Entertainment
 

You Can't Do That On Television

From Nickelodeon

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 primarly 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. The intro was heavily based on the animation styles of Monty Python.

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. At its inception it was a low-budget, local comedy program that included phone-in competitions through which the viewer could win prizes. This portion of the program was broadcast live, although the majority of each episode was pre-taped. The format also included music videos, usually three per episode. The only adult actor on the show was veteran comedy actor Les Lye.

[edit] National television

After a successful first season, a national network version of the program titled Whatever Turns You On was produced. 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 bands at the time, including Trooper and Max Webster. Ruth Buzzi of Laugh-In joined the cast as an additional adult performer. Perhaps due to its Tuesday night timeslot, it suffered from poor ratings and was canceled after one season.

[edit] Nickelodeon

In 1981, the new youth-oriented United States cable network, Nickelodeon, took an interest in YCDTOTV, which was still being produced and broadcast locally by CJOH. 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. In late 1981 Nickelodeon began airing the editied season and YCDTOTV quickly became their highest rated show. Over the next few years, the ratings gradually declined in Canada, 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, who was probably the most well-known cast member, had departed the previous year. Only five episodes were filmed in this season.

Price moved to France in 1988. CJOH decided not to make new episodes without him and production was suspended.

The program resumed production in 1989, but the only child cast member to make the transition from 1987 to 1989 was Amyas Godfrey, and thus fans often refer to the 1989 and 1990 season as "new episodes".

Production ceased at the end of the 1990 season. Nickelodeon continued to air reruns until January of 1994, at which point it was only being aired on weekends.

[edit] In the future

As of 2007, CJOH had no plans to release re-runs of YCDTOTV nor are there any plans to produce new episodes.

[edit] Notable episodes

[edit] Adoption

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 and Lance adopt Doug because it was cheaper than buying a dog.

[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 2004 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] Reunion episode

In July of 2004, a reunion episode called Project 131 was produced at CJOH 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] Trademarks

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

[edit] Opposites

Each episode had an "opposites" segment, introduced by a visual effect of the screen rotating 360 degrees. When this happened, the cast would say, "It must be just the introduction to the opposites," and several sketches would follow in which the normal principles of daily life were reversed, often with children having authority over adults.

[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.

[edit] Water and Slime

Certain key words would result in cast members having substances poured on them from off-camera. When someone said "water," a large amount of water would mysteriously cascade onto them from above. Likewise, when someone said "I don't know," green slime would pour on them from above. This was known as being "slimed." Nickelodeon quickly adopted "slime" as a feature in several shows it produced, and used it heavily in its marketing. In one episode in which the studio has been taken over by Communists, uttering the word "freedom" would send a cascade of red slime pouring over whoever said it.

[edit] Cast

File:86ycdtotvcast.jpg
The cast for YCDTOTV in 1986
Top row: Adam Reid, Les Lye, Alasdair Gillis
Middle row: Matt Godfrey, Doug Ptolemy, Amyas Godfrey, Vanessa Lindores, Alanis Morissette
Bottom row: Stephanie Chow, Andrea Byrne

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

Alanis Morissette, a cast member in five episodes of the 1986 season, later became a highly successful musician.

[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 school teacher 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] See also

[edit] External links

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