The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Son Of A Critch Gets Ready To "Reach For The Top"

RadioActive · January 12, 2024 1:06 am

I'll watch almost anything that involves radio, which is why I was happy to see the new season of "Son of A Critch" debut on CBC last week. (Some of the show takes place in a fictionalized version of VOCM in St. John's Newfoundland.)

But next week's episode combines early radio with long ago TV, as the protagonist - now in his last year in junior high - prepares to go on "Reach For The Top."

If I recall correctly, each city or province had one of these Brainiac kids competitions, in which high schoolers would compete with each other to see who could answer the most general knowledge questions. I believe at one point, Alex Trebek hosted the one in Toronto early on in his career.

The show has done a good job recreating the old radio studios of the 80s. I'll be curious to see if they can resurrect the set of this classic Canadian quiz show and how it looked after all these years.

The episode in question airs next Tuesday at 8:30 on the CBC or you can watch it for free afterwards on CBC Gem.

RadioActive · January 12, 2024 1:08 am

By the way, while I wasn't a huge "Reach For The Top" fan, I'm grateful for its existence. Otherwise we never would have gotten to see what may be my all time Favourite SCTV sketch, Night School High Q. Still hilarious all these years later.

mace · January 12, 2024 10:14 am

I believe ch 4 in Buffalo had a similar show in the 60's/70's called It's Academic. I think this was a franchised show designed for local markets similar to the way Dialing for Dollars operated.

Glen Warren · January 12, 2024 11:36 am

RadioActive wrote:
... I believe at one point, Alex Trebek hosted the one in Toronto early on in his career.

Jan Tennant took over Reach hosting duties when Alex Trebek left the CBC. Jan Tennant hosted Reach until she left to join Global News in the early/mid 80s.

paterson1 · January 12, 2024 12:00 pm

Alex hosted Reach For The Top from 1966-1973 both locally and on the network.

ig · January 12, 2024 1:55 pm

https://youtu.be/XbfIhV01V1Y?si=bs0Rmzd8JPVBoitY&t=853

Forward Power · January 12, 2024 8:08 pm

Here in the Ottawa Valley, Cogeco's "YourTV" continues to run their own version of RFTT, "Valley Reach", produced at YourTV's Pembroke studio. And even Barrie's CKVR had a local version of "Reach"... here's a full episode from 1984, hosted by Gail Keary, with long-time 'VR weatherman Bob McIntyre on the intro.

Hansa · January 12, 2024 11:21 pm

Reach for the Top still exists but it's now done over Zoom and posted on YouTube. Not the same.

Last edited by Hansa (January 12, 2024 11:22 pm)

ig · January 14, 2024 1:21 pm

Lord, that old blue KSN character generator. has 2 font sizes, too big and too small.

Forward Power wrote:
Here in the Ottawa Valley, Cogeco's "YourTV" continues to run their own version of RFTT, "Valley Reach", produced at YourTV's Pembroke studio. And even Barrie's CKVR had a local version of "Reach"... here's a full episode from 1984, hosted by Gail Keary, with long-time 'VR weatherman Bob McIntyre on the intro.

ig · January 14, 2024 1:23 pm

I'm surprised it's allowed since I'm sure 90% of the Toronto schools couldn't supply a team that combined knows the capital of New Zealand.

Hansa wrote:
Reach for the Top still exists but it's now done over Zoom and posted on YouTube. Not the same.

ig · January 14, 2024 1:25 pm

They should have done one with St. Mikes kicking the crap out of the smart kid before the show started and realizing they were screwed.

RadioActive wrote:
By the way, while I wasn't a huge "Reach For The Top" fan, I'm grateful for its existence. Otherwise we never would have gotten to see what may be my all time Favourite SCTV sketch, Night School High Q. Still hilarious all these years later.

Glen Warren · January 14, 2024 1:46 pm

ig wrote:
Lord, that old blue KSN character generator. has 2 font sizes, too big and too small.

KSN CG? A staple for Keeble and York Cablevision community channels back in the day...

Still better than the Laird 3600 10X32 dot matrix ... no font sizes, and I can't even remember if it had lowercase characters... I think it was all upper case.

RadioActive · January 14, 2024 6:44 pm

Glen Warren wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
I believe at one point, Alex Trebek hosted the one in Toronto early on in his career.
Jan Tennant took over Reach hosting duties when Alex Trebek left the CBC.

This video was made well before Trebek died. At one point, one of those being interviewed says, "I can't imagine anyone hosting Jeopardy! besides Alex." Sadly, I guess he can now.

(By the way, this is from a great YouTube site about lost Canadian game shows.)

RadioActive · January 17, 2024 12:58 am

Not a bad episode. And there was one thing I hadn't noticed before. In the bar scene, there's a station logo visible that says "VOCM AM Stereo." Not entirely sure if that was ever true but an interesting touch.

RadioActive · February 1, 2024 5:19 pm

Mark Critch recalls his childhood and plays his dad in 'Son of a Critch'

"Among a Canadian quirk: broadcast channels that included nudity. [Mark] Critch laughs at the thought. “That was the French channel. You could turn over to the channel and people were just smoking cigarettes and making love all day. You always had your hand on the knob just in case the parents came in.”

Hansa · February 1, 2024 7:36 pm

In Toronto teenage boys has
the late night "Italian movie" on channel 47 to look forward to as well as Citytv's regular airings of Barbarella and Percy's Progress and a few other soft porn classics on Late Great Movies.

Last edited by Hansa (February 1, 2024 7:37 pm)

paterson1 · February 1, 2024 8:22 pm

As a teen I recall Global showing titty and bum on Saturday evenings with French Canadian movies dubbed into English. This would have been around 1974/75. No editing and even the occasional soft porn English movies on Global had no editing for the nudity or naughty words. Global just didn't promote their baby blue movies like City TV did.