There are a lot of weird things that have appeared on TV over the years. Some were blink-and-you-missed-it type shows. Others had longer runs. And in one case, there’s a sitcom that got made – and was never even shown, despite spending all that money on the episodes.
 
Here’s a look at some of the oddities of the boob tube, including a few you probably never even knew existed.
 
The Sage Of Aquarius, CHCH
 
The hit “Hair” song about the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” was sung by the Fifth Dimension. But this 1969 show featured the “Sage of Aquarius,” a guy named Prynce Nesbitt (supposedly named after his mother’s dog, so he didn’t exactly have the best start in life.) He’s described in various articles as an ‘early bohemian,’ and it appears he showed it in this archetypical late 60s series that aired on CHCH. You can only imagine the content. And you’ll have to. This thing is so obscure, it doesn’t even show up in a Google search.
 
 
 
CHCH Shows The Same Movie At Multiple Times
 
With movies on every channel and entire cable networks devoted to 24-hour-a-day flicks, it’s hard to remember that CHCH made itself an international reputation by acquiring first run movies no one else could get the rights to. (“The Godfather,” for example, was first shown by the little Hamilton station that could.)
 
These days, you can see them at many times, whenever it’s convenient for you. But did you know that in the pre-cable era, CHCH used to offer something called “multiple screenings” of famous films so you could pick when you wanted to see them? They were way ahead of their time because the concept goes back to 1956!
 

 
What Happens If You Want To Keep Your Zonk?
 
Believe it or not, I’ve always wondered about this. What happened to those people who won (if you can call that winning) a “Zonk” on the old Monty Hall hosted “Let’s Make A Deal” and actually wanted to keep the thing? They offered everything from old broken down tractors and clunky washing machines to real donkeys. And while you might think no one would ever want to take the booby prize home, some people did. Worse yet, under the rules, they had to be given what they won if they insisted on it.
 
So what did producers do then? The answer was revealed in a bizarre article in TV Guide back in March 1977.
 

 
Lloyd Robertson: Weekend Newsman?
 
It seems like Lloyd Robertson was always on either CBC or CTV as the main attraction. But the Most Trusted Newsman in Canada didn’t start out that way. Instead, he was once consigned to just the weekends, as this ad proves. But talk about being ahead of your time. It’s from the late 60s and brands the news as “Computer Age TV.” Did they even have computers back in 1969? 
 

 
Meanwhile, Lloyd Robertson or not, CBC and Canadian TV news ratings in general weren’t exactly huge in 1968. And yet they felt they could brag about what would be seen as abysmal numbers today in an ad. What I love about this is that they included two Buffalo channels in the comparison. 
 

 
CBLT Once Had A Morning Show
 
Does anyone remember the days when CBLT tried to do a morning show, a la Canada AM or Breakfast Television? Whatever CBLT Morning was, it wasn’t a huge success. Notice who the co-host was: former AM 740 consumer talk show host Dale Goldhawk.
 

 
CBC’s Line-up Before It Was All Canadian
 
Nowadays, it’s impossible to turn on the CBC and find anything that’s not made in Canada (or in some cases, Britain.) They’re mandated not to show any of those big bad American series that actually get ratings. But that wasn’t always the case, as these line-ups from 1971, 1972 and 1978 prove.
 



 
Does Simsub Mean There Will Be More Canadian Shows Produced?
 
Actually, it turns out there were less, as time slots were gobbled up by same time-same date rules that allowed Canadian stations to have exclusivity by buying popular American shows brought to viewers here on cable.
 
There are some almost laughable references in this 1971 TV Guide editorial. First, the notion that simsub would mean cable would be forced to black out all U.S. shows coming into Canada. And the fact that the CRTC really believed this would help stimulate production of Canadian shows proves how misguided they were back then. But my favourite is the reference to the average cable bill coming in at just $5 a month – and that a hike was likely. (If only we knew then what most cable/sat subscribers know now!)
 

 
Jackie Kennedy White House Tour
 
It was one of the most memorable specials in TV history – and it’s never been done again. Back in 1962, U.S. First Lady Jackie Kennedy took viewers on a first-ever TV tour of the White House, a show that aired on multiple networks. Just over a year later, there would be more coverage of the Kennedys, when Jackie’s husband was assassinated in Dallas.
 

 
 


“The Young & The Restless” Global Catch Up
 
I have to admit I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. The network that owned the rights to “The Young & The Restless” soap opera lost them to Global. But the still new-ish network didn’t have permission to air it for another month and it was no longer available locally.
 
So they ran an ad telling viewers that they could keep up-to-date with the serialized storyline by watching a daily 4 PM special or phoning a recording that explained the latest plot twists. It was a unique idea but I wonder how many people took advantage of it.
 

 
“Snip” Gets Cut Before Actually Airing
 
I always liked the late David Brenner as a comedian (his question about why TV’s Superman let bullets bounce off him but ducked when the bad guy flung the gun at him always made me laugh.) So he seemed a natural to get a show of his own, like contemporaries Freddie Prinze and Gabe Kaplan already had.
 
And he did.
 
But you never saw it.
 
It was called “Snip” and it was such a sure thing, that it was even showcased in the Fall Preview issue of TV Guide in Sept. 1975 as an NBC Thursday night show. So what happened? The comedy, about a hair dressing salon, featured an openly gay character and the network got skittish. So even though they made seven of them (but never edited the last two) it was shelved before a single episode aired.
 

 
A bitter Brenner would often make jokes about it for the rest of his career, but he never did get another starring role in his own TV show.
 
 
“Beatles Night Out”
 
If you were around then, you probably remember the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. And you’ve likely seen the movies “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help” by now. But what in the world ever happened to this show, which aired just once in North America in the summer of 1966? You’d think every Beatles artifact has been resurrected by now, given the endless interest in the Fab Four. But for some reason, this show has disappeared into the ether, although bits and pieces of it have turned up on YouTube over the years.
 

 
I’d love to see the whole thing, but can’t find it anywhere.
 


 
Ann Rohmer Before CP24
 
She’s left the Toronto cable news station and come back more times than you can count. But Ann Rohmer wasn’t always there. Here’s a very young soon-to-be newswoman cutting her teeth with Peter Feniak on Global’s daily “That’s Life” back in the early 80s.
 

  
The Red Barn
 
This has nothing to do with TV, per se, although this restaurant advertised on television and radio during its short existence. The Red Barn was in Toronto before McDonald’s, Burger King or any of the other fast food outlets that are so common today. And back then it was a big deal. But when the big guys moved in, the Barn doors were swiftly closed.   
 
I’ve run into people over the years who didn’t believe it existed. Here’s the proof it did.
 

 


 
He’s Doing What On TV?
 
I saved what may be the strangest artifact for last. Back in the 50s, music shows were cheap to produce, looked impressive and didn’t need a lot of resources. CHCH in Hamilton, which as an independent may have produced more Canadian shows on a daily basis than even the CBC, had its fair share of them.
 
They also had a stable of sometimes crusty news people who brought the headlines to the Steel City. One of them was the great and irascible Jack Burghardt, who was famous for being somewhat cantankerous. So although this show is long lost to history, you can only wonder what this thing must have looked like. Check out what Jack was doing on this show titled, “Music For You” back in 1959.
 
Now THAT I’d pay to see!