Yay Blackhawks! And Farewell, CBC.

[Photo credit: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images]

Following the elimination (alas) of all our Canadian hockey teams from the Stanley Cup playoffs, My Rare One and I switched our allegiance to the Chicago Blackhawks because their Captain is that good Winnipeg boy, Jonathan Toews. And here he is hoisting the Stanley Cup which the Blackhawks won last night against the Tampa Bay Lightning! YAY!!!

In the midst of this celebration, however, there is one sad note, at least for me and I'm sure for many other Canadians "of a certain age." This will be the final hockey season and final Stanley Cup playoffs broadcast by the CBC. Starting next year, Rogers Communications owns the exclusive franchise and hockey will no longer appear on the CBC but on Rogers' own sports channels. Over the years, the Conservative government has eroded CBC's funding so badly that our public broadcaster could no longer afford to keep the broadcast rights. It's the passing of an era and I regret seeing the end of CBC's iconic role.

NHL hockey and the CBC have been synonymous in Canada since the 1950s. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of watching hockey on our grainy little black-and-white TV every Saturday night. Followed right after the game, of course, by the musical stylings of "your pet, Juliette" -- now that really dates me, LOL!

CBC Memories: The Forest Rangers

Hey, are you old enough to remember the iconic CBC children's adventure series, The Forest Rangers, which ran from 1963-65? What Canadian kid of that era could ever forget its jaunty opening theme music?



The series had a simple formula (as recapped on the show's fan website):

The Junior Forest Rangers live in a "Never-never land, unmarred by schools or parents, in which the only rules are the rules of conservation." Though the kids always manage to get involved in trouble, there is little violence involved, mainly just threats from wayward adults who put themselves in danger because they didn't heed the advice of the Chief Ranger. In the end, the wrong-doers are usually brought back to the Chief Ranger's (Department of Lands and Forests) office and scolded, but are rarely handed over to the law.

I remember watching this show avidly, cringe-worthy though I'm sure it would seem today. Some things are best left to the rose-coloured memories of childhood, LOL!

And yes, that's Gordon Pinsent as the RCMP officer. The Forest Rangers was his first role in a major TV series.

CBC Memories: Little Mosque on the Prairie

This is actually a "current CBC Memory" because Little Mosque on the Prairie is still being broadcast. This Canadian sit-com started airing in 2007 and is currently about to start its final year. The show concerns the lives and tribulations of a little Muslim community in the small fictional city of Mercy, Saskatchewan, where the Muslims rent space for their mosque in the parish hall of the local Anglican church.

Much like King of Kensington before it, the comedy of Little Mosque on the Prairie is a smidge corny, a wee bit earnest, gently satirical and full of understated Canadian humour. It too promotes the values of tolerance and multiculturalism through humour. But every once in awhile, the writers do pull off a real zinger!

In 2008, the Fox network in the U.S. planned to make an American version for south of the border. But while good-natured joking about Christians and Muslims is fine and accepted in Canada, it is apparently too hot to handle in the States. An American version of Little Mosque on the Prairie never made it to air.

CBC Memories: King of Kensington

In 1975, King of Kensington was one of CBC's first forays into sit-coms. The wonderful actor Al Waxman played Larry King, son of immigrant Jewish parents, who ran the family convenience store in Toronto's ethnically diverse Kensington neighbourhood. He lived above the shop with his WASP wife Cathy and his mother Gladys.

The comedy was a little corny, a little earnest, gently satirical and full of understated Canadian humour. The show reinforced the values of tolerance and multiculturalism which were then being actively promoted and developed in Canadian society. King of Kensington strove to be a direct contrast to All in the Family, its blue-collar American equivalent.

I enjoyed King of Kensington despite its shortcomings. I agreed with its values, then and now. And who can ever forget that iconic opening theme song?

(American readers may remember Al Waxman as Lt. Bert Samuels in Cagney & Lacey and as the archangel Judge Othniel in Twice in a Lifetime, before his untimely death in 2001).

CBC Memories: Hymn Sing

My straight-laced grandmother's other favourite CBC program was Hymn Sing, which was on every Sunday afternoon for 30 years. A Manitoba production, the Hymn Sing choir featured lots of wholesome, clean-cut singers from the Mennonite Bible Belt south of Winnipeg. No panty-showing on this program! The choir would sing beloved hymns and other sacred choral works while standing ramrod straight in decorative natural or indoor settings.

The only clip I could find of Hymn Sing is the 30-second promo at the very start of this video (the remaining promos are of other old CBC shows):



A popular part of the show was the "singalong" segment when the hymn's lyrics would scroll by at the bottom of the screen so people at home could join in. Sometimes my grandma and I did. Sometimes we didn't. But we would always belt out "The Old Rugged Cross" if it was the featured singalong because it was my Grandma's favourite hymn.

CBC Memories: Don Messer's Jubilee

When I was a kid, my family never missed an episode of CBC's weekly half-hour show Don Messer's Jubilee. We loved the old-timey music played by the great Maritime fiddler Don Messer and his band The Islanders. The show's cast of regulars included Marg Osburne and Charlie Chamberlain who always sang the show's opening theme, "Goin' to the Barndance Tonight."



The show also featured square dancing. My grandmother loved Don Messer's Jubilee too but was always very shocked whenever the female dancers' skirts and crinolines would twirl up to reveal their panties. "Oh, there's no need for that sort of thing," she would tsk tsk disapprovingly.

Only Hockey Night in Canada was more popular on TV. When the CBC cancelled Don Messer's Jubilee in 1969, there was a nationwide protest and angry questions in the House of Commons.

Don Messer was such a beloved musician in this country that his violin has become a national treasure. Years after his death, his daughter personally chose the next great Maritime fiddler to be given the violin to play -- like a sacred trust -- Frank Leahy.

CBC Memories: Intro

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, our publicly-funded national radio and TV broadcaster.

In the 1960s when I was a kid growing up in a one-horse prairie town in the middle of nowhere, the only TV channel we had was the CBC (in black and white, of course). The CBC was definitely the dominant cultural influence in my life until I was a teenager and a couple more TV channels finally became available to us.

I loved the CBC then and I love the CBC now. So to honour its 75th anniversary, I'm going to explore some of my favourite CBC memories in a series of posts. Canadian readers (especially "those of a certain age") will remember many of the same things too, I'm sure. And as for American and other readers -- well, here's your chance to learn about Canadian culture, LOL!

As usual, this series will appear periodically and randomly over an unknown length of time, i.e., whenever something occurs to me!