You Can't Do That on Television

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You Can't Do That on Television

YCDTOTV's official logo, as seen on the show's opening sequence.
Genre Variety show
Running time 30 minutes per episode
Creator(s) Roger Price
Starring Les Lye and others
Country of origin Flag of Canada Canada
Original channel CTV (Canada)
Nickelodeon (USA)
YTV (Canada)
Original run 1979–1990
No. of episodes 143

You Can't Do That on Television (YCDTOTV) was a Canadian children's television program, created by Roger Price and produced from 1979 until 1990, with a reunion episode in 2004. It primarily featured child actors in a sketch comedy format, acting out short scenes based on a theme that served as the topic for the episode. Connecting scenes based on the theme would often serve to create a story arc that lasted the length of the episode. Nickelodeon became known for its iconic green slime that was originally used in this show.

In 2002, and again in 2004, YCDTOTV cast members reunited alongside fans of the show at SlimeCon, a fan-produced convention in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. YCDTOTV was a children's comedy show, but for those in their 20's and 30's, it's identified now as nostalgic cult classic.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Local television

You Can't Do That on Television debuted on February 3, 1979 on CJOH-TV, a CTV affiliate in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (It was to have premiered one week earlier, but the link set was not yet ready.) At its inception it was a low-budget, local comedy program that included phone-in competitions through which the viewer could win prizes (transistor radios, record albums, clothes, model kits, and the like). This portion of the program was broadcast live, although the majority of each episode was pre-taped. The format also included performances by local disco dancers, special guests such as Ottawa-based cartoonist Jim Unger, and music videos, usually three per episode. Every week the show took its "Roving Camera" to kid hangouts around town and captured footage of kids telling jokes or complaining about the unfairness of life, which would be played on the following week's episode. The disco dance segments were emceed by Jim Johnson, a DJ on Ottawa's leading pop music radio station, CFGO (which at the time was co-owned with CJOH). Also, after a music video aired, Johnson would tell the viewers some interesting facts about the artist featured in the video.

The only adult actor on the show was veteran comedy actor Les Lye (Abby Hagyard, who played Mom and the librarian, did not join the cast until 1982), though occasionally the older children in the cast would play adult roles. The show's trademark green slime was also introduced this season, as was the practice of using the phrase "I don't know" as a trigger for the slime. The show was meant to offer a fun, Canadian-made program for children on Saturday mornings that made no attempt to be educational. It worked. CJOH had a hit on its hands, and the show became a formidable competitor for American shows in the same time slot. Only three full episodes from this season are still in existence, due to home video recordings being made the day the episodes were broadcast. These episodes are extremely rare and considered collector's items with YCDTOTV fans, since the studio masters no longer exist.

[edit] National television in Canada

After a successful first season, a national network version of the program titled Whatever Turns You On was produced for CTV and debuted in September 1979 (having already aired an hour-long pilot episode in May). The format was shortened from an hour to a half-hour, removed the local content, added a laugh track, and replaced the music videos with live performances from popular Canadian artists at the time, including Trooper, Max Webster, Ian Thomas and disco singer Alma Faye Brooks. Ruth Buzzi of Laugh-In joined the cast as an additional adult performer alongside Les Lye. The cast of twenty-two children from the first season was whittled down to just seven: Christine "Moose" McGlade, Lisa Ruddy, Jonothan Gebert, Kevin Somers, Kevin Schenk, Rodney Helal, and Marc Baillon (another first season cast member, Elizabeth Mitchell, appeared in the pilot episode only). Perhaps due to its Tuesday night timeslot, it suffered from poor ratings and was cancelled after one season.

[edit] Nickelodeon

In 1981, the new youth-oriented American cable network, Nickelodeon, took an interest in YCDTOTV, which was still being produced and broadcast locally by CJOH. (The format of the 1981 local episodes on CJOH was similar to that of the inaugural 1979 season, except that each show had a special topic to be dealt with and the disco dancers had been replaced by video game competitions. A few of the original uncut hour-long episodes from this season also do exist thanks to home video recordings made on the day of the broadcasts.) Price and director Geoffrey Darby had edited the entire 1981 season of episodes into a half-hour format similar to Whatever Turns You On for national and international syndication. Toward the beginning of 1982, Nickelodeon began airing the edited season and YCDTOTV quickly became their highest rated show. Although at the time the 1981 season on CJOH ended in May of that year, it had been up in the air whether the show would continue, the 1981 edits proved so popular on Nickelodeon that the show did resume production in 1982, with all episodes from that point onward made in the half-hour all-comedy format. Also in 1982, Nickelodeon and CJOH became production partners on YCDTOTV. Over the next few years, the ratings gradually declined in Canada (by 1985, it was seen only once a week in a Saturday-morning time slot on CTV), but YCDTOTV continued to go strong on Nickelodeon, where it aired five times a week.

By 1987, many of the "veteran" cast members such as Matt Godfrey, Doug Ptolemy, Vanessa Lindores, and Adam Reid had grown too old for the show. Christine McGlade ("Moose"), who was probably the most well-known cast member and the show's longtime hostess, had departed the previous year, as had teen heartthrob Alasdair Gillis (who had been promoted to co-host with Moose in 1985); Lisa Ruddy ("Motormouth"), Moose's longtime sidekick, was also long gone, having left at the end of the 1985 season. Only five episodes were filmed in this season, and one of those (Adoption) proved so controversial that it was banned after a single airing (though some sources state it aired twice, despite a "DO NOT AIR" sticker on the master tape at CJOH).

Also by this time, Nickelodeon had removed the half-hour edits of the 1981 episodes from its rotation, along with the 1982 "Cosmetics" episode. Reportedly this was because Nickelodeon's five-year contract to air the 1981 season expired in 1986, and since Nickelodeon was beginning to aim for a younger demographic and many of the 1981 episodes dealt with topics more relevant to adolescents (such as smoking, drugs, sexual equality, and peer pressure), the network opted not to renew the contract. Apparently, Nickelodeon removed the "Cosmetics" episode from rotation for the latter reason as well (although the "Addictions" episode from that same season was not dropped). The 1981 episodes were aired for the last time during a week-long promotion called "Oldies But Moldies," which featured contests where viewers could win goodies like chocolate syrup.

Price moved to France in 1988. CJOH decided not to make new episodes without him and production was suspended. When Price returned to Canada, he wanted to resume production on the show from Toronto, but was convinced to return to Ottawa and CJOH.

The program resumed production in 1989, but the only child cast members to make the transition from 1987 to 1989 were Amyas Godfrey and Andrea Byrne (although a few minor cast members seen in 1986, including Rekha Shah and James Tung, returned for an episode or two, and Vanessa Lindores was brought back to host the "Age" episode). The new cast of kids included new host Chris Bickford (whose trademark was the leather jacket he always wore), Christian Tessier, Ted Wilson, Jennifer Brackenbury, Carlos Braithwaite, Sariya Sharp, Stephanie Bauder, Patrick Mills, and sisters Jill and Amy Stanley.

Due largely to falling ratings and also to Nickelodeon's desire to make more of its own shows at its new theme park in Orlando, Florida, production ceased at the end of the 1990 season, which, like 1987, lasted for only five episodes. Nickelodeon continued to air reruns until January of 1994, at which point it was only being aired on weekends.

[edit] Reunion

In July of 2004, a reunion special called Project 131 was produced at CJOH-TV starring five members of the original cast. These included Vanessa Lindores, Brodie Osome, Marjorie Silcoff, Justin Cammy, and Alasdair Gillis. Directed by David Dillehunt and executive produced by Josh Yawn, this was the final production ever made in Studio D, the same studio where the show had been produced fourteen years prior.

[edit] Future

As of 2005, CJOH had no plans to release re-runs of YCDTOTV nor are there any plans to produce new episodes. In 2006, rumours began floating that Nickelodeon would release DVDs of the series as part of its "Rewind" series of DVD releases of shows from its past. However, in early February 2006, ycdtotv.com reported that because of changes in the hierarchy of Viacom, there would be no DVD release in the immediate future. Although fans still hold out hope that the series will one day be released commercially, there are still a number of websites - including ycdtotv.com and barthsburgery.com - that offer full episodes for download.

[edit] You STILL Can't Do That on Television!

During late 2005, a group of fans of YCDTOTV worked on a fan-made animated version called You Still Can't Do That On Television or simply You Still Can't (YSC) as a tribute to YCDTOTV. The character designs are in a Japanese anime style, somewhat reminiscent of Sailor Moon, and the show's theme song is an updated, dance-flavoured remix of the original YCDTOTV theme (which was a Dixieland jazz-style rendition of Rossini's William Tell Overture), composed by Josh Yawn.

[edit] Notable episodes

[edit] Adoption and Divorce

The 1987 season included the episode Adoption that was banned after only one accidental airing on Nickelodeon. Among the content that led to the banning is a scene where Valerie (Abby Hagyard) and Lance (Les Lye) adopt Doug because it was cheaper than buying a dog. In another sketch, Lance adopts Adam Reid only to serve as a hired hand to do chores around the house. When Adam finishes the chores, Lance calls the adoption agency to send Adam back, and is furious when he is told that "adoption is for life." Although Adam and Vanessa Lindores gave a disclaimer in the episode's opening link explaining that the show was all in fun and not to be taken seriously, Nickelodeon was deluged with complaints from adopted viewers.

Similarly, it has been reported that Canada's YTV banned the Divorce episode from the 1984 season when it began showing YCDTOTV in 1988. Curiously, Divorce was not banned in the United States.

[edit] Technology

"Technology" (1984) was the first and only "interactive" episode. As Christine McGlade explained during the show's introduction, this episode would provide an opportunity for the show to test some new technology that would allow viewers to influence the outcome of a scene. During the course of the show, whenever the characters disagreed on something, they would "let the viewers decide". Red and green squares would appear on the screen, and viewers would be asked to touch green for a "yes" vote, and red for a "no" vote. Afterwards, the "correct" action would be taken.

Some examples from this episode include whether or not to execute Luke McKeehan (yes), slime Vanessa Lindores in a dungeon scene (yes), and let Lisa Ruddy lose her voice and be unable to talk (yes). The viewers did "vote" to restore Lisa's voice, but only to introduce the opposite sketches, and the viewers "voted" for Lisa to lose her voice again once the opposites were over.

The next example involved going to a commercial. Lisa was to introduce the commercials, but couldn't because she was still unable to speak, and Lisa informed Christine (via writing notes, which was the only way she was able to communicate) that if there were no commercials, no one would get paid. This was all the prompting Christine needed to initiate the vote, but the vote failed to pass twice, thus forcing Christine to resort to "bribing", including promising that Vanessa would get watered (of course, Christine got watered herself while explaining this) and Eugene Contreras would have "something really bad" happen to him if the vote went through. It worked: Vanessa was drenched, and the "really bad" thing turned out to be a pie in the face for Eugene. And of course, Lisa was able to talk again, and she chirped, "And now it's time for a commercial."

One final vote at the end of the episode involved letting the viewers vote on whether the show would be allowed to end. Surprisingly, the viewers "voted" for the show not to end - which convinced Ross that the technological gizmo was broken.

[edit] Anniversary airings

During Nickelodeon's 20th Anniversary, CJOH allowed the network to rerun three episodes of YCDTOTV. On June 26, 1999, the Music and Enemies and Paranoia episodes from 1986 aired, and on June 27, 1999, the Parties episode aired. Nickelodeon chose to feature only episodes that featured now-famous Alanis Morissette because of their "Nickelodeon Knew Them Before They Were Stars" theme. In 2005 for Nickelodeon's Old Skool Pick 1 episode was picked to air and another episode was picked but 15 minutes in to the show YCDTOTV went to a commercial but when it came back ChalkZone began airing.

[edit] Trademarks

Episodes of YCDTOTV included recurring gimmicks and gags. The following is a partial list.

[edit] Openings

The show opened with an announcement that a previously scheduled program had been pre-empted in order to show YCDTOTV, along with an image (usually a drawing) from the fictional program. These preempts began with the 1981 season and were a fixture of the show until the very end. Preempted programming included:

There was also a tagline, usually a disparaging pun related to the show's theme. One YCDTOTV episode supposedly preempted The Six Wives of Henry VIII; "In its place," said the announcer, "we present another show you can lose your head over."

YCDTOTV itself was pre-empted for the 1982 Television episode, "so that we may bring you the following program about television," said the announcer.

After the end credits rolled, another graphic showing some fictitious production company with the announcer stating "YCDTOTV is a [pun related to episode] Production." The camera then cut to the announcer (Les Lye) making some disparaging remark about the show to someone off-camera, then becoming embarrassed upon discovering he was on camera. This announcer spot was a direct reference to Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In's announcer Gary Owens, as both were shown standing, hand cupped to ear, in front of a microphone in a small studio room with a clock and lighted "On Air" sign.

[edit] Opening animation: The Children's Television Sausage Factory

Disney Other Title Opening
Enlarge
Disney Other Title Opening

Created by opening animator Barry Blair who was inspired by Terry Gilliam's "gilliamations", the opening animation sequence was a sequence of surreal images set to the wacky music of Rossini's William Tell Overture, performed in a Dixieland jazz arrangement by The National Press Club and Allied Workers Jazz Band Ink.; However, though the theme music stayed the same throughout the entire series run, the opening animation itself changed.

  • The Canadian Parliament Building was used in the first season and in the original hour-long versions of the 1981 season episodes. In this animation sequence, a hand from offscreen ignites the Parliament building with a match and it takes off like a rocket. The start of the animation features a likeness of 1979 cast member David Halpin.
  • There are two versions of the "Children's Television Sausage Factory" animation. In this sequence, children are "processed" in the "sausage factory" and deposited onto a school bus which transports them to the TV studio (a likeness of the CJOH studios on Merivale Road in Nepean, Ontario). The first version was created for the half-hour, internationally syndicated versions of the 1981 episodes. The second version, which featured larger images and cleaner (albeit less fluid) animation than the first, was introduced in the 1982 season and used for both the U.S. and Canadian broadcasts of the show until the end in 1990.
  • Both versions of the "Children's Television Sausage Factory" animation feature likenesses of Jonothan Gebert, Kevin Somers, Marc Baillon and Christine McGlade exiting the school bus, as well as a likeness of Les Lye as the security guard at the door of the TV studio. This footage was re-used from the opening sequence of 1979's short-lived Whatever Turns You On.

[edit] Opposites

Each episode had an "opposites" segment, introduced by a visual effect of the screen flipping upside down, shifting left to fade to the next sketch, and then righting itself. Right before this happened, one of the cast would generally be giving a monologue (or several would be having a group conversation) that was interrupted by another cast member with something that would (generally) be opposite what the monologue (or dialogue) was about, all present cast would say, "It must be the introduction to the opposites," and then the inversion fade would happen; several sketches would follow that were a tongue-in-cheek reversal of the show's subject of the day, and also in which the normal principles of daily life were reversed, often with children having authority over adults. A show on marketing, for instance, would then have a sketch or four of how not to market something.

A return to the show's daily subject was hallmarked by another of these inversion fades.

Opposite sketches were used in the inaugural season of the show on CJOH in 1979, but it was not until Whatever Turns You On that they became an integral part of the show.

[edit] Locker room

During the "locker room" segment, cast members, residing in gym lockers, would tell jokes to each other. The person telling the joke would open their locker, sticking their head out to call another cast member to tell the joke to. For the duration of the joke, those cast members would be the only ones seen with open lockers. When the punchline was delivered, there would be a laugh track and the actors would close their lockers, allowing the process to start again with different people and a different joke. This was almost certainly an homage to the "joke wall" segment on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. This feature of the show was also introduced during its first season in 1979 and continued until the end of the series, with the lockers undergoing a few physical makeovers during the show's early years.

[edit] Water, slime and pies

Certain key words would result in cast members having substances poured on them from off-camera. When someone said "water" or "wet," a large amount of water would mysteriously cascade onto them from above. In the early years of the show, cast members (especially Christine) were frequently nailed with pails of water physically thrown on them, but starting in 1981, this began to change to the much more mysterious motif of water falling down on the victim from above. By the 1984 season, the word "wet" no longer triggered the water, leaving the job to the word "water" itself. This, too, was an homage to Laugh-In.

Likewise, when someone said "I don't know," green slime would pour on them from above. This was known as being "slimed." (The first episode in which "I don't know" was used as a trigger phrase for the green slime was one of the local episodes seen only on CJOH, broadcast on March 17, 1979 - fittingly, St. Patrick's Day. In some early episodes an actor might say "I don't know" as part of the scripted dialogue with no repercussion.) Nickelodeon quickly adopted "slime" as a feature in several shows it produced, and used it heavily in its marketing. Other colours of slime were occasionally used on the show, as in the following instances:

  • Christine McGlade is slimed in blue in the ending link to the 1982 "Justice and Injustice" episode, because, as Ross (Les Lye) tells her, they ran out of green slime.
  • Christine is slimed in green, red, blue, yellow and "stripes" (all four colours at once) in rapid succession in the 1982 "Television" episode, while trying to explain about green slime to then-newcomer Vanessa Lindores. This sketch was later seen in the opening to the hit 1987 film Fatal Attraction.
  • In the 1982 episode "Cosmetics," Lisa Ruddy is slimed with "mud" (like brown slime) for saying "I don't know."
  • Kevin Schenk and Kevin Somers were both hit with white slime in the 1981 "Safety" episode, as part of a recurring series of gags in this episode about "wearing white at night." In this same episode, Christine McGlade was drenched with whitewash.
  • In the 1983 "Media" episode, Lisa Ruddy is slimed with the "new and improved, whiter-than-white" white slime.
  • In the "Enemies and Paranoia" episode from the 1986 season, the studio is taken over by Russian Communists. Uttering the word "free" (as in "freedom") would send a cascade of red slime pouring over whoever said it.
  • The 1989 "Time" episode, which was filmed largely in black and white, featured Chris Bickford doused in white slime and Christian Tessier slimed with black slime.
  • In the 1989 episode "Losing Things", Ted Wilson and Amyas Godfrey are dumped with black slime because they lost the formula for green slime.

Several different recipes of slime were used during the series' decade-long run, some resulting in thin, watery slime and others in thick, chunky slime. Reportedly, the first slime recipe—which contained, among other things, sausage and a plethora of other nasty ingredients—was scrapped after it actually made one kid sick after he was slimed. For several years afterwards, the slime was a mixture of lime green gelatin powder and flour; eventually, oatmeal was added to the recipe, as was baby shampoo so that it would wash out of the actors' hair more easily. Especially in the later years of the show, cast members who were slimed frequently looked upward into the slime as it was falling so that it covered their faces (the same was also true of the waterings).

To avoid damage to the set from water or slime, a clear tarpaulin was placed over the main portion of the set for scenes in which an actor was to be hit with either. The tarpaulin can occasionally be seen and/or heard underneath the actors in these scenes, and in fact the loud splatter sound usually heard during a watering or sliming is due to this tarpaulin.

The classic slapstick pie-in-the-face gag was also frequently used on YCDTOTV, although pie scenes were most common during the early years of the show. In fact, one whole episode, 1981's Drugs, was constructed around the pie-in-the-face concept: to avoid the wrath of the censors, the episode showed the cast getting "high" by pieing themselves, comparing the stupidity of hitting oneself with a pie to the stupidity of taking drugs (an example of how the show could educate young viewers without being preachy or overly didactic). For several years, pies took a back seat to the green slime, although they seemed to make a comeback on YCD TOTV in the 1989 season (particularly in the aforementioned Time episode, in which the children got into a massive silent-film-style pie fight at the end of the show).

[edit] Firing squad

Most episodes included one or more firing squad sketches, where Les would play the part of a Latin American military officer preparing to order a firing squad to execute one of the children actors, who were standing in front of a post. The kids would usually find a way to trick him into walking in front of the post and saying the word "fire", thus getting shot by the firing squad himself.

Every scene had the same basic format.

Captian- "Ready, aim..."

Cast Member- "Wait a minute, stop the execution!"

Captian- "What is it this time?"

The cast member would then get some attempt to stall or stop the execution. Most of the time, the cast member would be successful, however, occasionally, Lye's character would "successfully" complete the screen. On these occasions, the scene would end with "Ready, Aimm..." and the cast member flinching.

[edit] Cast

Lisa Ruddy on the 1981 "Smoking" episode of You Can't Do That on Television
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Lisa Ruddy on the 1981 "Smoking" episode of You Can't Do That on Television

Over 100 actors appeared on YCDTOTV between 1979 and 1990. The following is an abbreviated list. It includes actors appearing in 10 or more episodes.

  • Randi Akiwenzie 1981
  • Kevin Akyeampong 1984
  • Jordan Arron 1989
  • Marc Baillon 1979
  • Stephanie Bauder 1989–1990
  • Nick Belcourt 1989
  • Chris Bickford 1989–1990
  • Wyatt Boyd 1984
  • Jennifer Brackenbury 1989–1990
  • Carlos Braithwaite 1989–1990
  • Charlie Brien 1982
  • Andrew Burke 1984
  • Jami Burning 1981
  • Justin Cammy 1983–1985
  • Alasdair Gillis 1982–1986
  • Amyas Godfrey 1986–1989
  • Matthew Godfrey 1986–1987
  • Abby Hagyard 1982–1990
  • Kevin Kubusheskie 1981–1984
  • Vanessa Lindores 1982–1987
  • Les Lye 1979–1990
Christine McGlade in the 1982 "Fads" Episode of You Can't Do That On Television
Enlarge
Christine McGlade in the 1982 "Fads" Episode of You Can't Do That On Television
  • Christine McGlade 1979–1986
  • Brodie Osome 1981–1983
  • Doug Ptolemy 1982–1987
  • Adam Reid 1984–1987
  • Lisa Ruddy 1979–1985
  • Kevin Schenk 1979–1981
  • Sariya Sharp 1989–1990
  • Amy Stanley 1989–1990
  • Jill Stanley 1989–1990
  • Christian Tessier 1989–1990
  • Ted Wilson 1989–1990
  • Bradfield Wiltse 1979

Alanis Morissette, a cast member in five episodes of the 1986 season, later became a highly successful musician. Klea Scott, a cast member from 1982 to 1984, later starred in the prime-time television dramas Brooklyn South and Millennium.

[edit] Cast comments

Cast member Justin Cammy, now a professor, described the show like this:

You Can't Do That on Television was the first post-modern children's program of my generation. It subverted all recognizable forms and deconstructed the pre-teen's understanding of such important institutions as the family, the school and the video arcade. When the schoolteacher did not know any better than to call Milton's masterpiece "Pair of Dice Lost," the program functioned as an ideological clarion call to future college students like you who would go on to demand the displacement of an ossified Western canon with more relevant investigations of low culture."

[edit] References in other media

  • Robot Chicken featured a tribute segment called "You Can't Do That On Robot Chicken". Featured were a series of locker jokes, a scene in Nasti's dungeon, Barth's burgery, and a re-creation of the link set, in which Seth Green slimes the head of Adult Swim, who promptly cancels the show. The second season premiere of the series found the head of Adult Swim get revenge and slime Seth, before cheerfully announcing, "you're renewed."
  • In the Strong Bad Email 12:00, a tape that pops out of the VCR has the label "YCDTOTV (season 2)".
  • The Episode of Family Guy entitled Fast Times at Buddy Cianci, Jr. High features Peter Griffin being slimed after saying "I don't know!" during a class session. A redrawn YCDTOTV classic logo then appears on screen.

[edit] Trivia

  • Although specifically Canadian references were largely toned down or eliminated in later seasons of the show (due to the increasingly heavy focus on catering to the U.S. TV market), it is notable that Les Lye, in the frequent "schoolroom" sketches, was always seen to wear a small Canadian flag pin on his lapel.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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