The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Remember The Baby Blue Movie On City TV?

**Posted by RadioActive** May 3, 2024 4:00 pm

It may have been the most famous promo of all the audacious promotions City TV ever did. The Baby Blue Movie sounded a lot more raunchy than it turned out to be, but that didn't stop people without early cable or an antenna from trying to be sure they could get the brand new station.

This ad was featured in the Toronto Sun on Sept. 29, 1972 - exactly one day after City TV debuted for the first time and its first ever notorious mild porno film. A lot of people were curious. Although I'm not sure how many were actually yellow or why the word "tonight" is hyphenated.

**Posted by Leslieville Bill** May 3, 2024 4:34 pm

Yes but our TV was near my parents' bedroom and I could never grab a peek. Darn!

**Posted by mace** May 3, 2024 7:13 pm

By the early 70's my dad had added one of those flytrap style outdoor UHF antennas which gave us crystal clear reception on ch 17, 19 and 29. Ch 79? Nothing but snow. I don't know where their original transmitter was located but Oakville is only 25 miles west of the city. I would have thought a fuzzy but still viewable picture would have been available. As a result I never got to see one baby blue movie.

**Posted by In Phase** May 3, 2024 7:39 pm

The original transmitter was located on Canada Square at Yonge & Eglinton, and not overly high powered.

One major limiting factor was most TV antennas installed by consumers had very poor performance on the upper UHF channels like CH79. Also, if people used coax cable it pretty much killed the signal on the receive end.

**Posted by newsguy1** May 3, 2024 8:26 pm

One of the Baby Blue movies that CITY showed repeatedly was "Your Pleasure is My Business."
It was with Dutch prostitute, Xaviera Hollander, the "Happy Hooker."
She settled for a while in Toronto and this really horrible low budget movie was made with her in it.
However there was one notable thing about the movie -- the soundtrack -- which was written and performed by -- get this -- a fledgling Tom Cochrane!
I actually got a free copy of the vinyl record when I was at UBC.
I still have it.
Years ago I interviewed Cochrane and my intention was to bring my copy of the record to work.
But I forgot.
Anyway I told him in the interview that I would have asked him to sign the album, to which he replied he wished I had remembered to bring it in -- because he would have asked me to burn it.
To be fair, his songs were not all that bad, and actually the best thing about the movie.

**Posted by Paul Jeffries** May 3, 2024 8:37 pm

Italcine on CFMT in the '80s gained a fair bit of attention for a similar reason.

PJ

**Posted by paterson1** May 3, 2024 9:05 pm

CityTV got all of the attention and press when they were showing the Baby Blue movies but other stations also dabbled in the same thing. CFMT already mentioned above by Paul Jeffries.

Global TV in their early years were not afraid to show soft core porn later in the evening, with no editing for language or nudity. CHCH in Hamilton would feature much betterTV movies, even world premieres like The Godfather again often with no editing for language or nudity.

Even Wingham's CKNX got into the game in the 80's with rather seedy B and C grade movies late night. Mostly incomprehensible European art movies, and naughty British comedies that featured lots of titties and bum and Benny Hill style of humour.

Last edited by paterson1 (May 3, 2024 11:17 pm)

**Posted by Muffaraw Joe** May 3, 2024 9:50 pm

Wasn't Xaviera Hollander on air with a TV Show back in the early days of CITY-TV. She was known as the happy hooker and wrote a book about her experiences as a high end Hooker.

**Posted by Retrontario** May 3, 2024 11:59 pm

Muffaraw Joe wrote:
Wasn't Xaviera Hollander on air with a TV Show back in the early days of CITY-TV

"Beauty and the Beast" co-hosted with Bob Guccione of Penthouse infamy. Perhaps the greatest and most mysterious of the early Channel 79 productions.

Re. Baby Blues, many of the 2" original Baby Blue tapes were returned to the MZTV Museum in Liberty Village a few years ago.

**Posted by SpinningWheel** May 4, 2024 8:11 am

I can remember returning from hockey practice on Friday nights and being at the top of the stairs to our rec room when suddenly I could hear the channel changing because my dad was watching the blue movie and didn't want me to catch him. There were no remotes in our house in those days, so I always laughed when he had to jump to his feet when he heard me on the stairs and made sure to ask him "What are you watching?" He never really had a good answer because he just changed to that channel.

Last edited by SpinningWheel (May 4, 2024 8:12 am)

**Posted by Radiowiz** May 4, 2024 10:49 am

I am young. Too young to be aware of what a Baby Blue movie is.
The people who do have fond memories of actually watching those movies, (as in, not sneaking them in as a teenager, but indeed being old enough to watch them)
perhaps even on a black and white TV must be well into their 60's or 70's by now.

I would have been a baby.

**Posted by Saul** May 4, 2024 10:56 am

Fond memories of sneaking them in as a teenager don't count?

**Posted by Radiowiz** May 4, 2024 11:28 am

Saul wrote:
Fond memories of sneaking them in as a teenager don't count?

In 1972 I wasn't even born yet.

**Posted by newsguy1** May 4, 2024 11:32 am

Muffaraw Joe et al...

Indeed Xaviera Hollander spent years in Canada...
Today she runs a B and B in Amsterdam and has written 12 books!

For several years in the 1970s, Hollander lived in Toronto, where she married Frank Applebaum, a Canadian antique dealer, and was a regular fixture on the downtown scene. She mentioned a lover named John Drummond, with whom she partnered for many years, co-authoring two books, including Let's Get Moving (1988) about their life together: "I went there with, who for years had been the love of my life, John Drummond, a wild Scottish intellectual who, at times, liked his whisky, beer, and wines too much. We had great sex, often up to three times a day — all that and he was about 17 years older than me."[4][/url] During a 2018 interview, she revealed a darker side of the relationship with the man she called "the love of my life!": "The love of my life, 25 years ago, John Drummond, a brilliant and boisterous Scotsman with a 'Thatcheresque' accent had, especially under the influence of a few scotches, beers, or wine, become quite destructive towards me. He is the only one who managed to deprive me of my self-esteem or identity, temporarily. He used to say that a British man’s way of saying 'I love you' is to put his woman down."[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaviera_Hollander#cite_note-9][9][/url] Drummond is listed as one of her husbands.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaviera_Hollander#cite_note-10][