Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ed "Retrontario" Conroy: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1788

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

In this 1788th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with FOTM Hall of Famer Ed "Retrontario" Conroy about his book Imagination: The Golden Age of Toronto’s Kids TV. Uncle Chichimus, The Friendly Giant, The Uncle Bobby Show, Mr. Dressup, Today's Special and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, Blue Sky Agency, Kindling and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

I love those low notes. What are you two laughing about? Oh, memories, Jeff. I guess Halloween's making us remember a lot of things, you know. What up, Mike? Toronto. VK on a beat. I'm in Toronto where you want to get a city love.

I'm from Toronto where you want to get a city love. I'm in Toronto. I'm in Toronto. Welcome to episode 1,788 of Toronto Mike proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees.

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Today, making his Toronto-Miked return. This is a throwdown. From coast to coast. A showdown. From Retro get back to the Old School Retro Let's take it back to the Old School Retro From Retro Ontario talk over the voice there. My goodness gracious. It is FOTM Hall of Famer, Ed Conroy. What a great

theme song, Ed. Thank you, Michael. It's, uh, you know, that, that genre is tough to crack, as you well know. I'm sorry I faded it down. I really love it. So we got Maestro in there. We got, I hear, uh, some Mark Daly. What else you got in the, in the mix there? Oh, we got, uh, Dolores Clayman, a place to stand. the Ontario theme song. That was put together by my good friend Snake Eyes. You should check him out on SoundCloud.

He's a local Toronto Electro Wizard. Are you cool enough to know somebody named Snake Eyes, Ed? I actually am, believe it. Oh my goodness. Okay, so firstly, right off the top, how are you doing? Michael, I couldn't be better.

I had a long night last night. We'll get to that later. I want to let the listenership know that after we get some of the nostalgic kids TV from the GTA out of our system, I've got a little song and we will do a little Jays talk because you and I are both a little like, I called it, it feels like I'm hung over, but we had late nights last night because of our Toronto Blue Jays

and we will get into that. But otherwise, how are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I mean, I think we started off with that cold open from today's special really resonates with me because I truly believe Halloween, you know, is one of those times of the year that really evokes nostalgia. You know, people talk about Christmas, obviously, that's the big one in terms of that sense that you get. But for me personally, the month of October, it really takes me back. So this is kind of perfect timing to be here with a fellow nostalgia merchant

talking about the good old days. When the, you know, speaking of nostalgia, when the Hulkster passed away. When Hulk Hogan died, I had Stu Stone on the program and we did a deep dive, the sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly of Hulk Hogan.

And he reminded me that when Stu Stone was in Donnie Darko playing the best friend of the star of that film, he wore a Hulk Hogan like costume for Halloween in that movie like it's just and it's just who was I remember you and I are similar vintage like going people going out as ET like that was a big thing when I was a kid but or Star Wars characters were everywhere but a lot of nostalgia tied with this holiday absolutely absolutely and so my book is finally escaped and is out in the wild so this is

a cool time to talk okay so I want to get into it so I want to firstly I'm holding it up for the camera. People are looking at YouTube here. I have my copy of imagination, the golden age of Toronto Kids TV. And you can check the spine has been broken throughout. Like I read it because I felt like it was custom made for me. I want to say congratulations to you. This is a fantastic book and you did a great job. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. I mean, I thank you in the book because so much of this came out over the years of our discussions on this program, right, about all the minutia of all this stuff. Well, why did I not get my own chapter, Ed?

Like, why am I just listed in the acknowledgments amongst some lesser thans? Like, who is this Mark Weisblot character? Oh, another cat that came along at a good time. You know, it takes a village, Michael. And there was just over the years a lot of wonderful people that have helped me along. but certainly you are on the Mount Rushmore there. Oh, and I'm glad to be in like a steam company because I saw you acknowledge Rick A

and I know Rick A is listening right now and he comes out to a event. Actually, does Rick come out to events? He should, and you should come out, but more on that later. But Rick A, I remember when I was a, before you were even really using the retro Ontario handle,

like I guess you were, uh, what were you again? WNED 17. Like I was all over your stuff. And I, I did love going to Rick's, I think it was Rick's TV.

Yeah. And he, go ahead. No, he, he's the OG. And, you know, I've told him that many times, like, I thanked him because, geez, it's, you were talking 25 years ago, quarter of a century, when the internet was new and shiny. You know, of course, one of the first things people of our vintage, as you say, were doing with the internet was looking up these weird old kid shows. Right. Certainly the TVO stuff. And there was nothing really, nothing except this really crazy website called Rick's TV that had pictures and anecdotes about read all about it and all this stuff.

So, you know, he certainly is an OG and needs to be recognized as such. And it's funny how now we all find each other like in the same community because we're like minded and there's so many people like us. And I'm glad that everybody now has a book they can pick up. So imagination is now available. It's, I love the cover. There's the boot, okay? I love seeing the boot. Like, I love it all.

But if you remember, Ed, we recorded at the Museum of Toronto, which at the time was known as the MISium. And you had this exhibit called Mr. Dress-Up to DeGrassey, 42 years of legendary Toronto Kids TV. And I remember recording with you and PJ Fresh Phil, who's in this book, of course. I'm wondering at that time, it was 2023, did you know at that time you were going to write this book, Imagination, the Golden Age of Toronto's Kids TV? Well, there were stirrings. Let's put it that way. There were stirrings, Michael, because really what happened, that museum exhibit was unbelievable.

it was it was thrown together in like two months it brought all these people out of the woodwork that hadn't you know been exposed to a lot of this stuff i mean you and i talk about we've been talking about this since the dawn of time but a lot of the normies out there uh you know they're walking down the street and they see a picture of boot or or you know one one of those puppets from YTV and I think it rocked their world and so what ended up happening with that exhibit is there was just all these people that came in off the street and ended up kind of getting in touch with me right and so I learned I mean I knew that it was the tip of the iceberg that exhibit but I ended up learning you know 10 times as much as I knew about the subject from doing the exhibit and

at that point I would say probably late later in the summer it was it quickly turned into I have to do a book about this because I think what what attracts me always like you is is interesting people and stories and once you get into all this and you see that there was this lineage in Toronto starting in 1950 and running concurrently through all those decades it organized itself I mean it wasn't it wasn't a big stretch to do it um took a lot of work of course but it was very rewarding who drew the picture on the cover so that's an amazing comic book artist by the name of scott woods uh he's on instagram i met him because he's a huge fan of the animated hercules series oh and uh hirk hirk he was waiting for that um you know kindred spirit right uh and that's that's i love working with with people that share similar interests. Okay, so a little caveat here,

because I do want to walk through some, like, choice. So this is a very dense book. It's very educational and informative and entertaining, and I urge every listener to pick up multiple copies, okay? Get your, get a copy of imagination. Ed Conroy is your first book, right? Yep, yep. You hit a home run at your first that bad.

Like, who are you? At JP, Erin Sibia, what's going on here? Two kinds, sir. Yeah, I mean, look, I've wanted, obviously, to do books for a long time. I think, you know, I kind of cut my teeth places like Bogteo and the Toronto Star doing these little articles. And everybody always said, oh, when are you going to do a book? And what's it going to be? Everybody wanted me to do a book about City TV.

And I still desperately want to do a book about City TV. But I think this one kind of made sense coming off of the exhibit. it. And also, let's be honest, it's commercial, right? It's 50 years of content that touches a huge swap of the local community in one way or another, whereas I think city TV might have more of a global reach, but it's a bit inside baseball, if you know what I mean. Well, you know, I like it inside. That's where that's my sweet spot. Okay, so we're going, again, I have some choice shows, some audio that I collected, a lot of audio. that you've shared with me.

I just want the caveat, I guess I would add to this, is that we're talking about kids TV primarily based in the GTA. We'll talk about that. But no animation, right? We're only talking live action. That's right. That was a decision that I made quite early on because, frankly, there is another book, whether I do it or somebody else does it,

the animation, the history of animation in Toronto, and these, again, fascinating human beings, it would have felt too much. You know, this was already a Herculean, if you will, task. And to start getting into animation, I thought it would muddy that story. So, yeah, that caveat is up front that, you know, if you're looking for background on Rocket Robin Hood,

I'm with you, man, but that's a different project for sure. That's the sequel, okay? I look forward to chatting with you about that one. And is it just Toronto? Yeah, I think, you know, again, it's sort of, I put it up front that we chose Toronto. Well, obviously, if you're writing about, let's say you're writing a book about American cinema, you're going to primarily be talking about Hollywood because that's where most American cinema was made. Now, of course, there's a ton of exceptions to that. If you look at Canadian kids television, there are wonderful shows that were made in Montreal and in Vancouver and in Saskatchewan.

But being a guy that was born and grew up in Toronto, I really thought it was important that I stayed within my city limits because I don't know. As a reader, I don't love it when people are talking about stuff that they don't know about or that they haven't experienced directly. Okay, perfect. So, first clip here, I'll just preface this clip by saying it all started with a little green puppet. Hi, I'm John Conway, and this is my workroom backstage, my puppet workroom. As you know, Chich and Holly are puppets, and I'm a puppeteer, and, well, we just always have to go together. There's no other way around it. I'm cleaning one of Chich's hats today because we're going to use it in the story.

Now, mind you, we have all kinds of hats in the cupboard for Chich, but this is the one he used when he goes out for a stroll. Don't you, Chich? Well, Chich, don't you? Titch won't even recognize me out here in the workroom. Well, that's all right. He's a hard boss to work for, but I like it anyway. All right, this time I'll get it.

There we are. going now all right now move over move over not squeezing yes you are i can't get in holly off well if you get a bigger car like i keep telling you to might be comfortable ed can you just tell us a little bit about uncle chichimus uncle chichimus yeah i mean he he is literally ground zero for this whole story because the night that television started in English-speaking Canada broadcasting out of the CBC building in Toronto. The very first thing when the broadcast started

that you saw was the logo of CBC, which unfortunately was reversed and upside down because a technician wigged out at the last moment and tried to clean a slide and then put it back the wrong way. But they quickly switched from the snafu into this puppet, this grotesque little puppet called Uncle Chichamus. And Uncle Chichimus was the work of this fellow John Conway, who you just heard speaking about him.

And he was supposedly based on a type of person that we don't really see anymore, but he called him a grumpy old Ontario man. So a little bit, Mr. Burns, I think a little bit. Just this kind of schlubby old guy who was... Are you referring to FOTM Allen-Zweig? No. All right, please continue. My apologies.

No, you throw me there. I'm a huge fan of Alan, but no, I don't believe he had any input there. John Conway was really this absolutely fascinating guy who was a huge intellectual and he was a teacher. And he was basically making puppets, but at the same time, teaching Chaucer and Shakespeare and, you know, Greek mythology. And so he brought a real, I don't know, depth to these things that you would traditionally think were very hunch and Judy simple puppets. But he gave them real depth. And so they used him when they were testing cameras before the television signal started in 1952. And then eventually they said, hey, this guy's pretty interesting.

We should, we should involve him in the actual night that we launch. So they constructed this little program called Let's See. And every night, because you got to remember when TV started, the CBC, they were only on the air like three hours in the evening at nighttime. So when that evening broadcast started, you had Uncle Chichamas and then you had the weather guy, who was another famous, Toronto broadcaster by the name of Percy Saltsman. And they were just kind of riffing off each other. And they would talk about tonight. Tonight you're going to see, you know, Oscar Peterson playing live.

And then you're going to see a short film about vegetables. And then you're going to see the highlights from the hockey game or whatever, whatever they were showing. But it was it was meant for grownups. It wasn't a kid's show. And it was basically an interstitial. It wasn't actually scripted. But what happened, of course, is Chichimus caught on fire with children.

They loved this guy, this grumpy old guy. And they started writing fan letters. And the CBC, you know, really, this is happening throughout the story and throughout my book, you'll see. None of these TV executives really care for children's television. to them it's a pain in the ass it's a it's a regulatory obligation that they have to create x number of hours of children's programming a week and they begrudgingly do it so okay fine the kids like this uncle chichmus thing give it give it its own show so spin it out of let's see and there was this young buck director who was at the cbc by the name of norman jewison

and they gave it to him and he of course would go on to become like a major major Hollywood player like a guy that people like Spielberg revere as a film director as an innovative filmmaker so in those hands John Conway being the puppeteer and Norman Jewison being the director these guys just went nuts with the show and they started doing absolutely subversive content that nobody upstairs at CBC management was really paying much attention to because they're worried about the plays and about the live theater and about the concerts. They're not looking at what these guys are doing. And yeah, they ended up doing stuff that Jim Henson gets credited for doing decades later. Now, sadly, because television was

live in the early 50s, there's no videos. I mean, there's a few short clips that were from Telecini, but for the most part, it's people's memories and the people that worked on all these shows. And I guess now is a good as a good as time as any to mention that the real breakthrough for me with this book was that I knew the stories were there. I knew there was this lineage and this idea of doing it chronologically. But the real breakthrough came when I met the son of a man named Fred Rainsbury. And the son was Paul Rainsbury. Fred Rainsbury was the original head of the children's department at CBC.

And I'm sure we'll get to him. We talked about him a lot at our exhibit because he's the MVP of the story. I mean, he's the guy that basically laid down the... from which we are still producing children's content. And when I guess he retired and was an elderly gentleman in the early 80s, he had the brilliant foresight to go around and interview basically everybody who had anything to do with children's television in Canada. And he kept the tapes, brilliant men.

man. And his son gave me access to those tapes. So I was suddenly working with hundreds of hours of interviews with people like John Conway and Norman Jewess and, you know, and on and on and on. And hearing them talk, like it was, I've described it to some other people as it was like a podcast. It was, it was like you in 1981, if you were doing what you're doing now. Just a tremendous piece of history that he did this. Thank goodness he did because it gave voice to all these people that created this wonderful art that is just sadly not around for us to look at now. That's amazing.

What a breakthrough. And you had access to, like you said, these are like podcasts, I guess recorded in the early 80s. Is that right? It's right. They were all done. It's really funny. They were all done in 1982 and 1983. and almost every single interview that he did,

they get to the meat and potatoes, and then they end up talking about E.T. Because E.T. had just come out, of course, and was being hailed as the definitive children's movie ever made. And it's hilarious to hear Fred Rogers or Ernie Coombs or Bob Hummy or any of these cats talking about E.T. And they're all kind of saying, yeah, we surrender. Like, you won America.

Like we're never going to be able to compete with with stuff like E.T. Oh, that's funny. And it's just coincidentally, I decided to reference the Halloween costumes I remember from the early 80s. And E.T. really was for a period of time. It was untouchable. Yeah. And it was everywhere.

I know. And I mean, this is a little, a little bit off the topic here. But I feel like that is something that has kind of shifted. I don't think E.T. gets the reference. reverence from certain quarters that it did when you and I were growing up. I think Jurassic Park probably has that title now, no? Good point. No, Jurassic Park, absolutely. Yeah, it's a good point. It's funny when you revisit E.T. with your kids, I'm sure you've done this, but you know, you

revisit it. And it's, it's a little saltier than you remember. Like, you kind of have- Penis breath. Yeah. It's just a titch saltier than, yeah, the penis breath. But then, then you recall, but it's, uh, it's, it holds up like what a master's storytelling effort by some guy named Steven Spielberg. I don't know what became of him, but, uh, yeah. And, and, and, and E.T was like, licensed on everything. Like, I had E.T. stickers and there were sheets and there, just anything you could slap a E.T's, a beautiful figure on, uh, they did that. So it's, well, you know, and it's, it's, it's a really interesting point because obviously Star Wars gets credited, you know, 77 it started this merchandise

boon but that was all in retrospect right like that stuff came out after Star Wars already blew up. E.T. was the first time that all this ludicrous merchandise came out like simultaneously with the film and for better for worse probably for worse that became the norm that we still deal with whether it's you know garbage big plastic cops or shit video games or whatever it is, that all started with ET for sure.

And back in the monoculture, which we are not living in today, gosh, everything's so fractured. There's a massive celebrity that my 21-year-old will be obsessed with. And I don't know that name. Like that just simply didn't happen back in the day. But, you know, you could have a movie just become the pervasive ever-present pop culture touchpoint for all demographics. graphics. Like, it's wild. That's absolutely right. And, you know, the monoculture is something, you know, I don't directly address it in my book, but of course, it hangs over everything. Because for those 50 years, I mean,

that's why I cut it off at the year 2000, because I think when you look at it from a bird's eye view, that is when the, you know, balkanized culture starts to happen because of having 500 channels and having the internet and having all that stuff. and now we're a quarter of a century into that new normal. It's not new anymore. That's just the way it is. But certainly in the monoculture, even if you were one of those poor kids who didn't have a television,

I think we all knew somebody whose parents wouldn't either let them watch television or they didn't even have a television. They knew what these things were. Like they knew what cucumber was or, you know, today's special. They knew from the playground, whereas you're exactly right today, people are talking about some obscure game on Roblox or whatever, you could be dialed up to 100

and still not know what that is. Absolutely. And I'm just going to clarify something and then a couple of quick hits. We're making our way to the Friendly Giant, which people who listen to this podcast, they hear the Friendly Giant theme in the outro that Rob Proust, he did a cover of Rosie and Gray, and then he added Easter eggs that he would hear discussed on Toronto Mike. And he had heard many a discussion about the Friendly Giant,

probably because I've had Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario on so often. But the clarification I want to make is that I love Alan's Wig. I just want to make sure Alan knows that. Alan was my guest two episodes ago. So Rushmi Nair was yesterday, and that was wild, actually.

You should listen to that one, Ed. But prior to that, it was Alan Zweig, and it was a wonderful conversation in a great episode, but Alan is a self-professed curmudgeon, and it sounded like maybe Uncle Chichimus was curmudgeonly in the vein of Alan's So absolutely. Okay. So maybe just quick hits on a couple of things. One is howdy duty, which is a show. I literally know howdy duty because it gets referenced in a lot of like American, like media that I would consume. And they would talk about kind of growing up with how it's howdy duty time and this and that. But how how what role does howdy duty play north of the 49th here in the Great White North?

that's a great question i it's funny i read the book ed i read the book thank you you you understood the assignment um look i knew about howdy duty because it was sampled in hip-hop all the time right like you know hey kids uh what time is it like you said it's howdy duty time right howdy duty has a lot to answer for because it was you know the first massive american kid show and as you as you said, it was all based on Westerns because Westerns are so integral to American history, Americana,

American culture. So Howdy Doody was a puppet show and a live variety show with this studio audience in Rockefeller Center of like the most hyper kids that the world has ever seen. Like they probably filled them up

with Coca-Cola and Smarties and let them loose in this environment and they're showing them shootout reels from Western films, and they're just talking about products. Like, it was basically an hour-long commercial for sure. So, of course, moms across America, they just hated the show because it made their kids hyper. It made them want to buy all this garbage.

But it was insanely popular. And, you know, going back to what I said about the executives, hating this genre of children's television lazy executives just said okay just just either buy howdy duty or remake howdy duty like that's all kids want so of course the cbc gets going 1952 and they say let's buy howdy duty like we'll buy the actual framework of the show the title the howdy duty puppet who, of course, goes on to be the inspiration of Woody from Toy Story. So even if you don't know how to you do, do you certainly know about Woody. And simultaneous with this, they hire the aforementioned Fred Rainsbury. And I, you know, can't over, I can't overstate this insanely

pivotal moment in the history of television, the hiring of this guy, because he was an academic. He was another teacher. He was an intellectual, really smart guy, doesn't get nearly the credit. I mean, he gets no credit. Nobody really knows, unfortunately, who he is. But he was hired because he was writing articles about television before there was such a thing as media studies. And I think he understood that you can't scapegoat television for society's ills. So right off the bat, right? Everybody's worried that television is going to make kids dumb and make them violent and all these horrible things. And he said, look, you can't blame the television for that. It's bad parenting. If you want to learn about your kids, then watch television with them.

And you can learn a lot. So this gets him noticed. He goes in, leads his case, and then he's given the keys to the kingdom to develop a robust children's depart. within the monolithic CBC. But he is also told you have to make a Canadian-inized version of this awful howdy-duty show. So it was kind of bittersweet because, you know, he's ready to start going off on his own trail, as it were, but he's got to deal with this awful Americanized garbage. And so he very quickly starts to learn about,

how to do this and how to hire certain people who come from academia or come from other streams that aren't just coming out of radio or aren't just coming out of live theater because that was the early days of television. That's sort of how it was done. And, you know, I do mention in my book that I'm quite amazed that, and we might have talked about this when you visited the exhibit, that there was a character on howdy duty that they created because they showed a lot of these educational films within the show. So it would be like, okay, hey kids, we're going to watch this little five-minute documentary about indigenous totem pulse or, you know, some bit of Canadian history.

So they would have a puppet that was sort of tied to that certain theme and that puppet would set up the short film. And they're shown a lot of short documentaries about history and about, you know, ancient history. So they create this puppet who is a time traveler and he's called Mr. X and he travels around in time in a little box and he talks over these historical films. But he's also mysterious and the host of Howdy Duty is kind of freaked out by him because he doesn't know where he's from. or where he's coming from the future. Is he coming from the past? And I was able to actually see some of this

because I have an insider, as it were, in the CBC archives. And you watch this stuff and you're like, wow, that's, that's Dr. Who. Like, that's basically the print of Dr. Who. And then you do a little bit of digging. You see that the guy that's credited with creating Doctor Who was a Toronto guy called Sidney Newman who worked at the CBC, who was,

there when howdy duty was being made uh and what's even crazier is when sidney newman pitched the bbc on dr who he called it dr x originally wow i looked through probably too much uh doctor who stuff and you can probably imagine for a tv show that's been on what 60 60 plus years now um there is like libraries of insane arcane nerds nerdy stuff about Doctor Who. But there's nothing about the fact that its premise, basically, was stolen wholesale from this kid's puppet show. So I hopefully will get the Doctor Who nerds enraged about this,

that they didn't know that. You just converted me into a Doctor Who truther. This is unbelievable, Ed. Like, good for you. But this is precisely... why I love what you do. I'm going to pump your tires for a moment and say, I see a lot of, like, social media feeds that sort of,

I guess they Google stuff and then they kind of collected. And I don't know if it's AI doing it or if they're doing it, but they kind of spit back out the stuff they found via like searches or AI or Google. I don't know. And they're kind of regurgitating the same slop over and over again. But what I like about what you do, Ed Conroy, is you'll actually put in the work to kind of uncover new. material like fresh nuggets for us to ponder like I'm so hungry for some new stuff and you always

bring me something I didn't know before so I just want to say I appreciate you oh so kind of you thank you and I strive I know exactly what you're talking about I mean you must encounter it as well I think to go again a little bit off the trail here I look at it now I think this all started all, you know, about 10 years ago, maybe a little bit longer with the monetization of social media. Because what happened, you know, for those of us that were in social media before that, like you and like me, we did it because we loved it and because we loved sharing this information and more importantly learning about this stuff. What has happened subsequently and what is kind of gross to me is you have this whole

swath of people that are stealing content that are just regurgitating as you say stuff with no context not even because they care but because they're chasing money or they're chasing clout and it muddies the waters you know and I it's hilarious to me because I see stuff that I put out there come back from somebody else and then you know I look like the guy that's imitating

right but but what are you going to do i mean this i think too what attracts me to all of this is that there is so much gold and so many nuggets about all this stuff and about all these people that is still yet to be uncovered so we keep doing what we do because it you know there will never be a time when we know everything about all these subjects so and i love the again this is the pump the tire segment and we're going to move on very quickly but i do love that you're doing what you do of that great passion and curiosity and you're willing to put in the work and then I find I'll learn something from you

and that'll spin me off into oh I'm gonna get this person on the show to talk 90 minutes about that and then you'll discover this other part and you'll kind of explore that part like you'll pull at these threads and one such thread is years ago you introduced me to somebody Nina Keo and you said Mike Nina Keo was Muffy Mouse

and I'm like you had me at Muffy okay Nina came over I had the most wonderful conversation I learned Nina is much more than just Muffy Mouse, and I learned about her family, but I loved reading in your book imagination about the Keough family. Oh my goodness.

I mean, yeah, bless Nina. Nina is the godmother of Canadian children's television, an absolutely wonderful human being, has helped me immeasurably, as you might imagine, throughout all this through the exhibit, through the book, because she comes from this lineage, this incredible artistic family of the Kiyos. And I think for me, there was quite a few moments

in putting the book together that I kind of went, oh, wow, like, that's huge. The biggest wow for me came when I was listening to these Fred Rainsbury audio tapes. And he was interviewing, it wasn't a big name. It was sort of a backstage guy that worked at CBC. and they quite often would kind of go off on tangents, which is equally fascinating.

I love tangents. Yeah, totally. Tangents is actually probably where most of the gold comes from, right? Because their guards are down. And if you may, because I do the 90 minutes or whatever, and there will be tangents. And every once in a while I'll get a little note from somebody from mainstream media that, like, you know, tangents, suddenly you're talking about this.

I always make sure to come back. But you just touched on it. That's where you uncover the gold and we need to know where we're digging. Absolutely. Absolutely. So he's talking to this dude and he just mentions that, oh, yeah, I was down at Simpson's department store on Youngstreet on a Sunday and there was an exhibit going on of marionettes, right, giant puppets.

And I was immediately taken at their beauty and the, the details. of these puppets and so I asked who is responsible for this and the person there said oh it's this lady whose name is violet keo and he said here's my business card can you please give it to her i'm i'm from television i would love to meet her and so he ends up meeting violet keho's nina's grandmother and he hires are on the spot to come and do puppets for this sunday morning religious program they were working on. But what are the odds, man? The symmetry of that. Because like you, I mean, today's special at Muffy Mouse at the Simpsons Department store, that was my childhood. And so I love that symmetry. I mean, that's poetry, really, you know.

So bless the Keough family, we're all over, you know, the book imagination. And Nina today is, you know still sharing the the gospel if you will absolutely and look nina uh who else was in mr dress up friendly giant poker dot door today's special uh she even worked on rocket robin hood back to animation for a second i mean she's involved in every one of these shows or she knows the people who were right uh and she's a wealth of information you should have her on once a week man i would have her on once a week absolutely so again uh uh For the nostalgia aficionados that are listening,

we're the, as we say, Ed, we're the nostalgia merchants here. So just a couple of minutes with this because if you're of a certain, well, it's quite a, we'll talk about it, but it's a pretty large demo when you think about it. I always think it's us Gen Xers, but of course it's much, much older than that.

But here is. It's about a time, not long ago, not far away. We're in the village, a nice spring day. Looks a little snowy, He had a bit of snow, one of those spring snowstorms, but no one had to shovel because it's melting almost as fast as it came down. It'll be gone soon.

Nice day to walk through the town. There's something that I just noticed. I hadn't noticed before, and it's right there. You see that pole, red and white? It's a barber pole. Oh, there. A little barbershop there, and they have a red and white pole with stripes. All over the world are barbershops like that.

There's that big boot. Now look up, way up, and we're on our way to the castle. I'll go over first and go in the back door so I can let the drawbridge down and open the big front doors for you. Are you ready? Here's my castle. You know, my own

my my and I'm . Here we are inside. Here we are inside. Here's one little chair for one of you. A bigger chair for two more to curl up in.

For someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle. Now, look up. Way up. And I'll call Rusty. Rusty? Hi. Hi, Rusty. How are you?

How are you? Good, good. Where have you been? What have you thought about or heard? Oh, on a little walk through the village on Main Street. Notice something that I haven't noticed before. I don't know whether it's new, but I haven't noticed it before. There's a barber pole in front of the little shop next to the general store.

Ed, please, let's talk about Friendly Giant. My goodness, I'm tearing up over here. Well, you know, what's remarkable about that, Mike, is, you know, I believe that's like a kind of a podcast. I think that works just as well in audio. It's a shame they don't just release them all, you know, on the CBC podcast. network um you know it's it's absolutely legendary guy bob hummy that was basically doing friendly giant as a reaction to howdy duty because howdy duty was so over the top and so crazy and loud and he his approach to creating children's content was to do the opposite of that to to do

chill. And they did chill. They did it better than anybody else. It was conversational. It was aspirational. He was obviously really into music and really into jazz. And he felt it was important to give kids an appreciation of music, you know, from a young age. Before I forget, I'll tell you, because I know you like your nuggets. I don't know if you knew this one. Unfortunately, I couldn't put this one in the book because the fact checkers couldn't find anything to back it up, but I believe it to be true. That song that you heard, the theme song of Friendly Giant, is called Early One Morning. And it's a very old song.

It's been covered by loads of people, including our friend Rob Cruz. Wait, wait, hold on, but are you referring to in the Toronto Mike closing theme, the cover of Rosie and Gray, that cover? No, no, no. I'm talking about early one morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he embeds early one morning into the closing theme of this very podcast.

Yeah, so that's what I mean. Okay, okay. It's been covered many, many times. Okay, I'm with you. Bob Hummey's version was slightly different because he did it live every show, which is another brilliant little piece. But that song, okay,

supposedly was written about the industrial revolution in England changing the speed of life. So it was a lament to the times when things were chill and simple and obviously the Industrial Revolution happens and suddenly there's machines and everything's noisy and everything's crazy. Now we couldn't find, unfortunately, anywhere that this was backed up, but this, I did find reference to this in many places. I believe it to be true and I love that idea because that's

with that whole program, that's the ideology of that program, right? It's a slower pace of life is better. Well, I did not know that. So thank you for bringing me yet another wonderful nugget. And I will say even listening, that was two minutes or so, I just played. And we listen live. I know a lot of podcasts like to add these things in post. Nope, we're going to listen, Ed, okay, in real time.

But I felt myself calming right down. Like, I was, you know, I'm a little, you know, we're going to talk later about the night we had last night. and what happened and everything. But I was just listening to just the cadence and listening to Rusty and the friendly giant and learning about the barbershop polls and it just calmed me right down. So, you know, as an exclusive,

because you are my best friend podcaster, I didn't want to give this to anybody else and I haven't. I've held it all back. But I have brought with me a few clips from these Fred Rainsbury tape. Now, the quality is not great because they were recorded on, you know, a cheap little cassette player in 1982. But I did bring Bob Hummy, the Friendly Giant, sort of giving a bit of background about how he got into the business when he was speaking with Fred Rainsbury.

And I think it's probably a good time to drop that. Let's do it. Interview with Bob Hummy, the Friendly Giants, August 19, 1982. Bob, we might begin by asking you how you came to do the Friendsly Giants in the first place. All right, it began in radio. I was in, I worked for an educational radio station in the United States, WHA and Madison at the University of Wisconsin, as a music programmer and a writer of programs for in-school youth,

mostly in field of music. And like all small radio stations, how long do you want it? Do you want it long-winded? Take your time. All right. Everyone does everything, and it was always a chore for the program director

to find someone to do what he called the kids show on Saturday morning, and everyone was asked, and everyone tried to get out of it, including me. and I did get out of it. And then one day, my wife had a baby, and I found that within about three weeks, I was a qualified expert on the subject of children. I had a terrific interest in kids,

and the next time he asked me to do the kid show, I jumped at the chance, and I did it. It was a very quiet show, conversational, an approach, informal, poetry and stories and music, recorded music. And the contrast between it and other, the usual fare for kids at that time was up and out, pretty exciting and loud, in a sense, presuming a large audience, of which each listener was a small part. But I approached it as though there was just one listener.

And the show was a small show, a daily show, and it went on for a long, long time, and had a loyal, of quiet audience. Well, when television came along, all of us in radio thought it would be a good idea to get into television. And so did the audio, video, visual people, and theatrical people.

Each of us thought it was our proper place. Of course, I think radio people won off. And I wanted to get into television in the children's field and not use anything similar to my present program in its format because it just wouldn't fit, of course. But I did want to keep that approach, quiet and informal, intimate kind of one-to-one approach. And that's how I got into television.

It is like listening to a podcast. That is unbelievable. Oh, man. I mean, this audio, that was obviously my favorite part of doing the book, was just listening to hours and hours of these wonderful people talking about how they got into the industry, what their inspirations were, what they were thinking, because there's nothing like that out there. I mean, that was, you know, what was the other driving force in all this, Mike, as I'm sure you know, is that Canadian popular culture is very underrepresented, strangely, because you look at all. these hugely successful people that came out of the Canadian, certainly Canadian television. But there are just hardly any books of any detail about all this stuff. So, yeah, listening to it, listening to people like Bob Hummy and Fred Rainsbury just shoot the

breeze was a joy, man. Okay, so Fred Rainsbury's son has access to all of this audio? Yes, yeah. Has you ever considered that this is a podcast? series? Well, look, you know, it took a lot of conversation to get access because, you know, he's guarded about these things. And, you know, even I'll tell you, speaking to Bob Hummy and friendly giant, it was incredibly difficult and almost didn't happen that I was able to get images, right? Because when you want to use pictures from any old CBC content, you need written

permission from the person that's in the image. And obviously, Bob Hummy is long gone and he's got family all over the place and they're not, you know, all in agreement about these things. So I had to track down all these people and eventually his lovely grandchildren helped me out to get the children, the sons and the daughters, to agree to let CBC give me those black and white pictures. And, you know, it's funny you're talking about the internet. Like, yeah, you do Google search. And, friendly giant pitchers all over the place throw them up on your blog takes two seconds but if you want to use that in a book man it's a it's a different ballgame man oh my goodness yeah wow okay now i have a piece of audio called friendly giant breaks yeah i mean that goes against his

ideology that he was just talking about this is my friend snake eyes who did the retro ontario theme. He had a little crack at a remix. But maybe play a little bit. If you want to hear the full version, you can go to the SoundCloud. Well, it's 90 seconds. Are you okay if I play it all? Sure. Here you go. One little chair for one of you.

Bigger chair for two more to curl up in. They're rocking chair. For someone who likes to rock, rock, rock. Are you ready? Rock, rock. Are you ready?

Rock. Are you ready? Here is my castle. Are you ready? Here's my castle. Ready? Here is my castle. Ready?

Here's my castle. Are you ready? Are you ready? Here is my castle. For someone who likes to roar, look up, look up. way up look up, look up, way up, look up, way up, look up, look up, for someone who like to rock, wrong, bye, friendly, hi, how are you, fine, fine, how are you, fine, fine, fine, look up, fine, look up, look up, way up, look up, look up, way up, look up, look up, way up, look up, way up, look up, way up, look up,

Look up for someone who likes to rock. He has one little chair for one of you. A bigger chair for two more to curl up in. A rocking chair. For someone who likes to rock. The way I look at it, Ed, like, what is the point of any of this if I can't give that beauty 90 seconds? Oh, of course. You know what I mean?

Like, what am I doing here? I believe the kids call that genre glitch rock. No, it's a wonderful piece. I just think it's funny because it does, it is hyperactive and it is the opposite of chill, but it's wonderful all the same. But yeah, to get back on track, Bob Hummey is so important in this story because Fred Rainsbury's in Toronto, you know, trying to develop an ideology that is going to determine how they produce these shows.

And he hears about this guy in Wisconsin, right? who's doing radio, who starts to do Friendly Giant on the PBS station in Wisconsin. And there's another program that is crucial to all this, but nobody's ever heard of it called Junior Magazine. You're not going to see somebody walking down the street in a Junior Magazine hoodie, you know? But without Junior Magazine, you wouldn't have any of these shows. Because Fred Rainsbury used Junior Magazine as kind of a, testing ground where he would invite these people from America to go on, do their schick,

and if they passed his test, he would then say, hey, why don't you move to Toronto and I'll give you whatever you want and you do it here. So he invited friendly up to Toronto to do it on Junior Magazine. He passes the test. He gets carte launch. And then 1959, okay, going into the 60s, suddenly Fred Rainsbury has a show that is like this is basically what the template of what I want to do is. I want all the children's shows to have that conversational approach and to celebrate imagination as opposed to these rousous party duty screaming kind of shows. So that's the importance of Friendly John can never be understated. It set the tone for everything that was to come. How long did the Friendly giant air?

So Friendly ran every day from 1959 until 1985. Okay. And the only reason, and we obviously get into this in the book, the only reason he gets canned is that the CBC had massive, massive, massive budget cuts. First of all, that's set the stage. second of all really since sesame street started which was 1969 the whole idea of children shows being slow was viewed as suss okay they thought oh no you got to edit quickly it's like when m tv landed right you got to change your editing to keep up with this and friendly just refused he said no this is what we are and this is how we're going to do it so the the actual flow of friendly never changed. Like, you watched the first episode in 59 or the last episode in 85. It's the exact same show. But what probably did him in, and this is the saddest thing, is that he refused to do

public appearances. Right. Okay. Because he believed very, very strongly that children, his children viewers really thought he was a giant. So if they see him in a mall, you know, signing autographs, the illusion of the giant is destroyed. So he just said, no, he did host the Santa Claus parade a few times, but he was like on a feed from the castle, right? So he could maintain the giant. And when you get into the 80s, you get Sharon Lois and Bram are everywhere. Mr. Dressup is doing malls.

Hokka Dore is doing malls. It was all about the emerging, like we were talking about with E.T., the merchandise and the appearances. And so when he kind of was refusing to do that, they said, okay, you're done. And you've had him on your podcast. Poor old Fred Penner got hired to take over that slot. And no fault of his, he gets called the giant killer. Like that was his derogatory nickname in the industry.

You know, the poor guy probably was you couldn't sleep at night knowing that he was blamed. And the cruelty of the CBC, they didn't have the balls to fire, hummy. He had to literally open the newspaper one day and read that Friendly Giant had been canceled. Oh, my God. So brutal. So brutal. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Well, you know, we've talked so many times on Toronto, Mike, about what the Friendly Giant meant to yours truly. Like, that was my jam. So I always have to remind myself that, oh, there's guys like, I don't know, 15 years older than me that had the same jam. Like this wasn't like a Gen X thing. This thing was bigger than that. Yeah, there's people that were watching Friendly Giant turned to color in 1966 and saying,

oh, it isn't like it used to be. This is newfangled friendly giant. Right. So I want to again remind the listenership that this book is now available. And Ed put his heart and soul into this. And you can tell it's just so thorough. And over 100 shows are covered.

We're going to touch on a few of them here. In fact, I realize now, like, for the sake of time, maybe we aren't going to spend 45 minutes right now on Tails of the Riverbank. Like, I really want to get into Hammy Hamster, but I do know we have to touch on Mr. Dressup, but on our way to Mr. Dressup, if people have heard retro Ontario episodes of Toronto-Miked,

they know one of our favorite, you know, I mentioned my jam. Well, this was another one. So let me just play a minute here, and then we just got to talk about this gentleman. Hello, hello, it's nice to have you, Willis. Hello, hello, go ahead, it's your god. Hello, hello, now come on and join us.

Hello, hello, we're going to have some fun. Hi, everybody, it's Uncle Bobby with Let's Model a Story, Ruth Winkler. And one Leonard, who's always got a few more tricks up his sleeve. And if we can't go to the zoo, the zoo will come to you. And oh yes, we mustn't forget, Sir Leonard, and happy too. Who's just been dying to pose for our bird artist Barry Mackay? And Traffic Officer John will be on hand to bring us up to date on the ladies safety rules. So there we are, boys and girls, just some of the things we do on the Uncle Bobby show, on CTV on Saturday mornings.

So, Ed, we couldn't have you on without at least a little Uncle Bobby talk. This is on our way to Mr. Dress-Up. Uncle Bobby. Bobby Ash, Michael, as you know, nothing pleases me more than talking about Bobby Ash with you on this program. I think that was maybe secretly why I decided to do this book, is it allowed me a proper reason to do a deep dive. because I think over the years you know

Uncle Bobby has taken a lot of heat for various things and a lot of it is totally understandable I think what really really surprised me was how different the Uncle Bobby show was

when it started versus what it devolved into when you and I were exposed to it you know in the 80s you know it started really with CTV coming along in 1960 because again it's crazy to think about this that

it was almost 10 years of television only being CBC in Canada like it was it was just monolithic it was it was one guy one broadcaster and so CTV comes along as a viable network and commercial network that can compete with CBC and of course they need the CRTC or the version of the CRTC at the time mandates they've got to produce kids programming just like the CBC they view this as a thorn in their side they don't really want to do it but they have to do it so what do they do they hire the gang that did the howdy duty show and they take another crappy American program called the magic toy shop and they take the format and they retweak it in in

Toronto at agent court up at Channel 9 studios and they call it the professor's hideaway and that program was something I knew nothing about going into this

but I quickly realized that for a lot of older people probably a lot of people that you have on the older radio people the professor's hideaway was was like unmissable it was it was a daily ritual for them after school. And Professor's Hideaway put out a casting call that got Bobby Ash out of the UK to come

to Toronto. And he was a clown sort of in the background on Professor's Hideaway. And he was called Bimbo. That was his alter ego on Professor's Hideaway. And then I think, you know, doing the deep dive on him, You know, we knew some of this stuff. Like, we knew he was this body kind of character and he was a partier, you know, he was a drinker and he was, he had his way with the ladies. But, man, I was not prepared for the details of this guy's life.

Like, you know, he, the fact that he fought in the North African theater in World War II, he was a prisoner of war. He came face to face with Erwin Rommel, the German tank commander. he had toured the UK as a circus guy so his hands were totally disfigured from rope burns when he was a child his father was best friends with Philo Farnsworth who just happens to be the guy who invents television like the inventor of television in Scotland so the idea that Uncle Bobby, we just saw him as this kind of a joke, you know, this old drunk guy, but there was so much more to it than that. So he ends up, I'll make it short, he ends up taking over Professor's Hideaway

and they rebrand it as Uncle Bobby, the Uncle Bobby show. And it started off as a very, very well-produced show that had writers and a budget and guests and puppeteers and all this and then as time goes on through the 60s into the 70s into the late 70s they lose all of their budget they lose all of their cachet bobby ash turns to the bottle turns to being a school bus driver to pay the bills and it ends up the crusty the clown show you know and that's that's what we laugh about right but it really is probably the most tragic show in in my book because it was an incredible fall from grace. And my last note on that is that I think he was really ahead of his time

because he was kind of the first postmodern kid show in that he drew attention to the television. Like he would say, oh, camera two, go to camera one. And the camera two would film the cameraman and say that's, that's, you know, smitty, cameraman number one. or if Nina Keo, Blesser, was puppeteering on the show, he would pull her up behind the couch so that kids would see there was a human being operating the puppet.

Now, from an artist perspective, this was a nightmare, right? Because they were all about the illusion of this being, you know, a real puppet or a real character. But Bobby Ash was trying to teach kids, this is all make-believe. Like he was a magician at heart. So he's, he's revealing the tricks. So, yeah, I mean, you know, you know me, buddy. I could talk about Uncle Bobby all day.

There's always new old stuff about Uncle Bobby. Well, we might need a standalone episode. And it'll have to do like listener discretion advised on it. Because I noticed your book was lacking in a little bit of the more salacious details of his shaggin wagon. There were some, there were some edits. I think it wasn't that kind of book. Right. You know, there's a few instances where it's.

could have gone into that direction with some other people, too. But at the end of the day, this was a celebration of the positive energy that these people put out into the universe. Consenting adults and all that, it's all good considering what we've heard from the UK, right? So let's be grateful, right? Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. You know, you hear this stuff, this playground stuff about him, but I think a lot of it is nonsense. As you do, you know, it's, it's, it's a mishmash of what people heard about, uh, Jim, Jim, Jim, what a Jim will fix in the UK. Jimmy Saville. And, and, you know, all this crap. But no,

look, it was, it was a strange show. I think I say in the book that for people of our generation, it was crusty the clown. But for older people, it was actually like a well done kid show. That's a crazy dichotomy. Which is great context for us, Gen Xers, to learn. and your book covers it very, very well. And I do have fond memories of, I know you said his name on that previous show was Bimbo, and you say Bimbo, and I think of Bimbo the Birthday Clown.

And I will still play Bimbo the Birthday Clown on Toronto Mike. I just did it for the aforementioned Rob Pruse, he turned 60, and I played for him Bimbo the Birthday Clown. Have a wonderful day, even if it's not your birthday. Right. Oh, I love it so much.

Okay, so now I'm looking here. I do need to talk Mr. Dressup with you. That was my other jam. But maybe this ties in with Fred Rogers, of course, Mr. Rogers. And you have a clip you sent me called Fred Rogers on trauma. But I'll leave it to you to set this up. I have a little minute I'd like to play about Mr. Dressup and then you dictate the remainder.

Sure. So did you want me to play the Fred Rogers clip? Or do you want to explain how Fred ties in with Ernie? Yeah, it's fascinating. Let me cue it up a bit. So, yeah, almost exactly the same scenario as was described about how Bob Hummy, Ack of the Friendly Giant, gets to Toronto. Fred Rainsbury is hearing about this other guy in Michigan who is supposedly doing wonderful things,

but he's behind the camera. He's a puppeteer, and he's really producing the show. He's not in front of the camera. And so he meets this guy, Fred Rogers, and instantly says to, him, why the hell are you not the face of your show? Like you, you know, I watched you talk to kids. You're, you're remarkable. And he ends up having this years long back and forth correspondence. I actually was able to get one of the letters that Fred Rainsbury sent to Fred Rogers is reproduced in the book because it was just like so touching, right? And the age before email that

these men are writing, you know, typing out these long letters and posting them off to each other. But he finally gets Fred Rogers to come on Junior Magazine and do his stuff. And then Fred Rainsbury convinces him to bring his family and move to Toronto and bring his crew and create this program called Mr. Rogers. And it's one of those things, Mike, that, you know, it's in the Mr. Dress-Up documentary. every couple of years somebody does a newspaper article there's always like a huge amount of people that are shocked

to learn that Mr. Rogers is a Toronto origin story right like that Tom Hanks movie as touching as it is totally whitewash is this integral

part of the story because Fred Rogers comes to Toronto and he workshops what we eventually come to know as Mr. Rogers with Rainsbury and his team. So all of that stuff that became really the defining face of children's television on PBS with Sesame Street. There's a wonderful scene in the Mr. Rogers documentary where he goes in front of the Senate, the United States Senate, and faces off against these like insane right-wing Republican senators

that are wanting to defund public broadcasting. And he basically disarms them and gets them to say, okay, you know what, we're not going to cut the budget. PBS can stay alive. And all of this comes from his experience in Toronto. So very important to recognize that. And what we are about to hear, I think it illustrates one of the differences that we'll see about Mr. Rogers

and Mr. Dressup. but it is Fred Rogers speaking on the phone, I believe, with Fred Rainsbury. The important part of the inner drama of the person who comes to the television set to watch a program. Very good. Because that drama is going to affect what that person sees and hears on the air. if a child comes to the television set who is really fearful of going down the bathtub drain and there are many very young ones who are if they see a cartoon in which and I've actually seen this cartoon on the air

a diver goes down to the bottom of the sea and pulls up the plug from the imaginary bottom of a sea. And the water rushes out, it sucks down the boats and the people. And after a while, around the banks, the sand gets sucked down, and so do the houses start to get sucked down. Well, now, I think that that was probably created by some, producer who had an unresolved childhood fantasy about being sucked down the bathtub drain. And so gave it to the world, gave that unresolved fantasy to the world through that cartoon.

Now, a two- or three-year-old seeing that would be horrified because he or she, is bringing that still unresolved fantasy in their own life to the set, and what it's doing is confirming their worst fears. Now, that's the kind of thing that I have worked with to try to dispel to show the children the size of the bathtub drain, for instance, and to sing the song, you can never go down the drain. Now, just my doing that once is not going to dispel it. They're going to have to work through that stage of development. But it gives an idea to the adults who may be watching with them

why their child might start to scream when they pull out the plug of the bathtub. That's incredible. Yeah, it's that interview in particular is, off the chain because they go deep. They go really deep about television and what its effect is on children and all these different examples. And, you know, I think, you know,

we buried the lead maybe. When Fred Rogers came to Toronto, he brought his team from Michigan and one of those people just happens to be Ernie Coombs. And, you know, Mr. Rogers, does incredibly well at the CBC but the problem is that Fred Rogers gets incredibly homesick and his children are really homesick and so he ends up not sticking around very long and he also knows he's going to buy the rights to his program and take it back to America and become the bedrock

of PBS but he says to the CBC look there's this guy I got here Ernie Coombs he's an interesting guy. You should do something with him. And so they set up this program called Butternut Square that runs for a couple of years, incredibly popular. And Ernie Coombs is not the star. He's one of the main characters called Mr. Dressup and then becomes the breakaway star and is eventually spun off into Mr. Dressup that we probably don't need to rehash because I think it is, that is one of the few amazing. success stories that has been celebrated a lot. There's a, you know, great documentary on Prime about him. But what I think a lot of people ask is what is the difference of Fred Rogers and

Ernie Coombs? Like if you're talking about Mr. Dressup as a program and Mr. Rogers' neighborhood as a program, what are the main differences of their sort of ideology? And I think listening to that clip of Fred Rogers there, you know, Fred Rogers was. he was almost like a psychologist, really. I mean, he's going, he's talking about unresolved childhood trauma, his puppets. And I don't know if you watched Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, but, you know, the land of imagination and all of that stuff was very, very. Wait, did you just ask if I watched Mr. Rogers?

Well, you never know, right? Some kids weren't into that stuff. I did watch my fair share, absolutely. Okay. So you know that it was very defined and intentionally so that there was the reality of coming home from work and putting on the cardigan and then when we go to the imagination station, you know, whereas dress up was a lot more, I want to say working class, but it was like you were doing this stuff, you were imagining and doing flights of fancy with everyday objects, right, with milk cartons. with, you know, things out of the tickle trunk, everyday objects in your house are going to propel your imagination.

Whereas Mr. Rogers' stuff was a lot more fantastical, if you will. So I think it's an important distinction because I think they kind of get lumped together. And it's not to say one or the other is better or more complex, but it's very different, right? So when Mr. Dressup eventually takes over that slot and then runs, you know, concurrently until the 90s, until the late 90s. Wow.

That is, you know, an incredible feat that would not have happened without Fred Rogers. Okay, what I'm going to do, Ed, is I'm going to play like about a minute that I pulled, and then I'm going to play a couple of minutes that you shared with me as we talk about Ernie Coombs, Mr. Dress-Up. I don't know. So, I'm going to I'm

going to I'm I'm I'm Oh, hi there. I'm teaching Finnegan how to use the telephone. And now, the first thing you do, Finnegan, is you make sure you know the number you

you want to call and then when you've done that you lift up the receiver that's that part this is just our toy phone so we can just put it down there okay so you watch what I do see you lift up the receiver let's call the receiver and then you have to do the numbers now this isn't one that goes round and round that's another kind we have one of those a real one but this is my toy one this is a kind you push the different buttons have a number on each one see okay so I will push the numbers on the button on the buttons and then we will find out if the person is at home. Now here's a question that's a bit tougher for you that I put the I was talking with Dan

McCarthy the other day and everybody acknowledges that Sesame Street is with is grand in its own way but it's built on the assumption that a child's growth and development is really a function of it is cognitive skills. Obviously, you don't put primary emphasis on this. If you were trying to characterize the role that your scripts, your shows might play in a child's growth and development,

what do you think the contribution is? That's a toughie. I've been wondering that for years. It's hard because our in a way our program sort of just happened or it's evolved from butternut square to this over the years and i i think because we've had we have different writers with different points of view we get a nice mix of things without even trying

where sesame street is pretty precise in what they planned to do over a year and how many subjects they're going to cover and hours sort of happens so i think what we do maybe is i think the kids get a lot out of it just from watching the relationships as they do develop between myself and Casey and Finnegan and the other puppets and the guests and perhaps how we handle different kinds of situations. Most of what we do, I think is interesting to a preschooler, and the more they get to know us, it's like a member of the family, the more acceptable we are to them. Most kids, I think, like their family, even though they couldn't choose their family, they're just grown up into it. And that seems to be the way the reaction

I get, you know, I was talking to somebody today who is in their 20s and still likes to watch now and then, because they've, the sort of warm feeling and trust is grown up out of the television viewing. So if any, it isn't so many specific things that I think we give to the viewer, it's a growing, an experience to grow along with us and, or to grow up in our care, or otherwise maybe a surrogate family. Wow, great to hear Ernie again. Oh, you know, a master of his craft. And so every man, you know, just like the guy that lives next door.

And I think he nails it. There was, that's the familiarity that I think we feel. That's why you get kind of teary-eyed because you grew up with friendly giant and Mr. Dressup and Sesame Street every day for all those years and all those kids that came before you had the same familiarity whereas now and I would argue kind of post the year 2000 you know something like Pop Patrol no one is going to get nostalgic about what time of day they saw Paw Patrol because there is no time schedule for Paw Patrol right there is no That sense of those shows being like, as he says, your surrogate family is long gone.

But I think it goes a long way to explain why we have some of those feelings. As we wind down the discussion about the Toronto, the GTA-based kid shows that you cover so wonderfully in imagination. Capital N, by the way, in imagination, because it's imagination. The Golden Age of Toronto Kids TV. I mean, I could spend time. I'll tell the real heads out there. Like, I could spend lots of time on Fraggle Rock, which is a show I adored, and I could talk about, you know, we could talk about PJ Fresh Fill and YTV, which I quite honestly felt a little old for personally, but it was a big part of your book. And of course, DeGrassey, like we could do a whole episode about DeGrassey, and maybe we should, but DeGrassey, the kids of DeGrassey Street. I pulled the theme. I've got a lot of memories of DeGrassey, as you can imagine. But I thought maybe we closed with the role of TV Ontario. And a couple of shows in particular, which people could probably guess.

But could you speak to the role of TVO in terms of kids programming coming out of this city? Yeah. So, you know, TV Ontario was kind of like the network based on Fred Rainsbury, right? It was the idea that you gave educators, people from academia, access to production. and so you are suddenly seeing these programs that are tied into curriculum in Ontario that are airing not only at home like you see it when you go home after school but you're also seeing it in the classroom sounds such old guy stuff but you know when those TVs got wheeled into the classroom that was special like that was a that was a huge deal and so I

think again talking about like your surrogate family there was a real connection that was developed over many many years with the creators at tv ontario who really you know had a different toolbox than say the people at cbc like cbc had these magnificent uh sets and access to musicians like you you know friendly giant would talk about he could just go into the CBC lounge and like Mo Kaufman would just be chilling there and he'd say hey Mo come and

you know jam with me there was stuff like that going on TVO literally had like a shoebox right on St. Clair there but what TVO had maybe that CBC didn't have at that time was post production post production access

to computers and all kinds of new and exciting stuff that was happening in that field So I think that's why you see a lot of those TVO programs are experimenting with a process called Chroma Key where you would shoot the puppet in front of a green screen and then you would go out and shoot a car driving down the street and then you would combine those two shots

and it gives it this almost like a comic book like a graphic novel feel and then you add in these absolutely bizarre characters like Ananas, the pineapple or any number of them that are teaching you French or teaching you math and it's some wild stuff. And it stayed with us because it was out there. It was not like Sesame Street.

It was not like the other educational programs we were being exposed to. And I think in my research and in my interviewing all these people, you get a sense that there was a lot of eccentricity and people like Ruth Vernon, who was just an incredible force of nature, who was sort of head of children's department at TVO during this golden age, that let these creators run wild, you know, allowing people like Clive Vanderberg to create today's special, allowing people like Clive Endersby to create, read all about it. And these were things that they thought would be used in classroom maybe for one or two years and then disposed of. And here we are, you know, 50 years later talking about it. So that, that to me says a lot, you know. The polka dot door, the polka dot door.

Let's peep through the polka dot door. and stories and so much more through the polka dot door this is the time we always say get ready, get set for imagination day we'll tell some tales we'll pretend and play so come in the polka dot way you knew I had to play that one

oh yes of course of course that's chicken soup for the soul door, and because I pulled it, and we're going to change channels in a moment here, but because I pulled it, I'm playing it. You can't stop me, Ed. Well, I guess that's all locked up tight now, as it should be. Hi there, Jody. Oh, hi, Sam.

all safe down here, let's go upstairs. I have it with him, isn't too heavy? No, no, I can manage fine. Well, on the way to the children's department, once again. Okay, it's clear. The customers have all gone home now. Focus, cocus, comedy, go to life.

It's forever one. Today's special, come joining the fun. With magic everywhere, a word for us to shake. And friendly faces hoping that you will want. To meet us there For today's special It's about to appear

It's about to appear Today's special Shout it loud and clear Today's special All right Shout out to Jody's jumpsuit I can't believe Doreen Virgin has passed away

That is so sad when I think about it It is made And I mean, look these people are getting up there. Just this last summer, we lost Noreen Young, who of course created the Muffy puppets and all of the wonderful puppets that you used

to see on TV, Ontario. So, you know, if you're on the fence, I think you will enjoy this book if you grew up watching children's television anywhere in Canada, really, or if you're just interested in learning more about all these fascinating, wonderful

people that contributed to who we are, like who you, Mike Boone, who you are as a host, as a wonderful human being, I believe that it is a lot indebted to these programs that you watched. Absolutely. And again, shout out to Rick A,

because one of the first things I was looking for on the internet was the theme song to fable, not a Canadian show and not a live action, but the theme song to Fables of the Green Forest. I just wanted to hear that Blue J say, Trouble, trouble, which is going to segue

nicely into how I want to close. But again, how do you want people to buy this book if somebody's going to pick up imagination? I mean, you know what? Support your local bookshop. It is available where all good books are sold

and maybe that's Chapters Indigo or maybe that's Blue Heron Books down the street. I mean, how you want to get it, Amazon.com, it's in America. It's in Amazon. com.

It's everywhere, as Mark Daly would say. say, but only for a limited time. So don't sleep, you know. There's only a select number in print. So don't sleep. I don't know if you've been following the discourse on Toronto Mike lately, but there's been an elevated discussion debate regarding subdivisions.

And there are some fervent rush fans that simply refuse to believe it's anyone other than Neil Peart. Just for the record, I don't want to spend much time on this, but just for the record, I don't want to spend much time on this. But just for the record, what is your belief, Ed Conroy of Retro Ontario regarding who is providing that voice subdivisions in the Rush song? Okay, for the final time. You are familiar with the expression, O'CAM's razor? Yes.

The most simple explanation is the most likely. I have listened to that song my whole life. I have listened to audio and video of Mark Daly my whole life, probably more in the last 10 years, because I was granted his archive by his widow. And I've spent, you know, insane amounts of times listening to his radio work, listening to his CityPulse stuff. There is no doubt in my mind that is a sample of Mark Daly.

and I think I've mentioned this on the program Toronto Mike before that Mark Daly was the crime reporter for CityPulse so he would say stuff like subdivisions he would say when he was covering a crime or covering whatever then it happened here, it happened there

this is this album is it 81, 82 around then this is right around the time that most engineers and production studios in Toronto or you know in North America are really getting into samplers like samplers are showing up with fervor and they're just playing around with stuff and I again I can't prove it because I don't have the city pulse where he says it

but it is very likely that it was seen at 7 p.m. or at 10 p.m. on the broadcast and then recorded the following day because back then they actually repeated yesterday's episode of CityPulse, which is, again, this is part of the theory, right? That if you saw Mark Daly say something cool, you obviously weren't sitting there with the tape ready to record it, but you could catch it the next day on the repeat. And I don't know if the song was already called subdivisions and then he said it and, oh, that's cool. Let's get a sample of that. or maybe they were taping a movie and it was at the end of the tape. I don't know the specifics.

But the idea that it was him and that in his life, he was asked about it all the time. And he was a funny guy. He had a really kind of dark sense of humor. And he played with people. And I think he would have known that was his, I mean,

I assume if you heard your voice on a song, you would know. But obviously, he never went into a student. and laid down backing vocals to say subdivisions. So, yes, I will believe that until somebody produces maybe video footage of Neil Pert saying subdivisions into a microphone. But this is really a huge distraction, Michael.

I don't know why you persist in going down this rabbit hole. Oh, absolutely. So we're going to, I know how I want to close this episode, but I do want to invite you, Ed, and your entire family. In fact, your friends are also invited, and I know that's a lot of people. So this is happening on November 29th, which is the last Saturday of November,

from noon to 3 p.m. I'm recording live from Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga, and everybody who comes out will get the following things. You'll get a free, hot, fresh meal from Palma pasta. Everybody eats for free. I'm going to bring fresh craft beer from GLB, but you've got to be over 19 to enjoy a can of fresh GLB. I know you love your Great Lakes beer, Ed Conroy.

But also, Ty the Christmas guy from Retro Festive is bringing gifts, like awesome gifts for the first 75 people who come out. Like this is a happening and everyone listening, including you, Ed, is invited to TMLX21 on November 29th at noon at Palma's Kitchen. I would love to see you there. That sounds like a sick jab, buddy. Yeah, I'd love to see you there. And I also want to thank Ridley Funeral Home for their support.

Ed, if you were here, I'd give you a measuring tape, but you're not, so I'll hold on to it for the next time I see you. Blue Sky Agency, I want to let the listenership know that Doug Mills is eager to chat with any and all listeners who are looking for dynamic and creative work environments. You can write him. He's Doug at blueskyagency.ca.ca. Of course, I tell everybody every episode about Recycle My Electronics.ca. Ed, I know you've got old cables that simply haven't worked in decades, probably you've got some gear there that needs to be disposed of so ed don't throw it in the

garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill go to recycle my electronics.ca put in your postal code and find out where to drop it off to be properly recycled but i know you already know that of course i'm more interested in what they do when people turn up there with boxes of old videotapes but well yeah i mean that's a whole different discussion we got to take care of you there. Quick love to Nick Aeney's. He's got a couple of podcasts. Actually, one podcast we did was

with the architect you'd be interested in this, Ed. This was an episode of Building Toronto Skyline from Nick Aeney's. We had the architect that Moses hired for 299 Queen Street West. Oh, yeah, I know that guy. I've interviewed him. He's great.

Yeah, and he's going to come over at some point because that was one small part of that conversation. And I'm like, I need to do the whole episode about that because he talked about trying to match Moses' vision in the process and I was fascinated. I know you'd be fascinated. So shout out to Nick Iienes for that conversation.

And last but not least, the newest sponsor of Toronto Mike is shopkindling.ca. And Ed, here's how it works. If you go online to shopkindling.ca, you buy your cannabis product or products. And within the hour, it's at your door. And it's a discreet delivery. you can track the whole thing

so buy your weed at shop kindling.ca and there it is magically right there in under an hour if I had told you 25 years ago we'd be talking about this on a podcast you'd be like what is a podcast and how the hell can we talk about that and how much weed are you smoking to think that that will ever happen absolutely right exactly all right here's how we're closing Let's play ball.

Let's go Blue Day. Let's go Blue Jay. Let's go Blue Jay. Crack them all, volleyball in the sky, though. Let's go Blue Day. Rock a man, stalking him and break them all home. Pop your glove and tug your cap. Hustle around the basin to the Blue Jay rap.

We're coming up strong. giving up, we're going to take the round straight to the top. The boys on a mound don't hesitate to fire up strikes across the home plate. We're sliding and a curtain unloading our smoke. We're throwing up heat to fry an egg yo. Strike three.

Blue Jays, retire the side. Let's go, blues days. Crack a ball by the wall in strike. So, Ed, off the top, we talked about being a little sleepy. So if you were a little slow, just listen to this episode two-time speed, I think. That's the solution. But we're recording the morning.

This is Tuesday, October 28th, 2025. The morning after the Jay's lost an 18-inning heartbreaker in Los Angeles, I'm wondering how late you got into that game before you collapsed from exhaustion. Yeah, I stuck with it until about quarter after two, at which point my eyes were just bloodshot and I couldn't do it. So I went to bed with my phone playing the audio and then I fell asleep. And at some point, obviously, it ended. But yeah, I feel, I think I said off the top, I feel like I drank 100 beers last night.

And I think the strongest thing I had was a bottle of water. So, wow. Yeah, so I didn't even make it as long as you did. So I made it to, the bases were loaded with Lucas at the plate. I think it was full count. This is my memory. It's hazy from that night. It was full count.

And he grounded out to first, like, so he grounded out. And I remember this game, and I think that was like the 12th inning. So then shortly there, I have no memory of anything after that inning ended for the Blue Jays. I just simply fell asleep. Like, I was just exhausted. Like, I don't know if it's my age or what's going on, but I just couldn't do it. And I knew I had to wake up early and get the kids to school and all that jazz. You know what that's like.

So I woke up, Monica, actually, my wife woke up before I did. And she just said, we lost an 18. And I was thinking, oh, good, because I would hate to think we had a great, like, great moment in, like, inning 13 when I bailed on inning 12. Like, the fact that went another six innings, like, I feel like I made the right choice. But maybe by you going to bed, that changed the outcome. Maybe if you'd stayed up all night, they would have won. This is the thing, right? You anger the baseball gods.

Can I tell you what I got planned? So, firstly, what's your point? prediction for this series. We're now down two to one in the World Series against the Dodgers. Well, let me just say this about that. Look, that was a, that was a grueling game, but it was a, it was a bonafide classic. I mean, that was the, what, the grapefruit league, uh, holding down nine innings with a billion dollar Dodgers. So, uh, we will, we will come back, Michael. I don't need to tell you that being in the corner, being the underdog is when the BJs do the best. And I'm going to say that.

We win in seven, because that's what has been predetermined. Love it so much. I will promote that on Friday. So I'm banking on the, the Js absolutely need to win at least one game in L.A. to bring this back to game six. Friday night, that's Halloween night. We need to bring it back to the dome.

I've got in this basement, Dave Perkins and Bob Elliott together in this basement on Friday. That's your like, your son guy and your star guy, from the first two world series and we're going to do a comparison because there's such different teams like it's such a different dynamic because in 92, 93

we were building this winter for like a decade and then we finally climbed the mountain and this team in April I would have bet they don't make the playoffs at all like this team just seems to have jumped out of nowhere to become this amazingly entertaining and likable team like how did this happen? I can't wait to hear that man

that's going to be amazing. Well, you're amazing. Thanks for doing this. I hope we can do another Christmas Crackers episode. You know, I love those. But I love your book. And I want to say, again, congratulations, Ed Conroy. You not only wrote a book, you wrote a good one, and I hope everybody buys it. Well, Mike, thank you.

I can't thank you enough for, you know, having me on to talk about all this nonsense. Because, like I said, you foster this to keep going, and now we have a book to show for it. So thank you. I bet you say that to all the problems. podcasters. And that brings us to the end of our 1,000-788th show.

Who to thunk it? 1788. Go to tronomelmike.com for all your Torontomike needs. Of course, there's retroontario.com for all your Ed Conroy needs. And please, if you're on YouTube and I know you are, you've got to be checking out the Retro Ontario account

because it's so many nuggets. It's such a delight. So make sure you follow Ed everywhere. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. Palma Pasta. Nick Aienis. Kindling.

Recycle My Electronics.C.A. Blue Sky Agency and Redley Funeral Home. See you. Who's up next? I had Finger 11, but they had to postpone because Scott is unwell. So we're going to... Oh, it's Sammy Cohn from the Watchman.

See you all Thursday when my special guest is Sammy Cohn. He's drumming up results with the Watchman. I love the Watchman. And then again, Friday, don't miss it. Dave Perkins and Bob Elliott. Setting the table for game six at the dome.

Yep, I'm optimistic. That's going to happen. See you all. Then. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Thank you.