right. Like, he was a monster. It kind of makes you long,

like nostalgia long for like, oh yeah, Uncle Bobby sure liked the mommies. Yeah. And the motorboarding and all those great stories you've shared on this story but you see it's funny because you i think you said it like the times were different and that's kind of the the de facto response a lot of people say oh it was a different time but i'm sorry like i don't think walking up to a total stranger and motorboating their breasts i I don't care what era it is.

That's just not. But would you concede it was more okay back then than it is now? Well, I suppose it was okay, only that there was no real vehicle for responding to it. If you were female, you'd just sort of deal with it. But you're 100% right, of course. But you watch Mad Men and you're like, okay. But I just came off this Kids in the Hall episode. So we were talking about, I won't say the word but there was a a wonderful skit and a song uh the

running f word okay so the the not the f u f word which i would say probably but the homophobic slur f word the running f word and it was a you know popular skit and apparently they did they did perform it live five years ago. But Kevin looked at me and said, I don't think we can do that today. Like this is, they did it five years ago. They did it, but they can't do that today. That was aired on HBO and CBC. And we all laughed out loud at the running F word.

So it's just, yeah. And we always, I had this chat just the other day of somebody who came in. We talked about in our schoolyards and we're similar vintage the two big slurs we used in the schoolyard were um the r word and you're you're gay like we'd be gay right and the r word they were it was everywhere every day in that schoolyard was uh that guy's the r word uh oh that's so gay or oh yes which really was the r word right i mean right but in in reality we learned of course he's saying tax tax right right which is we didn't even get the slip the insult right but that is great and you're right back then that organization had the r word

in its title like that's you know what i mean it's just today like my i got you got kids in school i get kids in school they aren't running around yelling out the R word or using the G word without at least, without even like some kid coming up and shaming them for it. You know what I mean? You go to jail, man, if you say that word now. I mean, what I find, again, like we are similar vintage.

I remember it was a huge running joke that the Flintstones had the G word in the theme song. I'll say the G word. It's the F word. We'll have a gay old time. That was just the hilarity that the Flintstones had that word in their theme song before we knew what it meant. And it's funny, the F word that was in the kids in the hall,

in the UK, where I spent a lot of time growing up it means something totally different it means kindling oh okay or or cigarettes yeah i've heard the f word is a cigarette right so you know it was even more confusing as a kid because in common people which i still love pulps common people yes it's smoking f and i guess i get in that context but you smoke some pool yeah no i mean and still context, but you smoke a fag and play some pool. And still to this day, you smoke fags. That's what they call it. They use the C word over there like it's nothing.

Morning radio will use the C word. Could you imagine Maryland dropping the C word? That I would like to see. Oh, man. Times are changing. What's the unpacking here? There is no right or wrong answer. Context is everything.

Context is everything. Clearly, Agent Court, there was a lot of interesting things going on there in the 70s. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at some of those Christmas parties. Oh, man. Okay, so before we turn channels to City TV, I forgot to bring it up off the top, but I watched you on a program hosted by FOTM Steve Pagan,

The Agenda with Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario. I watched this. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And we have to give a shout out, if you don't mind, to Linda. Yes. FOTM Linda, who I think she, the way I heard it,

tell me if you heard the same story. I hope we got the same story. It's gonna be very embarrassing for Linda, but that she heard you here and then was helping to produce that segment because she was there interning maybe and recommended you like this. And then you got a call and then you, I saw you all dolled up and they probably put on the pancake makeup stuff or whatever. And you were fantastic. Am I half right on any of that? That's exactly how it happened. I got an email from Linda.

I had actually met Linda at, I think, the first TMLX. Okay, yeah. Years ago. Which is probably the only one you've been at. Yeah. TMLX1 at Great Lakes Brewery. At Great Lakes Brewery. I was there with Joel and I met Linda briefly

and so she reached out and said that she was producing this segment about nostalgia and was it something I was interested in and then we had a call and it was a great call I love talking about this stuff I talk about it until the cows come home

so we talked about a lot of different things this is why you need a podcast and she said you know you'll be on uh with these other people and they were trying to get you know an academic and they were going to try and get somebody from uh the advertising world to talk about you know how nostalgia is used to sell products i said are you kidding me of course just tell me when and i'm there i'm in like flynn and uh you know, I adore Steve Paikin. I have, he's been there for a long time.

He's probably listening to us right now because he is listening to many Toronto Mic'd episodes right now. He's been binging. Excellent. Well, big ups, sir, for your fine work. And it's funny, it wasn't until I was on his show, it sort of hit me like a like a brick when i left uh studio too

that he is for all intents and purposes he is uh to politics what el wios was to movies right he's this super nice guy he's so into it he's so enthusiastic he knows his shit inside and out and he can do this political show without it degenerating into people yelling at each other which is what happens on talk radio right on cable networks and all of that right um so i love that tvo has that kind of continuity like they attract hosts that are like that um now tvo as you know it's we're going into 2020 it's their 50th anniversary uh they started broadcasting in 1970 so i can only hope that they do a lot a lot with their legacy because they have an incredible legacy and there is no greater champion of that than steve pagan how hopeful like how like i mean what if they don't do what we want them to do like uh which i feel like if i

were a betting man i bet we don't we we don't get what we're looking for like uh read along or look they're not going to show fables of the green forest in prime time as much as i would love maybe a part of a some kind of a memory lane clip show i don't know yeah i don't even think we'll get that i mean they they use the odd clip i see at least dear and agnes oh yeah i mean do a dear and agnes marathon marathon in the middle of the night um no they're not they're they're not never going to rerun those programs because the way those deals were structured when they made the shows uh basically prohibit them from the cost again we go back what about the ones they made like today's special even the ones they made uh you know actra which is the union in canada i'm sure you've you've talked

about this with your guests um they basically created a system whereby they didn't want broadcasters to make a show and then just keep showing it they wanted them to keep making new stuff so as more and more time goes on it gets more expensive to show old programs right that's the catch-22 that we're in with a lot of these things and because tvoO was an extension, really, of the provincial government, it was even more convoluted, the contracts that they drew up. So yeah, the idea that they're going to rerun these things, pretty much not going to happen.

That being said, we now have this wonderful thing called the internet, and there's different rules on the internet, and they can certainly do more experimental stuff. You're right, whether stuff you're right whether they want to whether they have the stomach for that i don't know bring me back my polka dot door i always knew which hole they were going into and that door it was my job to predict there's some more flashback for me okay my friend my friend. So congrats on the agenda appearance. You were great on that. And hello to

Linda and Steve. So are we going to play the City TV music now? You want the Grover? Before we do that, I brought you a Christmas present. Oh my gosh. Listen, I love Christmas presents. Well, kind of an amazing thing happened. I got to your neighborhood a little

bit early. Can I have one of your beers? Yeah, please. One of my beers. Let's do a cheers. All right. So we both opened the Karma Citra here. Cheers to Christmas Crackers Volume 3 with Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario. Always.

Always a pleasure, sir. Yeah. So I love coming to your neighborhood, by the way way because i feel it's a bit of a time machine out there on the lake shore you don't see any uh chain uh outlets you don't see like a taco bell or a a and w or or even you got some pizza places like there's a domino's hiding out there and there's even domino's is kind of like old school third no but you are so right it is uh people keep waiting for it to, yeah, become Bluer West Village.

But it feels very stuck in the past in a good way. And so I was milling around and I saw this really cool looking record shop right there. Yes. Village Vinyl. Shout out. I have my new thing I'm doing here. FOTM Pete Fowler,

who dropped off some Lost Indie City stickers at that place. And you can get some in there. Real cool place. The Vinyl Cafe. Village Vinyl. Village Vinyl. Vinyl Cafe is something else. Yeah, so I was killing time in there.

And I lost my shit because they actually had Laserdiscs for sale in Village Vinyl. I don't know if you ever... You picked up The God laser i didn't get the godfather i did get a few things um but yeah that was an old video format i actually have i remember well this player so you don't find these things like ever so the fact they had them there was cool and then i stumbled upon a record uh of that has a song on it that i had sent you so i thought this is fortuitous i have you sent me for this show for this installment oh wow uh i have to buy this and give this i'm excited this is pentadis the city pulse uh amazing instrumental graham shaw graham shaw yeah i Yeah, I'm looking at the MP3 here

and I got the vinyl right here. What a title for a record. I mean, Good Manners in the 80s. Yes, okay. I see, yes, Pentadis is the last cut on side two. And he's a funny guy because he's still around. He's quite active on social media i've emailed him a few times just to ask him what version because it's like the version they use on city

pulse was like a weird kind of frankenstein version of pentatus um but he also did a lot of commercial jingles and you know a guy we've talked a lot about when i've been here in the past terry bush terry bush who wrote the theme song for Little List Hobo and did tons of television jingles. I can't remember what it was, but there was a Facebook post by Terry Bush's wife. And she was saying, you know, this guy Ed Conroy has written about Terry Bush and all of his contributions. She was linking to an article I had written. Nice. And all these people were showing up saying,

congratulations, Terry, congratulations for being recognized. And then Graham Shaw showed up in this thread on Facebook and started saying, I don't think it's fair that Terry's getting credit for this because I did this and I did that. And then his wife said, Graham, get the fuck off this thread.

This is celebrating terror. This is none of your business and it goes back to that thing I think we've talked about before which is like the jingle world is so small and they all hate each other. That's the documentary.

Yeah, I think that would be a good one. That's the documentary. I think that would be a good one. And you've already had a little taste with, was it Ambrose? Who's the guy? Tommy Ambrose.

Tommy Ambrose. It's like you've already kind of dipped your toes in this world so you'd be the perfect guy for that so mike i see you already have an awesome record collection over there you look people and uh maestro and oh yeah okay um so do you have a record player yet though no i don't know what i have to bring you next christmas i don't have a record player but, though? No, I don't. Is that what I have to bring you next Christmas? I don't have a record player, but yes, you brought me, at a previous visit, you brought me Great Moments of Hockey, which is the Hockey Night in Canada album

that was sold exclusively at Max. And now Graham Shaw, Good Manners in the 1980s. Did you want me to play the... Yeah, sure. I mean, it's just such an evocative... Tonight, murder in Malton. The Leafs lose again. I'm Peter Gross, the world

according to gross. Peter Gross has become quite the friend. Yes, let's talk about that. I'm going to say, I used to refer to you as the brian linehan of podcasting i think now you're probably more it's probably closer to the quentin tarantino of podcasting shut the front door you are rehabilitating all these old dudes and you're bringing them back in style like robert forster and john travolta you know no it's look man big ups mike you uh you've had an amazing year i think uh gallagher and gross

is a is an incredible podcast because to me and i listen to you and wise blot talk about what podcasting actually is supposed to be and all of these other ones but that one to me is like what i always thought it was which is listening to other people have a really great conversation right like being at a bar you know sitting in a bar stool next to these old sports guys just talking shit about all this stuff and they tell you the stuff you're not used to hearing like this is what moses paid me this is what he was going to pay me. I went back and we got this amount and this is what I made from Q107. John Gallagher's on this show

and he'll be like, this is what Moses was giving me. This is what Q was giving me. This is what I got when I made an appearance at a bar for Monday Night Football or whatever the hell, what other gobs. That's the money that didn't show up

on my CRA statement. It's all coming out. Yeah, I they're amazing these guys no they they they are great storytellers and uh good on you for for bringing them back real talk uh we're having trouble selling the show like uh that shows that it's in danger uh it's the the content is unbelievable yeah but you know peter gross and john gallagher simply can't afford to do that show for nothing. Of course. At some point, there has to be some brand or some service or product or event

has to step up and say, hey, we want to be the flagship sponsor of this show. Or I don't know. I don't know how long. We've had 15 episodes. I've heard they want, we might do, we're going to try to do five more before Christmas,

but somebody at some point we've been trying to sell it. No luck yet. So I know it's certain. I don't know what that says. Cause that con and I know I'm biased. Okay. I'm in the room producing this thing or whatever, but damn,

is it compelling content? It's made for guys like us. Well, and I, I would even say if you didn't know who those cats were, it's still interesting because it's like listening to anybody talk about the way things were in the city that you live in. You know, I think you and I are similar in that we love good stories. We love good storytellers. And I don't care if you're in the back of a cab or on

a bus or whatever. I find all of that stuff really interesting. And when you have great storytellers like Gallagher, I mean, I know a lot of it is horseshit and exaggerating. I've heard that. Maybe there's obviously he's got a bit of hyperbole, but I don't think he's making anything up. Oh, no, no, no. I don't think he's making anything up. I mean, he's got the irish uh storytelling gene right i mean he just he does such a fantastic job of it that you begin to think or i can see why people would think that maybe it's not true right

you know i mean bless him in an era before uh everyone had phone uh cameras in their pocket he went to the trouble of getting photographs when he was having these adventures he had everyone had phone cameras in their pocket. He went to the trouble of getting photographs when he was having these adventures with all these people. He had disposable cameras in his glove compartment. And when he saw, I don't know, name it, Muhammad Ali was there or David Bowie or whatever, he got a photo with them.

And I love his book. I got to say, I have his book. And Gross, your first podcast with peter gross i guess it was last year or two years ago um that i think is remains one of your greatest episodes because he really you want to talk about real talk you know that story about him hitting rock bottom and cocaine getting lost and all that you know i was not expecting that you know he he's decided he'll just be honest about everything like maybe too honest that's another story but he uh yeah and it was just amazing and

i really enjoyed i get calls from peter gross when he's in the car and he's like you're one of my top 10 calls when i have to kill some time just chatting and it's i really enjoy it like i really and john gallagher is great too but he's a whole different uh different different uh nutso but they're both great together yeah and i hope we can do many many more episodes of gallagher and gross save the world uh you reminded me though that jim mckinney came in recently did you listen to jim mckinney of course i thought that was one of the best that was that was well i mean you're, right? You've almost got the complete pulse. Who am I missing? Jojo Chinto, I think, would be the big one.

Okay. I know you're working on him. I'll get it done in 2020. Is Gross going to hook that up for you? Well, I had a phone call with Jojo. Okay. His daughters are very good athletes or something, and he was spending some time in the States with them or something.

So it's just I've got to revisit it all. But you know what? I'm going to make Jojo happen in 2020. That's my pledge. I think that's squad goals um what about um dini patty i gotta get i gotta get her on i haven't reached out so she has i haven't made contact of dini yet but you're right i need dini penny i think she would be a good compliment too since you've got the gourd and covered now you got to do the gourd uh dini you're right. I need Dini Penny on the show. You should help me produce the show. Tyler, watch out. Oh, Tyler

is a guy who's been helping me out a great deal and I owe him a debt of gratitude. But he booked two guests for the same time yesterday. So accidentally, because in my calendar we share a calendar, a Google calendar. He put in, two days ago by the way, not yesterday. He put in

this band. No, yesterday. Oh my God, you know it's a way, not yesterday. He put in this band. No, yesterday. Oh, my God, you know it's a blur, man. Too many episodes in a row. But there was a great band, four guys. They're called Jane's Party. And they came over yesterday at 10, but it could be two days ago. I actually honestly cannot tell you, which is a scary thought.

But it was in the calendar, in my calendar, one day later. Because I'm very careful never to double book myself. Anyway, I'm doing an never to double book myself. Anyway, I'm doing an episode of Gilles LeBlanc and it's very interesting on all-time alt and then I see all these boots coming down the stairs. Four guys are coming downstairs. I'm thinking, is this how it ends? Because we're live Periscope, right? I'm like, are these guys going to shoot me on live Periscope?

Because that would go viral. That would be going out. It would be everywhere. Watch this podcast. You're shot to death on periscope or whatever and these yeah anyway uh but tyler is a great guy and i forgive him he made a human error and you know what i'm a forgiving man but uh ed's coming for your job tyler because he's gonna help me book uh dini penny but okay let's get back on track my friend um yeah gallagher and gross saved the world you should subscribe to that. And I'm really

excited about the Ralph Ben-Murray project which you can subscribe to very, very soon. Maybe by the time I release this. Who knows? But it's called I'm Not That Kind of Rabbi with Ralph Ben-Murray and it's spiritual conversations with people like Laurie Brown. We had her over in

John Wayne Jr., Humble Howard's on an episode, Michael Coran. It's very interesting stuff. We're going to get Biff naked on. It's really cool stuff so you should check that out. Okay my friend that was Pentatus from Graham Shaw. I have his album now and forever. That beautiful face

and the smile. The sweater blazer look which is really hard to pull off. I don't know if you've ever tried to rock that but it's... Never because I don't like sweaters under blazers because i don't like sweaters or blazers uh it's funny i'm a t-shirt and then in cold weather i have uh my favorite hoodie i put on that's about it my friend i couldn't dress up like you did for the agenda did they tell you to dress up like that for the agenda no you were sharply dressed oh thank you white, thank you. Crisp white shirt. Yeah. I was thinking I would come in a t-shirt.

I've been on TV a few. Did you see me on Halloween? I was on another FOTM. I was on the Global Morning Show with Prize Queen. Well, you know, Jennifer Valentine's never been on the show.

What? I know. You called her an FOTM and I would love her to be one day, but I don't think she's earned the designate yet. Okay. Wow.

That's like Mandela effect. I was sure she had been on the show sure you heard her on my show i wouldn't forget it i would never forget that well yeah well there's another city pulse connection yeah that that was a weird one i i got emailed uh like two days before halloween they said uh we're doing a retro 80s uh global morning show uh everyone's dressing up 80s Can you come and talk about 80s toys? Not the usual thing I do, but sure. Like Rubik's Cube? Well, they just said, we're going to have some toys.

They were very vague about it. Hungry, hungry hippo? Well, I said, I'll do it if I can bring my 80s toys. So of course I brought my GI Joes and my Star Wars, my Cabbage Patch and my Transformers. And I was like, I brought my G.I. Joes and my Star Wars. Transformers.

And my Cabbage Patch and my Transformers. And I was like, who am I going to- Did you have a Cabbage Patch? Yeah. I was like, who am I going to dress up as? And then I had from many Halloweens ago, I had a Blues Brothers. They used a very easy costume. So I dressed up as Jake Blues. And it was surreal, mate.

Surreal to be on TV. I miss this completely. I feel ashamed. Yeah, there's clips out there somewhere, but it was good fun. And yeah, I'd done the agenda like a week before that, so it was like two ends of the spectrum. Like one very academic,

and then one just a little bit of a free-for-all. But yeah, I've seen you on TV. Not too often, to be honest. I don't think I've ever been in a TV studio. Oh. I don't. That should be a 2020 goal. Well, I don't know.

It's not up to them. I don't go pitch myself to TV shows. People know how to get a hold of me if they want me on their TV show. I did Skype into a couple of things. You're right. And one time I was biking. I got pulled into a City TV segment. You're right. And one time I was biking by. I got pulled into a City TV

segment. City, yeah, City TV City News segment because I was biking by and there was right going to the Dome to watch the Jays and there had been like a bike situation there earlier in the day or something and then I was asked to Skype into Your Morning which is the new Ben Mulroney morning show on CTV and I had to

talk about, I don't know, daycare costs I think, which is killing me by the way please go to my Patreon and give what you can it's destroying me please I know you're checking your clock there so I need to know do we move on I saw speaking of Tarantino I like to think I'm the Tarantino podcast I

loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood good yeah I loved it too I just I think it's like the best movie of the year. I agree. I agree. There was so much to unpack about it. What I wanted to talk about with you is the soundtrack because as we alluded to earlier, when we did that episode with Mark about Chum, Mark talked at great lengths in that episode about uh not a great length he did a great summation of boss radio right and and what that was and last christmas crackers we did the

tribute to mark daily we played a little bit of cklw out of windsor detroit that was a boss radio station and so when i saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and realized quite early in the movie that Tarantino's using the radio as part of the story and the real samples of jocks and commercials and all of that, and he's using KHJ, which was boss radio, and which had the same jingle pad as CKLW,

it just blew my mind. Wow. Wow. So, yeah, I mean, play a little bit of the real Don Steele. This is Batman. And Robin. With exclusive news for KHJ listeners. It's the Batphone Secret Number Contest presented by Boss Radio.

There's a terrific prize for the first KHJ listener to guess the secret number of our Batphone. You've seen us answering the Batphone on TV. It's a special hotline Commissioner Gordon uses to contact us whenever there's trouble. There are seven digits in the Batphone's secret number. Listen to what you'll win if yours is the first correct answer received by KHJ. You'll visit Batman and me at 20th Century Fox and be our guest for lunch at the studio. Then you'll ride to the Batcave in the Batmobile, where Robin and I will present you with a 1966 console color television set. To visit us and win the color TV, just guess the secret Batphone number.

Watch for Robin and me on Channel 7 Wednesday and Thursday nights. And keep it on KHJ for more clues in the Batphone secret number contest. CKLW. I want that TV. Yeah, it's a hot TV, man. But yeah, the use of the radio. BKLW. I want that TV. Yeah, it's a hot TV, man. But yeah, the use of the radio. And I don't know, this year I've thought a lot about, you know, TV nerds is kind of an accepted thing.

It's almost something that's been elevated now to mainstream. You're a super nerd. You're into the history of television. You're into these TV shows. super nerd you're into the history of television you're into these tv shows but radio nerds are still kind of a very rare rare underground breed right and i had a conversation i won't say who it was with but it was somebody important in the industry moses no it wasn't moses uh it wasn't moses it was a radio person and uh they mentioned you by name and they mentioned mark weisblatt and they mentioned another guy who i hadn't heard of before and they said the thing is we work in the industry

and we look at these guys some of the things they post and we think how do they know so much about this when they don't actually work in the industry and i thought that was that was kind of funny i would love to know who this is. Will you tell me afterwards? I'll tell you when the hot mic is off. I ain't no Justin Trudeau. Beware the hot mic. Now, I have many, many people who come in here, several,

sit down there and ask me what station i worked at like i do have guests who come in and i think i'm from the industry yeah and then i get to look at them like this and say well actually i didn't work in your stupid industry no radio uh company would have me not that i applied but uh yeah do you want to play the Los Bravos? Yeah. I mean, it's got the real non-steel intro. It's kind of hot, but you can play that. Ladies and gentlemen, the beat goes on.

KHJ Los Angeles. 331 in Los Angeles. This is the real Don Steve. I know that it's time and you're staying in. I want to hear the jam, Ed. It's a great jam. What I love, though, that, as you know, I spend a lot of time going through people's home-recorded tapes, VHS tapes.

But I love that there's this sort of sub-subculture of people that find audio tapes of off-air radio recordings. Because that's like super impossible to find. And I know there's guys that have the chum. I'm sure Doug Thompson would know all about that. He probably has a ludicrous collection of

off-air chum stuff. But that's really hard to find. And when you hear it, there's a technical term. When you say off-air,um stuff. But that's really hard to find. And when you hear it, there's a technical term. When you say off-air, you mean stuff that aired. Like people recorded it off the air. So they recorded like, they're listening to Chum

and they just stuck in a blank tape and let it roll. Yes, okay, yes. So they weren't just taping, like we know about taping the songs and we tried, or I tried to back in the day, edit out any talking,

because it's like, I want... Quick aside, one of my great regrets in my life is that I love The Simpsons, so every single Thursday night or whatever it was, I would record The Simpsons to VHS, and I would be meticulous in making sure I had no advertisements in The Simpsons, okay?

We all did it. I know, we all did it. And then I was thinking, I was like, I just want content, did it. I know we all did it. And then I was thinking, I was like, I was so, it was, I just want content, no ads.

I hate ads, no ads. So I can just watch Simpsons in these six hours or whatever. And then I had multiple tapes and stuff and I had to tape it. And now of course, the Simpsons episodes are everywhere.

It's easy for me to stream the episodes, but those commercials are nowhere and I taped the exact wrong thing. I should have been meticulous to get the Simpsons out of my ad collection. Look, Mike, it's the irony of the situation. That's where you come in, though. Well, I was the same, right? When I go through somebody else's collection and they were lazy, not like us,

they just said, I'm not going to press stop. Maybe they were out that day. Well, yeah, they probably were. They went to bed or they fell asleep. But yeah, it's absolutely the best feeling when you find something that's got all of that junk in there that we didn't want back then, but we want now. But these radio off-airs are really fascinating.

And the Chum Tribute website, I don't think it's... That's Doug Thompson. Is it Doug? Okay. That's Doug Thompson. Because they have a lot of stuff, but often what'll happen is you'll have the jock, like Don Steele there, set up the song, and then it'll just cut to the end of the song

and it'll be the next. Yeah. And that's cool, but it's a lot cooler when it's just the full thing. Yeah, see, I think Doug would be sensitive to licensing. Right, copyright, of course. Right. No, of course.

Because he's still in the business. But yeah, the fact Tarantino, he did one or two in most of the interviews that he did about the movie were about the movie and about manson and all that he did one interview that was with a radio nerd and it was the most interesting to me because he talked about finding these people in los angeles that had the khj off-air tapes and he listened to them. And then they basically punched them up to be good enough quality to release the CD and the record of the soundtrack of the film. That car, the Cadillac that was driven

to that movie belonged to Michael Mads. That's right. It was in Reservoir Dogs. Okay. And Reservoir Dogs is another Tarantino movie where, of course, it was fictionalized because it was KBIL, K-Billy Super Sounds of the 70s with Stephen Wright.

That's right. And that was like a thread throughout that movie. Fuck, Tarantino's the bomb. Oh, he's the bomb. Come on. Did you watch The Irishman yet? I did, yes. Yeah.

And I loved it, but I had to do it in two parts. Don't tell Scorsese. He doesn't want you to do that. Did you watch it on your phone? No. Yeah, no. I mean, He doesn't want you to do that. Did you watch it on your phone? No. Yeah, no. I mean, to me, it's between those two, what I enjoyed the most this year.

Okay, so I enjoyed both, but to me, it's no contest. I'll take the Tarantino over the Scorsese. Yeah, Hollywood just had a little bit more of an edge. And that Scorsese, it did remind me of other Scorsese films. It felt like a lot of parts reminded me of Goodfellas. It was reminiscent, but to me it was more like Casino on Quaalude.

Yeah, it was very good, but I think the Tarantino movie, at least it was more enjoyable to me. Yeah, and it's worth revisiting. I was on an airplane. I was in London a few weeks ago, and I watched Hollywood again on a shitty little postage size screen. Yeah. But there's so much in that movie.

It's kind of overwhelming. On a recent Thursday night, me and the teenagers just started when the kids kind of arrive. Like, so from there on, because no spoilers here, I refuse to do spoilers. And what I will say,

I was grateful that I got to watch that movie with not having it spoiled. Yeah. It really did. Because I would hate to have had it spoiled for me. Yeah. But we re-watched that whole closing part again. It's all just tremendous here. Now, would you like to,

Christmas Crackers Volume 3, would you like to talk about the avalanches? Well, the avalanches is a leftover. It's a Christmas leftover leftover from last year our last christmas party we ran out of time uh and the reason i had brought it last year is jesus this is a long long long time ago one year somebody on your website in one of your talkbacks and i don't remember what it was it was probably called open mics it was probably about hip-hop uh there was a lot of a long thread about hip-hop

and you somebody said oh the avalanches uh frontier psychologist they mentioned that song and you actually wrote oh no i don't even know what that is. I've never heard that before. And then the person said, oh, Mike, like stop what you're doing, okay? Stop what you're doing and go listen to Avalanche's Frontier Psychologist because it is, you know, what, 2003, 2002? It's very old, but it's kind of sampling like on steroids. It's got like five gazillion samples in it,

but it's just beautiful turntablism from this Australian band. I don't know if you had ever listened to it since. Well, let's press play and I'll let you know. So you ready? Here we go. Let's do it. Is Dexter ill?

Is Dexter ill? Is Dexter ill? Is Dexter ill today Is Dexter ill? Is Dexter ill today? Mr. Kirk, Dexter's in school. I'm afraid he's not, Mrs. Fishbowl. Dexter's truancy problem is way out of hand. The Baltimore County School Board have decided to expel Dexter from the entire public school system. Mr. Kirk, I'm as upset as you to learn Dexter's truancy, but surely expulsion is not the answer. I'm afraid expulsion is the only answer. It is the opinion of the entire staff that Dexter is criminally insane. Insane.

Insane. Insane. That boy needs therapy. Psychosomatic. That boy needs therapy. Psychosomatic. That boy needs therapy Psychosomatics That boy needs therapy Lie down on the couch What does that mean?

You're a nut You're crazy in a coconut What does that mean? That boy needs therapy I'm gonna kill you That boy needs therapy Granny Gazoo, let's have a cheese How about I count three?

That boy needs therapy He was white as a sheet And he also made false teeth So, yeah, that's sort of DJ Shadow era when that kind of turntablism artwork was a big thing. I guess it still kind of is, I don't know. But what's really cool about this one is a lot of those samples you just heard, including the title of the song, are from a Wayne and Schuster skit that was recorded in Toronto.

And in your little bag of goodies there should be Wayne and Schuster. You're insecure, aren't you? What? You're full of frustrations and aggressive hostility, and it's all an artificial barrier to mask your inhibitions and your massive inferiority complex. You trying to tell me I'm crazy?

Oh, please, Ringo, we don't use words like crazy anymore. Let me simply say you are suffering from a traumatic dislocation of your emotional processes. What does that mean? You're a nut. You're crazy in a coconut. All right. You're a mishover.

All right. So, yeah, that sketch is called Frontier Psychologist, which is this weird Western riff playing off of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood there. But I don't know. I mean, it's funny. You just had someone from Kids in the Hall sitting here. Comedy is kind of,

people ask me this all the time, like what did Canadian television do better than anybody else in the world, right? Like what was our main contribution to the to television and i always think it's comedy um whether it's sctv or lauren michaels or um trailer park boys like all of these things you know it's it's it's a kids in the hall obviously you know it's it's a genre that we did really well. Uh, and Wayne and Schuster were a huge part of that, uh, back in the day. However, comedy, um, comedy doesn't age that well. And it's,

it's strange to me because as a kid, you know, I remember my parents would watch Wayne and Schuster or I don't even think my parents, like people that would be at our house would watch Wayne and Schuster. And I would just think it was the stupidest shit. Um, and I don't even think my parents, like people that would be at our house would watch Wayne and Schuster and I would just think it was the stupidest shit. And I don't know, it's a shame because even now with SCTV, I'm waiting for that Scorsese thing. I don't know when that's gonna drop on Netflix. Yeah, good question.

I think that was like years ago. It was supposed to be before the Irishman. And Moranis made the appearance. Yeah. Good question. I hope that does redeem a bit because i know tons of young people that love schitt's creek and when i start to talk about sctv i see their eyes glaze over oh okay boomer you know boring old generation x excuse me yeah so anyways uh that was a cool little bit of Wayne and Schuster used in a hip hop song. Yeah.

I know what you mean by, I mean, you know, your kids are a bit younger than mine, but I got these teenagers and I'm always trying to show them what, you know, their dad liked. And I usually hear, oh, that's pretty lame. Like, here's the rap I liked. Here's the comedy I liked. And they're like, I think I'll go back to my stuff. Yeah.

It's funny. Rap, though, you know, I think you and I have talked about this before. I hear Public Enemy comes on the radio. It still punches out, man. I don't care what anybody says. This is not like a guy playing Led zeppelin in the 80s and saying no this is still like a heavy track you are really talking to the wrong guy here because

i'm with you 100 yeah it doesn't there there's nothing in that that sounds quaint and outdated it's still furious music it's still scary which is what it was meant to be right but a lot of other genres lose that like rock loses that songs that were like rock and roll hell-raising anthems you hear them now and you're like yeah okay where's my pillow right but a lot of that hip-hop still i it's not even an issue of i think it still has the power but i mean you picked your example of public enemy no doubt you're absolutely right like it's still full throttle but there but a lot of the hip-hop beyond uh public enemy has kind of aged uh differently yeah well sure and i think you know a good example of that if tribe called

quest amazing uh absolutely you know classic albums but i can see why a younger person might listen to that and think that's cheesy, right? Or Beastie Boys, they might think that's cheesy. I love it. And it's a huge part of who I am. My new sticker, you, I don't know if you noticed since you were last here, but you didn't bump your head on my low ceiling dip there because it says, check your head. Yeah. I mean, that stuff is always going to be great to to us but i kind of get why somebody might think that's lame uh but however things like uh um mc hammer you can't touch this uh big daddy cane uh that you can't listen to big daddy cane and say that that's soft or that's quaint or that's that's

boring big daddy cane introduced me to dolomite have you seen the dolomite oh yeah it's amazing you can't listen to Big Daddy Kane and say that that's soft or that's quaint or that's boring. Big Daddy Kane introduced me to Dolomite. Have you seen the Dolomite movie? Oh yeah, it's amazing. It's great, eh? I got introduced because there's a song on Taste of Chocolate, I don't know, 1990, I guess,

called Big Daddy versus Dolomite and Rudy Ray Moore is doing Dolomite and they're going back and forth and a lot of the catchphrases and things that Rudy Ray Moore says as Dolomite in that song, I played it because after we saw Dolomite with the teenagers,

and I played it for the teenagers, and they said, wait a minute. Little things, like I've been dropping this on my 18-year-old for like 18 years now. I'd be going like, I was through with it before you knew what to do with it.

Like I've been dropping that for 18 years, and he heard it in the song. He goes, that's where it comes from. And speaking of Big Daddy, I've been dropping this one periodically. I go, I got to jump back and kiss myself. in that for 18 years and he heard it in the song he goes that's where it comes from and speaking to big daddy i've been dropping this one periodically i go i gotta jump back and kiss myself like i've been dropping this that's from another big different big daddy song so here there you go well yeah no i mean i you had wes on here a couple times and obviously big daddy was his big jam and and he was know, certainly in those first couple of records

that he put out, he is the Big Daddy Kane of Scarborough. I mean, that's his sound. And I feel almost like when he went away from that is when he kind of got cheesy. Right, because he's a smooth operator that gets the job done. I should stop rapping,

is what you're telling me. Okay. Tell me about the silent partner. Yeah. So this is another thing that I saw as a response on one of our previous Christmas episodes. Somebody said, you guys should have mentioned silent partner.

And it's perfect timing because finally the silent partner was released this year on Blu-ray. Previously, it had been unavailable, and you could only sort of watch these very bad quality copies of it that were floating around online. So now you can, if you still buy Blu-rays or watch Blu-rays, you can get it now. It's this incredible film made in Toronto in 1978 1978 uh it was a what was called a tax shelter

film which was basically foreign money that came in and a movie was made but it was basically rich guys you know hiding their money from from the government is that what porky's was yes yeah there's a whole bunch of them uh but a lot of them are some of them accidentally become hits right well cronenberg i mean cronenberg's whole career was born out of tax shelter sounds like a mel There's a whole bunch of them. But some of them accidentally become hits, right? Well, Cronenberg. I mean, Cronenberg's whole career was born out of tax shelter movies. Sounds like a Mel Brooks production here. Most of them are really bad,

but there's a few diamonds in there. And Silent Partner, for many reasons, it's just a great crime movie, sort of noir-ish movie um starring elliot gould who in the 70s was like a player right he was just yeah just an amazing actor a really a bankable name uh christopher plumber plays the villain in the movie. Wow. And basically he robs a bank in the Eaton Center. And the Eaton Center had just opened in 77. So the Eaton Center was like a new, exciting location.

And so they set it really in the Eaton Center. But the whole movie is kind of like a postcard of what Toronto was like in 1978. So you see the beaches, and you see the Gardner Expressway, and there's all kinds of great locations. This is like in 1978. So you see all, you see the beaches and you see the Gardner Expressway and there's all kinds of great locations. It's like Police Academy. Well, if Police Academy was a good film noir, maybe. Right, right.

And John Candy has a small part. Oh, wow. As a bank teller who works with Elliot Gould. But the crowning, the cherry on the top of the cake is that the soundtrack was done by Oscar Peterson. And it's just this really cool, low-key jazz soundtrack. So I brought along one of the pieces.

It's funny. You can play it and we can talk over it because... They're numbered. This is the wrong one. Ed's giving me a look like I played the wrong one. This is an Eden Center ad, obviously. This is the wrong one. Ed's giving me a look like I played the wrong one. This is an Eaton Center ad, obviously. This has nothing to do with the silent partner. Start at the center.

A very special time of year at the Eaton Center. Life in the city starts at the center. Christmas in the city starts at the Eaton Center. Okay, that's fine. In my defense, that is labeled 03. Santa, Christmas in the city starts at the Eton Center. Okay, that's fine. In my defense, that is labeled 03, and then this next one is called 04. How can I play them in any other order?

That's my mistake. I apologize. Just like Tyler screwed up yesterday, I had to screw up today. I'm hanging my head. It's never my fault. I'm hanging my head here. It's fine because in the movie, it takes place at Christmas time

and Christopher Plummer dresses up as Santa when he robs the bank in the Eaton Center. And that is from an Eaton Center Christmas commercial that also has Santa not robbing a bank. But as a kid, I had seen part of, Silent Partner used to be on City TV all the time. Like Jay Switzer, whose mother Phyllis started City TV with Moses.

They showed a lot of Canadian movies. That was a big part of the City TV movie world was trying to champion Canadian films. Like Meatballs? Oh, I mean mean you name it meatballs porkies porkies all the kronenberg movies all that stuff tons of shit that's why i watch porky so often yeah it was on a lot right silent partner was on a lot should have been on a lot more by the way porky you want to talk about porkies man i should have brought my pork i want to talk about Porky's, man. I should have brought my Porky's. I want to save something for Christmas Crackers Volume 4.

Right, right. But yeah, as a kid, it was confusing because I had never seen The Son of the Partner all the way through. I just saw parts of it. It would be on late at night. But I knew it was about Santa being, like it was like a bad Santa, basically.

And so this Eaton Center's commercial with Santa running around was always kind of confusing. It got conflated in your mind. Yeah, it got conflated totally like a lot of things do. Right. Here's what I was supposed to play. All right. now mike does that uh does this music remind you of anything

Oh, yes, yes, yes. The night, yeah, what's it called? The program where you're driving the streets with the great jazz music? Night Ride. Night Ride, yes, which you'll tell me now, but somebody has modernized it, right? Yeah, because I've been watching that YouTube link. Yeah.

Night Ride, which I loved watching. Yeah, it does remind me of Night Ride. It's very reminiscent. Again, there was that kind of Toronto sound in the late 70s, early 80s. Mr. Oscar Peterson, obviously, the goat of all of this. The OP.

The OP OG. Who's commemorated down the street. They got a whole monument to the man as a Lakeshore resident. Oh, I didn't know he was from the, oh, that's awesome. Although I don't know how far they extend Lakeshore. I feel like he might have been Mississauga, like Port Credit or something. But he's a lake waterfront man. That's cool.

Well, you know, he was on today's special a few times as well, which is, again, how I was introduced to him. But Night Ride, as you know, was this phenomena that is one of the constants in my life as Retro Ontario, is that there's certain things that everybody I meet that is into it wants to talk about or has a memory of. Night Ride is always in the top three. And this cat, who now actually lives in America, i think he lives in texas

uh he lives in the south uh was grew up in toronto now he he's been in america for a while but night ride was like his jam like to the point he was like the number one fan um and he tracked down all the people that made it and he had the best quality recordings and now he's started to make new versions of it just literally by sourcing HD camera recordings of people walking around downtown, taking the old graphics, taking the old music, painstakingly recreating it

and it's starting to get a bit of an audience. I mention it when I can in the newsletter. And I tweeted it and I shared it. Oh, that's so good. And Mark Weisbauer does as well. Well, we're the three guys. The three amigos, yeah. No, but I think, yeah.

If he gets the three unique viewers, he says, oh, that's Ed, that's Mike, and that's Mark. No, but I think it has a big audience. And it's slowly, the word is getting out. Wouldn't it be great if a broadcaster said, let's spend a dollar to make a million dollars, you know? I mean, because that's what this was. It was not only an interesting late night program,

it was a great business decision. It ticked a lot of boxes and what the hell changed that people don't think like that anymore well do you have an answer to that question that's that's what i'm looking for ed well i don't want to play off if you have anything else because i i know that i you shared a whole bunch of audio with me and there's two files you shared with me that we haven't talked about yet. And I don't know what they are. Jack Jones.

Right. And Craig Palmer. Craig Palmer. Yeah, let's play a little Craig Palmer. See if... Is this Danger Bay? What do we got here? Okay, so I'm a little mystified that you don't recognize that because you're the sports guy.

I'm not the sports guy. Oh, I don't recognize it. I'm sure when you tell me, I'll hit myself in the head. Oh, I don't recognize it. I'm sure when you tell me, I'll hit myself in the head. Well, for me, this was the music from First Choice Super Channel. When they showed movies, they had these little animated intros, fanfare. And that piece of music, Trackdown, I think it's called by Craig Palmer, was the song. Craig Palmer was the song.

However, years later, I noticed they were using this for leaf highlights on Global, I believe. Did Mark Hemsher have anything to do with that? Well, I don't know if he sanctioned this. That's your documentary, okay? Jim Taddy has been hesitant to do anything reuniting with Mark Hemsher with regards to Sportsline. They did golf together recently, so the ice has started to thaw for sure.

Okay, that's good. But, for example, I tried very hard to make episode 500 a Mark Hebbshire, Jim Taddy reunion. And I had Mark's buy-in easily. He's a TMDS client. And then Jim Taddy said, no guy. Oh, no. I know.

But I think Sportsline would be a good documentary. I'm just giving you all these ideas. Well, what about Bob McCown? I mean, you know, he's the OG of Sportsline, no? Yeah, right. Yeah, Mark Hepsher took over. And I, this year, funnily enough, found a Sportsline intro with

him. Oh wow. That is like so 80s. It's like 80 or 81. Does he have a beard? Yeah. so 80s it's like 80 or 81 does he have a beard yeah yeah and it's like just an absolute disaster of a set it's like the worst set i've ever seen in my life um yeah you can turn that off now i mean that i brought along just because just because it it goes into this thing that you and i talk about all the time which is when a piece of music was used on something that we saw and then you associate that piece with that and then you see it somewhere and then you're like then i realized now that was just a piece of library music okay i got i got a great

example uh maybe i'll call it up real quick here if you can you're so you're go what are you drinking now i'm drinking my favorite glb never lets me me down. Mr. Octopus wants to fight. You know, that's my favorite. It's so good. The go-to Great Lakes beer was always the Gordie Levesque Canuck Pale Ale. They start sponsoring Toronto Mike. I start talking about my favorite beer, Octopus Wants to Fight. I'm told by a retail employee at Great Lakes that they sell more octopus wants to fight

than anything else in that retail store. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, what's great about octopus, so many things, but it kind of creeps up on you. It's a little bit stronger than the Canuck Pale Ale. You got to be careful.

I'm only good for two. Like, I don't do a third. Well, I wanted to ask you, since you're Mr. GLB, I love how they do these limited editions, but it's like a love-hate because I live way out in the East. Okay, but you see,

Octopus is all year round now. Oh, no, no, no. But I saw earlier this year there was New England Octopus once. Octopus with like Civil War stuff on its head. Yes, yes. And of course, like it was sold out in five minutes.

Do you ever get that stuff? I mean. Yeah. So whatever they're doing. So for example, you're drinking the Monty. Was that limited? English Mile, that's limited. Yeah.

So I kind of memorize all the, because my wife's favorite is, okay, the Shinny here is limited too. Okay. And in fact, the Karma Citra is limited. This is. What? Yeah. Okay.

So I believe, you know, you got your Blonde Lager that's there all year round and your Canuck Pale Ale and the Octopus is there year round, and there's a few others. I think maybe over my dad's bod might be year round now, but bottom line is there's several beers that come and go depending on the season. You're right. You've got to kind of – like Electric Circus.

But those are the ones you can only get at the brewery. That's not going out any LCBO. Right, right, right. But the octopus does make it to LCBOs. And hipster bars everywhere. Yes, that's right. Okay, so this song. You ever heard this song before? It's familiar. And you're not a sports guy, so you're forgiven

if you don't know. But every sports fan listening right now knows what I'm listening to. The theme song to Bob McCallum's primetime sports okay i've been hearing this for decades okay when i used to work in thornhill and i was in my fucking car i'm so glad these days no more commute for me i'm if i can't bike to you we're not doing business together this is my new rule but uh i would hear this so often forever until recently because it's gone now. But,

uh, Ian Grant, this is a guy who's been in the radio business for a long time. A behind the scenes guy tipped me to the fact that, uh, this is just a piece of like, it's a piece of music that was on a, like a library. Like you said,

like some kind of a royalty, I don't know, some, some CD library of, Oh, I don't know. Is it royalty free, I don't know, is it royalty free? I have no idea. But they picked it up one day many years ago to use it, and now it's the primetime sports theme. It's probably in Japan.

It's probably the theme to something else. Yeah, to like a dog show or something. That's exactly what it was. broadcasters bought these albums um predate cd that uh they paid like a thousand bucks and they had unlimited usage and i mean it's again the the difference of eating the sausage versus seeing how the sausage gets made right as as the viewer you're like oh yeah that's the theme song from whatever it is but then you're like oh it's just this lame compilation library album of all these other cuts um but it's still great it's like the story keeps evolving about where these things come from you just mentioned ian grant he was the other name that was mentioned alongside you and wise block really but you said he actually works in radio. I believe he's at 1010.

Like behind the scenes at 1010. Somewhere back there. I think so. Okay, but he's a head. He's like you guys. He knows more about it than people that actually work. He knows a lot because he's in the industry. But he's in the industry. So if somebody wonders why he knows so much, he's in the industry

where Weisblot... Well, Weisblot was in the industry. Like, people don't... You know, he was in the industry, but he hasn't been in a long time. But I've He's in the industry where Wiseblood, well Wiseblood was in the industry like people don't, you know, he was in the industry but he hasn't been in a long time but I've never been in the industry. But I don't know where Ian Grant would share anything. He used to be the administrator of that soundy board where the Southern Ontario, Western

New York. Yes, the big yellow board. The big yellow board. I see you on there. I'm on there. Well you know why I went on there? I hardly ever go on there, but somebody, this is kind of funny because I was recently announced the producer of the Humble and Fred show. Yeah, you're the ninth producer or some shit.

So somebody, I don't know, a fan, I don't know, some nice person shares this news on the yellow board, okay? And then somebody who calls himself the consultant says, oh, why the high churn rate? Like, are they assholes? Does nobody want to work for them and i'm thinking okay 30 years and until me we just started there's been eight

people and then i look a little further i dig i find out who they are who are these people and i look at it one is dan duran okay he went on to do some bigger things okay of course one is uh a guy named uh you might know him jason barr okay he went on to do some bigger things okay one is a guy named you might know him Jason Barr he went on to do some bigger things one is a guy named his name is his name is Schwarma is how I know him I always think

Schwarma has gone on he's now producing podcasts for The Athletic then another guy is Bob Willett he's literally like a program director for like a cluster of like bell media stations in i don't know hamilton or something like that he's doing well for himself he's been in the industry forever so now that brings us to podcast land where you had yeah i had a guy jason for a cup of coffee nice guy and then you had a

lady named eileen who also nice but uh then then Amanda Barker took over, also nice. And now I'm doing it. I'm booking guests over there and helping them out. And high churn rates. I chimed in to set the record fucking straight because that's ridiculous. Well, look, if you hang out or you spend any time at all on the big yellow board, I mean, I got to laugh sometimes. I've never seen a bigger bunch of babies. Those guys, and they're all guys,

throw the toys out of the crib for the littlest transgressions. Okay, if somebody says something about somebody else, maybe this person was a little bit off today or this person sort of mentioned that. These are grown ass men behaving like toddlers. It's amusing to me but it's also kind of sad.

By the way, I want to say Shwarma has a real name. It is Jeff Domet. It's terrible when you can only remember the nickname but of course Jeff Domet's a great guy and he worked for many years at Hockey Night in Canada Radio and now he's at the Athletic producing podcast. Ed, do I have to

be honest with me? Do I have to wait 12 months to see you again? I hope not. You know, this year has been a bit of a blur. It went by really fast, but I will make it a point to not wait another year to return. If you'll have me.

But do you promise? I would have you every week. Do you promise that you will come for Christmas Crackers Volume 4? A hundred percent. You heard it here first, folks. Christmas Crackers Volume 4 coming in December 2020. I had a great time. Thanks for bringing these

wonderful nuggets, these Christmas crackers. And damn, this is the most fun episode I'll do all year. So thanks, man. Merry Christmas, man. Thanks for having me. Merry Christmas. And that brings us to the end of our 557th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

And tell us, at Retro Ontario for Ed Conroy, at Retro Ontario, but the retro in the Ontario shares the same O. That's a pro tip for you. I like the busted... I haven't busted chops about that in a long, long, long, long time. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is

at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. And Brian Master, you write him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com and Banjo Dunk is at Banjo Dunk with a c see you all next week it's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or do

For me and you But I'm a much better man for having known you Oh, you know that's true because