brioux.tv: the podcast

The first scene of the new Fox and Global series Murder in a Small Town is set at that most sacred of Canadian television landmarks: the diner from The Beachcombers, Mollys Reach. 

Seated inside, shooting a first date scene, are two actors representing several generations of Canadian acting royalty: Kristin Kreuk, the Vancouver lass who went from Edgemont to Smallville to Beauty and the Beast to Burden of Truth to starring in this fifth network series, Opposite her is Rossif Sutherland. The late, great Donald was his dad; Kiefer his half brother. No pressure.

Series creator and writer Ian Weir (also Canadian) screwed up and made Rossif a Chief of Police, not a Mountie. Kristin plays a librarian/muse, not Anne of Green Gables. Otherwise, almost everything else about this series is so Canadian it apologises. Sorry.

Even one of our greatest homegrown actors, R.H. Thomson, plays a dead body in the pilot. That is so Canadian.

Kreuk, one of the most popular guests ever at brioux.tv: the podcast, talks about all of this and more. Get comfy on a chesterfield, open a bag of ketchup chips, and join us.

 Ever wonder what it was like to be in Studio 8H opening night in 1975 on Saturday Night Live?
Director Jason Reitman wondered and his new movie, "Saturday Night," is a recreation of the hours leading up to airtime on that historic night. Somebody who was there, however, is my guest this week on brioux.tv the podcast: Lorraine Santoli.
No, she was never one of the "Not Ready from Prime Time Players." Lorraine, who worked at NBC, was on the floor, pulling cables for the camera operators during the broadcast. Lorraine went on to a spectacular career in entertainment. When we met 40 years ago in California, she was the main Disneyland publicist. Thanks to Lorraine, I had a backstage pass to a time when it was still possible to interview Roy Disney, animators Ward Kimball, Ken Anderson and Bill Justice and voice artists such as Jimmy Macdonald.
Meanwhile, Lorraine became close friends with original Mouseketeers Annette Funicello and Bobby Burgess, among others. She later climbed the corporate ladder and became Head of Corporate Synergy at Disney, managing up to 60 companies during the Michael Eisney era.
And wait till you hear her story about Pam Grier! Spend an hour with my friend Lorraine Santoli, this week at brioux.tv: the podcast. 

TV schedules and programs are like the places where we live. Sometimes they need somebody to come in a do a thorough de-cluttering.
As CBC's Dragon's Den heads into a 19th season, who better to join the series as the latest investing entrepreneur than Brian Scudamore? He's the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. You know their slogan: "We make junk disapear. All you have to do is point!"
As a pack rat who moved in the past year I know all about clinging to too much stuff. Scudamore tells me on this podcast episode how he came up with the idea of decluttering for others when, as a student, he was stuck in a fast food drive-through lineup. Since 1998, the business has spread to three countries and over 250 franchises. Now this author and podcaster is tackling all the other jobs we don't want to do with Shack Shine, WOW 1 Day Painting and You Move Me.
Look for Scudamore to point and make other people's business dreams happen this season on Dragon's Den. The series returns Thursday, Sept. 26 on CBC and CBC Gem. 

After a two year wait, our long national farmhouse facelift crisis is over! Designer/contractor siblings Carolyn Wilbrink and Billy Pearson are back with a new, third season of HGTV's Farmhouse Facelift. 
The stylin' siblings--featured twice before on brioux.tv: the podcast--once again barnstorm through Southern Ontario, taking grim-looking concrete block bunkers and turning them, in Episode One for example, into custom country cottages. The eight new episodes also include a makeover of a cordwood farmhouse and a converted, one-roon school house. Plus hear what else Carolyn and Billy got up to during the two years between TV seasons. 
The new episodes are premiering weekly now on HGTV Canada and will also be streaming on Stack TV.

About two hours northeast of Toronto stands The Highlands Cinemas, a hand made movie palace carved out of cedars and mosquitoes. Every summer for 40 years, families from neighbouring towns and villages in Ontario’s cottage country have braved bear cubs in the parking lot to see everything from “Barbie” to the latest “Despicable Me” flick.

It is entirely the vision of one of Kinmount, Ont.’s native sons, Keith Stata. “The Movie Man,” a documentary about this remarkable entrepreneur’s Don Quixote-like obsession with showing movies the way God intended — with an audience — is streaming now exclusively at Hollywood Suite.

On this shorter-than-usual summer episode, we hear from Stata as well as director and photographer Matt Finlin, plus one of the executive producers of the documentary, Barenaked Ladies' frontman Ed Robertson. 

Finlin, Robertson and others came for the movies but kept cominng back for the incredible museum of movie projectors, film stills, drive-in speakers and other artifacts Stata has collected and displays in hallways that snake around the cinemas. This episode best enjoyed with popcorn.

Hugh Wilson talked his way into a job at MTM Enterprises at just the right time. When he arrived in the early '70s, they were busy making sitcom history with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Wilson, who had no prior TV experience, could often be found up in the rafters, taking a crash course in Funny 101.
The result was his first series as a creator and executive producer, WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82).
In this "From the Vault" conversation from 2014, Wilson -- who passed away in 2018 at 74 -- talks about what it was like to strike gold with just the right cast at just the right time -- even if his rock 'n' roll radio station sitcom was never a big hit in the States.
Among the surprising things he reveals:
"When the show first went on, it was struggling in the ratings in the U.S. But the ratings in Canada were great right from the beginning," says Wilson, who used the Canadian response to successfully argue that the series needed time to find its audience. "I've never understood that but I've always been super grateful for it."

The death of comedy legend Bob Newhart July 18 had me scrambling for this "From the Vault" conversation with Bill Daily.
Daily was one of Newhart's oldest friends from their Chicago days in the late '50s when Daily was directing and performing in television and Newhart was exploding onto the scene with, at the time, the biggest-selling comedy LP ever, "The Button-down Mind of Bob Newhart."
The two reunited on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), a perfectly cast, well-written gem from the glory days of the MTM Studios. Daily praises, among other writers, Glen and Les Charles who went on to create Taxi and Cheers. He also talks about  how they all adored Suzanne Pleschette, as well as the incredible cast of zanies who stole scenes as Dr. Bob Hartley's group therapy patients. Then there's the story about how Newhart had to fire his best friend for getting the studio audience too heated in the warm-up  -- Don Rickles.
"I was so grateful to have that show," says Daily, previously best known for I Dream of Jeannie. In this conversation from 2014 -- four years before he died at 91 -- Daily saves his most heartfelt praise for Newhart. 
"He was the nicest man I've ever met."
He also tells three of the funniest jokes I've ever heard. 

Welcome to a faster, higher, stronger podcast episode This week’s guest, Scott Russell, has medalled for years in Olympic Games coverage. He’s off to France for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, which runs July 26 through August 11. Russell will host the afternoon show, Bell Paris Prime, and he will remain host for CBC’s coverage of the Paralympic Games, which follows August 28 to September 8.

And then he will leave the podium. The Canadian Screen Award and Gemini Award-winning broadcaster has already announced that this will be his last Games as CBC’s host.

Russell has covered 16 Olympics for CBC, including six as host. He has also led the network’s coverage of the Pan Am Games, six Commonwealth Games, two FIFA World Cups and two FIFA Women's World Cups. He’s also been a host and rinkside reporter for 14 years on Hockey Night in Canada.

After the games, he leaves to become the fifth chancellor of Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, where he holds an honorary doctorate.

In a spectacular career that's gone everywhere from The Streets of San Francisco to "Wall Street" and beyond, two-time Oscar winner Michael Douglas currently stars in the epic, eight-part limited series "Franklin," now streaming on AppleTV+.

If you don't think Douglas looks like Benjamn Franklin, neither did the actor. He does an extraordinary job, however, disappearing under the skin of America's favourite founding father at his diplomatic best. These were the years where Franklin was tasked with trying to persuade the French to back the States in the War of Independence.

Does it help to be famous to play someone famous? Douglas acknowledges that he could tap into some of the built-in, "rock star"-like advantages Franklin enjoyed. That "Franklin" is also about a struggle for democracy, as well as a tale of truth, lies and the power of the press, well, how bloody timely is that.

Douglas also talks about one of my favourite series, The Kominsky Method, his farm in Quebec, the Canadian doctor who saved his life and, as he approaches his 80th birthday in September, gratitude. I'm just grateful for this candid, reflective conversation which is a Canadian podcast exclusive. 

Man it was fun heading down to Niagara last October and catching up with Ron James. He was shooting season two of his comedy series 1 Man's Treasure, which is up now and streaming on Bell Fibe.
If this episode sounds different it is because it was shot outside in a park, and simply recorded on a Pixel phone. There is some reflection here about getting older, or, as James says, being in the "third quarter in the game and you're still trying to find the purpose in life."
Ron needn't look any further; his is to make others laugh. We were joined by actor-comedian-philosopher Pat McKenna, another Second City survivor who co-stars on the series. Guests this season include Jayne Eastwood, Paul Sun Hyung Lee, Tony Nappo and others. A dilly of a conversation. Pull up a lawn chair and listen in.