Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Don Ferguson: Toronto Mike'd #563

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Mike chats with Royal Canadian Air Farce founder Don Ferguson about the Air Farce radio show, television series, and New Year's Eve specials that air for the final time on December 30, 2019.

Welcome to episode 563 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Ryan Master from KW Realty, and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week from the Royal Canadian Air Force is Don Ferguson. Yay! So, Don, so glad you're here.

Why, thank you. It's great to be here. Hi, Mike. Actually, I would love that. I'll just leave and then I can listen. I always feel bad I don't get to enjoy my own, you know, my own episodes when I'm on a bike ride or something because I was in the room for the recording.

It's like spoilers left, right, and center. But what a pleasure it is to meet you. Happy to be here. Canadian comedy royalty. I don't know if that amounts to much in this world. I'm not sure either. My ex-wife... Oh, you know what?

I'm going to run over there. I see now that something has caused the periscope to point in the other direction, which means they're looking at your jacket right now. So here, entertain everybody for like 10 seconds, and I'll be right back. Okay, well, hi there, everyone. It's Don Ferguson here from Royal Canadian Aerophars.

And I'm sure one of the things we're going to talk about today is the fact that our final show ever is coming up, well, or may have happened by the time you hear this, but it's December 30th, 2019. You handled yourself

like a true professional there, right? I was in good hands here. I just noticed there's are there are some people especially because a lot of people aren't working today so people will watch us record the podcast so uh i saw i looked over and i i could see your jacket and i'm like that's that's never happened before where it kind of switched itself like that well hi there we'll leave but hello there if you're if you're. If you're watching as well as listening, hi. So I'm lucky enough to have an hour with you here. And of course, we're going to talk about the New Year's Eve special,

which of course, in typical Canadian fashion, does not air on New Year's Eve. That's right. I know. It's actually, it's typical CBC fashion. I wouldn't want to label all Canadians with that. What's going on New Year's Eve that they can't put you on New Year's Eve? You know, I really don't know. What I've heard is that they're going to be putting on the Canadian Family Feud or Family Feud Canada. Jerry D, right? I think so, yeah.

So Jerry's the guy. We've got to break his kneecap or something. That's right. Well, I'm not sure it's him, but I think that's what's going on. Anyway, I'm surprised. I was disappointed, but I think that's what's going on. Anyway, I'm surprised. I was disappointed too. I mean, it was ridiculous, really,

that, you know, it's classic. It's, yeah, don't get me started. Well, you're here because I'm here to wind you up, Don, and to get you started. But I would say the only decent excuse for not putting the air farce on New Year's Eve for a New Year's Eve special

would be if New Year's Eve was a Saturday night. They got to do the hockey game. But that's the only excuse I'd buy. That's right. And in fact, that has happened once before when the NHL hockey was on Saturday night and that contract isn't violent. That was when CBC owned the rights.

Now that it's Rogers or Sportsnet the rights and now that uh or you know now that it's rogers or sports net i guess that has it um i still think their cbc's in the same headlock right it's funny i get these reminders on facebook of what happened on this day like in a previous calendar year or something and i got one that said two years ago this day ron james came in to promote, he had a New Year's Eve special. Right, that's right. He used to be after us.

We'd be at 8 o'clock and he'd be at 9 o'clock. So two years ago, he's here to promote that. And then shortly thereafter, he's told, basically he's told, your services are no longer required. And that was his last one. Yeah. And this is your last one.

That's right. Well, we're lucky in a way that what happened is when CBC told us this in May, end of May, that they weren't going to fund the special anymore. It was a bit of a surprise, but you know it's coming.

We've been doing it now 46 years. We've been doing Air Fires on CBC. They're on radio series, TV series, and then TV specials. But how many founding members remain? now 46 years we've been doing airfars on cbc they're on radio as radio series tv series and then tv specials so but how many founding members remain like how two two luba and me that's it yeah wow we're it so that people say will there be a reunion well uh not on planet earth maybe in heaven hopefully not for a long time no hopefully not and if there is a heaven for comedy people there may not be there may be like

some sort of green room where you're permanently waiting to go on like a purgatory yeah but I just feel like that maybe I don't

of course I don't have this power but you know I get Ron James that's it for you buddy now I finally get Don Ferguson on the show and it's like

that's it for you guys but again we will go through this and we'll walk through this in chronological order. Sure. And then we'll talk. I'm, well, we'll talk further about why the heck is this the last one. So we're going to have a good chat about

that. Now, you're from Montreal. You're a Montreal guy. I am. I was born and raised in Montreal. Yes. Were you a big Expos fan? I was an Expos fan, yeah. But, you you know it was hard to be an expose fan in the early years because even though people were very keen on them and they had some uh they had some great uh characters associated with the team uh andre dawson the

hawk you know um rusty staub um that's another lauren, is this the nickname? Yeah, Le Grand Orange, right? Yeah, the big orange. There were some, you know, and the fans were really behind it, but they were playing in, you know, this ridiculous stadium, you know, which was just so large, it was crazy. You know, in the early days, they played in a little ballpark

and then they moved into a huge stadium. So the little one, is that Jari Park? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where they played. The name, I'm pretty sure. But then they moved into the Olympic Stadium. Right. And no matter how many fans were at the game, it always felt like they weren't enough.

Well, that's our problem here. It seems like maybe you're bringing it with you, I feel like. We have the cavernous sky dome here. But what I remember as a young man with the Olympic Stadium is that it was a retractable roof that broke all the time or something? Well, no. I can't remember if it retracted

or didn't retract it. But at one point, it just simply stopped working and they were stuck with it. As a dome, I think. So it closed up and it was like, that's it. And they couldn't open it again, yeah. And it was a very elaborate, elaborately designed engineering feat when it was done because people looked at it and said,

how is that ever going to work? How is that ever going to work? It's so magnificent. And we found out that, well, it's not really going to work. But I took a tour of it once, and you got this kind of, it's like a parachute thing that kind of went up into a holding cabinet.

Yeah, like this big sort of hook hung over it, and it just drew it up and then let it go down again. I'm not surprised that broke, actually. No, well, a lot of people weren't. And it was so expensive to fix it that they just said, well, we're going to just leave it the way it is. Well, they named it the big O, O-W-E. Yes, that's right.

As were the Olympics and before that, Expo 67. So Don, how do you fall into comedy writing and performing? Was this always in your blood? No, never. I had come to Toronto as a young man. I guess I was in my early 20s. And

I was working at what was then called an audiovisual company. We made short films and we made, our specialty at this company was making film strips, which was actually like a series of stills that told a story. And they'd be shot on 16 mil or they'd be shot then edited into the 16 mil film strip and they'd be used at various kinds of

commercial endeavors like trade shows or sales tools for salesmen this kind of thing and and i had come to toronto to do to do that and some friends of mine were part of a group called a starting group that was doing improvised comedy in Montreal. And they came to Toronto at the end of 1970, I think, like in the fall of 1970. And they were called the Just Society because Pierre Trudeau had a thing called the Just Society. Yeah, we would be the Just Society.

And in short, they needed somebody to take some publicity photos and a couple of guys knew me so they said, would you do it? I said, sure. And they said, how much do we pay you?

I said, well, don't pay me, just let me hang around and take some pictures of you guys backstage because I'm starting to assemble a portfolio of my photography work. And then what happened

is they got held over and they were commuting from montreal they'd come up on a thursday do a show thursday night two shows friday two shows saturday and go back to montreal on sunday and a couple of the performers said no we're montrealers we toronto sucks we don't want to be in toronto and we don't want to travel every week for this so we're quitting and they needed somebody literally overnight to uh to fill in and there was no script because it was mostly it had been the whole show developed by improvisation and the second half was all improvised but i'd been hanging around and i kind of knew the people and i knew

the way they worked and i knew some of the routines um so they said would i fill in for a week until i got an actor and i said okay i'll fill in for a week until I got an actor. And I said, okay, I'll fill in for a week. And I never left. That's right. Early 70s? I was 1970. 1970. Okay. So is it basically you're just performing live,

live events? Yeah, we were doing, we were working in a theater, one in Toronto called the Poor Alex. Not to be confused with the Royal Alex, but the Poor Alex is in a different part of town. It's on Bloor Street. It's gone now.

It was at Bloor and Brunswick. And it was a little, it had, I don't know, like 150 seats. It was tiny. But it was one of the, it was kind of more like a cabaret kind of theater. And it did some very odd things. They had some, you know, dance companies.

There was one dance company that performed there when we were commuting, or I was was living there but we were using the facility where the the uh the that dance act was the dancer would come out on stage and sit there and would sit there and uh until somebody in the audience got fed up and left and then they'd start it was like i mean this is something that you know only real amateurs would ever do. It's hilarious. Even at the time, it seemed ludicrous. Okay, so something gets the attention of the mother core, right?

CBC at some point. Well, eventually what happened was we got, for some reason, the show got rave reviews. We came from Montreal. The show came from Montreal to Toronto, and the three major theater critics at the time, because there were three major papers, it was The Sun, The Telegram,

not The Sun, it's The Telegram, The Star, and The Globe, and all three critics who were quite important at the time, and people used to read these things because it was long before there was mass market television and internet and this kind of thing. People actually went out to theater. They had great power. Yeah, and they all came to the show and they loved it.

Can you name these three influential reviewers? Well, one of them was Herbert Whitaker at The Globe. Another one was DeBarry Campo at The Telegram and Nathan Cohn at The Toronto Star. Actually, I'm amazed I can remember their names. See, that's what I'm here to challenge you, Doug. And I'm like, I need to know these names. So the next time somebody drops one of these names,

I'll be like, oh yeah, I remember Don Ferguson mentioned that cat. So you get, you got positive reviews and that gets you on the CBC radar?

That's what happened, yes. And the way CBC, well, there were two streams here. One was, two of the guys in the show, of whom one was John Morgan, had worked at CBC in Montreal

doing a John wrote a show called Funny You Should Say That, which was quite good. And it ended unhappily because CBC decided to continue the show without the creators of it, one of whom was John. So they were going

to sue them. And eventually what happens at that CBC, as a kind of make good, said, okay, we'll have the Jazz Society do some comedy for us on radio in Toronto. So that was one stream. The other stream was we were getting very good response

from audiences, live audiences, because the show did keep getting held over and held over and held over. And CBC actually, I think they paid us $100. They sent over a sound effects crew to record the audience laughing so they would have the audience laughs so they could put them into the Wayne and Schuster show. So they used our laughs to sweeten the Wayne and Schuster show.

That's amazing. Yeah, so we said, well, has it occurred to you that maybe the show that's getting the laughs is the one that you should have on the air? But, you know, these things take a long time to happen. Oh, man, that's a fantastic story. Isn't that amazing? If I had that story in my back pocket, I think I'd pull it out every dinner party I ever went to.

had that story in my back pocket, I think I'd pull it out every dinner party I ever went to. So, okay. So originally, the Royal so when does the name change happen? I guess it happened when we actually went on to, we got our first radio show in front of

a live audience. The Jazz Society stuff used to be we were in, we did that for a couple of years, and we were dropped into a two-hour show called The Entertainers, or as the announcer on the show, who used to have quite a liquid lunch, would call it The Entertainers. Seriously, this is The Entertainers.

The Entertainers. And the concept of the show was that in each half hour of the two-hour show, there would be music, like a musical guest, there would be comedy, and there would be an interview with a celebrity. So we did stuff, we recorded stuff in a studio, in a huge, I think it was

Studio G on Jarvis Street, which had been, was a studio big enough you could put actually a symphony orchestra in there. And they used to use it in the glory days of CBC Radio. They would bring in the musicians. They would sit there.

They'd set them up. And they would play live to the network various symphonic pieces. So we were there. And it felt very empty in this studio because there were five of us clutched around two microphones reading scripts. And the rest of the space was just this cavernous emptiness but anyway we did that and they would drop it in the show drop it into this the entertainers and they gave us a chance one year to do they said well that show's ending and and uh we said you know but you had promised us we were coming back in the fall so none of us

looked for work during the summer so the the executive producer said, you're right. So what I'm going to do is I'll give you one taping of a radio show. And we said, okay, we want to do it in front of a live audience. And he agreed to that. So we did it in front of a live audience at a place called The Curtain Club in Richmond Hill. And the secret of its success was that we insisted on recording the audience so that people listening on the radio

would be able to hear real people laughing and that taping was a success. I think we got two shows out of it, maybe three, and it was, so on the basis of that, CBC ordered another recording session in front of a live audience

and then on the basis of that, another one and we somehow limped through about three or four months of work recording session in front of a live audience. And then on the basis of that, another one. And we somehow limped through about three or four months of work by going from taping to taping. I think we did four or five tapings that year. And are we in 1973? Now we're in 1973, yes. 1973 is when it started.

And when we changed, when we went to that format, in front of a live audience, we wanted a new name and we called it Royal Canadian Air Force. That's when the name change occurred. So who are the five members of this CBC radio show with the Royal Canadian Air Force?

Well, the original five members, when we were doing it as the Jest Society and there was a holdover to the Air Force, there was Roger Abbott, Luba Goy, Don Ferguson, who I mentioned. He was really good.

Yeah, he was great. What happened to him? Who have I mentioned? Roger, John, Luba. Martin Bronstein was a fellow. He was John Morgan's business partner. And they used to, they didn't write together,

but they both wrote part of the show. And maybe that was it. Maybe there were just four of us. I know. I think Dave Broadford joined then too. Anyway, when the, the show went in,

when it went into became Royal Canadian Air Force, I, I didn't perform the first year I wrote. And the others were John, Roger, Luba, Dave, and Martin Bronstein. Gotcha. And then in the next year, I came in and performed full-time, and Martin stepped aside. I'm going to play a little bit.

This is not from 1973, but it's from the 70s. So this is a little bit of the, just to give us a taste and feel here, some of the Royal Canadian Air Farce on CBC Radio. Will this embarrass me? This is CBC Radio. In just a moment, the Air Farce. But first, this message from Air Farce Vice President in Charge of Personnel and Supervisor of the Spelling Committee, Professor Hieronymus Wombat. Professor Wombat. Hello, this is Professor Hieronymus Wombat. I'll spell that for you. W-O-M-B-A-T.

And I'm delighted to be with you here on the radio today, T-O-D-A-Y. As you know, I had an unfortunate accident last week, W-E-A-K, when I fell flat on the ice, A-S-S. U-E-A-K. When I fell flat on the ice. A-S-S. And that laughter is genuine. That's not... That's right. That's real deal.

Now I shall introduce to you the person who is going to introduce today's show, S-H-O-U-G-H. Normally, you see, we don't have a live announcer, which does not, of course, mean we have a dead one either. E-T-H-E-R. at cbc c-b-c you can never be sure s-u-r-e but the fact is that

there's a little taste of the where did you find that that's great i cannot reveal my if i reveal my sources to you i must i have to kill you so i just i don't i don't remember that at all that's that was actually i really enjoyed listening to that oh so i just i don't i don't remember that at all that's that was actually i really enjoyed listening to that oh good no no that's fantastic and now that it's recorded and it's out there you can listen to it over and over again and share it with share of luba episode 563 okay so that's your radio show so you're so tell me uh like for how long does the radio show for our younger listeners who don't remember you guys on the radio, how long does this run for?

Well, the radio show ran for actually 24 years. I know it sounds like an awful long time, 24 years. But after 20 years, we started doing a TV series as well. So for four years, we overlapped. Oh, good, double dipping. That's smart. Well, Roger Abbott and I were saying the first year we were fine. series as well so for four years we overlapped okay double dipping that's smart well you know roger abbott and i were saying we should the first year we were fine to do both the second

year we said yeah okay this is good the writers uh one of them was john morgan the other two were gordon holtom and rick holson they didn't want to give up the radio and um you know we had different feelings i said to them like well if you had a hit radio if you had a hit tv show would you start a radio show no i said well we've just done it in reverse right yeah radio show now and roger's attitude was like maybe we should make room for somebody else you know because you know this is kind of being a pig you know having a radio show and up and coming comedy troupe or whatever would have an opportunity to be on

CBC. Yeah, so there was anyway, so eventually we did, after four years we did give it up and say, okay, we're going to stick to television. It looks like it's going to last a while. And that was Roger who thought we should, you should be selfless like that? Was that? Well, we both did, but Roger was the first to vocalize it for sure.

That was very much the kind of guy he was too. He was always very aware of the larger picture. Okay. So before I play a little bit of the intro to the TV show and get into that, I wanted to ask you about a couple other things. So I did a little homework and, you know, some research and I'm learning about, for example, I'm learning about Johnny Chase. Right. Johnny Chase, secret agent of space.

Yes. I desperately searched for audio from Johnny Chase and I came up empty. Like I couldn't find anything. Do you have any like in a... Well, I did have some, and I frankly don't know if I still do. I had it on, I had, because we did 50, 5-0 episodes of something called johnny chase secret agent of space and it was a science fantasy show uh i started with a fellow named henry sabatka a friend of mine who's since passed away and we actually um we had an interesting car i i sold the the concept of the show to the guy who was the then head of radio drama at CBC. The whole idea was this thing took place in space. One of his

questions was, well, I love the concept of the show. We want to do it, but could it be more Canadian? Could the guy come from Saskatchewan? I explained to him that in the first or the fourth episode, we actually blew up Earth. And so, and I explained to him that in the first, it was the first or the fourth episode, we actually blew up Earth.

Oh, yeah, there was no Saskatchewan. So there was no Saskatchewan. There was no Earth. There was no Canada. This was not going to happen. And we ran for 50 episodes. It was a very, I really enjoyed the show. I thought it may be, we had a very good producer,

very enthusiastic producer, but I think he actually, I think the show ended up being a bit overproduced. Like there was too much music and sound effects and not enough breathing room. But Henry was a great, Henry Zabotka was a brilliant writer and came up with some very good concepts. I wanted a clip. I'm very badly I searched everywhere. YouTube,

I searched blogs that haven't been updated since 2006. Like I was older, but what I did get a nice feel for was people with great nostalgia for the show. So I guess if you were of a certain age and you tuned in to hear Johnny Chase, like decades later,

when blogging shows up, you're sharing your memories. And Google is pointing you back to these people. A lot of people with great memories of Johnny Chase. I occasionally still get an email from somebody. Maybe I'll get one or two a year from somebody who will reach out to me at dawn at Air Force and say,

do you know, is there any way I can get a hold of any Johnny Chase episodes? I'd love to hear it again. But no, I really don't know how. I presume they'll be in the CBC archives somewhere. And I know that this series was sold to, I think it was sold to Sirius Satellite Radio quite a few years ago when that was just starting.

And the reason I found out about that is that CBC sold it without telling us. And I got a note from the Writers Guild here in Canada saying, did you know your show has been sold to the States and you haven't been paid? I said, no idea. So we had to work out a deal where CBC had to pay us some money.

Well, I mean, I could tell you there are people out there wishing they could find this somewhere and relive the memories or whatever. So you got the Johnny Chase. And what is Skin Deep? That's a play that I had, I guess I translated and adapted. It was written by a guy named Dario Fo,

a very, very famous Italian playwright. He does a lot of political satire, and I guess it's safer to call it more of a translation. So I lived in Italy for a little bit and I could speak Italian fairly well. And so I read his play and then I actually read an English translation of it and then I did my own version of it.

And that was for an outfit called Theatre Plus in Toronto. It was fun to do. It wasn't a great success. It was great until the end when it kind of fell apart, and that's my fault. But, you know, c'est la vie. Well, Don, since you speak Italian, I'm going to give you a couple of gifts here

because you came all this way here. So there is a lasagna from Palma's Kitchen. Aha. By the way, Palma Pasta makes the best lasagna. Yeah, it's got some heft to it. That is a frozen solid. So before you cook that up, you just thaw it in the fridge for 24 hours. Is this for me to take away?

Correct. Oh, that's great. Thank you. I've been looking at this red box thinking it says Palma's Kitchen. And it's a, yeah, tell me more. You're taking that home with you. Palmapasta.com. They have four locations in Mississauga and Oakville.

And you can get your events catered there. They hosted an event for me recently, TMLX5, and great family-run business. And most importantly, delicious food. Every time I send a guest home with a lasagna, I end up with an email or a tweet basically saying, that is the best lasagna we've ever got from a store. And I'm looking forward to your reaction.

Sure. Thank you, Palma. Yes, thank you. Also, I want to thank Great Lakes Brewery. There's a six-pack of Fresh Craft beer that is here in this nice blue box, and that's going home with you too, Don. That's Fresh Craft beer.

That's fabulous. Well, I didn't expect that there'd be parting gifts. Not that I'm leaving right now, but I didn't think there would be any gifts. No, because you're held captive for at least an hour. That is the contract we signed in blood

before you sat down here. But these guys, wonderful partners for many years. We just re-upped for 2020 and we'll have another TMLX event at Great Lakes in 2020.

That is for sure. But you got your fresh craft beer, you got your tasty lasagna, and you have a Toronto Mike sticker from StickerU. StickerU.com. Right. The next tmlx will be actually uh there so thank you sticker you if you need anything

i just got some new stickers by the way if anybody wants me to bike or mail because if i i always offer up these stickers to listeners and i go to google Maps and I stick in the address. And then I see, can I bike there? Sometimes I can, in which case I made a delivery just on the other day. And sometimes I'm like, oh, this person's in like Halifax. I can't bike there. And I literally do

this old-fashioned thing, Don. I don't know if you know, but we used to put stamps on envelopes. What's an envelope? We used to drop it in a mailbox. A mailbox? And then it just arrived. Well, I guess better a mailbox than a female box, because at least a mailbox, you know,

the postal service is going to take it over and deliver it. It may take a week, but it'll get there. That's right. So, Don, enjoy your Toronto Mike sticker. Thank you, I will. If your car's not broken, you can stick it on the bumper yes yeah well my car got me here I just was overheating

on the way so I don't know how it's going to be on the way back but thank you thank you for the Palmas pasta from Palmas Kitchen and thank you for the Great Lakes Brewery craft beers well you're good at that I think if you need a co-hosting job in your next chapter,

come in here. And a quick hello to the birthday boy, because today is his birthday and I'm not making that up. It's true. Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. Here's some TTC Skedaddler, a great Stompin' Tom tune. So, Whiskey Jack presents

stories and songs of Stompin' Tom Thursday, April 16th 2020 at 7.30pm at Zoomer Hall at 70 Jefferson Avenue so check out Whiskey Jack and their stories and songs of Stompin' Tom

Connors. Don, did you ever bump into Stompin' Tom here and there? I did, a couple of times, yes he was a character and he actually did Did you ever bump into Stomp-a-Tom here and there? I did a couple of times, yes. He was a character, and he actually did travel with that piece of plywood, and he'd stomp on it. I didn't see this myself, but I was told by, because he used to appear fairly often on CBC's annual Canada Day show,

that he had a guy with him whose job, his only job, was to make sure that Tom always had a beer. And this guy, I was told... That's an important job. I was told this guy literally had like cooler pockets with beers in them, and he would just keep Tom well refreshed for the entire performance.

That's a fantastic story, too. That'd be the other story I break out at my dinner parties. But I never go to dinner parties. I talk like I'm going to dinner parties. No one invites me to any dinner. Did you get invited to dinner parties? No, I don't. Now, in fact, what happens if my wife and I are going to go,

we do occasionally, but usually we meet people at restaurants. Right. We don't go to people's houses so much anymore. But you always have some good stories in the arsenal for that. And Brian Master, who I spent some of my Christmas Eve morning with Brian Master. He's a good guy, and he's not just a radio veteran, but he's also a salesperson of Keller Williams Realty Solutions.

If you write him an email now at letsgetyouhomeatkw.com, letsgetyouhomeatkw.com, you can get on his awesome monthly newsletter. Another piece of snail mail, because this is brought to you by Canada Post. It's a piece of snail mail that's got a lot of value add information in there

and you should get on that mailing list and we should play, and this is terrible audio so I apologize in advance it's what I call potato quality but let's listen to a little bit of the, I think the first episode on CBC television of the Royal Canadian Air Farce

This program contains the following scenes of nudity As I hear it in my headphones, it's only on the right side. I guess you're hearing that too. Yes. This theme song, is it the Barenaked Ladies? Yes, yeah. I did not know that until... Yeah, they did not know that until... Yeah. Yeah.

They did our theme song which we've used in one form or another for, my gosh, I don't know how many years it is now. It's 23 years

or something like that. So it's you guys and Big Bang Theory. Right? That's right. So the two of the greatest shows in the history of television.

That's right. Or most popular shows anyways. So is there a story behind how that happened or was that all cbc no it was us and i can't remember how it happened to be honest with you i know that we wanted what we were very keen on doing when we went to cbc television was because you know in radio cbc radio had a master kind of licensing agreement with that enabled us to use any kind of music we wanted by anyone. And CBC simply paid a small royalty, the way that radio stations used to do. Is that like a SOCAM thing or something like that? Yeah, yeah.

But when it came to television, the rights were a whole different matter. Everything had to be licensed individually and the show had to pay for it. And Roger Abbott and I were very keen on making the show as Canadian as possible. So we wanted everything about it to reflect Canada. And to that end, we said,

well, we've got to get an original theme done. And the bare-naked ladies seemed like a good bet. So we approached them, and to our delight, they agreed to do it. Yeah, it's a lovely piece of music and I've never tired of it. I have on good authority that at least one member

of Barenaked Ladies is a regular listener of the program. So hello to Tyler Stewart and good job on the hair first theme. Hi, Tyler. I'm sure it was just as lucrative for you as the Big Bang Theory theme song.

I'm sure they're neck and neck. I imagine you did better. Now, I want to ask you about just a couple of Royal Canadian Air Force members that we lost. So you're a Canadian-born founding member of the Air Force, but there was only one other founding member born in Canada. Well, that would have been Dave Rodford.

Yeah, because Luba, she's Ukrainian, and Roger was born in the UK in a little place near Liverpool, and John Morgan was born in Wales. So, yeah, Dave was born in, I think he was born in North Vancouver, and I was born in Montreal. Could you share, we lost Dave in 2016. Yes, not long ago.

Not long ago at all. No, no. Would you mind sharing some thoughts and memories of Dave Broadfoot? Dave was a wonderful human being. He was absolutely, totally professional and really dedicated to comedy. He loved everything about it.

And, I mean, when he died, I think he was 90 or 91. I can't remember the exact. I think he may have been 90. But he, even, you know, in his late 80s and when he turned 90, he would still make a point to go out to clubs and see who was performing. He was very, very much the kind of, he was kind of Canada's, in a way, original stand-up because he did it in the early 50s when there was no places to play.

So he did stand-up in church basements and Legion halls and he did it at all kinds of... There's no yuck-yucks. That's right. There were no clubs. And he eventually built up quite a, a very successful career where he did a lot of banquets and conventions

and concerts eventually. He did a fair bit. He appeared quite often on the old Ed Sullivan show that was broadcast live from New York City every Sunday night at 8 o'clock Eastern time. Dave comes from, he came from a came from a family that was fairly strict, I guess you'd say, or observant, maybe is a better word, Christians. And when he called his parents to say that he had been booked

on the Ed Sullivan Show, which you have to understand, that was like the biggest show in North America. There were only three networks at the time in the States, ABC, NBC, and CBS. There was only really one network in Canada at the time, CBC. CTV was still in its infancy. And so everybody watched this show. And when he called his parents, he spoke to his mother

to say that this incredible thing, he'd been booked and he was going to perform on the Ed Sullivan show. His mother said, oh Dave, does it have to be on the Sabbath? That is observant. I was kind of Dave's background and he was hilarious but he absolutely

despised organized religion despises is maybe too mild a word but that's how it works right when you're raised like that you go the other way and if you're raised like yeah do what you want you then you become a cult member or something right yeah but Dave so we used to do a stage show in the early 70s Roger and I and Dave and a woman named Carol. I can't remember Carol's last name. I'm sorry, Carol. Anyway, we did sort of a summer review

at a place in Toronto called Old Angelo's. And one of the things Dave worked with was there was a translation thing where he was reading a book and this woman was the censor and she had a little horn and whenever he was about to say something that shouldn't be said, he would honk the horn.

And of course the bit was, you know, it turned out always to be something quite different than what she anticipated it to be. But the prop that Dave used with this book, which is this so-called dirty book, was actually a religious book that his parents had sent him. That's great.

So, yes, you lost it. When did we lose Roger Abbott, remind me? In 2011. 2011. Now, you and, like, on the show, of course, you and Roger were very closely together, right? You're kind of the straight man to his... Well, I wouldn't call myself the straight man, but we had met when we were 13

and had been friends ever since, and we had worked together. So when he died, he was 64. So that's 51 years, I guess, together, and we certainly worked together professionally for more than 40 or so. um 45 i don't know anyway we don't we knew each other a long time it was a great loss uh professionally and personally when he died um it was extremely sad and and you know he kept he was a very private person he kept his illness uh secret from everybody i mean i mean I knew about it and I'd known for some years,

but virtually nobody knew about it. And so when he did die, it came as a huge, huge shock to everybody. The people we worked with were absolutely devastated. This was a couple of years, I guess, after we had finished the weekly half-hour show. But the crew we had were, just to say they were in mourning is to understate it.

The outpouring of grief was absolutely deserved and astounding. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, it was a great loss. Was there any consideration, did you have that moment where you're like, the air force is over? Well, yes and no. I think some people kind of felt that maybe

the wind would grow out of our sails because at that point we were no longer doing the series, the TV series. We were just doing the specials. I was quite determined at the time to keep it going because I didn't feel it had run its course yet. And we had been gradually introducing a new cast of younger people and now today i mean the cast is completely unrecognizable except you'd see luba and me and you'd go who are those two

grandparents why are they on television because everybody else looks quite young and hip and they are and they're very talented but i wanted to keep it going, partly for the fun of doing that, it's fun making comedy, and you don't stop doing it just because, you know, you reach a certain age, you just keep going. I'll do a little plug that in 2020, Jessica Holmes is coming on Toronto Mic'd, so a little... Oh great, she's lovely, she's fabulous, yeah, she's been on our, she's been a member of our cast for many years, there was a bit of an interruption where she went away for a while, but she's back, and I think she's hilarious. Okay, so

the television show, why does it come to an end? And is this 07 when it comes to an end? The series? Yes. Yeah, the series ended in, I guess I'm thinking it was 2008, but I could be wrong. I think it was 2008. Oh, because you know what, I guess does the name change? Okay, because I see that the show goes to 2007

and then it's called Air Force Live TV. Does that? Oh, yes. What we did at one point, it was in our second to last season or whatever. We decided to, we always wanted to do the show live. And so Roger and I convinced the network to let us show live. And so Roger and I convinced the network to let us try it.

So what we did is the way we used to do the show was Thursday night we would have two audiences in one at 6.30 and one at 9.00. We'd record the material in front of the audience. We'd make changes at intermission. We'd also make changes between shows.

We'd do rewrites and do stuff. And then on Friday, our director and editor would put the show together, would assemble everything after we'd had a late night, Thursday night meeting because we'd meet Thursdays

after the second taping. The writers, the producers, and we would go through all the scripts line by line. We'd figure out what order the material should appear in, what we should cut, what we shouldn't cut. This was kind of called a paper edit. And then the next day, that would be executed, and then we'd put it on the air that Friday evening. But we just, Roger and I had always wanted to do the show live, just for the fun of it, because we thought it would be a good challenge.

Well, it's exciting, right? Well, it was. Believe me. So we went on. So the final full season we did, we went live to the Maritimes at 7 o'clock at night, and we had to have the show finished. By 7.30 local time in Toronto, the show was done.

It was terrifying at first. What we did learn how to do is we learned how to structure the show because we only had like when when you're doing a show the way we'd done before if you took 10 minutes between sketches while there were people were getting their makeup changed and because that's how long it would normally take right in their hair change and this kind of thing uh you never know because when it came to editing the show we just you know put it all to bing bing bing bing but when it's live the longest break we break we had was i think was two minutes and 45 seconds for a commercial break so we had to structure the show in such a way that if you were in

the the the last sketch in the first act there's no way you could be in anything sooner than maybe the last sketch in the second act um and so we began writing the show with that in mind and structuring it that way right it was quite quite crazy we had some hilarious moments where you know things went awry like craig lozano when he was doing something with uh uh i think with jessica uh but anyway his he's had a mustache and it started coming loose and you know but you can't do anything about it you You're on there. But you know what? That's the stuff, like even now when you think back, they put together some montage of, I

don't know, Saturday Night Live highlights. They often go to the, like the mistakes. That's right. Like when you break into laughter and all that stuff. And that's the stuff people kind of remember. Oh yeah. Well, because it's, because it's not planned. Right.

The only, and the thing I always say about comedy is that it's comedy, nothing can go wrong. Because even when there's a mistake or a screw-up, it's funny. You think, oh my gosh, no one saw this coming, how do we do it? Now, why does the regular New Year's Eve specials go until right now, which we'll talk about, but why did they come to an end, the television show? Well, there's another classic institutional story. CBC got somebody new in, an American fellow, who was going to be in charge of domestic production.

And I guess they decided they wanted to do something different. They wanted to get their hands on our budget, basically. Because over the years, the budget had increased gradually. So the show had become, I think, a bit expensive. I thought at the time. I found out later that it wasn't. But that was the story we were given. And so they told us.

They said, well, we decided to go in a new direction. This is what you always hear. We decided to go in a... The networks decided to go in a new direction. This is what you always hear. We decided to go in a, the networks decided to, whatever. And the deal was they wanted to do a show that was a kind of a scripted story show rather than sketches. They wanted a show that would appeal to females.

So they wanted a strong female presence, like a lead and stories that would appeal to women. And they wanted a younger cast. So they took us off the air, and the show they replaced us with was Ron James. Serious. So Ron was older than most of our cast sure he did sketches right and he was male and so it was like so you know the story they gave us was completely not what they did but i think you know when institutions uh decide to do something there's a kind of an

institutional momentum that takes over and um once the the decision is made and they're always made by people sitting around in tables in rooms meeting with each other and they really at a certain point you lose contact with the audience and with anybody anything else and it becomes more of it you know the institution has decided that and it just becomes but that's what it is wow okay anyway so that i was trying. I was trying to think of, what show is he describing? I was thinking of it. No, that show, the show that I was describing,

they never did. Ron James is, I know, because Ron James has one salary, and you guys are many people, that's many salaries. Is that, I don't know. Well, no, because he had, I mean, he was never on alone.

It was always, he had, you know, a cast, some of whom were quite regular. We did find out later, because we have, you know, contacts everywhere, that his show cost pretty much the same as ours did. Wow. Interesting. Yeah.

And I think Ron is a great talent. I mean, his annual, the annual New Year specials he did that used to follow us were terrific. Very, very well received by the public. And they, I presume, would have been quite inexpensive to produce because that was just him. Well, all that explains why it's long gone. Of course.

Well received and inexpensive? Get this out of here. Yeah, exactly. Okay, we're going to talk about the New Year specials, especially this one that, because most we're going to talk about the new year specials especially this one that uh because most listeners are going to be listening before december 30th i'll make sure of it i'll tell people to jump on this one but the uh a gentleman named unpaid transit influencer that is his handle on twitter says my favorite punch line they ever did corny as all get out

i'm reading his words, by the way, was when Dawn, as Lucien Bouchard proclaimed, this sovereignty sucks. Sovereignty, T-E-A, yes. The build-up by Roger Abbott as Jacques Perrault was priceless. If I had a question,

it would be, who owns their archive, them or the CBC? Well, we do. Air Farce is a private company that Roger and I own. Now I own it. And yeah, we own all of the shows and all of the rights to them. So we should look forward to an Air Farce app that will stream all the episodes.

If there was a way to make money at it, yes. Well, I haven't thought that long on it. Give me a couple more days, I'll figure that part out. By the way, you guys were in the Duct Tape Forever, the Red Green Show. Yes. Well, we just, we had a little tiny part in the film. A little cameo. Yeah, we liked Red a lot

and we had him as a guest on our show a couple of times because we were trying to convince CBC that he should be on the air at CBC. And they eventually did take our advice and did put him on the air. But our way of introducing him to the CBC executives and talent brass was to put him on our show

so they could see what he did. Right. Anyway, he used to direct shows. And I think when it came time for the Red Green movie to happen, I think it's a nod to us, as a way of saying thanks, he decided, why don't I give him

a little moment in the movie, which is what he did. Looks good on the IMDB profile page. Looks good. Now, these New Year's Eve, these New Year's specials on CBC television start, I guess they've been going,

well, they've been going since 92, I guess. Yes, the first one was made in 1992. That was our introduction to television, actually. It's the way we had been trying for years to get on TV, and even though we were the most popular show on CBC Radio, and many TV executives listened to our show, they would literally not return our phone calls. Wow, that's disappointing to hear. Yeah, but it's kind of typical.

The TV and the radio people work in separate silos. And we actually, through a fellow named Brian Robertson, who is very much active in the arts and media in Canada. He and his partner applied for a grant for the Canada 125 Committee because when Canada was 125 years old, it was a big celebration, and part of that was in media. And the concept was that, excuse me, the concept was that the show, that Air Force would do a show

as part of the 125 celebrations. And we had the money, but we couldn't get any broadcaster to take it. I'll take it. No, they simply, broadcasters simply found excuses not to put us on the air. And we had enough money to actually pay for the show.

Right. Like it wouldn't cost them anything. And this is, this is again, a very frustrating story for anybody who's worked in entertainment in Canada is the timidity. And I don't know, this is another word I won't use,

but of Canadian broadcasters. And that, you know, here's a show by Canadians for free. Right. And it's already got an audience and they wouldn't touch it. Canadians already find it funny.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had half a million listeners on CBC radio. And so the, eventually at the last minute, CBC stepped in and said they would do it. And the thing is,

the show had to be on the air by the end of 1992. We got the go-ahead to do it at the end of November. So we had a month to do it. And during that time, we had to do a radio taping at Weston, where Calgary or something, and we had to do our annual Christmas radio taping at Massey Hall in Toronto on like December the 20th.

So we had to squeeze in the TV show and we didn't have a set because the budget didn't allow for that. So we actually, the, there was a show at the time, a Ralph Ben Mergi show, which was a, do you know he's a client of mine?

Is he? Ralph Ben Mergi? Yeah. By the way, everyone should subscribe to not that kind of rabbi with Ralph Ben-Murgy, yeah. By the way, everyone should subscribe to Not That Kind of Rabbi with Ralph Ben-Murgy. We got like, yeah, a bunch of episodes ready to drop early January. Great, I didn't know that.

A small world, right? Yeah, yeah. I know. So what we did is we bought, I think, I don't know, 1,000 balloons or 500 balloons and I filled them with helium and just anchored them around the set so you couldn't actually see his set and we performed in front of it anyway in that show Yvonne Fitzon

was the network executive at the time at CBC he saw the show and he saw a rough cut and he said you know let's talk about doing more and so that 19 and that's what happened is he said that we, Roger and I met with him and he said, you can either do specials if you want or you can do a series. Tell me what you'd like. So we said, let's do a series. And he said, go for it. And that's how the series started.

Okay, a little taste of what, you know, this is from a couple of New Year's Eve specials ago, but just a little taste of what we can expect here. It's time to party. Oh my God, is that who I think it is? Your PM is here. Justin, you worry more about your public image than the country. Shouldn't you be at work, work, work, work, work, work.

A little Rihanna Drake parody here, which is very clever. Posing for a big, big, big, big, big. He never wears a shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt. Justin, listen, please. Who's doing the Rihanna there? It's pretty good. Alicia. Aisha Alpha? Who's doing the Rihanna there? It's pretty good. Alicia.

Aisha Alpha? Aisha Alpha. Yes, okay. Thank you. Good job by her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so there's a taste of a previous parody. So let me just read this little PR blurb that I got, okay? So after an illustrious 46-year run on radio and television,

Air Farce, one of the most enduring and iconic homegrown comedy troops in the country is winding down air farce new year's eve will be the troops final show on cbc when it airs on monday december 30th 2019 that's not new year's eve by the way uh at 8 8.30pm Newfoundland time? It will also feature favourite moments from the past New Year's Eve specials and the weekly TV series and pay tribute to late Air Force members

sorry founders John Morgan, Roger Abbott and Dave Broadfoot Wow okay so why is it ending? I need answers, John. I need answers.

I don't know. Well, CBC, what they said to us was they wanted to stop funding one-off specials. And the hours would be once a year. And they wanted to put the money into GEM, which is their streaming service, and to kids programming. So that's what we were told. And they're, you know, I've always maintained,

it's their nickel. They can spend it the way they want to. So, you know, that's it. And, you know, personally, I have no hard feelings. I'm not bitter. I'm not disappointed. I was going to ask you, get a little bitter's it. And, you know, I'm not personally, I have no hard feelings. I'm not bitter. I'm not disappointed. I was going to ask you, get a, get a little bitter here. It makes for good, good broadcasting. I'm actually, I'm actually grateful for 46 years. I mean, you know,

you think how many people get to do a show for that long? I mean, and CBC we've of course had our, you know, bumps along the way, but basically they've been a great broadcast partner for a hell of a long time. Sean Hammond, you've already answered the question mostly, but Sean Hammond did ask, how does he feel about the end? Is it fair? How does he approach comedy in this era?

Tell him that we, this is all caps, we love him and his crew. We look forward to this every year. Find a way to continue. Thanks and Happy New Year. So may I ask, is there any possibility of continuing in some other form? At this point, I don't know. I think I know that the people who everybody else associated with the show would love to.

You know, it's a lot of fun And it's always done so well. Audiences have, I mean, we get, our audience for the New Year's Eve show was about one and a half million viewers, which is pretty phenomenal. That to me sounds like a major Leafs versus Habs Saturday night tilt. Yes, yeah.

No, so we have, and CBC was careful or made a point of saying to us, it's not because of ratings. The reason we're not doing it has nothing to do with ratings. It has to do with the money, the limited resources we have and how we see spending it in the future. Yeah, I mean, it's too bad. You know, that's life.

C'est la vie. Well, clearly this is evidence that they're bringing back the kids in the hall, clearly. Well, they might, you know. I don't know. Bruce McCullough from Kids in the Hall is one of the people behind Tall Boys, which is the show they have now.

I think he's the reason it actually is on the air. He came, as I understand it, to CBC with this project. Now, okay. Who's the F-bomb target this year? Can you reveal that? No, I can't. We have a scaled, I can tell you that we have a scaled down F-bomb, and there's a lot of discussion about what we should do and how we should do it. I don't want to reveal anything.

It was just some goofy idea that we had, and we decided to put in the show. Can you name the idea that we had and we decided to put in the show. Can you name the current iteration of the troupe that we'll see on December 30th? Oh, you've put me on the spot because my memory is so bad. Well, there's me and there's Luba and then there's Craig Lozon. There's Jessica Holmes. I know I'm going to

forget. Those ones I knew you would nail. I wondered if you get the next three. I can help you out if you struggle. Okay, there's Isabel Canaan. Yes. Chris Wilson. Yes. And, oh God, who am I leaving? Daryl. Daryl Hines, yes. I'm sorry, Daryl.

I'm told Daryl of all those people. I don't think Daryl listens, actually, is what I understand. That's his problem. Now on a brighter side of things, it's sad that this is the final one. Hopefully there's an incarnation. I always think my thoughts are

they have Jem. Don't they need original content for Jem? This is what my thought is. You'd think that it would be a natural that people could, on demand, see you on Jem. This is my thoughts. Yeah, well, again, I don't know. I don't know how Jem really works.

It's like CBC's Netflix. Yeah, and I don't know how successful it is. I don't know how many people, I haven't seen any, I'm sure if it was a huge success, CBC would be boasting about it. And the fact that they don't release this information makes me wonder that they're maybe struggling.

Oh, I think you're probably bang on right there. This is one of those, if you don't see a press release go out about the 6,000 trillion original streams that Jem had. It means maybe they're not trying to shine a light on that right now. So I mentioned I had brighter news. The brighter news is that you received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

This, I am told, because I will never get one of these, but I'm told this is Canada's highest honor in the performing arts. Yes, it is. Congratulations. Thank you. This came about some years ago. I mean, I wasn't the only one who got it. 98.

I'm a little late. I didn't get you on until now, so I couldn't congratulate you until now. It was just 21 years ago. But, you know, thank you. Thank you. Yes. No, it was Roger, Luba, John, and I got this award. And it was, Dave Roderick already had one

as a solo performer a few years ago. What is it, though? Is it a pin? What is it? Well, it's, yeah, it's... Is it a trophy? A medal? Yeah, like it is.

A plaque? They did send me a pin. No, it's actually quite a nice little medal you're supposed to wear around your neck at formal occasions. Why aren't you wearing it right now? Because I left my tuxedo at home. It's in my other suit. Well, no,

there's no greater honour we have. We don't have a greater honour for our artists and you should be very proud to receive that award. No, thank you. And in fact, a little side note, as the person, one of the, there were two people responsible for that award being created. One of them was Brian Robertson, who I mentioned earlier,

was somebody that we had worked with. And the other one was Peter Herndorf, who used to be the general manager of the National Arts Center in Ottawa. The two of them came up with this thing, and I think it's a fabulous thing, that they realized there should be a National Arts Award. For sure, for sure, for sure. Now, last question I'll give to William Dunlop. You'd think I'd end in lighter fare, but no.

Do you feel that in today's politically correct climate that the brilliant social commentary that comedy can bring has been hindered? Have you noticed any changes through the years? Well, I don't think so. I think if anything, well, there's less of it in Canada now than there used to be.

I mean, you go back a few years, there was Air Force and there was 22 Minutes and there was Rick Mercer and now there's just 22 Minutes. Right.

And I don't know how well it does to be honest with you. I don't follow the ratings but hopefully it's doing well enough that it stays on the air. In America,

oddly enough, it's really flourished. But it flourishes. One of the big differences in Canada and the States is that we always, in Canada, did our political satire in prime time. Thank you to CBC for that. In the United States, they always do it after 1130. It's late night. It's kind of fringe. And what's interesting is that it's absolutely made late-night viewing very, very important and desirable to advertisers in the United States because the public loves it. The networks stay away from it in prime time because they're afraid of advertiser boycotts.

You know, the people who don't like what you're saying will say, well, we're going to tell Kraft General Foods that we're not going to buy their cheese anymore, and they'll put pressure on the network, and the network puts pressure on the show. But after 11.30, nobody seems to really care. And you look at the late-night talk shows, there's half a dozen of them. And years ago, when Johnny Carson was king, you never did politics. It was just like, well, who cares about that? But now every single show begins with the host

doing a monologue that is heavily political. So that's fabulous. So there is a lot more commentary. Well, there's a wealth of material there. Well, yes. Well, there isn't actually, it's not a broad scene, but it's a very deep scene, and it's called, you know, the man with the DTs.

Right. So there, yeah,'s called you know man with the DTs right so they're yeah but you know personally I find the whole DT thing boring because I think

he's a boor I'm with you predictable I'm with you from the get-go when people are going hard on this and I produced

some other comedy shows including the Humble and Friends show and stuff and Humble Howard was like this is amazing we need to go hard and my advice was it's kind of boring because it's so ridiculous.

And it's so, to me, it's not very funny because it's a very powerful position with a red button. I imagine this red button that could kill and destroy a lot of people. And it just doesn't, it's not funny to me. I think that the whole, what's happening in the States with the president, he's just an obnoxious human being, and we should just, we'd all be much better off if we just ignored him. Right.

Oh, Don, I'm with you. So no Trump jokes on the New Year's Eve special? There might be one, but I know that in the previous two years, we were very proud not to mention him at all. We literally did not mention him. Well, I might be one, but I know that in the previous two years, we were very proud not to mention them at all. We literally did not mention them. Well, I'll be watching. I hope everybody tunes in on December 30th. So the powers that be say, wait a minute,

we're the six million viewers. We need to bring these guys back for next year. This is amazing. Well, it would be great for the people who work on the show and for the million and a half viewers that we get every year that the show somehow could be, could avoid its terminal

fate. But I'm fine with it. Personally, I'm okay. I can tell and I'm glad because you don't have any power here, so it's not like you were asked would you like to stop doing this? Actually, I'm glad I wasn't asked because then I would have had to make a choice. And you were probably thinking of all the crew and all the other people,

and you might decide to continue, even if it's not in your heart, because you seem like a really nice guy. I was warned by Mark Hebbshire this morning. He was in here, another client in his show, and I said, oh, Don Ferguson is coming in. He stops and he goes, great guy, great guy. So I said, oh, good, because I don't, I'm not in the mood for an asshole to come over this morning.

Well, thank you, Mark. Don, thanks for doing this. I promised you an hour and I think I only went a couple minutes over, which I'm patting myself on the back for that because I could easily do, you know, twice this with you. So thank you very much. Thank you. And I'm going to take the Palmas Kitchen Treats and the Great Lakes Brewery

Treats home with me. And I'm going to stick the sticker you sticker on your car before you drive away. And that brings us to the end of our 563rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Don, are you on Twitter? No, I'm not. I'm not a social media person at all. So do not look for Don. Although I do know there's an AirFarceCBC Twitter handle. I guess that's the show.

Yeah, well, AirFarce has a Twitter feed, and we're on Facebook and this kind of thing. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Brian Master, you write him at LetsGetYouHome at kwapasta. Sticker U is at stickeru. Brian Master, you write him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com. And Banjo Dunk

is at banjodunk with a C. See you all next week when the year wrap-up with 1236 takes place. The wind is cold, but the smell of snow won't speed the day. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.

Because everything is rosy and green. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.