Yours To Rediscover

February 13, 2012 8:31 AM

RETRONTARIO: Yours To Rediscover. "RETRONTARIO was created to celebrate the neglected corners of Ontario’s rich televisual history; to put back into circulation material which rightly or wrongly had fallen into a black hole and was for all intents and purposes, lost."
posted by chunking express (23 comments total)

Ghah, Astar, my cybernetic bete noir, once again our paths cross. Ghah. Creepy future robot hypocrite.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:41 AM on February 13 [4 favorites]

Oh man, that robot.

Sadly, there are no Short Circuitz posted. They're like earworms except they come with visuals.
posted by AmandaA at 9:01 AM on February 13

Oh... Ontario Place promo film, 1971.

For a moment I was I was hoping for some hot retro action on the pedal boats.
posted by Kabanos at 9:01 AM on February 13

Needs more "Rainbow Country."
posted by No Robots at 9:01 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

You don't lose your "centre of the universe" rep when you include content that was shown all over Canada. At least I suspect a lot of it was (I immigrated in '97, first visited in '84).
posted by ethnomethodologist at 9:08 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

My favourite retro Ontario footage has got to be Nobody Waved Good-bye.
posted by Beardman at 9:10 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

Needs more Definition.
posted by Kabanos at 9:14 AM on February 13

Hmm... didn't find the two episodes of You Can't Do That On Television I was looking for: Adoption and Divorce.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 9:14 AM on February 13

Anyone in and around Toronto who spent time bar hopping in the early 80's, undoubtedly spent some wind-down time with Chuck. The All Night Show had a brief, but very fondly remembered run.
posted by davebush at 9:39 AM on February 13

I saw this commercial. 30 years later and a thousand miles away I still occasionally hum "Let's go to the Ex."

The list of wanted clips is thrills galore:

12. TEN FORWARD, TRILLIUM COMMUNITY 10, early 1990s
Community Access TV produced lots of so-awful-they-are-awful gems over the years, but you’d be hard pressed to find something more bizarre than TEN FORWARD. Two grown men in Star Trek uniforms, sat in one presumes their Mother’s basement, on a cardboard set in front of a green screen, hosting a 2 hour call-in show about the minutiae of STAR TREK trivia. As you might imagine, the show was often derailed by abusive crank callers (it aired at midnight on Fridays), but the passive aggressive nature of the hosts more than justified some of the rancor. A true Scarborough legend!

Oh, God, I must see this.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:43 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

I grew up in Ontario, but I'm slightly too young to recognize anything here (except Astar, which seemingly ran for decades). Needs more 90s. I suppose I feel more like a child of the 80s than I really am, because so many of the children's shows I watched in the 90s were 80s television re-runs?

Shows like The Smoggies, The Littlest Hobo, Fred Penner's Place, Mr. Dressup, and the Polka Dot Door.

And maybe the real message here is that I shouldn't be trying to feel nostalgic about my childhood television experiences when I'm only 25?




BONUS PSA: Don't You Put It In Your Mouth
posted by Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer at 9:51 AM on February 13

Love the rare clip from the classic All-Nite show but sad to find out that
Elwy Yost died, host of Magic Shadows--that show came on after Dr. Who on Channel 19, he taught me more about movies than just about anyone, and I learned that he son the son of a pickle magnet and that his son, Graham Yost, wrote "Speed".
Now if only I can scratch the nostalgia itch with more Commander Tom, Rocketship 7 (both from Buffalo) and CFTO's Uncle Bobby Show. sigh.
posted by Duck_Lips at 10:19 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

BONUS PSA: Don't You Put It In Your Mouth

Also, don't forget the PSA about salt and your eyes
posted by phirleh at 10:29 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

Looks like the site went down. Shame. Did anyone notice if they mentioned Read All About It? I once found a site that had every episode available from both seasons for download. I got them all, but since lost them in a hard drive crash. It's really a show that deserves more than the obscurity in which it languishes.
posted by JHarris at 10:40 AM on February 13

Oh, great. Now I have Read All About It stuck in my head. I think I started watching that because there was a computer in it and it was on before or after Bits & Bytes.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 10:43 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

Now if only I can scratch the nostalgia itch with more Commander Tom, Rocketship 7

In the early '70s ('73-74, maybe), a classmate and I won a guest appearance on Rocketship 7 for raising money for charity (MS, I think, but maybe UNICEF). I doubt that any of the shows from that period have survived and I don't know how I would find it even if they were lying around somewhere, but that's my own holy grail of tv clips. I'd give a lot to watch that little 7 or 8 year-old chat with Dave Thomas.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:41 AM on February 13

BURNT
TOAST
posted by saturday_morning at 11:59 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

Ah, I miss Night Ride and Night Walk. Late nights on Global these programs would run for hours, just a camera cruising around nighttime Toronto, backed with some smooth jazz.
Now it's just CSI reruns and infomercials.
posted by Flashman at 2:14 PM on February 13

How about some YouTube channels representing the rest of Canada?

retrosask

retroquebec

retronewfoundland
posted by evilcolonel at 6:28 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]

RETROSASK!!!!!

RETROFUCKINGSASK!
posted by PinkMoose at 6:36 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]

Having had that bloody "Yours to Discover" song stuck in my head for about 30 years, it's awesome to actually hear it again!
posted by kuppajava at 8:16 AM on February 14

octobersurprise: That wiki link tells me that Commander Tom's son is the guy who played Angel on Buffy. My mind may be permanently blown.
posted by rocket88 at 10:14 AM on February 14

)I got my WKBW shows mixed up...he's not Commander Tom but he is the guy from Rocketship 7. Mind still blown)
posted by rocket88 at 10:18 AM on February 14