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The Big Revue
''The Big Revue'' was a Canadian variety television show. It was the first ever production of CBC Television when both debuted in 1952. The show was directed by Norman Jewison and written by John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt. The pilot episode first aired on 9 September 1952. The series was hosted by actress Toby Robins who would later rise to fame as a panelist on ''Front Page Challenge''. It was on ''The Big Revue'' that Don Harron introduced TV audiences to his country bumpkin alter ego, "Charlie Farquharson" (who years later would be immortalized on the American series ''Hee Haw'' and the Canadian series ''The Red Green Show.''). Reception ''The Ottawa Journal'' said the show "all too frequently isn't very good ... the comedy rarely makes anyone laugh, and the dancing at best is mediocre". They complimented the music as "generally excellent", and highlighted George Murphy, Phyllis Marshall, Joan Fairfax and Margo MacKinnon for their "superb singing". The newspaper also poi ...
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John Aylesworth
John Bansley Aylesworth (August 18, 1928 – July 28, 2010) was a Canadian television writer, producer, comedian, and actor, best known as co-creator of the American country music television variety show ''Hee Haw'', which appeared on network television for two years and then ran for decades in first-run syndication. Early career at CBC The son of Fredrick and Marie Aylesworth, John Bansley Aylesworth was born on August 18, 1928, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and performed on radio as a child. He left high school before graduating and went into the advertising business, joining MacLaren Advertising as a writer, where he worked together with Frank Peppiatt. His wife recalled that they "were total cutups at the agency" and were approached by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation based on their reputation to write sketches for the late night variety program '' After Hours''. At this point they officially became the comedy team of Peppiatt and Aylesworth. Peppiatt & Aylesworth were ...
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Don Harron
Donald Hugh Harron, (September 19, 1924 – January 17, 2015) was a Canadian comedian, actor, director, journalist, author, playwright, and composer. Harron is best remembered by American audiences as a member of the cast of the long-running country music series ''Hee Haw'', on which he played his signature character of Charlie Farquharson. Early life Harron's parents, Lionel William Harron and Delsia Adah Maud Hunter Harron, owned and operated Harron's Cleaners and Dryers in Toronto. Beginning at the age of ten, he earned extra money for the family during the Great Depression, doing "chalk talks" telling humorous stories while drawing caricatures in coloured chalk at company or club banquets, making $10 or $15 a talk. As a result of his performances, he was invited to audition for, and won, a part in the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission radio series ''Lonesome Trail'' in 1935. As a teenager, Harron spent time working as a farm hand in rural Ontario; experience he later ...
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Black-and-white Canadian Television Shows
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. However, there are exceptions to this rule, including black-and-white fine art photography, as well as many film motion pictures and art film(s). Early photographs in the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries were often developed in black and white, as an alternative to sepia due to limitations in film available at the time. Black and white was also prevalent in early television broadcasts, which were displayed by changing the intensity of monochrome phosphurs on the inside of the screen, before the introduction of colour from the 1950s onwards. Black and white continues to be used in certain sections of the modern arts field, either stylistically or to invoke the perception of a histo ...
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1953 Canadian Television Series Endings
Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia. ** The Central Intelligence Agency, CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the Unidentified flying object, UFO phenomenon. * January 15 ** Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying. ** British security forces in West Germany arrest 7 members of the Naumann Circle, a clandestine Neo-Nazi organization. * January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into ''I Love Lucy'', to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record is never broken. * January 24 ** Mau Mau Uprising: Rebels in Kenya kill th ...
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1952 Canadian Television Series Debuts
Year 195 ( CXCV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known in Rome as the Year of the Consulship of Scrapula and Clemens (or, less frequently, year 948 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 195 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus has the Roman Senate deify the previous emperor Commodus, in an attempt to gain favor with the family of Marcus Aurelius. * King Vologases V and other eastern princes support the claims of Pescennius Niger. The Roman province of Mesopotamia rises in revolt with Parthian support. Severus marches to Mesopotamia to battle the Parthians. * The Roman province of Syria is divided and the role of Antioch is diminished. The Romans annex the Syrian cities of Edessa and Nisibis. Severus re-establishes his headquarters and the colonies th ...
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The Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands division. The newspaper was established in 1892 as the ''Evening Star'' and was later renamed the ''Toronto Daily Star'' in 1900, under Joseph E. Atkinson. Atkinson was a major influence in shaping the editorial stance of the paper, with the paper reflecting his principles until his death in 1948. His son-in-law, Harry C. Hindmarsh, shared those principles as the paper's longtime managing editor while also helping to build circulation with sensational stories, bold headlines and dramatic photos. The paper was renamed the ''Toronto Star'' in 1971 and introduced a Sunday edition in 1977. History The ''Star'' was created in 1892 by striking '' Toronto News'' printers and writers, led by future mayor of Toronto and social reformer Horatio Clarence Hocken, who became the newsp ...
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The Ottawa Journal
The ''Ottawa Journal'' was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, from 1885 to 1980. It was founded in 1885 by A. Woodburn as the ''Ottawa Evening Journal''. Its first editor was John Wesley Dafoe who came from the ''Winnipeg Free Press''. In 1886, it was bought by Philip Dansken Ross. The paper began publishing a morning edition in 1917. In 1919, the paper's publishers bought the ''Ottawa Free Press'', whose former owner, E. Norman Smith, then became editor with Grattan O'Leary. In 1959, it was bought by F.P. Publications. By then, the ''Journal'', whose readers tended to come from rural areas, was trailing the ''Ottawa Citizen'', its main competitor. The paper encountered labour problems in the 1970s and never really recovered. In 1980, it was bought by Thomson Corporation, Thomson Newspapers and was closed on 27 August 1980. That left Southam Newspapers's ''Ottawa Citizen'' as the only major English-language newspaper in Ottawa (''Le Droit'' rem ...
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The Red Green Show
''The Red Green Show'' was a half-hour Canadian television television comedy, comedy series. It aired on various channels in Canada from April 4, 1991 until April 7, 2006. The show was created and entirely co-written by Canadian comedian Steve Smith (comedian), Steve Smith. Smith also played the title role of Red Green, a middle-aged handyman who runs a men's club in the fictional Ontario town of Possum Lake. Most segments feature sketch comedy where Red and the other characters directly relate a comedic story to a live studio audience, interspersed with comedic segments featuring Red and a variety of secondary characters. Recurring themes of the comedy include Smith's love of vintage cars and handyman projects, most of which involve duct tape. During its fifteen seasons, it aired across six different networks but its longest run was with its final network, CBC Television. The show has also aired in the United States on PBS. The cast of the show also appeared in a feature-length ...
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Hee Haw
''Hee Haw'' is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with the fictional rural "Kornfield Kounty" as the backdrop. It aired from 1969 to 1993, and on TNN from 1996 to 1997. Reruns of the series were broadcast on RFD-TV from September 2008 to April 2020, and aired on Circle. The ''Hee Haw'' reruns resumed in May 2024 on the RFD-TV / RuralTV network. The show was inspired by '' Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'', but centered on country music, rural rather than pop culture–inspired humor, and with far less topical material. Hosted by country music artists Buck Owens and Roy Clark for most of its run, the show was equally well known for its cornpone humor as for its voluptuous, scantily clad women (the "Hee Haw Honeys") in stereotypical farmer's daughter outfits. ''Hee Haw''s appeal, however, was not limited to a rural audience. It was successful in all of the major markets, including network-based Los Angeles and New York City, as well as Boston ...
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Alter Ego
An alter ego (Latin for "other I") means an alternate Self (psychology), self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original Personality psychology, personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a different personality. Additionally, the altered states of the ego may themselves be referred to as ''alterations''. A distinct meaning of ''alter ego'' is found in the Literary criticism, literary analysis used when referring to fictional literature and other narrative forms, describing a key Character (arts), character in a story who is perceived to be intentionally representative of the work's author (or creator), by oblique similarities, in terms of psychology, behavior speech, or thoughts, often used to convey the author's thoughts. The term is also sometimes, but less frequently, used to designate a Hypothesis, hypothetical "twin" or "best friend" to a character in a story. Similarly, the term ''alter ego'' may be a ...
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Front Page Challenge
''Front Page Challenge'' was a Canadian panel game about current events and history. Created by comedy writer/performer John Aylesworth (of the comedy team of Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth) and produced and aired by CBC Television, the series ran from 1957 to 1995. Synopsis The series featured notable journalists attempting to guess the recent or old news story with which a hidden guest challenger was linked by asking him or her questions, in much the same manner as the American quiz shows, '' What's My Line?'' and ''To Tell the Truth''. Each round of the game started with news footage that introduced the story in question to the studio audience and home viewers out of earshot of the panellists. After the guest was identified and/or the news story determined, the journalists then interviewed the guest about the story or about achievements or experiences for which he or she was known. Unlike American quiz shows that steered clear of controversy in the 1950s and 1960s, ''F ...
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