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How Many Of These Very Early City TV Shows Do You Remember?
When City TV first signed on in the fall of 1972, it had many things – ambition, chutzpah and audacity. The one thing it couldn’t really claim was a lot of quality programming. In fact, the majority of it was unbelievably cheap, because owner Moses Znaimer ran it on a shoestring - and barely had any shoes.
When I think back on those Channel 79 days, only a few programs come to mind – The Baby Blue Movie was the most famous, of course, a chance to see soft porn over the air for the very first time. The Shulman File, which came along later, featured coroner Dr. Morton Shulman muckraking about anything and everything on air, later satirized on SCTV as “Murray’s File.”
(In fact, City TV was the inspiration for many sketches that turned up on Second City, including an infamous Melonville election moment with a politician being confronted with a controversial question and simply staring at the reporter, refusing to say anything. If I’m not mistaken, that actually happened on air to Anne Mroczkowski. My old mentor, the late great Clint Nickerson, who worked there twice, once asked me "why do you think they called it Second "City TV?")
The City Show was a kind of early prototype for CityPulse, there was also a weird weekly boxing match and of course, there was the cheapest of them all - a bizarre game show called “Greed.” It was hosted by a guy named Rummy Bishop, a relative of famed comedian Joey Bishop. About the only thing they had in common was the surname.
Greed was shot at the station’s 99 Queen St. E. H.Q., and involved contestants doing impossible stunts to try to win an extremely cheap prize. You got more value from being able to say you were on TV than anything you actually won. About the only thing truly memorable about Greed was its announcer – a then unseen and very unknown guy named Dan Aykroyd.
I recently came across a treasure trove of old ads from the station around that time. There a few surprises - the WHA on City TV? Who knew?
See how many, if any, of these you remember.
- Hansa
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Re: How Many Of These Very Early City TV Shows Do You Remember?
Rummy Bishop's real name was Morris Spector who was a Toronto-based burlesque performer in the 50s and 60s and was no relation to Joey Bishop (whose real name was Joseph Gottlieb) but he was billed as Joey Bishop's "ex-partner".
In the 1930s and 40s, the "Bishop Brothers" was a comedy trio of three unrelated comics who each adopted "Bishop" as their stage name, Rummy "Bishop", Mel "Bishop", and Joey "Bishop". When they broke up they each kept their stage name.
Here's a picture of them reuniting in 1962
Here are some old ads promoting Rummy Bishop's appearances:
Last edited by Hansa (May 30, 2024 7:39 pm)
- RadioActive
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Re: How Many Of These Very Early City TV Shows Do You Remember?
Wow, thanks for that. I had always heard he was a distant cousin of Joey, a claim that was made on many occasions. I guess it was effective PR, because it worked on me. How he ended up on City TV in its early days is a story yet to be told. I always learn a lot from the posters here!
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: How Many Of These Very Early City TV Shows Do You Remember?
Is the ad below true? Although it fits the timeline (Sept. 1972), I don't recall City TV ever having the rights to the Canada-Soviet series games. I thought they were all on CBC. And it seems unlikely a newcomer with no money would be able to show arguably the biggest hockey series in Canadian history. Anyone know what this was?
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Thread Starter- Hansa
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Re: How Many Of These Very Early City TV Shows Do You Remember?
RadioActive wrote:
Wow, thanks for that. I had always heard he was a distant cousin of Joey, a claim that was made on many occasions. I guess it was effective PR, because it worked on me. How he ended up on City TV in its early days is a story yet to be told. I always learn a lot from the posters here!
From what I can gather, he was grew up in Philadelphia and joined "The Bishop Brothers" in the 1930s, apparently when he was fresh out of high school. The team broke up when Rummy was drafted. He settled in Toronto for some reason (maybe marriage, maybe his family was originally from here) in the 50s and was a regular emcee at the Victory Burlesque on Spadina in the 50s and 60s and at Starvin' Marvin's on Yonge Street in the 70s - though he also appeared in small clubs throughout the US east coast, if the promo material I linked to earlier is any indication.
Here he is in a Speedy Muffler ad from the 1970s
In an obscure 1976 Canadian film with John Candy
and appearing on the Super Dave show, filmed in Toronto, in the 1980s
and here is, apparently, the only surviving clip of Greed
He also appeared in small parts on Anne of Avonlea, King of Kensington, Due South and a number of other TV shows and movies, mostly filmed in Toronto, into the 1990s.
He died in Toronto in 2012 at the age of 94.
Last edited by Hansa (May 30, 2024 8:03 pm)
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Wow, Ivan Reitman produced that show and had Dan Aykroyd as the announcer? What an awful way to get into show biz! Still, I guess everybody has to start somewhere. They certainly did well for themselves.
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Thread Starter- mace
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Re: How Many Of These Very Early City TV Shows Do You Remember?
I don't remember any of those shows [except the Baby Blue's] because CITY's signal didn't reach Oakville despite my dad having one of those flytrap style outdoor UHF antennas.
- Shorty Wave
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Thanks for posting these ads for Citytv shows RA. These shows were long gone by the time I started working there, as it was Fashion Television, The NewMusic etc by then. However, I do remember the late great Clint Nickerson, decent guy!
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Thanks for posting these ads for Citytv shows RA. These shows were long gone by the time I started working there, as it was Fashion Television, The NewMusic etc by then. However, I do remember the late great Clint Nickerson, decent guy!
Agreed on Clint. I worked with him at three different stations and he was there at CFTR when I nervously took on my first big job in the industry. He made it easier and was very encouraging. Not only that, he helped me get my last job.
He left us way too soon at just the age of 66. A wonderful man and I miss him every day.
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