I am humbled. I can’t look directly at it anymore without screaming.
2 Replies to “He Watched, So Others Wouldn’t Have To”
When I was a kid growing up in Michigan I used to watch the children’s shows on the CBC. On the evidence of my experience and the links in the post, the high points of CBC broadcasting were “The Friendly Giant” and “Mr Dressup”.
I grew up in southern Ontario and could watch CBC and CBS. Captain Kangaroo was great – my favorite show. Friendly Giant and Mr Dressup sucked. Clearly, when you owe your living to government-appointed bureaucrats, there is no particular pressure to come up with compelling television.
I used to love CBC radio and would lap up everything they put on the air. My first inkling that something was wrong, was when I heard one of the ladies on As It Happens ragging on Stockwell Day about how, if he was a fundamentalist Christian, could he possibly manage the National Research Council in any kind of responsible way. The silly twit must have been thinking that the NRC goes around digging up dinosaurs, or writing Evolution textbooks or something. Stockwell asked her if she ever asked any other politician about their religious beliefs before. She hadn’t. I cursed at my radio and switched it off.
I’ve only listened to CBC radio twice since then. The first time, they were highlighting an “alternative” (that means government supported) artist, who took a recording of a G.W.Bush speech, snipped out and pasted together all the silent pauses, amplified the static and electronic hum, and called it art. CBC gravely reported, “she hears within the silences the ominous drumbeat of war …”
The second time, late at night CBC was replaying some shows from foreign state-owned broadcasters. They played a Russian state-owned news broadcast, that was the most unadulterated Soviet-style shite that I have ever heard. This was circa 2002 mind you. The first nine stories were all nasty and sarcastic criticisms of the U.S. government and everything it is doing – Kyoto, War on Terror, and so on. The tenth story was a human interest story, about how extremely kind and generous the Russians were, by helping American astronauts get to the Space Station, since they had so unfortunately blown up their space shuttle.
When I was a kid growing up in Michigan I used to watch the children’s shows on the CBC. On the evidence of my experience and the links in the post, the high points of CBC broadcasting were “The Friendly Giant” and “Mr Dressup”.
I grew up in southern Ontario and could watch CBC and CBS. Captain Kangaroo was great – my favorite show. Friendly Giant and Mr Dressup sucked. Clearly, when you owe your living to government-appointed bureaucrats, there is no particular pressure to come up with compelling television.
I used to love CBC radio and would lap up everything they put on the air. My first inkling that something was wrong, was when I heard one of the ladies on As It Happens ragging on Stockwell Day about how, if he was a fundamentalist Christian, could he possibly manage the National Research Council in any kind of responsible way. The silly twit must have been thinking that the NRC goes around digging up dinosaurs, or writing Evolution textbooks or something. Stockwell asked her if she ever asked any other politician about their religious beliefs before. She hadn’t. I cursed at my radio and switched it off.
I’ve only listened to CBC radio twice since then. The first time, they were highlighting an “alternative” (that means government supported) artist, who took a recording of a G.W.Bush speech, snipped out and pasted together all the silent pauses, amplified the static and electronic hum, and called it art. CBC gravely reported, “she hears within the silences the ominous drumbeat of war …”
The second time, late at night CBC was replaying some shows from foreign state-owned broadcasters. They played a Russian state-owned news broadcast, that was the most unadulterated Soviet-style shite that I have ever heard. This was circa 2002 mind you. The first nine stories were all nasty and sarcastic criticisms of the U.S. government and everything it is doing – Kyoto, War on Terror, and so on. The tenth story was a human interest story, about how extremely kind and generous the Russians were, by helping American astronauts get to the Space Station, since they had so unfortunately blown up their space shuttle.