Walter wrote:

jughead jones wrote:

Hands down - The Trouble With Tracy!

Steve Weston was a national treasure.  Too bad he fell from that roof.  Maybe he jumped after reading 'The Trouble With Tracy' reviews.
 

The man who wrote each episode of The Trouble with Tracy was an American named Goodman Ace, who was one of the top radio stars of the 1940s. His radio show The Easy Aces featured him (the long-suffering husband) and his wife Jane (playing a ditzy blonde) and their neighbourhood adventures, including the "Isn't that awful" tagline to end each episode. Ace recycled his old radio scripts with a few minor changes into each episode of The Trouble with Tracy, which explains why a Canadian-produced sitcom was set in New York City and had no Canadian references at all. He even wrote himself and his wife into a couple of episodes in which Steve's ad agency tried to "lure" the Aces back on the air to appear in commercials. A bit of a sad ending for a man who was once seen as one of the top performers in the U.S. radio industry.
 

Last edited by BowmanvilleBob (May 28, 2024 11:20 am)

Interestingly, both The Trouble with Tracy in 1970 and Hilarious House of Frightenstein in 1971 were mass produced with 130 episodes being churned out in 9 months in the case of Frightenstein and probably about the same time for Tracy. This meant there wasn't any opportunity for retakes or rehearsals. The difference was 1) Frightenstein had original scripts and 2) Frightenstein had Billy Van who was a genius at improv.

Outside of daily soaps are there any other examples of scripted shows being produced in this pressure cooker method? It sounds like a recipe for disaster and it's actually a miracle that it worked in the case of Frightenstein. 

I really liked Seeing Things with Louis Del Grande.

Hansa wrote:

Interestingly, both The Trouble with Tracy in 1970 and Hilarious House of Frightenstein in 1971 were mass produced with 130 episodes being churned out in 9 months in the case of Frightenstein and probably about the same time for Tracy. This meant there wasn't any opportunity for retakes or rehearsals. The difference was 1) Frightenstein had original scripts and 2) Frightenstein had Billy Van who was a genius at improv.

Outside of daily soaps are there any other examples of scripted shows being produced in this pressure cooker method? It sounds like a recipe for disaster and it's actually a miracle that it worked in the case of Frightenstein. 

The two shows differed in their production shooting order.  Frightenstein was shot entirely out of sequence and in blocks.  This was to accommodate both the various sets and makeup and costume order for Billy Van. All of the Grizelda Gourmet segments were shot with the kitchen set and had Billy in the specific make-up and wardrobe.
The Count and Igor segments were another set in "Brucie's" lab with Billy and Fishka in make-up and costume.

Frightenstein also had a lot of prosthetic makeup effects which were mostly for Billy's characters...  Grizelda's warts, chin, nose, hair wig.  Dr. Pet Vet's cheeks and chin.  The Librarian etc. 

Vincent Price's segments were shot over 3 or 4 days... Price was in the open and close of each show. In addition he also appeared on numerous bridges or intros to some segments.

The show was edited with the various segments being assembled in order of the specific episode's script. 

Tracey was mostly "live to tape".   There would be a camera blocking run thru with the actors and the audio booms, and then it would be "Roll and Record" The cast size would vary depending on the story line, but it was largely like a stage play Act 1 to Act 3...

Tracey did have a bit of a budget behind it... the cast size would vary as required...  recurring characters and occasional one off characters for specific episodes. Also, the Producer/Director role was generally one person. However, on occasion the role would be split with a separate Director being hired for a block of episodes.

 

Butch Patterson: Private Dick

Here's a vote for "North of 60".  Started out as kind of a semi-comedy but became quite serious as it moved along. Many terrific actors appeared on that show, and most (but not all) episodes were well written.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes initially was really funny and well done.  The show has long long since jumped the shark.  Rick Mercer's Talking To Americans segment was always funny.  

Talking To Americans came out as a special in April 2001 and was watched by 2.7 million people.  The special was nominated for two Gemini Awards but Mercer had requested that the nominations be pulled since the awards show was too soon after 9/11.  He felt that was it inappropriate that the special should be nominated or possibly win an award since it was poking fun at our neighbours to the south at a time when they needed support.

When he was interviewed on ABC's Nightline about the segment, Mercer said that the program could have been done the other way around showing how little Canadians know about the US.  He mentioned that many interviewed were actually onto the joke and they only used people that gave shorter answers  rather than those that would ramble. 

RadioActive wrote:

My late dad, who hated every politician regardless of party, really loved the TV version of "The Royal Canadian Air Farce." As soon as they made fun of a politico, he was in hysterics.

I enjoyed the Air Farce too when the original four were on it: the late Roger Abbott, Luba Goy, Don Ferguson and the late John Morgan. Those four had a unique chemistry that was comic gold.



PJ
 

Entire seasons of North of 60 appear to be on YouTube for free if you really want to see it again. Do a search on the site and you'll find all the seasons. 

Season 1

I used to like Wayne and Shuster. I may not like them if they were on today but, when I was twelve years old, they were pretty funny. I seem to recall that , later on, they did get some better writers.

Bizarre was, interestingly enough, hosted by the American impressionist John Byner.
He's still alive and 85 years old.
Bizarre was definitely ahead of its time with humour that was more akin to Monty Python than Second City.
Also interesting that Canada has one of the greatest impressionists of all time -- Rich Little, yet they got an American to be host.
Byner was probably much more affordable at the time.

 

I don't think anyone has mentioned SCTV yet.

RadioActive wrote:

turkeytop wrote:

I don't think anyone has mentioned SCTV yet.

Actually, that was in the first post for this thread, but it was so long ago, I'm not surprised you missed it!

And I just reviwed the entire thread before posting and I still missed it.