Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Christmas Crackers, Vol. 7: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1823

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

In this 1823rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Retrontario's own Ed Conroy for Christmas Crackers, Vol. 7. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, RetroFestive.ca and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Back in 82, I used to be able to throw a pigskin a quarter mile. Yeah. How much you want to make a bet I can throw football over the mountains? Well, a coach would have put me in fourth quarter. We'd have been state champions, no doubt. No doubt in my mind. You better believe things have been different. I'd have gone pro.

I'd have a heartbeat. I'd be making millions of dollars. millions of dollars and living in a big old mansion somewhere, you know, soaking it up in a hot tub with my soulmate. What up, Miami? Toronto. VK on a beat, uh, check, uh, I'm in Toronto where you want to get the city love. I'm from Toronto where you want to get the city love. Okay.

I'm in Toronto, like you want to get the city love. So my city love me back for my city. Welcome to episode 1,823 of Toronto Miked. An award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Retrofestive.ca, Canada's pop culture and Christmas store. Save 10% with the promo code FOTM for a limited time. Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at great lakesbeer.com for free local home delivery in the G.A. Palma Pasta

Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palmapasta.com for more. Fusion Corpsoe Nick Aeinis. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline

and Building Success, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.c.c.a. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning for Christmas Crackers, Volume 7

from Retro Ontario, it's Ed, Conroy, an FOTM Hall of Famer. Ed, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, my friend. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to the entire Conroy family. You know, it just hit me. How many times have I been on this show when you were doing your intro there? I don't know if this is intentional or not, but you are homageing the Friendly Giant, my friend. Explain further because if I'm doing it, it's subconsciously because I loved that show as a child.

Please tell me, how am I doing so? Well, you know, one of the things that Bob Hummey, the Friendly Giant did that was different from everybody else was the intro to each episode every day was done live. And every other kid's show had a canned opening. Just like every other podcast that go on, they say, oh, just start talking. Well, you know, I'll add in all my thanks and all my shoutouts after we're done. But I love it.

You do it live every episode. That's amazing. Funny you mentioned that because about a month or so ago, Alan Zweig was in here talking about his new documentary. And he pointed it out for the listenership because he was sitting right here. And he said, I don't know if the listeners know this, but every time Toronto Mike does that intro and the outro, you know, it's done live, I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't want a canned intro. No, that's, that's awesome, dude. Nice one. Well, that

fun fact about the friendly giant is one of the many wonderful facts that I learned in the book Imagination, the Golden Age of Toronto Kids TV. We've had an episode where we dove into this and I congratulated you on that episode, but I just thought I'd let the listenership know if you go back to episode 1,788. I had a great chat with FOTM Hall of Famer, Ed Retro Ontario Conroy, about his book, Imagination, the Golden Age of Toronto's Kids TV.

We talked about Uncle Chichamus, the friendly giant, who I adore, the Uncle Bobby Show, who is a hero of mine, Mr. Dressup, who now appears in the extra of this very episode you're going to hear today, Today's special, shout out to Muffy Mouse and more. So we actually had a wonderful chat for an hour and 47 minutes,

not too long ago about your fine book, but I'm glad we could get you back for the seventh volume of Christmas crackers. That's right. We've got to keep the tradition going. There's, you know, so few these days. Number seven, wow. I mean, number one feels like, you know, a week ago. Can you explain to the listenership and yours truly, what I played off the top of this episode.

Yeah, let's dive right in, shall we? That's a little snippet from a great movie that is amazingly 21 years old now, my goodness, called Napoleon Dynamite. I don't know if you've seen it. I have seen it. I love it. You should see it.

It's great for many reasons. I suppose right off the top, we'll do the retro Ontario connection in that movie the mother of the girl who kind of the cool girl who gets forced to go to the prom with Napoleon Dynamite is played by the great Ellen Dubin who was of course the wife of Jay Switzer who was one of the founders of City TV of course his mom and dad were telecommunications pioneers of Canada and Ellen's amazing I don't know if you've ever had her John, you should. I should.

She's got Hollywood stories, city TV stories, much music stories. And, you know, the fact she's in Napoleon Dynamite, it always blows me away when I see it again. But the reason I selected that clip is, you know, as I've been touring the book and we have the exhibit is back now. You know, maybe we can mention that a bit more later. But, you know, there's a lot of nostalgia in the air. I guess when you and I get together, there always is. But, you know, people are asking me about this stuff. Why do you care about this stuff?

Why do you do it? You know, what are you motivated by? And I kind of started to get the sense that for some people, okay, nostalgia is almost something that they're a little bit afraid of. And I think the character in Napoleon Dynamite that we heard, it's Uncle Rico. The Uncle Rico factor, okay, is that he is completely obsessed about a fixed point in time. Okay, in 1982, he didn't get put on at the big football game and he didn't make the play. And he blames that for his trajectory in life, that he's kind of a bum. He's not a rich guy in a hot tub.

And it kind of illustrates to me that, yeah, there are some people that think of nostalgia as being that, that you're hung up on something that happened, that had it gone in a different direction, that your life would be better. Whereas I think the nostalgia that I peddle, that you peddle, is not that at all. It is a celebratory thing. It is not let's go back. Things were better or I just want to be a kid in the 80s forever. Like all of those sentiments. Like I relate to that, but that was never,

that never enters into my thought process, right? Like it's not about, oh, you know, if I had only made the volleyball team in grade five, you know, I'd be living in Rosedale or something. But I think, you know, unfortunately there are people that have that happen and Uncle Rico was kind of, you know, I was

watching it recently. That's it. That's exactly what it is, you know? Oh, it's too funny. Sort of like when you hear Al Bundy on Married of Children, we'll talk about you know, he peaked in high school having a big play in a football game and it's sort of like, I think the

blowback I get sometimes because I do have people over as you know, and I do, I'll talk about what you're up to today. I promise you we're going to spend some time. I want to hear about what's next, what you're doing today. But we're going to go in that time machine and celebrate some of the things you were involved with in the past.

And I think when people are resistant to that, it's because they think somehow that you know, celebrating the past somehow means you're not living in the present. And this is not true. In fact, I would just say to you, Ed, that maybe I do this a bit more than you. I don't know. Maybe we're both, you know,

collaborating on this one. But it's not even so much that I'm interested in celebrating the past, of course I am, but I'm also interested in letting people know that, hey, the past wasn't as good as you remember it. You know, like there are warts in the past, and maybe we do print the legend around here,

but within reason, sometimes we can pull back the curtain and let you know, oh, this is the real talk on that, and it's not as pristine as your nine-year-old memory, nine-year-old brain might remember it. no absolutely absolutely and i mean i think you know i can't remember the name of this right right now but there is a condition that i've read about where there are certain people that um this might sound a little bit um science fictiony for this time of day but uh that there are literally existing uh all of their time periods are happening simultaneously like there's a theory it's it's almost like

the matrix kind of stuff like you are that eight year old on christmas morning opening up your transformers is happening at the same time as everything else in your life um and what you experienced through the nostalgia is that you know you're kind of breaking through that and you're not supposed to the programming is is breaking basically um i don't know i don't know about that but i like it i mean I think it's kind of a cool idea and that idea that, you know, we're not here to destroy the good memories. And at the same time, we're not here to put them up on a pedestal and say, we need to go back to that. It's just, you know, it's a lot of amazing stuff. And I know you love stories. I love stories. And we learn a lot about ourselves and our childhood and

our parents and their generation and their parents' generations. And that's humanity, man. It's passing down those stories and keeping all of those memories alive while at the same time navigating the future. And what better time of year is there than Christmas to take stock of all these eras, you know? And that's why I love these Christmas Crackers episodes of Toronto Mike with the FOTM Hall of Famer, Ed Conroy from Retro, Ontario.

This is the seventh one. I think we actually maybe missed a year or two during COVID. I'm not sure. But this is the seventh, for sure, Christmas crackers. And I love it because you're literally bringing like nuggets, little treats, gifts for the listenership at this festive time of year. I want to pump your tires a little bit. But first, I want to ask you if you have any time in your busy, busy life, if you could

listen to the Consumers Distributing episode of Toronto Micah. which dropped a couple of weeks ago. I think it'd be interesting to get some Ed Conroy reaction. Yeah, I actually had full disclosure. I had tried to carve out time because I keep seeing references to it that people that heard it have left on my videos. You know, talking about wise guys and stuff.

So, yeah, it is top of my list. It's mind-blowing. I bet. I bet. I mean, I've heard stuff you know, I'm sure it's just going to, you know, confirm a lot of those things that I'd heard. It was a scary group of people, no doubt.

Well, I mean, the founder went to jail for fraud. Like, let's start there and keep going. Similar to sort of, like, there's a lot of CFNY nostalgia in the air right now because on January 6th, it sounds like there's going to be an insurrection, but don't worry, Ed, it's not an insurrection. But January 6th, 2026 on TV, Ontario. Ever heard a TVO, Ed? Maybe. Maybe. Let me look.

Shout out to Rick A, who's listening. Okay, shout out to Rick A. But there's going to be a 60-minute documentary about CF&Y is going to air. And I think it's going to, maybe that'll stir up some conversations about the David Marsden era of CFNY. And, of course, the inspiration for the Rush song, Spirit, Radio. A couple of quick hits here, though, is that one is, it's interesting how polarizing the Mark Daly saying subdivisions thing was that we talked about last time because I heard from some rush heads who basically were so angry at us

that we're like calling Neil Peart somehow we're calling him in as he's in heaven watching us calling him a liar because apparently the rush has said that was Neil Peart and how dare we say otherwise but anyway I'm going to actually pump your tires here and then we'll do our chit chat but okay hold on you're dropping bombs here I know letting me respond

my apologies okay CFNY I'm interested in that because I did actually sell them some footage for that movie you're thanked in the credits okay that's cool I saw a couple of bits in the trailer

but the guy who I was dealing with the director of Matt Schichter Schichter I saw this clip where he was telling you or something that he wasn't invited to the premiere. Wow. So that hasn't dropped. Oh, the clip has because I put it on my YouTube channel and then I wrote about it on

Toronto Mike.com because I found it interesting. I had a 90 minute chat with the director of the CF&Y documentary just a few days ago and I'll probably drop it. I might drop it as like a New Year's Eve special or something. So it's coming, you know, before 2026, I'll drop that in the Toronto Mike feed. But there was absolutely a falling out and there's three parts. involved. I'm still kind of on this case, but you have these three parties. You have the production company that owns this thing, which if I were a smarter host, I'd remember the name of this production

company. Something high something, highball.tv or something. Oh yeah, highball. Okay, yeah. So Highball paid for it. They own this doc. Okay. They hired Matt Schichter to direct this documentary and he fulfilled his promise. He delivered both a 90 minute cut and a 60 minute. cut because TVO wants a 60 minute cut and he delivered that in February 2025 and then you have the executive producers. I don't know if they have any real power. They're sort of like the

queen in Canada I suppose but the executive producers had a lot of influence on this and there's five of them but three of them are CF and Wiers who are also FOTMs and they are Alan Cross Iver Hamilton and Scott Turner so you got these three groups and there's

somewhere there was a falling out where Matt Schichter found out this thing was airing on TVO on January 6th when I did and probably when you did and he was not invited to the premiere and we're not certain as we speak now if the version that's going to air

on TVO, the 60 minute version that will air on TVO on January 6th, we don't know as we speak now if that is the same 60 minute cut that Matt Schichter delivered in February 2025. Okay. Yes, this is a very unfortunate common thing that

happens with film and documentary is these, as you say, these different tiers of exec producers and production companies and broadcasters and somebody, you know, gets their hump up and people get rolled over by buses, you know, it's very unfortunate. So stay tuned. I'll be tuning into TVO on January 6th to, because I have, I'll just point out, I have seen both the 90-minute version Matt Schichter delivered and the 60-minute version Matt Schichter delivered. So other than those on the inside, I might be the only one on the planet who can tell you what is different between the TVO cut and then the cut that Matt delivered in February 2025.

So stay tuned, Ed. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's parallels there with the Sean Menard much music movie, really. The only obvious huge difference is that he did not allow for a recut version to appear. But shout out to Sean Minard in that he made a beautiful. documentary about Terry Fox and I was lucky enough to be at Roy Thompson Hall for the premiere and the score for this film was performed live by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. That's yeah I was invited unfortunately I couldn't make it that

night but he's a fantastic guy and and I guess this is now is as good a time as any to let you know that I'm collaborating with him on his next big project which I am my lips are sealed, but I can tell you you are going to dig it the most, my friend. Oh my God. Oh, my God. A documentary about Rusty. God damn it, Michael. Do you know now how much trouble I'm going to be in?

That's exciting. Very exciting. I think a lot of FOTMs listening right now just got very excited by that news. So I'll stay tuned and maybe I'll try to guess offline later. But that's amazing that this is happening. And Sean, this is a good chance for you give us what you know because you know periodically ed we'd bump into each other at like a david kines breakfast or something uh from hollywood suite or what did they merge with the game network

yeah game tv yeah game tv so we'll bump into each other here and there and periodically we'll just have a little chat about you know 299 queen street west which i was asking matt schichter about it the other day and he's like oh i haven't seen it i don't know how to see it i'm like i think you got to go to sean's house like i think but we have seen it of course and you were Your logo was, you know, I mentioned you got thanked in the CF&Y doc as like, by the way, these credits, I've never seen anything like it. In the 90-minute version, the credits go down kind of normal, and there's like, they're pretty long, actually.

I think we have like 15 minutes of credits or something in the 90-minute version. In the 60-minute version, this 15 minutes of credits goes by in four seconds. Humanly impossible to read, but you'll have to take my word for it that Ed Conroy is listed because I was looking for my name because the director listened to many a Toronto miced episode with CFNY people when he was going to interview them and he thanked me quite a bit and I thought oh maybe I'm in there but no but you are in there which makes me even happier well you know that's that's great to hear and I was going to say I think we talked a bit about this when I was on talking about my book yeah that you know a big part of my book actually the backbone of it was these interviews that I got access to too between Fred Rainsbury and all the various people that worked in children's television. And I think we talked about a likely

future where people will be going through Toronto Mike archives and making books and documentaries based off of all of the fantastic information that you have collected intentionally and unintentionally I think

through these amazing conversations. Well, they're already doing that with the impressive archives at retro Ontario. So people should go to retro Ontario.com, but absolutely subscribe to that YouTube channel. Because, you know, a lot of times when I'm looking for something, and I always give credit, you know that. I was doing that before you were retro Ontario. But I absolutely know if, you know, maybe Ed's got it and more often than not you do. So you're doing this right back at you, man. It's a mutual admiration society here. Well, if we don't do it, Michael,

who's going to do it? Well, I'm going to do it again here quick. Although I want an answer to the question I was leading to there, which is, do you have an update? Like, do you know anything at all about the documentary 299 Queen Street West and whether the Great Unwashed, the average Joe will ever be able to view this thing? You know, it's tricky because I've heard different versions, as I'm sure you have, from various levels of importance of people that worked on it or who didn't work on it. And, you know, I got to say from where I'm sitting, it does not appear likely that it is going to turn up in, you know, in the form that we saw in anyways. And I mean, geez, we could do a whole episode about what a travesty that situation is because what not only did it derail what I think was a, you know, a beautiful piece.

it also muddied the waters about licensing footage and using footage of bands that played at 299 or on electric circus or whatever. And that in turn caused a lot of productions that were at various stages to stop and basically go from being greenlit to being either on hold or canceled altogether. So it felt at the time,

and we're talking about two years now, two years ago it felt like we're finally breaking through like 299 is going to show the powers that be that there is this interest in in this stuff as you and I always knew there was there's a market for it and here's a here's a banger and now it's nowhere to be seen I think the momentum has totally gone you know the airs out of the tires and we're back to people saying oh well you know great example is the the mr dress-up film i don't know if you if you've seen it oh my god of course i've seen it absolutely shout out to fotm nina keo nina you know bless nina uh bless nina's heart but one of the issues that i have with that picture was that you know the i'm not going to name any

names but the powers that be looked at the first cut and said you know what this needs more famous people in it uh because oh we can't just have like our archival footage of dress up and the people that actually made the show, that's not going to resonate. We need to see what Stephen Page thinks of Mr. Dressup. And no slight against him or anybody else that shows up in that movie. But to me, that is yet another illustration of this weird Canadian almost like frigidity that we have about our own IP, that we can't be proud of it.

It can't stand on its own two feet. It needs to be, you know, bigged up by other celebrities. And I don't know. I don't really, I don't want to watch a bunch of documentaries where it's other people talking about the thing. I want to actually see the thing, you know. I agree 100% with you. This was a big beef I had with the Harold Ballard documentary. Remember Jason Priestley?

Totally. Like, I'm with you. Like, oh, celebrity, by way, also celebrity person who wasn't actually around for the Ballard era. I know this person's age and I know my age and I can do a little math here and I think now speaking of real thinking of age

and then I'm going to pump your tires whether you want it or not I don't care what your PSI is on those tires I'm still going to do it here but one of the problems with the CFOI doc I think when we look back at the whole thing because I'm going to drop this 90 minutes with Matt Schichter and then people are going to see it

and there will be some chatter from those who give a shit I'm not even sure how many but I know I do but Matt wasn't around for the CFM why Spirit of Radio era. And I know that because I am older than Matt Schichter and Spirit of Radio essentially ends when

David Marsden resigns. He leaves a note on the kitchen table and basically wishing everyone luck and he leaves because the owners decided to, you know, expand the playlist to add people like George Michael and some

top 40 artists and he said this is not what I want to do. I'm going to leave now. And it's just interesting that sometimes you have these things these things that are happening in the 70s and the 80s and then you have the people talking about it, the celebrities and then the directors who actually weren't

around for it. Just interesting food for thought here. But, okay. Do you want your tires pumped before we get into these Christmas crackers? Yeah, let's pump those tires, man. Okay, so I'm also going to pump my tires by saying for four months in 2025, Toronto Mike was

sponsored by Waterfront Toronto. That happened and it was like, an honor to have Waterfront Toronto as a sponsor and I got to talk up all these cool things happening on our rad waterfront. At some point in this episode I'm hoping the words Ontario place will come out of your lips there, Ed,

but that's coming later. But Harborfront Center is a place that hosts these cool they have cool, cool events and happenings, Harborfront Center. I am excited because this is kind of emerged after our last chat that Mr. Dressup to DeGrassey,

42 years of legendary Toronto Kids TV. You can see that now at Harborfront Center and it's running for a few more months and I think that's right, Ed. Thank you. Yeah, it was a very cool thing that sort of came out of nowhere. As you know, we had a really good run

down there on 401 Richmond in the summer of 23. And I think it was one of those exhibits where I don't know if the Museum of, Toronto had faith in it, but I don't think they knew what they, what they were getting themselves into. You started dealing with, you know, polka door fans and today's special fans. And it was just one of those things where I think people kept showing up like even years after it had ended and were visibly disappointed that it wasn't a permanent exhibit. So it was always something they wanted to

restage. We talked about maybe taking it on the road going, you know, to another museum and doing it. And then they had this fantastic opportunity, as you say, down at Harborfront. And man, the timing couldn't have been better. Like it literally just, just happenstance was around the time that my book came out. So it was a, it was a great fortuitous opportunity. And I think, you know, for me, Harborfront, when I was a kid, And, you know, Harborfront was a very important destination in terms of just live entertainment. You know, I remember going to see Sharon Lois and Bram perform down there. And I remember going to Adventure Playground, which was, you know, in the vicinity.

And so it felt like a bit of a homecoming. Like there needs to be something. Hopefully we're going to extend that and be there longer. And, you know, there's been a lot of people coming out of the woodwork, you know, talking to me about wanting to make this a permanent exhibit, maybe not at Harborfront, but somewhere. And of course, to me, that's a no-brainer. It should be permanent. It should be something that people can just go bring their children, their children can learn about what their parents experienced. They can make puppets. They can learn about television because it's funny. You and I talk about television

because it was our formative technology. Like it was where we got everything from. But now, as you know, it is it is an old format right it's like these old boys coming on and talking about radio so passionately and maybe they're disconnected because they don't see that the world changed and radio is an old format and now television is um and that you know that that that's that is what it is but i think it is important to to put it into context of certainly what toronto gave the world 100% I mean even the Oscars are moving

to YouTube wow you know if I told you that back in the day Mr. Rich Ronts here I know

I know it's mental crazy by the way so we opened with Uncle Rico and it's just worth noting

I think a lot of people know this but for someone it's a mind blow the guy I forget his name actually in the White Lotus

he's been in two seasons now he swims okay that's what you need to know the guy who swims do you remember his name

Light Lotus. Have you seen one? John Grease. John Grease. Oh, yeah. Okay. Thank you. He's same actor. Brilliant. Yes. So. Yeah. And, yeah, sorry, go ahead. Oh, you go ahead. I'm like, I was only going to bang home that. I love, I love that guy. He turns up, he's one of those character actors.

Yeah. It turns up in the most random places. Uh, I loved him when I was younger in a, in a great Val Kilmer comedy called Real Genius. I remember. Of course. Okay. So he plays the weird guy that lives in the closet. it.

And then he also turns up in the John Travolta movie Get Shorty. He's one of the hitmen in that. I've seen that. And yeah, he just, he always brings it. And I think Uncle Rico is just such a brilliant, brilliant character. So yeah, whenever you see that guy, it's worth to watch. Another character actor, just last note, then we're getting to the Christmas crackers, everybody.

But although these are kind of gems themselves, these little sidebar chats. but the actor known as Jonathan Banks so a lot of people are like oh that's Mike from Breaking Bad because what a memorable role as Mike in Breaking Bad

but once you kind of see that distinctive look I'll be watching old stuff old movies or this and that and there he is similar to the actor who played Uncle Rico on in yeah

same same deal like just character actor always good you don't know the name necessarily but once you spot the face you see him everywhere that guy Yeah.

That guy. Hey, it's that guy. All right, Ed, so now we're ready for Christmas crackers. Do I just play the clip and then you'll react? Does that sound right? Yeah. I didn't know if you had a speech prepared before I press play on these things. But let's kick out here, the first Christmas Cracker here.

Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, every Christmas. What? We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Well, they certainly seem to be having a good time out there, Sprocket.

Yeah, I like it when they have a good time. But I tell you what, somebody's going to do something about these dishes, Sprocket. Come on, I'll wash and you dry, okay? Good tidings do you, wherever you are. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Look up, dear. Uh-oh. Ristledo.

Merry Christmas, Carrie. What? Merry Christmas, be here. Very Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

in a very festive mood. Seems fitting. Yeah, that was the ending of a Muppet family Christmas, which was a television special aired Christmas 1987, aired on CBC here in Canada and on the ABC network in America. And of course, it is strangely not more in the zeitgeist.

I never understood why, because it's the only time, that all of the Jim Henson shows come together. So it's a 30-minute Christmas special. It's got the Muppets. It's got the Muppet babies. It's got Fragal Rock. And it's got Sesame Street. And then it's got Jim Henson right at the end there.

Right. And it is, for the people that know about it, it is synchrosanct. Like it is, you know, up there with the original British version of Christmas Carol. like they watch it every Christmas they know every line they know every scene it's a beautiful little piece and of course there's so many other muppet christmas properties right like there's the film with michael cane and there's the john denver and there's emma otter's band and all these things but that one

the muppet film of christmas is i think the best one and i made a little video about this recently because not enough people also understand part of why it's a mind blow is that it was entirely filmed at 9 Channel 9 court in Scarborough okay and people say oh well you know they were making Fraggle Rock in the 80s in Toronto

of course they were but they were making it at 9 Channel 9 9 they were making that was a CBC HBO co-production so I would love to get the bottom of why it was shot at 9 Channel 9. And there's no information. I've consulted Muppet historians. I wanted to talk more about this in my book. And I just couldn't, the information seems to be lost as to why it was filmed at 9 Channel 9. But throughout all of this, it just reminded me that that is a building, okay, that is strangely not revealed.

I think as much as it should be. Like we all have obvious great reverence for $2.99 queen, right? Like you say $2.99, everybody knows all the stuff that was filmed there and all the characters that passed through there. And maybe because it's downtown, maybe that's why it gets all the props. But we've talked a lot about Uncle Bobby and just like mom and the various people at CFTO news throughout the years. The fact that they shot

some of the most important and memorable scenes of network there. You know, I'm mad as hell not going to take it anymore. Happening on the soundstage while the Uncle Bobby cast is like watching this Oscar winning performance go down live is incredible. And Tom Gibney's in that movie. Am I right?

Tom Gibney's in it. And then I think we've talked about this before. Like Tom Gibney gets sampled. by Steinsky and Double D and it ends up being one of the original hip hop samples that then gets re-sampled throughout the years um but even after I put out this vid I get people coming oh did you know they also filmed this there and I didn't know that David Cronenberg's video drone which is like in my top five movies of all time because I think it's so prophetic and it's really about Moses and it's about

city TV. There's the sequences in that movie that are meant to be basically an adult film that James Woods is watching on videotape called Samurai Dreams and it's just totally weird like Asian porno

but that was all filmed at 9 Channel 9. So the idea that you know integral sequences of network and videodrome which I think are the you know the two like I said the two most prophetic films about television were both shot at nine channel nine is is crazy and i don't know if you've ever been there um i was there once to be a guest on um richard krause's show called pop life right

and it it is really a strange building right because it's it's literally frozen in time like it is not changed at all the staircases everything is is exactly as it was when it opened 1960, you know, I talk about this a lot in the book, like the CTV network coming on the air in 1960 was a huge deal because up until that point, like almost 10 years of television in Canada was just CBC affiliates. There was no alternative to that. So they get this new network going. It's a commercial network. And CFDO is the flagship. and they go on the air New Year's Eve and they're showing fireworks in black and white.

I love that. But that building never, ever changed. It's like a relic. And I know when all the various changes happened with Bell Media and $2.99 slowly becoming even more of a mausoleum and shipping these people out to Scarborough Aging Court and a lot of people being pissed off about that or bummed out about that.

I just think they're missing an opportunity to not step up and make a bigger deal about what a historic building that place actually is. So love hearing your perspective on that. And there's so many mind blows in that last few minutes of Conroy that like parts of my brain are all over the walls here. Like unbelievable mind blows there. But a couple of quick hits on that. Why is, you know, Channel 9 court?

not as revered as $2.99 Queen Street West, but the two things. One is that CFTO never seemed as cool. It never seemed cool. No, you're right. It was squares. Squares. I mean, CFDO news was if I went to my friend's house

and their parents were squares, they're watching Nightbeat News, you know? No slight against Nightbeat News, but it was very, very proper, right? But my dad was watching City Falls. and you know you would see stuff on city pulse that was salacious and scandalous that you wouldn't see on cbc news or on ip news but you're right i mean it was cfdo and c tv network was meant to be a family network they never showed nudity or movies was swearing or if they did they were edited um so you're absolutely right

it was a total square network but but there was also a lot of weird stuff that slipped through the cracks i mean uncle bobby like let's go there right we talk about him all the time and that that whole era is so fascinating to me because you know again i talk a lot about this in the book they started off with the best intentions with lots of money and lots of energy about making these good kids shows and then as the years go on they cut the money they cut the budgets they don't care anymore to the point that uncle bobby is a bus driver and he's buying the supplies with his own meager salary to make this show. And yet it still was in production because they had that regulatory obligation, right?

They couldn't, they didn't, nobody wanted anything to do with that stuff. They hated it. It was embarrassing to them. And I love that Uncle Bobby as a child in Scotland, his dad was friends with the guy that actually invents television. So he is around this, this inventor, this mad inventor, Farnsworth, and he learns about television, and then he goes off and fights in the war and does all this vaudevillian life. And then he ends up in Scarborough doing television. And what does he do? He treats it like a magic act. And any great magician that wants to enrapture his audience is going to

start to show you here's how I do my trick and so if you talk to Nina I think you did ask Nina Keo about Uncle Bobby and they hated it they hated going on Uncle Bobby because if you're doing a puppet on Uncle Bobby Uncle Bobby would

go behind your proscenium or your couch and he would literally pull you up so the kids could see it was a human being operating the puppet and that broke the illusion but from Uncle I'm trying to rehabilitate Uncle Bobby here from his

point of view, he's a magician explaining his tricks because he thinks kids are smart enough to understand that. So it was, you know, I think I said this on the last show. It was very postmodern of him to do that kind of stuff, you know? Well, I've now learned the subject matter of the new

documentary from Sean Minard with Ed Conroy. It's obviously on Uncle Bobby. I think I'm going to have to do that one myself because the money folks don't see an audience there. But even it's just you and me on the opening night. money ruins everything and this is what i'm learning as i get older here uh maybe your doc will be

about just like mom i've got some uh some footage of fergie and i in the basement you know i thought i'm glad you brought that up because uh you know you did more than anybody else to try and i think put into context that's that video that did the round but some asshole i want to say in the last six months basically brought that video back and I think it was on TikTok probably and it went on and got a whole bunch of new attention that didn't exist before and it is almost like there is no point in even trying to talk about that anymore because it's like a snowball. I'm glad you brought this up because every once in a while I feel sorry for myself because honestly you should see the hate mail I get like you should see the disturbing awful notes I get.

because I had Fergie Oliver on Toronto Micton. Then I think, okay, if I'm getting this, what's poor Kerry Oliver getting? Like, oh, I know. I just, it breaks my heart, really. Like, it is. It is horrible. And, you know, she did all that she could to try and individually speak to people,

I think, that posted stuff. And again, I think she probably just gave up because there's the volume of idiots. I can't reason. So I used to do that too. In fact, even this year, you mentioned this new wave. So this new wave, and even people I thought were friends that I've talked to in person, have come on my mic at Christy Pitts, who on blue sky would basically attack me for even daring on any level to defend this behavior.

And all I'm trying to do is give it context, but people see the slow, they'll see that, and they'll decide, oh, I've seen enough. I know that this man is the P-word, and anyone who would dare platform him in any regard is a despicable, awful human being. And then how do you have a conversation of somebody who starts with that? Well, you know, last note on this, because it is a dark subject.

But I have begun to wonder if a lot of this is a weird kind of, again, Canadian thing where we see these reports from England, say, about Jimmy Saville. And it's like, people seem to want there to be, as you say, a P word in Canadian television, okay? And whether they say it's Uncle

Bobby or just like mom or poor old, I've seen poor old Captain Kangaroo dragged into this as well. And it's like these guys, of sure, you watch that footage now, it seems weird, it seems squarish. It's uncomfortable. But again, you, it's uncomfortable, but you look at the context of children's television at that time. And it was older men. Like, this was totally normal that older men were hanging out with kids and having them sit on their lap and all that stuff. And it's so easy to take that clip out of context and have it blow up on TikTok and say, oh, look at me. I'm so morally superior. But there's really nothing you can do to fix it, right? You know, and I'm glad you mentioned, because you and I are both raised here in

Toronto and therefore we, and I'm speaking for you, you're here. You can speak for yourself. But I had no clue who Jimmy Saville was until he died and then until everything emerged and of course I've seen the documentary I think it was Netflix but I've seen the documentary and it's just the worst most disturbing it's just horrific

but so we learn what happened in England essentially and I'm 100% with you and I've said this to anyone who will listen the Furgy Oliver Supercut that's been given life on YouTube etc gets swirled up in this Jimmy Saville stew and

it's unfair. I'm going to just put it on the public right. It is unfair to Fergie Oliver and it is really unfair to Kerry Oliver and it is fucking unfair to Toronto Mike. Amen. Amen. Okay. One last, I think I had two things. One is that we got on a little tangent.

We might do that, but CFTO not as cool as City TV. Okay, not as cool. We won't argue that. But also not as accessible and open to the public. You mentioned you've been there once, okay? Toronto mic has never been to Channel 9 court because I've never been invited there.

Meanwhile, how many people do you know in this city who will tell you about when they went to the Much Music Video Awards or they went because there was an intimate and interactive or they went just to see, just to go to Speaker's Corner or to stare in the window of 299 Queen Street because they were recording live, much music or whatnot, breakfast television, you name it. Like, it was accessible to the city.

It was a part, like, you know, Moses said what the city is our newsroom or whatever. It felt accessible. It felt like I could touch it. I could see it. This box in Scarborough that you drive by looks like a fortress. Do not enter. There's moat there. You're not wrong, but you're not wrong, Mike.

I mean, look, Moses's, you know, his whole ethos was to take that, that moat and flip it and make it accessible and have people in there. all the time and have people feel the people of Toronto that they had an ownership stake in that channel. And that's why it's so beloved, no doubt. So it is a bit apples and pairs. I think I just raise it because it is seen as this ugly-ass building in Scarborough across from the Scarborough Town Center. But when you actually look at that credit roll, it's amazing. It's really cool. And I feel a little bit that I kind of slept walked through my research and then you have this moment where you're like, oh my God, this place is wild and it shouldn't be seen as the dog shit on somebody's shoe, you know?

Open the doors, let us in and let us celebrate your history. Yes, that will never happen, but we can do it remotely. All right, time for another Christmas Cracker. So thanks to OLG players, we've been able to reinvest 60. $22 billion back into communities. That's a lot of money to share, and we're thrilled to do it. Winterio, this Thursday could be your lucky day. Winterio, if you're going to win, you got to play,

because you can't winterio without a ticket, you got to get a ticket, don't forget to get a ticket. Winterio, you got to have a ticket to Win Terrio. Hi, I'm Fay Dance, and this is the Wind Terrier. Terrio's story. Oh, bless, Faydance. I had the great, fantastic opportunity this year, Mike, to help OLG celebrate their 50th anniversary. They reached out to me.

They were looking to get Faydance, who was the original co-host of Wintario, get her back out there talking about this incredible phenomena that's. you know, changed a lot over the years. And Wintario was one of those things that I remembered very well as a kid that grownups knew about, grownups talked about. But there was no question that on Thursday nights, that was like the original must-see TV if you lived in Ontario because obviously there was these live draws, people won cash money. But more importantly, was like a geography lesson about the province. So they would do these live shows from remote communities all across Ontario. They'd still do Scarborough and they'd do, you know, the Royal Ontario

Museum or the Science Center. But more importantly, they'd go out to these tiny towns that nobody had ever heard of. And they would do these amazing features about the history of the town and what kind of stuff was going on there, and the money that would be raised from the sale of the lottery tickets would go towards building a hockey arena or building, you know, a new beachfront. And the whole thing kind of, I mean, it was genius, really. It was, it was like taking all these boxes, it was global television, right when global television network started up. They needed programming. So they entered into this deal with OLG so they produced those shows and you see that footage of the Wintario trucks you know all lined up with the logos driving into these towns it's like it's like almost like a western movie you know it's like Shane is coming into the town to clean it up and make it better and so it was just very cool I got to hang out with Faye Dance got to interview her about just the you know the legacy of the project and then I got to go through like hundreds of hours.

of vintage Wintario footage, and I put together a little video. It's on the Retro Ontario YouTube channel. So, yeah, if you remember that stuff or you're curious about it, it's worth checking out. Yeah, 50th anniversary of Wintario. Yeah. You'd be my first call, too. I love it. Thank you.

Yeah. I mean, you know, we tend to see lotteries as being, I think now we live in this climate with all the sports betting and the commercials. and it's kind of gross, you know? But I think back then, you know, with everything else, there was a certain amount of innocence. But there was an altruistic element that was definitely there that doesn't exist anymore, you know. You know, between your fine book, this exhibit at Harborfront,

this Wintario 50th anniversary work, 2025 was a great year for Ed Conroy. Well, thank you. I didn't win a podcasting award, though. You know, I think I think I'm going to, blow that right back at you man that's fresh news that happened uh thursday night i believe you're right and i changed the intro i don't know if you heard it but i now say an award winning podcast i'm like i'm gonna lean in on this this is a major award hell yeah yeah you i mean dude everybody and their dog has a podcast so the fact that you now have an award that is distinguishing

uh thank you very much here we are this is the mutual admiration society but i have another Christmas Cracker, courtesy of Retro Ontario. From just beyond your imagination comes Omnibot, the fully programmable robot with a memory. Omnibot, he walks, he talks. Hi, cutie. Amaze your friends. Wow. Intense.

Represhments, Earth-type snacks. Impress your teacher. Impress your girlfriend. Omnabat. There's romance. Take my heart. He's the lean, mean, pop and break and music machine. Yes, it's Omnabat, the fully programmable robot. Available now in your neighborhood.

You remember that garbage? A hundred percent. And do I have memories? Omnibot, I think it was in the consumers distributing catalog. Yes. Yes, he was on the coveted back cover in Christmas 85. So that means it was out of stock. Of course.

It probably never even got into the back room there. But no, Omnibot, I just had a moment. I don't know if I've ever talked to you, but I still show up quite frequently on IHeartRadio network. I do the Thursday night, Thursday throwback with Shane Hewitt and the night shift. And it's great. You know, every week it's he, of all the, I would say all the guests I've, sorry, hosts that I have worked with as a guest at IHeartRadio slash News Talk 1010, I think Shane Hewitt is the most Mike Boone-esque. Really?

Yes. I need to get him on Toronto mic to this guy. You do. Oh my God. He is so chill and he's our age and he gets all the references and he wants to talk about it. You think I'm chill? Oh my God. Compared to some of these other dofuses in the game.

Okay. No, it's a great pleasure to go on and just, you know, talk nonsense with him. But we were talking about, you know, things from 85, Christmas 85. and I had forgotten the Omnabot, you know, fervor that happened. It was sort of like Cabbage Patch dolls, I think were 84 or 80, it was around that, you know. Maybe even 83, maybe. But one, you know, that was the first news footage of parents slugging it out to get them. And that's what started this whole nonsense.

Every Christmas there has to be, you know, like a tickle me Elmo or whatever it is, the phenomena. And poor old Tommy tried so hard to make Omnabot the must-have present for Christmas 85. And it didn't happen, probably because it was out of stock everywhere. But I think the worst crime Omnabot committed was it was shit. You know, they made it seem in the commercial that he would go and get snacks and bring the snacks to your bedroom when your friends are over. Right. It would make breakfast for your mom or whatever. And it was just no different really.

than a transformer toy. I mean, it was just shit. Well, one thing I could do because remember, one of the popular, one of my favorite transformers was the cassette deck. Soundscape?

What was his name? Soundscape? Soundwave. Right. Thank you. That's why you're here. But Omnibot, and I never owned an Omnibon.

Although I did look at it and think I would like that, but I dared to dream, dared to dream. But it had a cassette deck, right? I have memories of it. I don't know about that. Okay, why do I?

Maybe I'm confused. You're conflating it with Teddy Ruxpin, who was also of that vintage, right? And we talk about Teddy. Teddy Ruxpin, the great lie of Teddy Ruxpin was it, you know, on the playground. I remember kids saying if you took like, say like a Zeppelin cassette or a, you know, run DMC cassette and put it in, Teddy Ruxpin would mouth along with the lyrics, which obviously it didn't do. It only mouthed along with the official Teddy Ruxpin cassette.

So the only thing that would have made it interesting wasn't even real. Well, I hope I'm not conflating things of the great Teddy Ruckspin, of course. You know, you and I are similar vintage, which means we're similar vintage to Wintereo. That's how old we are. We're all cut from the same vintage of that. But I also sometimes conflate Omnibot, which who I would see on the back cover of the consumer's distributing catalog. Go see that Toronto Mic episode for more on that.

And also, you said it probably never came in the door. Well, as you'll learn from the Toronto Mike episode about consumers distributing, it absolutely would be delivered to the consumers distributing, but it would not ever make it into the warehouse. There was a, you know, it would get thrown into some kind of a garbage bag and end up in another cube van that was rented by the people who controlled the warehouse. But you'll find more of that in Toronto Mike. But I'm sorry, can we talk about that because I didn't say this at the top, but you're going to force this out of me now. many, many years ago, more than 10 years ago, I wrote an article about the history of consumers distributing that was published on blog T.O.

Okay. And at that time, somebody got in touch with Blog Tio and made that article disappear. Wow. And there was nothing salacious in that article. It was literally like a, remember how cool this was. Here's a picture of the catalog. Here's a couple of old commercials.

Maybe there was a reference to the, you know, LJN wrestling toys not being available that you wanted or, you know, maybe something innocent like that. But they alluded to me that they were terrified. Whoever had reached out had scared the shit out of them. So my question to you is, have you got a bulletproof vest? You're making comments like this online.

You're scaring me, you're scaring me. People, I could see people in unmarked van searching for Toronto Tree. You're scaring me. I want to move on for that. That's frightening. to me. But I do want us to say one other thing that you might, I conflate the Omnibot from 85. I conflate that with

the robot butler in Rocky 4. Oh yeah. I think, I think yeah. Polly had a, and I remember watching Polly and his robot and it felt like I was living in the future. This was like a, this was what

OmniBot was supposed to be. Although I still, I haven't Googled it yet, but I still think you'll find out there was a cassette deck and Omnibot. I'll give you that. There could well be, but I'll tell you a funny thing

about Pauli's robot. My son, he's nine years old, and this summer, he discovered Rocky Balboa. Like he got really mega into Rocky Balboa. And I think we started

with the one with Mr. T, number three. And then, of course, he wants to see the next episode. So I got Rocky for, get what service it was on and we put it on yeah and as we're watching it i'm thinking this is

somehow kind of different um from how i remember it like it starts with this like basically the last half hour of rocky three is now in rocky four and i i didn't remember that and then we watched the whole movie and it you know it's great but there was no robot in it wow and i was like am i tripping balls like is this is this mandela effect But no, I went and looked, and I guess at some point, Stallone made a director's cut of four, which is now the one that's in circulation, that doesn't, it's just totally cut out all the Pauley's robot stuff. Another mind blow. I can't wait till next, I can't wait till next December to do this again, Ed. I think you need to come on every month.

But that's a mind blow. Thank the Lord Above for gray market Plex servers, where you might still find. the original cut of Rocky 4. I can't imagine watching Rocky 4 without the robot butler. I know, right? Well, the VHS is still plentiful at Value Village, if you're so inclined. But it was horrible. And, you know, I told my son, there's this cool robot. And when it ended, he said, Daddy wears the robot. You know, what the hell? That's funny. You might be, though, the problem with these cheap VHS cassettes you stumble upon in the wild is that you, Ed Conroy, are probably the last person alive who can actually watch

VHS. I have nothing in this house that can play, I don't have a VCR in this house. Let me tell you, my friend, the hipster universe being the way that it is, it has dictated that VHS is not only cool again, but there is a

huge, huge interest in that format right now. I think it's a backlash against streaming culture, against this exact nonsense that we're talking about, that if you want to watch like the Christmas vacation, movie or you want to watch the

yeah okay you got you know what I'm talking about I just want to I intercept this to say my condolences we lost Ziggy this just came out yesterday James Ransone I hope I say his last name right but he was fantastic if you watch the wire you know Ziggy from season two what a tragic character and it turns out sort of in the same vein

as wheels being a tragic character and then you find out the actor has sort of a tragic life as well gone too soon. This gentleman, James, who plays Ziggy, Ziggy, what a tragic character, but so well performed by James, and then to find a sad end to the life of James. We learned that yesterday.

But I'm holding in my hand the box set of the wire. These are actually DVDs, but I can tell you, and I have a plan between Christmas and New Year's to go through some of this stuff and see what I can get rid of, what I should just archive digitally or whatever. But I have, in the room I'm pointing to now, which is a closet. I have a bunch of old VHS cassettes I kept.

Like, I am going to be interested to see what I kept. But I did keep my wire DVD set. But even though, Ed, here's the mind blow for you. Even though I can play a CD in this house and I can play a cassette, there's nothing in this home I'm sitting in right now that can play a DVD. Well, that's no good. I know. You know, I think we now live in an age of ultra-convenience where you can go

and stream this stuff all day long, all night long. However, that backlash I just referenced is a real thing, right? I mean, with all of the acquisitions going on, we've heard about, you know, the big news that Netflix is buying Warner Brothers. Who knows what is going, how this is all going to shake out? You have programs that are very well loved and adored that are just disappearing and or being meddled with, right? And they lose issues.

music clearance rights change the copyright changes we've talked about this before if you go on spotify there's certain beastie boy songs where the sample is not quite as you remember it because they've had to go back and remove the stems so the only thing you can really do if you're a purist is to own a physical copy but you see the corporations don't want this they don't want people owning the wire on on DVD right right and you brought up this uh big merger here. Not merger, I guess,

acquisition, I guess, Netflix and Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers owns HBO. Of course, the wires on HBO. And I think the overwhelming

majority of subscribers to Bell Media's crave are subscribed for HBO. Okay? So I actually was chatting with, I was chatting with, I was chatting with my wife about this other day,

but like if this goes through and it looks like it will, and then it went all set and done, why would Netflix, which now owns HBO, why would they want their property on rival service Crave in Canada, right?

They would put it on either a different tier of Netflix or on Netflix and jack up the price or something. So I wonder what, this is just food for thought in 2026 and beyond, but what happens to crave TV when they lose HBO properties? Yeah,

I mean, I don't know if you remember this but my wife used to work for HBO. Of course I do. I used to ask her this. Very question. Before the Netflix thing, obviously, long before that was an issue. It never made any sense to me that Crave was this, and I'll say it, garbage service, it never works properly, was basically being kept alive because of the HBO content. And her only response was always, if you saw the numbers

involved, you would understand why they got that locked up forever. Now, obviously, this is a very different situation now, we shall see, but best believe they know themselves if that HBO content goes walkies, that that's the end of that service. I mean... Well, even in this conversation now,

we referenced the White Lotus and we referenced the wire. You know, I'm shocked we haven't talked about the Pauley Walnuts yet, but shout out to Ridley Funeral Home and six feet under. Like, HBO is the shit. Yes.

was the shit. I don't know about his, but... Okay, I still, I don't know what the plans are. Again, I'm out of the loop in the TV world because I've been watching ER for the last... Oh, wow. That's retro. I know. And that's the pit's fault, which of course is also an HBO property.

But, so I don't know what's going on with all of this. But I do know the cliffhanger on Euphoria revolved around a young man who sadly took his own life since that aired. And I don't know what the plan plans are, but I do know that post-succession, Euphoria, Euphoria felt like the big premium TV push from HBO. But, hey, this is all fodder for 2026. We'll see what happens.

Do you want to get to another Christmas cracker? Yeah, I'm just looking, I know we're already burning through our allocated time. Maybe you mentioned it a little bit earlier. The Ontario place is kind of cool. I don't want to leave anything on, I don't want to leave anything on the cutting room floor. I'm still upset that I saw. a 90-minute version of the CF&Y documentary and then I watched the 60-minute

version and I watched all this gold get shaved off and I realized this is the nature of the beast TVO wants 60 minutes you can't fit 90 minutes into 60 minutes I understand that but this is not TVO and I want to go to this okay 1983 here we go

Hmm Saved you what I think I think that you have Obliged to verry your port It's strange, beaucoup of people are on this. The criminal no demand can't

a chance, it's not to give to give you. Assure you that the windows are

very farmed, the ports verruly, let's some little lights light, if you keep your

demur, don't know the impression that the domicil is occupied and very very

very it's a message of the service of the community urban

of Montreal. I love it man, I feel like I understood every fourth word, maybe

I don't know what am listening to there? So, you know, the dog, the crime dog, called McGruff, right? Yeah, we literally called Fred McGriff, the crime dog.

Right. So he was this iconic animated character that was created in the United States, used by law enforcement to basically do public service announcements about, you know, various elements of crime. So there was a lot of stuff about just sort of watching your environment, locking your doors at night. you know, keeping your purse close to you when you're in a crowded space. But there was one public service announcement that was probably more remembered than any other one that was about child abduction because it was terrifying. Basically, it was made in the 70s and it was footage of children in a playground and then it cuts and all the playground is still there, but all the children are gone. And the bikes fall over. The bikes that the kids are on. It was absolutely chilling. It was absolutely chilling. And it was one of the things that I found on a videotape, you know, early in the days of retro Ontario. And of course, I put it on my YouTube channel because I remembered it and I knew other people would remember it. And it was on there for years and years and years, you know, did moderately well in terms of traffic. And then one night, it like went viral. It just blew up. And I had never seen anything like that. And I'm talking like millions.

of views just materialized and lo and behold that happened because I guess there was an episode of family guy that had been on that night where they did a riff on that PSA so all these people went to see the original and it became and it still is the biggest gateway to my YouTube channel that exists I'm not like proud of this because I would much I would be much happier if it was my Winterio video or my Tommy Ambrose video, but no, it's McGrath the crime dog is how people find out about retro Ontario. So that was all good and fine until earlier this year when I guess Trump changed the Department of Defense, whoever is in charge of Homeland Security in America. You know, they, everything's been uprooted.

Is it like a Pete Higgs? No, Pete Higgs? No, it's not, it's not Department of War. Oh, okay. It would, I think it would have fallen under Homeland Security. But something changed in the infrastructure of all that. And suddenly McGrath became relevant again. And they started to use him again in public service announcements.

And they made a web, a new website and all this stuff. And I got a cease and desist that was actually terrible. terrifying saying you literally have 24 hours to delete every McGrath video you have or we're going to fucking nuke you from orbit, you know, like it was, it was like, am I going to lose my retro Ontario YouTube channel because of this one thing? Well, they were going to send you to El Salvador. Yeah, I was, oh yeah, I was going to end up in Guantanamo Bay. Or alligator, whatever, Alcatraz, yeah. It was scary. I've had those before, but nothing like this. So I, I kind of went deep and I remembered that there was this Webbecois version of McGrath that I had found on a tape from Montreal where they had dubbed him into French and he was basically just doing the same he was doing in America but for a French audience.

So I wrote this person back at the Department of Homeland Security, whatever their title was, and I basically just said, look, I'm in the business of archiving old media. This character is huge, and I know he's an American icon, but in Canada, we all grew up watching the American channels. So he has just as much relevance here. And also, by the way, I don't know if you guys knew this, but he did this. French version as well. And I sent them the French version, the one we just heard. And then this guy wrote me back and it was like the tone had completely changed. And he was so like friendly and saying, this is amazing. Like, oh my God, this is so cool. Like we're actually really trying to soften our image and we want to be more accessible to people. So would it be okay? Like you can keep your

shit like we won't mess with you anymore but would it be okay if we use this french one on our social media and of course i said yeah do whatever you want with that and they started to post it on the mcgruff facebook page and all this saying like oh look you know we're cool up in canada and the whole thing just went away and they left me alone um what a wild story it was it was bizarre it was totally bizarre. But this is the thing, as you know, when you're uploading stuff over, you know, I've been doing it over 20 years now. These things sometimes can come back and haunt you because obviously the world changes, the world moves on. Who knows who's going to merge with this company tomorrow or who's going to acquire this IP and go after people like

me? We can only do our best to try to one-on-one speak with a human being and, plead our case. This one had a happy ending. The next one might not. I don't know, but I thought you would appreciate the French McGrath. That's an absolutely wild story. What a total change. Like from we're going to nuke you, you son of a bitch, to wow, that's awesome. You can keep your shit, but can we post this on our Facebook page? Well, I wonder if that's the secret weapon against the Trump administration is speak French to them. They roll over. That's what J.T. used to do. Right. Yeah. Of course. Of course.

All right. Now, you said the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, that's not, remember how popular in primary school, Ocean Pacific T-shirts were? Oh, yeah. Dude. Take me back. Man. When I rocked my O.P.

shirt, like I didn't, I've never surfed in my life. I'll be, I'm not even, like J.T. up and Tofino or whatever, he's surfing away. I've never surfed in my life. But when I rocked the ocean Pacific t-shirt, I was the coolest surfer dude at St. Pius a tent. But here we go. O.P. Here we go.

I don't feel like Ontario Place is all mine anymore, but let's hear from you, Ed Conroy. Yeah, that one is actually quite sad, isn't it, when you hear that? Well, because I bike by it every day. There was a winter solstice festival in Kensington Market I biked to last night. Amazing. Like, they burn this thing in effigy. And it's just wild. So many people out, it was a great night, actually.

Loved it. I put some photos and video on Toronto Mike.com. if people want to see what I saw in our beautiful city yesterday. But I'm always bike every day I'm biking on this waterfront trail and I see what's happening. I'm watching it very closely. So even hearing that little jingle now did make me feel sad. It is.

And I didn't include it because I wanted obviously. I don't want us to be sad. I don't want to get into that whole sausage factory of why it happened or what's going to happen. I included it because something weird. happened to me recently and you might remember more about this. This, you know, it's getting rarer that I find out about something that I literally have no memory of happening, either from my own experience growing up in Toronto or just, you know, messing around with archives and looking through all things. But you remember tour of the universe, correct? Yes, C and Tower.

Credible ride at the face of the C and Tower. I did that. It was great. Yeah, you went to Jupiter. That was, of course, created by Moses Nymer based on a graphic novel that he got in the UK. And he got together with this company that was based out of Toronto called SimX. And it was the earliest simulator ride that now, if you go to Disney World, you go on these Star Wars simulator rights. Same company. Okay, they're now a global, massive billion. billion dollar company makes these simulator rides but tour of the universe was the very first one

and i've extensively researched that ride and how it all ended and what happened was in a nutshell they could never it could never be profitable because it was such a small simulator it could only house like 20 people and there just wasn't a way to get enough people on it every day to to keep the lights on um if you go to the ones in florida you'll see they house hundreds of people and they have multiple rides going on at the same time, getting people on and off so they make tons of money for Disney. But there was this kind of, when you looked at the chronology of the company, there was tour of the universe and then there was this sort of quiet period before they show up in Japan and in Florida and Los Angeles. And I never could

understand what happened in that time, but there wasn't any information online. Okay, flash forward to about a month ago, I got an email from a guy who, you know, and I get this a lot. Like people reach out and they say, hey, I have something you might want it or you might know about this. Is this of interest to you? And this guy reached out to me and he was an urban explorer. Are you familiar with this genre of personality?

Yes, yes. So these cats basically break into. places and most of them do photographs or they do video or they they document these strange places that have been abandoned and it's it's a whole massive genre right like the urban explorer uh youtube channels and all that are massive so anyways this guy's an urban explorer and about a decade ago to his recollection he went to ontario place so it was also kind of a sad reminder of how long it's been in decay, right? Because if you're an urban explorer and you're breaking into Ontario Place, it's not, it's not busy. It's kind of been abandoned. Well, it was not difficult to,

I mean, I would bike there and take photos and check it all out. Like, it wasn't difficult to break into. I don't think they were trying to keep anybody out. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's not like there's a security team and lasers and all that. No, he, he, you know, he didn't go into great detail about what he actually did. But he went into the property with the intent to document the weirder stuff that had basically been left behind. And he found himself in a basement. He described it as kind of like a like a warehouse, but in a basement with a lot of equipment and screens. And he thought it was the strangest thing. So he starts going through some of the storage space. And he finds two laser discs. Do you remember laser

discs they were basically like the size of vinyl records but but CDs like giant CDs well there's a great scene in the sopranos when they put on the godfather laser disc that's right before your wire DVDs right laser disc was the original home entertainment format like it it was it was breaking you know breaking through cutting edge watching movies watching stuff on laser disc so anyways This guy had found these two laser discs at Ontario Place, and there was no information on them other than a title that said C-T-T-R-E-R-E-K. And he said, I don't have a laser disc player. I've sat on these things for 10 years. You know, do you have a laser displayer? Do you want them? So I did a little digging. And lo and behold, it turns out that in 1995, SimX off the failure of Tour of the Universe

basically created a new ride at Ontario Place called Sea Trek that was modeled after a TV show from that same year that was meant to be the next big thing but ended up being a bit of a disaster called Sequest DSV

and if you remember that it had Roy Schneider from Jaws was it was basically Star Trek but in the oceans I yeah if I remember it may be like a little bit but I'm not sure I'm not sure I remember it was it was a blink and you'll miss it like I think it was maybe on

for one or two seasons right and so poor old SimX had created a new ride and the show bombed obviously the same problems they had with the Tour of the universe ride happened and it just got literally left

behind in this basement So I am now in possession of these laser disks, which are the actual ride. Like when you would go in the simulator, what you would see, like the POV of the underwater machine is what's on these discs. So that is my Christmas project is I'm going to digitize those and I will premiere them on YouTube early in 26. and I will make sure that you know so that you can remind your listeners that we talked about it and we can all discover this insane thing

that nobody remembers happening at Ontario Place. This is why I'm so glad people like you, Ed, exist that there is actually, you know, someone who, some urban investor explorer discovers his laser disc and that there is somebody who will give a shit that he could get this to

so that it can actually be archived and shared with. with, you know, historians like myself. So I'm just grateful that he was able to reach you and that you, you give a damn, you know what I mean? Like that's your secret weapon, I think, is that you care. Well, thank you. I mean, it's always fascinating.

And, you know, I think maybe the first time that I was on your podcast, you know, a million years ago, I think you asked me, is there like an end point to this project? Like, is there something that you will find and say, okay, my work here is done? and I'll go back to my nine to five. But no, there isn't because there's always these unknown unknowns, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, that come out of the woodwork, right?

Well, you know, your name is Ishmael. Thank you. Can I play a little music just because we're going to end this wonderful volume seven of Christmas crackers by basically remembering some people who left us in 2025. we will shout out Ridley Funeral Home and maybe if I play a little music and thank some partners and then we could talk about this great

CanCon Jam but at your Retro Ontario not to be confused with retro festive and people can go to Retrofestive.cate right now, it's not too late we still got a few days before Christmas get stocking stuffers

get some gifts from the great Christmas store and pop culture store that is retro festive. You can save 10% right now with the promo code FOTM and they got a store in Oakville

so get over there before it's too late Ed quickly I feel like I could hit the post but I have more I want to say but I'm going to just read a Google review about Retro Festive here

before we move on go for it I love this store we live in Alberta but I order my personalized Christmas ornaments from here because they always turn out

beautiful the customer service is also wonderful That was by Jocelyn. And since we're almost at Christmas, I'll read another one. My brain wanted to explode when I walked into this place. So much to see. Fun experience.

It brought back old memories. That was Tracy. So thank you retrofestive because this partnership ends on New Year's Eve, 2025. And I loved working with Ty the Christmas guy. Tye the Christmas guy gave everybody who came out to TMLX21 at Palma's Kitchen a few weeks ago. He gave everybody a little leg lamp, and mine is plugged in in the kitchen. And I love that leg lamp, because that is also a major award. So thank you, Palma Pasta, for hosting us at TMLX21.

The only way TMLX21 could have been better is if retro Ontario's own Ed Conroy showed up. But, Ed, we're going to get you to the next TMLX event, okay? Yes, he's nodding his head. Okay. And it might be at Great Lakes Brewery. So thank you to Great Lakes Beer for the Fresh Craft Beer. And last but not least, Nick Iini is from Fusion Corp.

He stepped up to fuel the Real Talk on Toronto Mic. And he has got two great podcasts. Building Toronto Skyline, he had Les Klein, who helped renovate. No, he was the architect behind the changes Moses wanted to 299 Queen Street West, and he had Les Klein on his show. And he's got a show called Building Success. And I urge everybody to check it out.

There's a recent episode with Steve Paken. people will enjoy. And Steve Paken little knowing fact, he's the man in the polkaroo costume. Just kidding, of course. Okay, last but not least, for real this time. And then we'll hear a bit of this jam and talk with Ed. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A.

If you've got like a large farm complex like Ed Conroy with all these old cables and devices and old 8-track players and laser disc players that just do not function, don't throw them in the garbage. Go to recycle my electronics. CA, put in your postal code and drop them off to be properly

recycled. We keep those chemicals out of our landfill. Much love to EPRA and the people at Recyclemyelectronics.ca. You've got the eyes of a stranger in the

lips I see adaysia. Talk about a staple of like Cancon AM radio in the in the early to mid-80s. This song seemed to be a standard. Absolutely. And the reason I,

Drew and I, yeah, first of all, I know I'm never going to be invited to do a kick out of the jam. So I got to sneak them in the Christmas episodes. But yeah, it was funny. I was watching Miami Vice the other night, the classic Miami Vice, and this tune came on.

And I, you know, I hadn't heard it in a while. And I remember it was in another 80s movie. I don't know, it was Fast Times at Ridgemont High or it might have been Valley Girl. But it was one around that time. And it's funny because, you know, you don't hear a lot of the great new wave cancon, as you call it. Right. It didn't break through necessarily a lot, right? Like, I know Spoons, a good friend of the, friend of Toronto Mikes and wonderful band.

And I listened to that record or those records. And they are just as good as the British New Wave or the American New Wave. And Paola's somehow that track certainly broke through. It was in Miami Vice and all that. And I just happened to be Googling about it because why? I often wonder why did that, why did that one make it through? And it was apparently because, the reason it got big in America was because of the name of the band, right? Like the Paola's was named themselves after the Paola radio scandals.

And so that got the attention of AR and people in radio in America and they started playing it. And then it ends up on a Miami vice. And I, that was pretty cool. I, you know, maybe a couple other Canadian bands could have been more clever with their band titles. It might have, might have been different. And this is Bob, this is Rock and Hyde, right? Mm-hmm. And Bob Rock all over the, not from 2025, I guess it was from 2024, but the, the, the tragically hip documentary series,

you get to hear a lot about Gore Downey's relationship with Bob Rock. Yeah. Yeah. No, but that one, yeah, that's, I like that kind of, people think it sounds like the police, I guess, is that sort of reggae a little bit, white man reggae. A little bit. It's, it's tight. But I challenge you to name a second Paola song. Well, the bigger issue is I have, I have the album right here.

Wow. The cover is a man, it's like he's looking like he forgot to shut the fridge door. It's not a very enticing cover, unfortunately. But can you name a second jam if I'll read it? No, I can't. I didn't even bother. Ed, this is a sad thing, but I'm glad we could remember some people because, you know, everybody can find all over the place wonderful tributes in retrospectives, for example,

about Rob Reiner, for example, who's tragically passed away recently and was beloved not only because of his father and not only because of all in the family, but because of these films he directed from this is Spinal Tap to when Harry Met Sally and, of course, stand by me and a few good men, I could go on and on, but what a loss. But you can find many a great retrospective and tribute to Rob Reiner out there

if you're looking for that. But I like that we can remember some people that won't get that same attention. But here, and this is again, an FOTM we're going to remember here, so I'm going to play the clip, but I want to talk about this talented woman. Live from Parliament Hill, this is the electric circus.

My name is Julia Taupe. Hey, what's up people? I'm a beige, Elina. Tonight we're going to be live coast to coast on Music Blues, Much Music, and City TV with performances by OMC, the funky green dogs as well as Auto Zone, MJ. This is on electric circuit. And Bouchdonald with the capital national.

Juliet, I'm ready to make my hand in the foot and we'll be samoser. You'll be certain, macha. And we'll debut in grand Samoa. You do and Gotech. You do and just got tech. Let's party. Ed, I can't believe Julietteau is gone.

It just can't be real, man. He was so young and so talented, so beautiful, so sad. so so vibrant and so full of life and I know um you know you probably saw her too I saw her recently at a David Kyn's Hollywood suite that's the only time in my life I met uh I I saw Julia Powell was at one of the David Kines breakfast and and she was you know and you mean enough famous people you quickly realize that there are a lot of them are are not super nice not not willing to give time to people. And then you have people like Julia Powell that no matter who she was speaking with,

whether it was an executive level person or a fan, you really felt like she was listening and she cared about what you were talking to her about. And absolutely heartbreaking, you know, shocking. I think at the end of the year, we're talking about tributes to people. and you have the Rob Reiner's and the Julia Powell's that just sort of come out of nowhere. And then you have the other, you know, older people that, you know, it's like they had good innings and they had, they leave behind an incredible body of work. But I think the great tragedy of Juliet was that it felt like she was just getting going, you know, there was so much more she was going to do. Well, let me just read the description.

So she, like what a nice person that I said, hey, Juliet, would you chat with this guy in South Atobico? Now, she lived in New York City. so much like I'm letting you do right now, Ed, because you're in parts unknown, as I said, on WWF, okay? But it's one of the ports. There's so many I get confused. But Juliet was in New York City, so she zoomed in with me,

and we chatted for an hour and 20 minutes, and here's what I wrote at the time. I wrote, in this 1,354th episode, so people go to episode 1354 to hear Juliet and I chat for almost 90 minutes. In this 1,354th episode of Toronto Micke, Mike chats with Juliet Powell about winning 1989's Miss Canada Beauty Pageant, working at much music, on electric circus, and at CP24, her move to New York and ongoing work in the responsible deployment of AI,

ethical data exploration, and the search for and removal of negative biases. Ed, that's a smart person. Oh, my God. I mean, she was probably because she was so beautiful, people expected a certain type of personality, but she was absolutely brilliant. I think, you know, you got to mention that the electric circus piece, even though that is only one small thing on her CV, was very important because when Monica Diol retired, I think a lot of people thought that's the end of electric circus. Like, it was very hard to separate the idea of that show from Monica. And I think Juliette gave it like a huge lift and took it in kind of a different direction, but kept it, you know, kept the roots there.

And I've encountered all kinds of people that, you know, they just don't, they're young enough that they don't remember the Monica era. Like, to them, Electric Circus was Julia Powell. Yeah, great point here. Monica defined that show, even though she was not the original host. She was a co-host with Michael Williams. Okay, I guess you're right. We print the legend.

I guess Michael Williams might say it differently than that, but you're right, of course, Ed. But Julia Powell, so we know her from much music. Of course, she's a Quebecer, but she tells a great story of, you know, meeting Moses, because Moses had to personally approve of all hires. I just had Thalia Assuris on the program, and we talked about that. Like, she couldn't get a job on CityPulse until she met privately with Moses, and Moses blessed the higher and of course that was the same for Juliet Powell

but she was the first woman of color to win Miss Canada and this is back in 89 and then she has her time at the Chum City and the Moses Empire and then she goes off to New York and she's like teaching university students and writing white papers about AI

and just stuff that you know our feeble brains can barely process so unbelievable that she left us so suddenly at the age of 54 I believe. Yeah. Yeah. So sad.

So sad. Okay. So let's keep the sad train rolling here. Let me play another clip for you. I should be asleep. But every year it's the same thing. I stand here by myself. All by myself.

And everybody else is singing songs and giving presents and making all those rhymes. Oh, those rhymes, rhymes, rhymes, rhymes. They drag me crazy. But not this year. This year, I'll put an end to all this Christmas cheer. But first, I need a plan. Graham Green. Yeah, well, a legend, really.

And, you know, in fairness, I think he did get a lot of, a lot of obituaries and a lot, deserved press when when he passed. I think what was kind of not spotlighted so much was his work in children's television. And that obviously is in my wheelhouse.

So, you know, I obviously people talking about his work in Hollywood films and the breakthrough of being an indigenous actor and being given proper roles. But I think you know, he's

shows up in a lot of really amazing kids shows early in his career. He's in the second season of Read All About It, when the kids time travel back to the War of 1812, and he plays an indigenous character that aids them and helps them. To Comsay. To come say. Escape capture from the British soldiers. And what's great about it is, you know,

I mean, I love that show so much. I think I've spoken about it at length on your. program, um, is that they take it seriously. Like, it's like a B movie science fiction grammar show, but everybody, whether it's the kids or the villains or Graham Green, they take it seriously. It's like they're doing Shakespeare. And that elevates the production beyond what it really, you know, the scope of probably what they thought it was going to be. And that clip, of course, is from Dudley the Dragon. And Dudley the Dragon was another show, little bit after our time. So I wasn't super familiar with it because it would have been on when

I was at university. But looking back on it now, it's another of that breed of TVO kid shows that was about the environment, really, and about, you know, sustaining the environment. And he's playing this grumpy-ass tree, you know, Mr. Crabby. And he just kills it. I mean, he's not in every episode, but whenever he shows up in it, it just elevates the whole production. So what an incredible guy. Amazing. And of course, he was a kicking bird in dances with wolves, and that gets him a nomination for an Academy Award. That's right. And one of the very first uploads on my YouTube channel was a commercial that he appeared in. And I don't know if it was for RCA or to Sheba, but it was a television, a commercial for television sets. And it's totally degrading for

him, because if you remember back in the old days, when a television station would sign off and do color bars, they would have an indigenous person, right? That would be part of the test screen. So in this ad, it's Graham Green, a young Graham Green turning in from a real person into this test pattern and you know a lot of people leave as you say these angry comments why would you put this out there and what's really funny is that he was asked about this and it later on in his career and he said well what the hell i got i got paid well like i wasn't doing it to disrespect my heritage it was a gig you know and that was how he thought about it i thought was really cool now ed we're going to remember one more uh fallen soldier here but i have

three clips. Do you want me to play them back to back to back or do you want to set up each one? You know what? Maybe we've had a lot of French in this episode, so why don't we start with Tele Francet? Telepronseil. Hello. Hello. Hello. Salue. Televancet. Televancet. Televancet.

He's a with me. It's formidable, exceptional. sensational it's merfayew it's mannuious it's fantastic

stone stone cold classic the great Norian Young died this summer and she was

absolutely I would say integral to the education of every Ontarian that passed through the school system in the 70s, 80s, and 90s because she was the

go-to puppeteer, puppet creator, puppet master for all those shows. Whether you remember them or the no-name shows or the telefrance, you know, Ananas, or a boot

or pretty from read-along, or any you know the travel geese for the Canadian government and I love that all of her puppets you know there was a similar look to them and I think it's in the eyes as we say the eyes of a stranger but all of her puppets had those eyes and it's always amazing to me

certainly at the exhibit that I have done at Harborfront it's like when people make that connection that oh my God that was the same person that made that one and that one and that one, it's like we were saying earlier about that guy, they're amazed because all of these different puppet characters, you know, came into their lives when they were young, whether they were teaching them about French, how to speak French, or teaching them about English, or later in her life, she did a lot of work with, you know, addictions research and did a lot of stuff about drugs and alcohol. But all of those puppets

are in our memory bank and they touched us all and yet most people outside of the industry don't know the name Noreen Young. Well, you mentioned read-along so let me play this.

Put yourself in a book enjoy the story inside. Read along with us and read-along and ride, right, right. Because reading is a lot of fun and easy do so join us here at Read Along. You and you and you and you and You and you

No la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la follow. So may I play my last audio nugget from you, Ed? Yeah, before you do, I think it's probably a good song. sign-off tune because this is something that is important to remember over the Christmas holidays. Drink responsibly. Pst. Hey. What?

You know what your problem is? You don't drink enough. I don't? No. Don't you watch television commercials? Chagalug, chagel-lug-lun-oo-la-la-la-chug-la-chagal-hug. Gangs all here. Have no fear

There's lots of beer We're having a party Having a ball I'm so high I feel 10 feet tall Everyone looks so sincere Including the ones on the chandelier The only way to get in gear

is to have a party Where there's lots of beer Chugg, Chugg, Chagal Up Chugula La La La Chuggle Up Chagalug Ed, I want to say So my condolences to everyone

You knew and loved The Very Talented Noreen young But let me just thank you, Ed Conroy for another unbelievable Christmas crackers. This is absolutely my favorite holiday tradition. So thanks for doing this, buddy. Well, listen, Mike, thank you for all that you do and for allowing me on to your program to reminisce

and raise a cheer. So thank you, buddy. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. That project of Sean Minard. I have one last guess before I read the outro. I think you're doing a 90-minute documentary feature about the PTSD experienced by TVO viewers

who were tuning in for polka door and then were hit in the side of the head with the Doctor Who opening. Good guess, my friend, good guess. And that brings us to the end of our 1,823rd show.

Remember, Retroonterio.com is where you go for all your Ed Conroy News. Buy his book if you haven't already. Go see the exhibit at Harborfront. And stay tuned for more Retro Ontario goodness in 2026. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs and learn about my prestigious award. I posted about that and check out, you know, the video I took last night in Kensington Market. It's pretty rad.

Much love to all who made this possible. That's retro festive. That's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta. That's Nick Aienes. That's Recycle My Electronics.C.A. And, of course, Ridley Funeral Home. I'll see you tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Festivus. And the other annual tradition I love is that my buddy Elvis makes the long drive from North Oscewa, every Festivus, to see. sit down here and air grievances with me. So Elvis, in the basement, tomorrow, airing grievances, don't you dare miss it. See you all then.