Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Raccoons Creator Kevin Gillis: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1910

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

On this 1910th episode of Toronto Mike, Mike chats with The Raccoons creator Kevin Gillis about the iconic cartoon and its revival.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good day. I'm Kevin Gillis. I'm the creator of the raccoons, and I'm really excited to be here with Mike Toronto. It is my debut. Debut? Debut. Well, that's the French version, right. There is a thing called a debut because my wife is a Filipino descent. And I've attended these debuts where a woman turned 16 and she has a big party. That's a debut, which I think is tied to the same Latin roots as debut. But this is definitely. your Toronto mic debut. That it is. Welcome to episode 1,910, 1910 of Toronto-Miked, an award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.

Order online at great lakesbier.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Toronto Maple Leeds Baseball. Catch a game at Christie Pits this summer. No ticket required. I'm there this Sunday.

That'll be June 7. Yes. I'll be there for a 2 o'clock start. Fusion Corpso. Guyeneys. He's the host of building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, making his Toronto Mike debut, it's the creator of the raccoons. Kevin Gillis.

I am thrilled to be here. I have, listen, I have to tell you. So when I came out here and you came out to greet me, you have the greatest head of hair. Oh, my God. You had me at hello. What serum are you using? And it's not maple syrup.

You know what? I used to wear my hair. In fact, you can see photos of me by Toronto Tree with guests because we've been doing this 14 years. That's the royal we. It's all me. Okay, Kevin, it's all me. You're the creator of the raccoons.

I'm the creator of Toronto Mike. But you can see in the first. photos. I used to wear it like George Clooney in ER back in 1994, you know, really close. For a long time, I did that. And then I think the pandemic came and I think I just let it go a bit. And I'm like, oh, look what's happening. Like I kind of dig this. And now I just sort of let it do whatever it wants to do. Like no styling, very little effort. I get a haircut like once every three weeks, three months maybe. But yeah, this is what God gave me. It is what I would call it a debut.

You know, I like that off the top. I like, you know, the cold open because I told you I want to do a cold open. And then I counted you in. And then it was like radio silence. Yes. And then we did it a second time. And I did this 90 minutes at the Amacombo. Soon I'll stop talking about this.

But I did this thing. And I'm up there talking. And I wanted to say participation trophy. And I'm just up there, you know, like 85 people, a warm, lovely crowd at the Elma combo. And in real time, as I'm in real time, as I'm in real time, as I'm saying the word participation trophy, I didn't know how to say the word participation. Like a word, I've said that word,

I don't know, 10,000 times in my life. It's not a complicated word, but for some reason, I was like, how do you say this word participation? I think that's what happened with you.

How do you say this word you've said a million times? debut. debut. Debue. Yes. So I'm going to play something. It's only a minute long, and then we're going to get into it, Kevin.

I'm so happy you're here. Me too. here we go this is the evergreen forest quiet peaceful serene that is until Bert Raccoon wakes up

friends to help them out it would be simple in the forest except for Cyril Snear Is that your beautiful baby Kevin? What, Cyril Snear The whole

Kid and Caboodle The Raccoons It is, it is actually we started, well actually we did the first two specials in 1980 and 1981, and we started the series in 1985 after doing two more specials. And we went, we were producing right through to early 92. And we ended up at its zenith at 180 countries around the world and translated in tons of languages. And yeah, very fortunate. You're talking to, you're in the right place.

here because I was born in 74. Okay. I feel like I was just the perfect age and primed to love the raccoons. I loved all of the raccoons. Who was your favorite? That's a perfect setup. I'm going to play a clip from a voice you might. Well, I'm going to play a clip, but this is a longer clip.

And then it's going to be all Kevin the rest of the way. Because I do have raccoons questions and I have some music. and I got a question that's going to be asked by somebody who visited about a week ago. So this is a special message from somebody who was in this very basement. I'm going to say maybe 10 days ago. You ready, Kevin, to hear from this mysterious voice? I am. All right, here we go.

I want to ask you about a gentleman who's in the Toronto mic calendar to make his debut. His name is Kevin Gillis. Okay. Do you know that name at all? Do I know Kevin Gillis? Of course I know the name Kevin Gillis. Well, that's why I'm talking about it. Okay.

So literally this is going to be a, Raccoons Deep Dive. Yes. Well, Kevin Gillis, I don't even know if he knows me. No, he knows me. He should. I'm going to ask him.

Bentley Raccoon, that's who I played. So if you need to write that down. It was first voiced by Noam Zilberman, which he'll confirm with you. And then he went through puberty, and then I came in and got the last... And your mom says you haven't hit puberty yet.

Well, my mom's a liar. I established that as well. No, she's not. Yes, she is. Yeah, he's the creator of the raccoons, one of the most legendary shows in Canadian history, arguably one of the most successful CBC shows not called Hockey Night in Canada that ever happened.

Next to the beachcomers, maybe. And then also, of course, Nelvana, what a huge hit it was for Nelvana, the Raccoons, and you had Cyril Sneer and... It had an environmental message, much like RecycleMyElectronics.com. There was an environmental message in the raccoons. Because there was a bad guy who was always trying to kill the, like cut down the trees.

Yeah, he was a real prick. Yeah. So would you have a question for Kevin Gillis? Well, sure. I mean, I guess, I guess the question that everybody would want to know, like, is there a raccoon's revival on the horizon? It's such a nostalgic trip. You see all these things getting rebooted. Why not the raccoons?

I'll be the first to sign up to be in it. But he should do, you should play this for him. He should bring this back or a raccoon's movie. I could probably help him sell that. But the raccoons are such a timeless, you know, it's such a staple for a certain generation of folks that now probably have kids, or dare I say grandkids, that would want to have that shared experience of showing them the raccoons

and having new episodes that cover. I mean, I would say, in pun intended, the raccoons have pretty evergreen topics. where you could watch it any time. But, you know, just a chance to sort of, like, put a modern spin on it, that would be kind of cool. And with animation being the way that it is now,

it's probably even cheaper to make the show than it was back then. But, yeah, the raccoons, it seems like it's a dormant thing that needs to be brought to life. Someone needs to give the raccoon some CPR. So, Kevin, that's the voice of the legend that is Stu Stone, who I understand did the final year of the raccoons.

He did. You know, when his voice first came on, he didn't sound like Bentley. I mean, Bentley, he's like, handle a little voice like this. And he's obviously grown up and matured a little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah, but Stuart Stone, I certainly remember him. And Bentley Raccoon, we probably, we should have actually given him a bit more air time, but I'm so sorry, Stuart.

But to correct one thing, it wasn't, it was not an Elvana production. Okay. It was an evergreen raccoons marketing ink production done out of Ottawa. And we did all of our, pretty well all of our voices here in Toronto. In the early days, we did all the post-production in Montreal because Ottawa didn't have a film lab. So we would shoot everything on 35mm film, send it down to by bus every afternoon at 5 o'clock. It had to be on the 5 o'clock bus in order to be. process and then sent back for us to take a look first thing in the morning.

And then if we liked it, we would say, okay, take that negative. And that's a keeper. Well, I'm glad you corrected the record there. Knowing Stu's IMDB page, he was doing so much work for Nelvana. He probably, you know, young Stu probably thought he was working for some Nelvana production. Listen, Nelvana's great, great, another great Canadian animation studio. Oh, my, you know. Care bears?

Oh, care bears and what are the ones with the little unicorns and little hearts of flow. Oh, well, the hearts I feel is care bears, but there's so much. Clive A. Smith is being here to give us a story of Nelvana. And it's funny because they were out of money after they've heavily financed and marketed a movie that did not do very well. The devil and Daniel Mouse? No, no. No, it was before that, I think. Okay.

So, and then basically they're out of money. They're done. and care bears to the rescue saves Nelvana. Yeah, I think it was, I don't know the full story, but I believe it was a service production. And it might have been the very first early days of Canadian studios actually being attracted to, being attractive for American IP.

And that kind of made the, it was kind of the pathway going forward that a lot of the Canadian studios, who used to create their own IP, ended up doing service work on that. And I mean, speaking of your own IP, the raccoons, that's yours. Yes, it is.

And I also want to answer back to one of Stu's other. Because the big question, Stu, obviously, is he feel, like, nostalgia's so hot right now. And again, I pointed this out earlier, but my generation, I feel like, and I had this chat with my good friend, Avi Fedder Green this morning, okay? He's a prolific film producer in this country.

He says Gen X is the most underserved demographic in this country. Like we were talking about Uncle Bobby. Uncle Bobby. I do remember Uncle Bobby. We want to make a documentary about Uncle Bobby. Who did the voice for that? Bob Ash, I believe was his name. Robert Ash.

But all this is a long-winded way of saying. And Stone said it much better than I do, as typically he does. But is there a raccoon's revival on the horizon? Yes. The short answer is yes. We are developing a feature film. We are working with Chris Pern, another wonderful Canadian director, writer, who is now doing Ghostbusters, the movie for Sony.

And he did the Willoughby's, and he also did Claudia with the Chance of Meatballs number two. Very good. So we're working with him at the very early stages on the treatment, and then we will be pulling in small. team of writers to, for a writer's room to break it all out into a script. Okay. Yeah. That's a huge announcement, though.

That, you know, honestly, it's because I'm going to ask the obvious follow-up, which is how do we get a voiceover cameo for Stu Stone in that movie? Oh, I think he earned it just by his, if I didn't do it, I don't know. You probably have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. You don't want to upset the legend that is Stu Stone. Okay. That's exciting, but there's a lot more going on with raccoons. But what if we...

I have some questions, as you can imagine, about the origin of the raccoons. I have some music loaded up. I have some big questions about the iconic theme song. So would you mind maybe going back? Like, when did you... How did you have the idea for the raccoons? Like, where did it come from? Well, it's the true story.

Okay. The only truth in my basement, Kevin. You know the rules. Well, I'm looking around and I can see it. Oh, my gosh. Gary Dunford, who was a writer for the Toronto son, way back when. Listen to Toronto Mike. Dumpf. Oh, okay.

I get occasional emails. I tried to get him on the show, actually. Oh, he loved reading Gary Dumpford. Okay. He is one of the greatest writers and very ironic guy. Gary Dunford and I were working on a show called Celebrity Cooks back in the 70s, and it was hosted by Bruno Jerusi. The Beachcomers.

And they would have all these guests come on, and Gary wrote the show, and I was the music. I was the Letterman Band of One. You were Paul Schaefer. I was Paul Schaefer, yes, and I had a guitar and a harmonica, and that was it, and I would do all the ins and outs, and if things were getting a little slow, and Bruno would, like, nod over to me, come and do some music. This guy is, like, really quiet. I love hearing this insight. By way, I'll just say, I remember the show. I remember Bruno Jeruse and the cooking show.

Oh, yeah. Well, we would do three episodes a day. So in between the episodes, Gary Dunford and I, besides eating all the leftovers, and they were good. Some of them weren't even cooked yet, but they were still good. We would come up with ideas for television shows, and the raccoons was one of them. And originally, the raccoons was going to be one special only called the Christmas Raccoons. and Bruno was going to be Dan the Ranger and we were going to have puppets for the raccoons.

And the story came from the idea my father had to chase a raccoon out of the chimney at our cottage. And I think he finally got it out. But how that raccoon got down there was the basic core of the story for the Christmas raccoons. And Gary and I were very,

very much interested and concerned about the environment at the time. And that's why... And I had a background in forestry. Did you go to Guelph University by any chance? I feel like that's where all the forestry action is happening. I actually, no, I didn't.

I went to Evergreen Forest University. Oh, my God. So I have so many places I need to go. But one is, are you still in contact with Gary Dunford? I have lost contact with Gary. We moved to Toronto in the, I guess the early 80s. And I think I ran into Gary on the street one time, and that was basically, I lost contact, yeah. I consider him a bit of a white whale because I so desperately wanted to get him on this program.

And he would send me notes. He would listen. I feel like he's the one that got away. We got to get done fun, Toronto Mike. Is he living in Canada? Somebody told me he had bought a bar down in Aspen or someplace like that. but I don't even know. Okay, well, Dunn can zoom in if he's how geographically.

And so you now live in the greater Ottawa area. So how long are you in town for during this spell here? I come to the town being Toronto. I lived here for 34 years and I come here roughly every six weeks or so. This time I've been in for four days doing a bit of a media blitz. I've noticed. Do you want to, so I know you and I, before I press record, I was joking that this is not your morning.

But you were on your morning yesterday. I had a ball. I want to hear what works for talent like yourself. So kudos to CTV's your morning because you had a great time. I had a wonderful time because when I went on, the producer right away made me feel so much at home. Who was a producer? Do you remember? Kristen, I think, was her name.

Yeah. Okay. So she did a great job. She did a lovely, lovely job. And actually, when I walked on it, everybody was really, you know, like, wow, the raccoons. And they all knew it. I brought Cyril Sneer. I know.

So maybe when we do our photo by the tree, we have to make sure maybe he's sitting on my shoulder or something. We've got to get Cyril Sneer in that shot. Yeah, just make sure you got your wallet. Yeah. Well, you know. I have questions about design. I have so many questions. I can't believe you here.

But one is, okay, so when I was a kid, we called the raccoons like the faucet. faces, like, because it's like their nose is like a faucet. Like, where did that design come from? There was a gentleman by the name of John Bianchi who did the very early designs. And through the evolution of animation, the designs changed dramatically after we decided that we weren't going to, weren't going to do it as puppets, doing it as animation. And I went out and found an illustrator. He wasn't really an animator.

He was an illustrator. and he did the storyboard for the very first special. Yeah, the Christmas special. Yeah, which I love, by the way. But we ended up with Cyril Sneer. There was kind of trying to make the raccoons and Cyril Sneer, the Pinkard Varks, a little different, you know, than the other characters that were. I mean, they don't quite look like the care bears or those unicorns or whatever they were.

Yeah, yeah, whatever they were. You're right. So they were distinct. They were ponies. You were talking about my little ponies? Yes. That was an Elvanna production too, eh? Because they did so many things.

They did, God, they did a bear. What bear was it, though? But I could go on, forget Elvanna. Forget Nelvana. But I could do that forever, naming all the Nelvana productions. There were so many.

It's sad what's happened to Nelvana. Yeah, everything is. What's happening in animation, actually in production around the world, is really, really sad. And it's, you know, it's been a, an outcome, I guess, of the consolidation of the streamers. There's less buyers.

And it rules on being able to promote and advertise on children's programming makes it non-profitable for the streamers and certainly for the broadcasters. And so the money's not there. But we're still going to get new the raccoon. I certainly hope so. working hard at it. Yeah. Is that ink dried yet? I want to make sure this thing gets consummated here. Well, I hope so. If it's not dried, I'll get the stamp

out. So, okay, so the Christmas raccoons, 1980, this is the first for a, the first time we see the raccoons, but I want to point out your role in this because not only, so is Gary Dunford, a co-creator? He said, or do we need to call the lawyer for that one? We, we, we, changed so much when we evolved it into animation. I would say he was certainly a developer of it.

Oh, developer. Okay. But I want to point out, you have a credit. So you're the director. You're the writer. You're the producer. But you're also the composer. It was, yeah.

And I washed the dishes, too. Yeah, but that's a, I don't think people realize how major, role you played in all the specials and then the series of the raccoons? You know, I came from the music industry as a kid and I was trying to, that was going to be my major part. And I think I realized that, you know, in order to get the, I guess the vision of the Christmas raccoons across the way I wanted to,

was that I would have to direct it. And I recall at the time, Gary and I had actually done another TV series called Bang Bang You're Alive. We did it with the CTV affiliate out of Ottawa and then it was syndicated. And the director on that was a gentleman who his name was Yorne Winther. He had done a lot of big, big shows down in L.A. And I was very impressed by his direction and I was very nervous about mine. So I reached out to him and I actually went out to L.A. And we talked a lot.

And I said, Yarn, would you mind coming and directing this animated special? And he looked to me and he said, Kevin, the only person that can direct that is you. And I went, oh, does he mean that as kind of a dig? Yeah, it depends on your, how you see that. It's your vision and only you can see it through. But I had to learn a lot about directing animation. And I worked with a young guy by the name of Paul Schibbley, who actually is the guy responsible for turning Cyril Snare pink because originally he was gray and he had brown ears.

And Paul said, you know, Kev, I think there's a lot of brown and gray in this show. We need some colors. So let's make Cyril Sneer and his son, Cedric. Let's make them pink. and I thought about it and I went, let me think about this. Okay, but he was right, and we made them pink. He was right.

By the way, drop those mind blows and fun facts whenever they strike you. Okay, I love that stuff. Okay, I had no idea. Oh, you're going to be coming to my house for, I drop them all the time. Okay, listen here, just keep a, I don't know, maybe use Alexa or Google or something where I can just hear all the fun facts as I drop in the G. Greater Ottawa area. I'm so used to saying GTA, the G-O-A.

Okay. Now, we're going to have a whole segment about the music because you're the composer, you're so involved with the music, and a little birdie tells me there's some pretty exciting news regarding the music. So we're going to definitely talk about the music. But this aired on CBC,

so I'm just wondering, how easy was it to sell CBC on that Christmas special back in 1980? It was very difficult. I went out with my lawyer at the time, Sheldon Wiseman, and we pitched it. I pitched it a lot to pretty well everybody in L.A. with no luck. I went to New York and pitched it to advertisers to, you know, at that time, a lot of the big multinationals were sponsoring specials,

especially Christmas specials. And we pitched to, I remember Coca-Cola and general food, and, you know, the whole gamut. I did get some interest from General Foods. And I had gone back to, at that time, I went back to Toronto to try to pitch, try to get CBC. And they, they weren't sure, but they said, you know what? We kind of like the story and we kind of like the animation designs. And so they took a flyer.

and between them and the studio in Ottawa and some private investors and general foods, I think it was general foods who was sponsored us that first year in the States. We were able to get one special off the ground. And we thought that was going to be it, frankly. Okay, but next year you get the raccoons on ice. About four days after the Christmas raccoons aired, we got a call from the CBC.

saying that the ratings had, were pretty impressive. That's all my doing, okay? I saw the commercials and I told my buddies at school. I said, we got to tune in. Did they all have hair like you? You know what?

They all did, but now they're all partially bald or completely bald. I'm the only one who held on. We got it. Held on for 50 years, okay? You think it's easy? Well, here, I'll take off this wig. Oh, don't, don't.

We ended up getting a call from the CBC, and they told us that the ratings had been very impressive. And I think we'd beaten Hockey Night and Canada that night or that week. Wow. And they asked if we would do another special. And that was a lot easier, frankly. The raccoons on ice. And the raccoons on ice.

And we had Danny Gallivan, who was the voice of the Montreal Canadiens. Caninating shot, I meant. Yeah, caninating shot. So I never heard these telecasts, but I feel like people like Paul Romanock and people like that have come over and sort of done their impression of Danny Gallivan enough times. I feel like I heard Danny Gallivan. Oh, he did the play-by-play, Ab. Yeah, but Habs games. I was watching Leif's games, and it was Bob Cole and Harry Neal, as I recall.

What about Foster Hewitt? Well, that's, that's, that was earlier. It's earlier. It's earlier. That's absolutely earlier. But, yeah, if I do know that night, the goal, if there's a goal that everyone, remembers it was back in old 72. Randomly, I'm going to break into tragically hip songs.

But Paul Henderson's goal, I've heard that call by Foster Hewitt. I would say about a million times. Conservatively. Yes. So Raccoons on Ice is 1981. And then a couple years later, the raccoons and the lost star, my question is, what happened to 1982? We decided to try a one hour. I guess I'll take the I'll take the hit you're taking the hit I'm taking the

baby you're going to take the hit I decided that we needed to do an hour to see if we could open up even more and it was a it wasn't a great decision you know it it costs us a lot of money to produce we we never made that back and and the problem was is that there there weren't enough time slots that people could afford to put, or broadcasts could afford to give us a full one hour in that. So, you know, the syndicators down in the States ended up chopping it into two half hours and ran them back to back on separate nights or separate weeknights. Right.

So it was a bit of a boondoggle. A boondoggle. You're in the right place for the boondoggle. Okay, the very next year, though, the Raccoons is back with the Raccoons, colon, let's dance, exclamation, Mark. That was a video, we remember video. Yeah. Music videos were starting to take off. And one of our video distributors asked us to do a special because they wanted to do a music special.

So we ended up doing, basically it was a, it was a, a storyline that kind of pulled the characters together, but it really focused on the songs. Okay, that's going to, because soon we're going to talk music, but is that, because that's the same year, 1984 is the same year that much music launches.

That's right. And we were, at that point, I was trying to put music videos into every episode, animated music videos that move the story along without, you know,

without dragging it with text in, sorry, not text, but dialogue. Right. And that worked. I mean, we were, I think that the music videos that we put into every episode really distinguished us a lot. And we hear from our fans now all the time about how much that they would tune in to watch the music videos.

Well, the songs were bangers. We're going to get to that in a moment. But the series that I remember best, I remember the Christmas Raccoons, I remember immensely, it's a little foggy from there out, but then the series, of course, 1985, so how did you sell the series simply based on the success of specials like the Christmas raccoons?

Not quite. We had to obviously change our production output. We were working with a studio in Ottawa Crawley Films at the time, or Atkinson. I think it might have been Atkinson Film Arts.

And we obviously had to set up a system a critical path that would get us to, you know, output at least an episode every, not every year, but every six weeks. So it really changed things dramatically. And we did, we actually got it finance through, we did, we raised some money privately.

CBC came in, BBC in the UK came in. They were co-commissioners, us and with the CBC and we were able to get the Disney Channel as well in the states which was just starting out I think it had I think it had 86 million only 86 million subs at the time but and from that once the show started to the episodes can come across our distributor was able to go out and place it around the world I can't wait to pop my great legs beer Kevin so you have hop pop from Great Lakes Brewery. So on the mic if you can, right in front of the mic here.

Hold on. Lift it up and yeah, right in front. Okay. Three, eight. Two, one. Okay, so without spilling this on my board, I'm going to say cheers to you. What a pleasure it is to meet you. I feel like it's been 1900 plus episodes leading up to the moment

when I could somehow convince the creators of the raccoons to visit my basement studio in South Atobico. So nice, nice to have you on the show. Let me enjoy a sip here. This is very delicious. It's kind of a... It's very good. Zero alcohol in that one. Kind of a lemony taste to it.

It's very good. I find it, I too like that, but I am actually drinking to tell the listenership. I am drinking a Sunnyside session, IPA, because it's a beautiful day outside. And this is the summer, my summer beer from Great Lake. So quick little plug for the fact that I have a free event. Free as in beer. I have a free event. It's TMLX22.

That is the 22nd Toronto mic listener experience. It is happening June 25. That is coming up soon. So what is that? A few weeks from today. June 25th from 6 to 9 p.m. At Great Lakes Brewery here in southern Atobico. So just come out.

No ticket required. You don't have to RSVP. Show up. Come hang with me. Your first beer is on the house. And palm pasta, they make delicious authentic atollic Italian food.

They're going to feed everybody. So, Kevin, free food, free beer. And in a beautiful place. You said it, buddy. I love this area. How do we get you to TMLX-22 in southern atobico here? How do we get you to the GTA that day? I might have to bike down from Ottawa.

Hold the thought of biking because I'm going to ask you about the environment. I just want to make sure I also tell everybody that on Sunday at 2 p.m., I'm at Christy Pitts because the Toronto Maple Leafs have a big. baseball game, and I love the vibe of the Christie Pits when the hills are filled with wonderful people drinking delicious craft beer and having a hot dog or two and catching some pretty entertaining baseball. I can't wait for Sunday at 2 p.m. And I think everybody who can hear my voice should make their way to Christy Pits on Sunday

for some exciting Maple Leafs baseball action. Okay, so that's happening Sunday. But you mentioned cycling. So one of the parts of the raccoons that's aged the best, I would say, is the environmental themes. Like, it feels to me like those environmental themes that I would shrink in, soak in on the raccoons as a kid, are more relevant today than ever.

Well, very interesting analogy here that when we hear from our fans on social media, The number one thing that they talk about is the environmental issues. And that the raccoons was their introduction totally to the environment and to taking care of our cohabitants or our neighbors here on this planet, the animals and the trees and the water. And those truly are their gifts. They are gifts that we are allowed to enjoy for a very short period of time, and then it's our job to pass it on to people.

And we hear from so many, so many, all around the world, actually, are our fans, and they write to us, and it's wonderful to hear these stories. Some of them, they talk about what their life was like. when the raccoons was airing. Some of them had difficult home lives, and it's very poignant for us when we hear that some young people would go to their bedrooms to escape the fighting or what might be going on in the kitchen,

and they would just put a VHS cassette into, and just zone out. escape with you escape yeah I try to when I read those I try to to write

it's it's difficult you know to write it to somebody who's written to you like that but it's really important to let them know that somebody is also out there and listening

and understands I was ignorant to how knowing this show was beyond our borders because I think we all tend to think you know we have our own perspective on thing. I was born and raised in Toronto. I watched this on CBC, the mother core, and I consumed all this and I felt like, oh, wow, we Canadians are lucky to get the raccoons.

But can you give me a sense of the footprint for the raccoons? Like, how many countries would be familiar with this show? It clearly goes well beyond our borders. We eventually built to about 180 countries and a number of different languages. In fact, there are several versions of the theme song run with us in different... That's a teaser. In different languages and it's... And bands, you know, it's in Arabic, it's in Russian, it's in German, it's in French, obviously, and Latin American, Spanish, and, you know, just, it's fun. And there's been a lot of cool videos that bands have done and sent them in.

Very, very cool. 180, I had no idea. 180 countries. You know when you watch the Olympics and they have the opening ceremonies and you're like, I didn't know there were this many countries or whatever?

How many flags are out there? And you hear country names. You never hear them any other time. These names of these countries, these smaller countries, oh, you got an athlete from this country. And you're like, oh, I forgot that country existed. And then every two years

you watch the opening ceremonies and you're like, oh, yeah, there's that country again. It's like 180 countries. And as I know... Not all of them still exist. Well, some, you're right. And some new ones have emerged, of course. My daughter lives in Montreal, and that's not why I know this.

I just felt like throwing that out there. It's a new thing I'm going to say. My daughter lives in Montreal. She went there to McGill, and she stuck around. I was there. Good school. Last week. Yeah, and she got a degree in everything.

And hello to Michelle, if she's listening in Montreal. But I know this, mainly because the Simpsons dubs, but you got to have a Quebec, so a French-Canadian voiceover that is different from the Parisian France voiceover. This is two different. That's true. You know, you can't use the same one for both. We actually got a buy on that because you're absolutely right. The French broadcaster at the time wanted a French version and a French broadcaster in France wanted a Parisian-French version.

Sure. So we sent the scripts. over and I think we did a sample dub and I said you know guys it's way too expensive to have to do this twice

so can we somehow work something out and we were able to do it it was thank God but the Quebec distributor absolutely insisted that the show could not be named the same as the one in France so in France it's called

The Ratton Laveur and in Quebec it's called Les Ami Ratton. Good accent, Kevin. Well, I grew up in France. So maybe a little case because I'm about to play a banger. Like, I'm going to play a song.

If Gen Xers are listening and I know many are, don't listen while driving or operating heavy machinery, pull over that car, take a break and listen to the banger I'm going to play. But let me get a sense of you

because you lived in Toronto, you lived in the greater auto area. You just told me you were born in France. No, no, it's born in Ottawa. I grew up in France. Okay, so you're born in Canada near Ottawa. You grow up in France, or maybe you're born in Ottawa, okay. You're growing up in France.

At what age, like, what ages are you in France? I moved there. Well, I had no choice. My parents moved there. Right, yeah, yeah, right. I was three. And came back just about when I was turning 10. And I have brothers and sisters who were born over there as well.

Okay. Okay. So when you came back, is that back to Ottawa? No, we lived in Trenton for a few years, and then we moved back to Ottawa. So I spent... Was on the military base or something? No, no, my father was with the Canadian government. He worked in the financial end.

Okay, so, and what chapter of your life? What era are you living here in Toronto? I moved here to help set up for the Labat Camp, John Labat Limited, their television production division. I was employee number two. Wow. And we did, I have a great story for you there. Yeah, go please.

So at the time, I, we, they wanted to do a television division. And I was doing my post production over at the dome, which is a big, big post production facility that's, is now owned by Bell Media.

And Gordon Craig, who was my boss and a lovely, lovely man, And he gave me so much ability to actually express the type of television we wanted to do. Brian Ross was my, he was actually my immediate boss. But Gordon was the president of John Labat Limited. And when we signed the deal, Gordon took us out for lunch with my lawyer and Brian. And we took us out to lunch at the Founders Club at the School.

Skydome. And I guess you were allowed to, in the founders club, actually, have a cigarette or a cigar after lunch. So we're sitting there. And Gordon liked a good cigar after lunch. And I go, God, this is so fantastic. I mean, you know, with the power of Labats behind us and some of the sister companies like Concert Promotions International and Partners Film Company and TSN and the Blue Jays and everything

else, it's going to be fantastic for animation. And there's a very quiet pause. Gordon takes his cigar. Kevin, have I told you that we're a beer company? Well, you know what? That's, I love that story. But I, so what television was Labats? Like this, so, like, I'm trying to connect the Labats,

which, by the way, drink Great Lakes brewery. I can, you know what I like about Great Lakes? I can go talk to the owner, Peter Bullitt. I can actually shake Peter Bullets, hand and I can have a conversation with the owner. That is fiercely independent. Okay, but Labats, I hear there's other beer from this company called Labats. Somebody told me that one.

It's funny, I think the Blue Jays, LeBatt's Blue. Come on, that's not a coincidence. Okay. No, definitely not. So what, what, like, what, what was the idea of the television division? They already owned those divisions that I, I just mentioned. But they didn't have television productions. So Brian Ross and I started getting into, we did some reality-based television.

We did a show called Pet Connection, and that went around the world too. And then we had a shot at acquiring the rights to Robocop the series. Of course. So we got that, and that was a bit of a struggle. This is like 94. Yep, it was 94. And this was a big change from raccoons. It's all I can tell you.

It's like the dark side of my life, but I really enjoyed it. And there's a bit of a story there, actually. We needed a Canadian broadcaster. And when I was a kid, after I moved back from France, I was a paper boy. And I was a paper boy for the Toronto Telegram, and I had a route in the morning for the Trentonian. So just put that little pause, a little... Put a pin in that.

Put a pin in that one. That's what they say in the boardrooms. Put a pin in that. Not that I've been in any boardrooms. So Brian and I went out to CFTO and we were negotiating trying to, and we needed the Canadian broadcaster to fill in the missing link for the financing. And it was a very expensive series. And the gentleman who was representing CFTO at the time and I think it was Beton broadcasting at that point.

Yeah, BBS. I remember. Yeah, it was BBS. Yeah. And we were negotiating and this gentleman said to me, you know, you need carriage. We don't need you, but you need carriage. And I said, yes, sir, yes, sir, that's right. And I could see Brian out of the corner of my eye going,

oh, this is not going well. And I said, you know, sir, I really wanted to reach out to you. I think this show is going to do very well for you right across Canada. And what we're asking for is, you know, it's, yeah, we need, we need your financing. We need your courage. And he looks at me. And I said, okay. I said, you know, do you remember back in the New York World's Fair when you actually looked after

us, you were kind of our guardian for a bunch of paper boys who would want a trip to the New York World's Fair because we had sold so many newspapers. or magazines. I can't remember what it was, but I won a trip to the New York World's Fair. And this gentleman, who was now a senior vice president of CFTO, was, I guess, the circulation manager for the Toronto Telegram at the time and came along on that trip. And he looked at me and he said, oh my God. He said, were you on the one to Chicago too? I said, yes, sir, I was. He said, you've got a deal. Wow. I love that story. He was a wonderful man.

Wonderful man, yeah. Wow, okay. So, but post-Robocop, you're producing FX the series. Yes, we did FX the series. Actually, Miles Dale, who very recently, he's been working a lot with Guillermo. Sorry. Dale Toro? Yes.

And he lives here, right? At least part of the time. And Miles lives here, too. And Miles was the producer of Robocop and Effects. and Miles did, he got the shape of water, so he got an Oscar for that. Amazing. Yeah, lovely, lovely guy, very talented and just an amazing person. And you can see shots of Massey Hall, the outside of Massey Hall and the inside of the Winter Garden theater in that movie.

That's a great movie. I think, yeah, that was actually, we did, I guess, we did one season and we did one made-for-television movie on, on, on, Robocop. On Robocop. Yeah, yeah. The Made for Television, I believe, oh, I had it a moment ago, but I want to get the name here. Give me a second here. So it was called, this is very important to me to get these details, correct.

It was, well, Robocop the series, of course. And then there was a future to this life. That's right. Robocop. Right. And getting back to music. Yeah. I reached out to Joe Walsh, and Jack Lenz and I, Jack Lans and I, Jack

as a writer here in Toronto, and we've done a lot of work together over the years. In fact, I had breakfast with him this morning. He and I wrote the song for the closing theme, and I reached out to Joe Walsh, and Joe Walsh and Lita Ford ended up closing, doing the closing theme, a future to this life. There you go. That's a great A fun fact right there. I feel like we should maybe, oh, I want to hear, maybe we're going to get back to music at the

right. I have to add something to that. So when the Eagles came to Toronto, Joe Walsh asked if Robocop would come up on stage and dance with him on one of the Eagles songs, and Robocop did. That's a kicker to that story. Hell does freeze over. That was the tour.

Yeah. I remember the outrage. Well, the funny thing is the outrage at the ticket prices, because I think it hit like $100 or something like that, which was unheard of at the time. Today, people would be like, what a bargain. Jeez, you don't want to know. I had brunch of a guy yesterday from Ezri,

shout out to Esri, and he was telling me he bought one ticket in the nosebleeds to see a Canada World Cup game in Vancouver. And he paid $640 for the nosebleed, one nosebleed. And I was thinking, so I heard the story, and I'm like, oh, my God, let me watch it at home. And then I told my wife that story, and she said, what a deal he got. 640, apparently the number she's hearing. 640 sounds like they're giving it away.

I know, but this is the era we live in. It costs 65 bucks to see some guy, some independent podcaster, talk to you for 90 minutes at the Elma combo. This is the world we live in. Okay, so I'm going to get back to the music of the raccoons, and then hopefully you'll tell me some exciting news about this. But do you want to do a little quick greatest hits

of all the things you did post raccoons? Like, between, like we've already done FX, and we've talked about, yeah, we talked about Robocop, but we talked about FX. But anything else you want to shout out before we go back to the raccoons? Because we're closing with the raccoons, my friend. Well, you did a lot of things. I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of energy. I still do. Yeah. You know, I went over to the dark side, as you know, and kind of finished off with that with doing two Universal Soldier movies for Showtime. and we had a lot of fun with that. Bert Reynolds and yeah, he was Gary Busey. Gary Busey was a bad guy.

What was he like in person? It depends on who you talk to on the crew. I had a great time with him. Okay. And he left me a watch when at the end. Well, people say, I've never met Gary Boosy, but people say there's him, there's Gary before the motorcycle accident and there's Gary after the motorcycle.

This was after, yeah. Well, after, yeah. But he. He was a very, very interesting guy and very kind to me, very kind to my son as well. Oh, that's good to hear. Yeah. Good to hear. So, yeah, the Universal Soldier 2, Brothers in Arms.

Also a great dire straits album. True. I wonder if the title might have come from that, actually. I would bet you anything. Okay, well, maybe, it's also an expression. But Universal Soldier 3, Unfinished Business. And then I went back to my, to my animation side. and I worked for many years doing shows like producing Atomic Betty.

Yes. Jimmy Two Shoes. Right. Camp Lake Bottom. A whole bunch of, oh, my gosh. Can't think of all them all right here. Everybody go to the Kevin Gillis IMDB page for more on that. So I'm coming back to the music.

Okay. So you've already dropped the bomb on. us, Gen Xers, that our kids are, I think Stu said, our grandkids, there are, there's a bunch of Jen Xers who grew up watching the raccoons who have grandkids now. That's just a fact, okay? Not me yet, but you know, you never know. Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home is going to be a grandfather this come in September, and he's not much older than I am, so it's happening.

And of course, Canada Kev, I believe, come on. Let's, let's now, if we can, let's shout out the last couple of partners here, and then I'm going to play a song for you, a song that, just a banger. I'm warning everybody. over your car. Do not listen to this song while operating heavy machinery. Thank you to, again, the environmental message. I said this to Stu. You heard it in the clip. Recycle myelectronics. Because if you have old electronics, old cables, old devices, I don't want you throwing that in the garbage. That's what people do. They throw in the garbage because out of sight, out of mine, someone else

will deal with it. Those chemicals end up in our landfill. You go to recycle myelectronics.ca. You put in your postal code and you can find out where you drop all of that off to be properly recycled so those chemicals do not end up in our landfill. So thank you to Recycle My Electronics.C.A. would be a good partner for the reboot, the rebirth, the redux of the raccoons. Last but not least, tomorrow morning I'm recording a new episode of Building Toronto Skyline with Nick Aienes,

and we're going to record a episode of Mike and Nick. And I'll draw both of those tomorrow. And I want to thank Nick and the good people at Fusion Corp for helping to fuel the real talk on Toronto Mike. So, oh, I didn't tell you, but that book underneath this, which we're going to talk about it right now,

that's the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that you can bring home with you and it's such a rich, interesting history. And again, no ticket required. They play at Christy Pitts, best value in the city. So that's yours. And also, a measuring tape is yours, Kevin,

courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. We dropped a new episode yesterday. Is this from my casket? That's for your measure your, yeah. My body length is shrinking. I hate to tell you. I do it just recently. Yeah.

Maybe remind me to get back to cycling with you before we say goodbye, okay? But I also want you to know I do have a lasagna for you in the freezer from Palma Pasta. Oh my gosh. You weren't kidding. I wasn't kidding. And this fresh craft beer in front of you from Great Lakes, even if you're a hop-pop man, I know you have somebody in your life that would love to receive a gift from you that is fresh craft beer from the fiercely independent Great Lakes Brewery.

I have several brothers who are not on the wagon. All right, we'll tell them to come to TMLX for the free beer on June 25th here. All right, here's the bangers. Everybody's sitting down. Here we go. Kevin, this song has no business being this good. You know, I found out something, first of all, thank you. Thank you.

There were three of us that wrote it. my longtime music writing partner, John Stroll, and Stephen Lunt, who was with a band called City Boy, but he ended up writing a lot of songs for Cindy Lopper, and we got together in New York and wrote, I think we wrote over three days, a lot of the songs for Raccoons.

And that was for the, that was in the, in fact, Stephen Lunt sang the original version on season one. And... Another fun fact. And I have to tell you, there's a guitar player here in Toronto, very well known by the name of Neil Chapman. And Neil is the guitar player on that. And he just does an incredible job. And of course, Lisa Lougheed, who is singing it.

How did you get Lisa? I think my other writing partner, Jack Lenz, was actually managing her at the time. And he knew I was looking for somebody. I needed a, I needed a, I wanted a female singer for the second season. And I also wanted somebody who could, you know, and Stephen obviously wasn't available. He was living in New York and he wasn't female. And so decided to see if we auditioned some people. And I wanted whoever sang the songs to also play the role of a new character that we were,

Lisa Raccoon that we were developing. That's like Bentley's sister, isn't it? It is Bentley's sister. That's Stu Stone Sister. Oh my God. Whoa. So for the final season. Okay, yes.

Okay, so Lisa and Logheed. Lisa Laaheed. Laudhead, the G is silent. I should know these things. Okay. All right, so she's playing a character that is Bentley raccoon. The fans fall in love with her. I mean, I get a lot of letters.

I mean, you know, people really identify with the characters. and they've become, they've crushes on the characters. Absolutely. Yeah. You'd probably get some pretty strange. So, okay, so Lisa was a dance major at the Atobico School of the Arts, and I can tell you where you're sitting right now, you could do a five-minute bike ride,

and you'd be at Atobico School of the Arts. Wow. So this is where, and actually my youngest is considering going to the Atobico School of the Arts. So what a small world we live in, right? That is cool. Yeah, very cool. And so I know there's a big announcement here. Let me check.

I was really excited about this because we're recording on June 4th. Tomorrow, Friday is June 5th, 2026. Is there anything you'd like to announce now that we've heard run with us? First of all, I'd like to say thank you for your patience to all of my fans and all of the fans of the raccoons, because they're the ones who reached out year after year to say, okay, the shows are remastered and they're restored and they're running all over the world again.

What, why can't we get the music? And I tried for years and really had a, very close to getting a deal in the UK at one point, but I did try for years and, it just, you know, people weren't into it. And then I just decided along the way that I needed to remaster them the same way that the shows were remastered. And it made a huge...

The shows were restored in 4K for like Crave and Roku and even Britbox. That's right. Yeah. I did my homework. And the original mix was done by Ed Stasium, who worked with the Ramones and talking heads and Mick Jagger's, a few people like that. Oh, just a few little indie bands.

And he and I were talking last week. He did on one of our social media bits. He did a whole thing about how we came together. But they were totally restored and remastered by Joao Carvalho here in Toronto. And he did a superb job. And, of course, he's legendary as a remastering engineer. year. So tomorrow.

Well, actually, just before that. Yeah. There's a gentleman who works at CBC in Saskatoon, who I guess heard the story or read the story about, you know, trying to get the music out there. And he ran into, I think, in a camping trip, he ran his next-door neighbor camper was Jonathan Simkin, who is the president of 604 records.

This is the nickelback. This is Nickelback and Carly Ray and Mariner. Default, I think. I'm going to start naming all the nickelback-ish-esque bands, but yeah, 6.04 records. Marianas and Josh has been in the basement from Marianas Jens. He co-wrote, Call Me Maybe? He did.

Which was a monster, a number one hit? And he has number one hit all the, over the world. Yeah. Huge. Yeah. And he also has done a unbelievably unique and mesmerizing version of Run With Us that I just heard that I just heard yesterday morning Jonathan Senate. It's a, it's still a work in progress. Josh Ramsey is his name. Yeah. It's not right there. The music. The music and that Josh wrote the orchestration that he did. It sounds like Run with us. but it is cinematic. He made a, he literally made a sound film out of it.

This is all blowing my freaking mind here, Kevin Gillis here. Okay, so I have it in my hand right now because you brought it with you today. This is called Evergreen Nights. I see what you did there. Okay. And Lisa Loheed is on the cover. And this is available tomorrow. No, yeah.

Well, tomorrow. Tomorrow. It drops tomorrow, fully remastered for the first time in, and digitized for the first time in 38 years. And that means it's now available on your streaming device of a streaming service of choice. Everywhere. Okay. Run with us. Lisa, I'm just checking out here. This is unbelievable to me, because there is a fervent global fan base for the raccoons that, as you know, better than anybody. And I know this fan base, this online fan community, they call Run With Us, quote,

one of the greatest cartoon theme songs ever made. So kudos for that. Well, thank you. This is honestly, this is, we, Stu is right. Stu is like, we're primed for a return of all things, the raccoons.

And then off the top of this episode, we learn there's a new movie coming out, starring Stu Stone. Didn't Stu Stone say that he could help get it happening? He's so, well, I can tell you, this guy has a, he has a film company called 5-7 with his brother-in-law, Adam Rondis. Oh, right.

And they have a deal, well, they have many deals, but one of the deals is with Hollywood Suite, David Kines and the Good People in Holy. Lovely people. Yeah, like they, but basically he's a mover and a shaker stew. He's a connector. Like, I connect you to Stu and we're going to cook this up, man. This is happening.

Avi, forget about the Uncle Bobby documentary we're going to make. We got some Raccoons action here. Maybe a Raccoons documentary, for goodness sakes. You're talking to the right people here. But this is exciting. Evergreen Nights out tomorrow. With a big special announcement. Well, okay, so are you going to make the special announcement now or do we have to wait until tomorrow?

Well, I guess I better do it now. Yeah, because you're here now, and if you want that lasagna, you got to earn it. Okay. So Jonathan Simkin and his team out there at 604, Wendy Boomer, I think they came up with a really cool, cool idea. And that was they were going to get contemporary artists to do some of the songs from the Raccoons. and have them as bonus tracks on the new delivery. So tomorrow, Fionn, they are twin sisters in Vancouver. They've had a number one billboard chart.

They are incredible rockers. And they've done a video too that blew my mind. So I think it'll blow other people's minds. They are doing Rome with us on their version as well. And that's coming out. I love this idea. And the second album, which is coming out in, it's called Lake Freeze, it's coming out, I think they're looking at the first of September. I'm not allowed to tell you who is going to be the artist on that.

Okay, okay. It's pretty spectacular. Okay. So we're going to get contemporary artists covering brand new covers of- Josh Ramsey. Yeah. Okay. This is all, you're in the right place.

Okay. I know you had a great time on your morning. I can't compete with a national television show on CTV. I don't even try to compete with that. And they probably gave you 10 solid minutes to talk up the raccoons and all the nostalgia that's brewed in there. But I got to tell you, you right now are in the home of Gen X nostalgia. We're all very excited about more raccoons action,

and we're going to be following this very closely. I'm having a ball here. Okay, you're having a ball. But also here's the serious question. Did your morning give you any parting gifts? You're thinking, which means it's not obvious. No, I actually left pins for them. Well, I'm giving you again.

I'm giving you a Toronto Maple Leaf's book. I'm giving you some fresh craft beer. I'm giving you a lasagna, a measuring tape. Kevin, it's worth the drive to South Atobico. It is definitely, and I'm going to give you a collector's 40th anniversary raccoons patch. Whoa! and a very limited collector's pin to go with it.

Okay, you know what? I'm honored, and I'm so glad you were here, and I think we covered all the bases, right? I wanted to hear about the origin story, hear about how the sausage is made, how the cake is baked, the raccoon is such a big part of my childhood, and now to hear that there's probably, I'll use that term, probably a new movie coming,

and that the music is now available on streaming and this album, out tomorrow and there's going to be these contemporary artists re-covering the big hits like the one we played. I'm telling you, this is the time. This is finally a run with us as being available on your Spotify or your, what else do people use? Apple Music, YouTube

premium. Kevin, you've done great work here, man. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I've really, really enjoyed it here. This is like a little den that I could live. You know what? You can move in, brother. Do you have cheeses in? All the lasagna you can eat. Okay. Okay, thank you to Palma Pasta.

Hey, I was going to ask you quickly, maybe you can do it in a nutshell here before I do the extra. Cycling, so you're still, you're still biking? I'm still biking. I love it. I love it. It's the greatest. So have you always biked? Oh, yeah. Well, actually, when I delivered newspapers. Sure. Yeah. And in fact, you'll see Bert Raccoon in one of our episodes. He's out there delivering him. his newspapers. Every story comes from the truth.

Furt, based on Kevin Gillis? True or false? Some parts. Okay. But not the nose. And, yeah, I was going to say. And Cedric here, Cedric sneer,

true or false, did the Simpsons steal him to create Mr. Burns? That I have no idea, but I'll call my lawyer. I'm going to say, I have a lawyer for you. Lauren Honnickman on line 2.

He'll take care of you. Kevin, this was amazing, man. I can't wait to see the new version of the raccoons and to hear all this great new music. And thank you so much for finally making your Toronto Mike debut. Mike, I am here. And you're moving in. I'm moving in with the cheesies.

And that brings us to the end of our 1,910th show, 1910. Go to Torontomike.com for all your. Toronto Mike needs and I will shout out that there is an official the Raccoons YouTube channel and there's lots of great nuggets there and you'll get exclusive bonus content and you know you talked about the 4K restorations and you can check it all out so go to YouTube

I hear that's a rather popular site and follow the Raccoons official channel. Do that. Shout out to Burt Raccoon from Evergreen Forest. Much love to all who made this podcast. That is Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Nick Aienes, I'll see him tomorrow morning,

Recycle My Electronics.C.A. and Ridley Funeral Home tomorrow afternoon, live in the Toronto Mike Studio. You want to find out who has to follow Kevin Gillis? You ready? Who? Patrick McKenna.

Oh, oh. Big time comedic actor. Well, he was on on Tom McVettie. Did a great job. I'm taking a note here. Hold on here. I've got to write this down. Okay, it all connects.

Okay. That's tomorrow afternoon. Atomic Betty, Patrick McKenna. More than just red-green and traders. You remember traders? Oh, yes. Okay, lots to discuss there. See you all.

Then.