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I first met today’s guest, BC native Benjamin Ayres, in 2010 when he was co-starring with Corner Gas’s Fred Ewanuick on a little Canadian comedy called Dan for Mayor. Ben’s 110 IMDb credits go back even further and show him to be skilled at both comedy and drama with roles in such shot-in-Canada gems as Saving Hope, Less Than Kind, Family Law, Burden of Truth, Suits, and going way back, jPod. 

Now he’s saddling up as a no-nonsense rancher in Hope Valley 1874, a prequel to the ever popular When Calls the Heart. Bethany Joy Lenz and Jill Hennessy are also along for the ride. The new series is streaming now on both Hallmark+ and the W Network. We get into the whole cowboy deal and spend a lot of time talking about the most important thing about being cast in a western – picking the right hat.

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In this special episode, we go beyond the scandal and into the storytelling of one of the most infamous moments in Olympic sports history with the cast of Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story. 

Through candid interviews conducted at the red carpet preview, hear from Mark McKinney, Andrew Phung, Emma Hunter and other top Canadian sketch players who bring this audacious mocumentary to life. Also interviewed is writer/creator Andrew Q Farrell (The Office), co-stars Karen Robinson, Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor who plays preening American sprinter Carl Lewis, and even Ben Johnson himself, who spent more than 9:79 seconds talking to me. 

Shamier Anderson (as Johnson), Ennis Esmer (as Johnson’s needle-happy sports doc), Ryan Bellville and Kristian Bruun also star.

The six-part series is streaming now at GameTV as well as on Paramount+. 

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For over 300 episodes, Debi Drennan has been applying makeup to Yannick Bisson and all the leading actors on Murdoch Mysteries.  She even works on bit players, such as, well, me. Twice. 

With the series winding down its 19th season, Drennan looks back at her career as the head of makeup on the CBC hit series. She also hints that the season finale, set for Monday, April 13, sets up a nail-biter of a cliffhanger.

Before Murdoch, Drennan worked on several Canadian favourites, including Dragon's Den, Bomb Girls (which she co-created), This is Wonderland, and Due South. She won an Emmy working on the TV-movie Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. Her very first job in TV? Doing makeup on The Littlest Hobo -- and, yes, that included the dog!

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 What’s up, doc? Well, for one thing, they are now showing classic Bugs Bunny cartoons on Turner Classic Movies.
I first saw these seven-minute miracles back in the 1960s on The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour. When I wanted to read more about them there were two guys who had the scoop: Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck. These two lifelong friends have been telling the story of Termite Terrace and other animation legends ever since.
Beck’s wonderful web site, Cartoon Research.com, is the place to get information on everything from Gertie the Dinosaur to Dino the Dinosaur and beyond. A professor at CalArts School of Film/Video, he has written 15 books on animation including “The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons” (2020).
He also shares some exciting news about a long-awaited book about a Warners legend that finally has a release date. Hear all about that as well as Beck’s daring rescue of a lost TV treasure from the 1950s on a very animated episode of brioux.tv: the podcast. 

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Seven hundred episodes of a Canadian TV series? Aside from Hockey Night in Canada, what could this be? Well, on Tuesday, March 3, CBC will air the 700th episode of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The satirical sketch series began way back in 1993. On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I speak with two of the current front five players -- Stacey McGunnigle and Chris Wilson. (Mark Critch, Trent McClellan and Aba Amuquandoh are the others.) 

Over the past five seasons, Chris and Stacey been having great fun slipping under the skin of Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry; Pierre Poilievre and Karoline Leavitt; and Galen Weston and Pam Bondi, among many others. We had so much fun doing this episode we did it twice! (Well, that was mainly because I didn't record it the first time.) The good news is that this second version is twice as fun! Give it a listen here, or you can watch the video version of this episode over on YouTube.

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On a special mid-week episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, meet Tara Bosch. Like Monday's podcast guest Jay Klein, she is walking back into the Dragon's Den a Canadian success story.

Both came up with better ways to take sugar out of everyday snacks. Bosch, from Surrey, BC, had a sweet tooth but yearned for a healthier alternative. She started experimenting in her basement apartment kitchen, eventually selling her home made treats from the trunk of her car. The goodies were called SweetSnacks, tasty, low-sugar alternative candy that the Season 12  Dragon's Den judges couldn't resist. Four years after her pitch, Bosch sold her business for a jaw-dropping $360 million dollars!

Now she mentors other young women looking for early-stage capital through her initiative Bold Beginnings. She is also launching a new line of healthy fun foods under the brand name snackish. 

Look for her, Klein, and three other returning "Full Circle Dragons" this Thursday night as well as March 5 on the two-part, 20th season finale of Dragon's Den (CBC, CBC Gem).

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Some of us just chew gum. While he was chewing it over, however, Jay Klein thought: how can I make gum better?

Klein is the founder and CEO of PÜR, a brand committed to making snacks better-for-you and still taste great and fun to chew. 

Born in Florida, he moved to Toronto to study at York University and founded The PÜR Company in 2010. He took his sugar- and aspartame-free gum into the Dragon’s Den in 2014 (Season 9). Soon all the Dragons were chewing and chomping to deal.

Klein spun his business from one manufacturer and warehouse to a worldwide enterprise. PÜR has become the #1 selling aspartame-free gum in the world. Mints and popcorn are now part of the brand.

On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, we talk about what a big deal this is to guys like me who have to watch their sugar intake. Watch for Klein Feb. 26 and March 5 when he and other Full Circle Dragons return to the Den to deal with a new generation of pitchers. It’s all part of the Season 20 two-part finale (CBC and CBC Gem).

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Who is that on the flight deck of the Starship Athena? Why it is none other than Raoul Bhaneja who has boldly gone on to wow audiences across Canada on stages as well as in feature films and television.
The Manchester born, Ottawa-raised actor-musician plays Chancellor Kelrec, head of the Star Fleet's War College, in Paramount +'s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Interviewed while finishing up production in Toronto on Season Two of the series, Bhaneja says he's having a blast acting opposite Oscar winner Holly Hunter, Emmy-winner Paul Giamatti and promising young Canadian Sandro Rosta, among others in the cast.
Hear Bhaneja turn his phasers on so-called critics such as Elon Musk and Stephen Miller, both whining about the multi-species, "woke" nature of the series. Their opinions are at odds not just with Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek, but also with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who deem it "Certified Fresh." 

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The former Baronesses are back as Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill launch into Season Two of Small Achievable Goals (Tuesday nights on CBC; also streaming on demand on CBCGem). 

The writer-producers play Kris and Julie, two women at different stages of peri-menopause and menopause, who talk about it on their peri-meno-podcast.

Hot topics include hot flashes, HRT's, and even cooling capes and collars. Also turning up the heat is a demanding King of Queens Studios boss played by Tamara Podemski (Reservation Dogs). Fellow Baronesse Aurora Brown guests this season, as does Jackie Richardson (Law & Order: Toronto). Jon Dore returns as Julie's husband Pete, who starts to lose his cool over the night sweats and brain fogs; Meanwhile, Kris has a new love interest.

Recorded in December at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto. 

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Barbara Williams first media job was as a receptionist at the all-news radio station CKO. She quickly rose up the ranks, eventually becoming President of Shaw Media, COO of CORUS and for the past seven years Executive Vice President of CBC. 

This month she retires, with former Paramount content licensing head Douglas Smith named CBC’s new EVP.

In this conversation, recorded in December at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto, Barb talks about the rewards and challenges of bringing a business approach to a culture institution. Did she know going in her CBC job would be as much about politics as programming? 

“I thought I was prepared for how different it would be,” she says. "It was a big adjustment." Previous jobs were all bottom line driven. Williams found championing “public worth” values a very different leadership challenge.

Hear Barb on big issues such as the impact in Canada of multi-billion dollar takeovers of Big Media companies south of the border; the pressures of satisfying audiences now hooked on endless on-demand content; and the need, especially now, to open doors to more Canadian storytelling. Also: should the public network ditch advertising? (Spoiler alert: that would be no, sez Barb)