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Send us Fan Mail My guest this episode is an award-winning Canadian I've been looking to welcome since I started podcasting seven years ago – Jayne Eastwood.  Back when the fabled Toronto production of Godspell burst on the scene in 1972, it made stars of its incredible cast – including Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Victor Garber, Paul Shaffer, and Dave Thomas.  Eastwood, in the opinion of Godspell doc director Nick Davis, was the biggest star of them all at the time. ("You Had to Be There," still in cinemas, comes to CBC in December.) Her role in the 1970 Can-con classic "Goin' Down the Road" made an instant impact.  That and Godspell sparked an incredible career that continues to this day. Eastwood has clocked over 300 IMDB acting credits, including roles on just about any Canadian TV production you can name -- from King of Kensington to Sullivan’s Crossing; from Night Heat, Seeing Things, The Littlest Hobo and SCTV to voice work on Paw Patrol; from Check it Out, Noddy and Degrassi to scenes stolen on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Dawn of the Dead." All this and she was on the CHCH '70s series Party Game. And yes, you bet we talk about that.

Send us Fan Mail It was 65 years ago this fall that The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered on CBS. The half hour sitcom was not an instant hit, struggled in the ratings hammocked between Marshal Dillon and Bachelor Father and was canceled at the end of its first season. Executive producer Sheldon Leonard refused to give up on the series, created by Carl Reiner, and went to New York to shop for another sponsor. He found a cigarette company that absorbed the cost of half the series and made a second season possible.  A move to Wednesdays at 9:30 following the No. 1 hit The Beverly Hillbillies vaulted Van Dyke into the Top 10. After five years and 158 episodes -- and despite overtures from the network to continue -- the series ended its original run in 1966. On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, TV historian David Van Deusen celebrates the shows' 65th anniversary with a book and a documentary. This month, he's also posting a special episodes of his podcast, "Tripping over the Ottoman," featuring Larry Mathews (Ritchie Petrie). Join us as we go over some of our favourite episodes of the classic sitcom.

Send us Fan Mail Back in 1996 I wrote a TV Guide Canada cover story on a local actress then making a name for herself on North America’s No. 1 series – ER. Her name is Gloria Reuben, born in Toronto and raised in London, Ontario. When I reached her by phone in Los Angeles, she had to interrupt the call to accept a bottle of champagne sent from then NBC west coast president Don Ohlmeyer. He was congratulating Reuben and others in the cast – including George Clooney and Noah Wyle – for shattering yet another ratings record. Flash ahead three decades. Reuben stars as district attorney Mae Silver on the Blue Bloods spinoff Boston Blue. Donnie Wahlberg, Sonequa Martin-Green, and Ernie Hudson are part of the ensemble, just heading into its second season Friday nights on CBS and CTV. Reuben has packed in plenty in the intervening years, including as a backup singer for Tina Turner. You may have seen her in Spielberg’s "Lincoln," or on the series MR Robot, or recently on Elsbeth. We talk about how astonishing it is that her character on the series seems so her in real life, almost as if the character was written for her, which it wasn’t. It was great catching up, but the crazy thing is, it felt like we had kept in touch the whole time. Please welcome, the very present, Gloria Reuben.

Send us Fan Mail As a TV beat reporter with an eye on the ratings, I never could understand why the Global television network walked away from their top-rated Canadian original hit Private Eyes in 2021. This breezy, stylish detective series, reminiscent of past romantic hits such as Hart to Hart, was vaulting well over the million mark in viewers. Fans couldn’t get enough of stars Jason Priestley and Cindy Sampson’s snappy repartee. Well, now it is five years later and, backed by producers Shawn Piller and Lloyd Segan, detectives  Shade and Everett are back in Private Eyes: West Coast. Besides a change of scenery, the move to Victoria, British Columbia, has opened up a whole new casting pool of guest star talent.  It was great catching up with Priestley and Sampson and it was soon clear that rebooting this series was just like stepping back into a comfortable pair of gum shoes. The series premieres Sept. 30 on Global and StackTV and in the US on Oct. 5 on TheCW.

Send us Fan Mail Back in the ‘70s there was this hippie musical Godspell that ran for over a year in Toronto. The cast was mainly unknown at the time but wouldn’t stay that way for long. Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, Jayne Eastwood, Rudy Webb, and future Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer were all in on the act.  The story has been told bit by bit in other documentaries but never all in one place. Director Nick Davis has put it all together under a title that would never fit on a theatre marquee:  "You Had to be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community that Changed the World (in a Canadian Kind of Way)." It can be seen on the big screen starting Oct. 2 at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto plus later in October at the Hot Docs in Toronto.  Davis has previously written and directed a couple of terrific sports documentaries, including a 30 for 30 series on the 1986 New York Mets. I really enjoyed our conversation and hope you will as well.

Send us Fan Mail As George Harrison once said, all things must pass. Which brings us to the fifth and final season of Son of a Critch, the CBC sitcom based on the early life of Mark Critch (This Hour Has 22 Minutes). Last June as production wrapped I met with the four main castmates from the series -- Critch, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Claire Rankin and Malcolm McDowell -- at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto. There we shared a conversation about how the series ends with young Mark (Ainsworth) graduating from high school and into a very uncertain future, for himself as a budding performer, and for his home province of Newfoundland. Critch says it is the ending he always had in mind. Ainsworth talks about going from child star to young adult actor with a starring role as Link on The Legend of Zelda. McDowell, now 83, says he will miss the show as well as St. John's which became a second home for the veteran actor. Look for the final season to begin Tuesday, Sept. 8 on CBC and CBC Gem.

Send us Fan Mail This week on brioux.tv: the podcast, meet a former child star who continues to impress -- Kathy Garver, best known for playing oldest sibling Cissy on Family Affair. The series premiered on Sept. 12, 1966 -- 60 years ago next month. It ran for five seasons and 138 episodes and starred Brian Keith as Uncle Bill, a Manhattan bachelor.  With the help of his gentleman's gentleman Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot), he was suddenly tasked with raising three kids.  At 20 (though playing 15), Garver was already a showbiz veteran when the series began. She boasted credits in everything from Our Miss Brooks, The Millionaire, Father Knows Best and "The Ten Commandments." Unlike many former child stars, Garver never stopped working, pivoting to voice work in animated shows such as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang to a 2025 Grammy nomination for an audio recording. Then there are her books, including one out earlier this year, and several upcoming projects, and Garver enters her eighth decade a true showbiz survivor.

Send us Fan Mail For Part Two of my conversation with "Programming Insider" Marc Berman, we continue with the back half of the Critics Quiz. What was the scariest thing you ever saw on television? Do you think the era of the late night TV talk show is about done? What was your most memorable Television Critics Association press tour moment? Questions about those semi-annual network press gatherings dominate, including, "What show did you vote for in the annual TCA Awards as Program of the Year?" and, "Name your most unforgettable TCA character." All this and more from Berman and Brioux, part deux.

Send us Fan Mail If you are reading this, you probably already follow Marc Berman, a.k.a. "Mister Television." In 1997, while at Mediaweek, Marc created The Programming Insider, the daily, digital online destination for television and media. We've known each other since then through our affiliation with the Television Critics Association. We've both worked our way through platefuls of scrambled eggs at fancy Pasadena and Hollywood hotels in bi-annual trips to countless network press tours. Those live tour dates are no more but as readers at Inc. now know, Marc's passion for television remains. In this first of two parts, I ask Marc my "Super 16" TV critic questions, including, Who was the first star you ever interviewed? Who surprised you as the biggest jerk? Who would you choose: Ginger or Mary Anne? And the telling opener: was there a TV series that made you want to become a TV critic? Marc gives a moving response to that and many other questions. This is a nostalgic, heartfelt episode from two dudes who were brought up right -- in front of the TV set.

Send us Fan Mail  Back in 2008, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Lassally, then winding up his extraordinary career in late night as executive producer of The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. For close to an hour, at his office deep within CBS Television City, Lassally regaled me with stories about Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Ferguson and many others. In listening back to the conversation — for the first time in 18 years — I’m struck not just by his professionalism but also by how generous and candid he was on that day. He truly had Carson’s gift for making the guest look good and feel at home. Lassally blew my mind when I asked if there was a common thread to Carson, Letterman and Ferguson. The soft spoken TV executive did not hesitate with his answer. “They have one thread — they all have mothers that didn’t give them enough love.” Left unspoken was the fact that, in Lassally, they also all had one hell of a father figure.  I've edited down this interview to share some of the wisdom received on that day. Condolences to his family and friends and to all who value such a first hand connection to late night broadcasting and its roots.  SUGGESTION: the sound quality for this episode, where a simple digital recorder was used, is sub-standard. Lassally was very soft spoken, so you'll need to crank  up the volume.

Send us Fan Mail In 2022 I had the good fortune to welcome Ronnie Schell as a guest on this podcast. Schell was a familiar face and voice on TV for decades, most prominently as Jim Nabors' army pal on Gomer Pyle, USMC. He was also the voice of Hockey Night in Canada's animated mascot Peter Puck, did many Disney movies and cartoon voice-overs. Early on, he even snuck in an appearance on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. Schell was 94 when he died last month, just 10 days before Joby Baker passed away at 92. The two starred as New York disc jockeys in a series from the folks behind The Dick Van Dyke Show titled Good Morning World. Wish I had spoken to Baker, who quit TV cold at 50 and built a reputation at galleries in California as a painter and sculpter. Listen as Schell, a spry 90 at the time, reminisces about that series and name drops a ton of other TV stars he worked with as TV went from black and white to colour.

Send us Fan Mail In Part II of this two-part conversation, retired Globe and Mail TV columnist John Doyle returns to talk a little bit more about soccer but mostly about our shared fascination with television.  The two of us tackle several of today's biggest TV challenges. For example: are late night talk shows going the way of the western? Does Crave sensation Heated Rivalry live up to the hype? Is funding at a crossroads in Canada? And because he simply can't help himself, Doyle also manages to put the world soccer body FIFA in context. And folks said it couldn't be done! While the World Cup rages on (without Canada, knocked out on Saturday by Morocco), continue reading Doyle's expert take on the beautiful game in the pages of The Toronto Star. For his take on TV today, hear him now on brioux.tv: the podcast.

Send us Fan Mail Can it be? Is that our John Doyle making sense of The World Cup in The Toronto Star? The former TV columnist at The Globe and Mail has come out of retirement to help explain why we are all suddenly mad for soccer as Canada continues to kick its way into contention.  This isn't the first time John has turned into a sports scribe. He has reported on three other World Cups as a journalist. Hey, he's not just another pretty face TV pundit. He wrote the 2010 bestseller "The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer." He knows this beautiful game. Listen in as we kick the subject around. Then come back next week as we head into extra time. In Part II of our conversation we talk mainly TV, including a look at the best and worst of what we're both watching this summer.

Send us Fan Mail Yes, TV is Good. ABC declared it back in the '90s in their press materials. Now Alan Sepinwall has used the slogan as the name of his new podcast, where he is paired with fellow critic Kathryn VanArendonk. I first met Alan back when that slogan was coined at the Television Critics Association's semi-annual network press tours. He wasted no time establishing himself in what was a competitive room as one of North America's leading voices of TV criticism. At first at the New Jersey Star-Ledger and later as Rolling Stone's TV critic, Alan stood out for his insightful, episode-by-episode essays detailing landmark shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men, among many others. He'd write these short story-length breakdowns minutes after each show aired. To me it was like some sort of voodoo magic trick! Alan has written several books about television. His latest, available now for pre-order, is "Serling: a Journey into The Twilight Zone with TV's First Visionary." He can always be read at his entertaining blog, "What's Alan Watching." The two of us talk press tours past and future, including Alan's recent trip to Austin, Texas, to attend, with several other TCA critics, the ATX television festival. Plus we land on one 2025-26 series we both think could emerge as program of the year later this summer when the TCA Awards are announced.

Send us Fan Mail There has been a lot of talk lately that talk shows, as we know them, are too expensive to last. The big band, the studio audience, the nightly monologue -- they all cost money. Well, Tom Green thinks he has the answer. He's growing the talk show of the future now on 150 acres in Ontario on The Tom Green Farm (now streaming on Crave). What about the guests you ask? Green has managed to persuade a whole barnload of friends to come up and visit. They include Dan Aykroyd, Amber Marshall, Jason Blaine, Paul Bissonnette, Jay Baruchel, Michael Cera, DeadMau5, Jon Dore, Erica Ehm, Tony Hawk, Kurt Vile, Chantal Kreviazuk, The Tragically Hip’s Paul Langlois, Steven Page, Priyanka, Jessie Reyez, Kevin Staab, George Stroumboulopoulos, and more.  Plus there is his mule (16 and 1/2 hands high!), the chickens, his mom Mary Jane (now a co-producer) and an incredible vert ramp he had built for Tony Hawk on a farm field. This is Green acres, Canadian farm style. See it on Crave.