You Can't Do That on Television
Encyclopedia
You Can't Do That on Television is a Canadian
television program
that first aired locally in 1979
before ultimately airing internationally in 1981
. It primarily featured pre-teen and teenaged actors in a sketch comedy
format in which they acted out skits based on a theme for that episode.
After production ended in 1990
, the show continued in reruns on Nickelodeon
through 1994
.
in Ottawa
as a low-budget variety program with some segments performed live. The show consisted of comedy skits, music video
s (usually three per episode) and live phone-in contests in which the viewer could win a variety of prizes (transistor radio
s, record albums, model kits, etc.). The format also included performances by local disco
dancers and special guests such as Ottawa-based cartoonist Jim Unger
. Every week the show took its "Roving Camera" to hangouts around town, recording kids' jokes or complaints about life, which would be played on the following week's broadcast. The show's 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 interesting facts about the artist featured in the video.
Veteran comedy actor Les Lye
played numerous recurring characters and was initially the only adult to perform in the show's sketches, although actress Abby Hagyard
later joined the show to become "the other grown-up" in the cast roster, and frequently played "Mom" opposite Lye's role as "Dad." Occasionally the older children in the cast (such as Christine McGlade
or Cyndi Kennedy) played adult characters.
The show's trademark green slime dousing prank was introduced in 1979, as was the practice of using the phrase "I don't know" as a trigger for the prank.
The show was meant to offer a program for children on Saturday mornings. It made no attempt to be an educational program
. The idea was successful. Only three full episodes from the first season are known to exist; the studio masters no longer exist. However, the episodes can now be downloaded and viewed via several websites.
version of the program entitled 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 to a half-hour, removed local content, added a laugh track
and replaced 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
joined the cast and the 22 children from the first season were whittled down to seven: Christine "Moose" McGlade
, Lisa Ruddy, Jonothan Gebert, Kevin Somers, Kevin Schenk, Rodney Helal, and Marc Baillon (another first-season cast member, Elizabeth Mitchell, only appeared in the pilot episode). The show was placed in the 7 pm timeslot on Tuesday nights, and had poor ratings as a result. The show was canceled after one season.
youth-oriented cable network, Nickelodeon
, took an interest in YCDTOTV. Nickelodeon originally aired a handful of episodes in edited half-hour form during 1981 as a test run, since producer Roger Price
and director Geoffrey Darby had edited the entire 1981 season of You Can't Do That on Television 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 entire edited season and YCDTOTV quickly became their highest rated show.
Production on new episodes of YCDTOTV resumed full time in 1982, with all episodes from that point onward made in the half-hour all-comedy format. Also in 1982, Nickelodeon and CJOH had then become 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 in the U.S. on Nickelodeon, where it aired first five times a week and, eventually, every day.
In 1984, You Can't Do That on Television became Nickelodeon's highest-rated television program, lasting until mid-1986. Kids across America were making slime and water sounds with their mouths and sending in their own entries for the Slime-In, a contest hosted by Nickelodeon that flew the winner to the set of You Can't Do That On Television to be slimed (which was later replicated by Canada's YTV, with their version being called the Slime Light Sweepstakes).
, Doug Ptolemy, Vanessa Lindores, and Adam Reid had grown too old for the show. Longtime hostess Christine McGlade
("Moose") had departed the previous year, as had Alasdair Gillis (who had been promoted to co-host with Moose in 1985 before leaving towards the end of the 1986 season); Lisa Ruddy ("Motormouth"), Moose's longtime sidekick on the show, was also gone, having left at the end of the 1985 season. Only five episodes were filmed in this season, the shortest season of You Can't Do That on Television's 15-year span on the air, and one of the episodes (Adoption) proved so controversial that it was banned after being shown twice (a "DO NOT AIR" sticker was reportedly placed on the master tape at CJOH). (Adoption) is the only episode that was banned in the U.S, and the second one banned in Canada (Divorce was the other one).
In addition, Nickelodeon had removed the half-hour edits of the 1981 episodes of You Can't Do That on Television from its daily time slot rotation, along with the 1982 "Cosmetics" episode. The 1981 episodes were supposed to air for the last time ever during a week-long promotion in 1985 called "Oldies But Moldies", which featured contests where Nickelodeon viewers could win prizes like "tasty, fresh chocolate syrup". However, the episodes continued to air until the end of 1987 but were not played very often. Reportedly, this was because Nickelodeon's six-year contract to air the 1981 season expired in 1987, 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. Allegedly, Nickelodeon removed the "Cosmetics" episode from rotation for the latter reason as well (although the "Addictions" episode from that same season was not dropped).
in 1988. CJOH decided not to make new episodes without him due to lack of ideas, and production was suspended. When Price eventually returned to Canada, he wanted to resume production of You Can't Do That on Television from the city of Toronto
, but was convinced by the cast and crew to return to Ottawa and CJOH.
You Can't Do That on Television 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.
Opinions on the 1989 and 1990 episodes of YCDTOTV are mixed among longtime fans of the show, particularly regarding the new episodes' increasing reliance on bathroom humour to attract a younger audience than the show had targeted in years past. In any case, the show did not completely sever ties to its past, as many former cast members reappeared during the 1989 season in cameo roles, most notably in the "Age" episode, which was hosted by Vanessa Lindores and also featured cameos by Doug Ptolemy, Alasdair Gillis, Christine McGlade, and Kevin Kubusheskie (who by that time had become a stage producer on the show). Gillis also appeared briefly in the "locker jokes" segment during the "Fantasies" episode, and Adam Reid, who by this time had become an official writer for YCDTOTV, also appeared (and was slimed) at the very end of the episode "Punishment."
The show's ratings declined throughout 1989 and 1990, ranking fifth on Nickelodeon. The network's desire to produce more of its own shows at its new studios
at Universal Studios
in Orlando, Florida
, coupled with the poor ratings, caused production of You Can't Do That on Television to officially end in 1990. Though ratings declined, Nickelodeon continued to air rerun
s until January 1994, at which point it was only being aired on weekends.
starring five members of the original cast. These included Brodie Osome, Marjorie Silcoff, and Vanessa Lindores (pregnant at the time), with cameos by Justin Cammy and Alasdair Gillis. It was directed by David Dillehunt
and executive produced by Josh Yawn.
In January 2007, the special was released on YouTube
.
Makes One Cup of Coffee Last Five Hours, "Hanging Out" or "Malls", 1984), movies (i.e. Top Gun
Gets Put on Latrine-Cleaning Duty, "Discipline", 1986), or other pop culture icons (i.e. Boy George
Without Make-up, "Halloween", 1984), and were often relevant to the theme of the current episode (i.e. the pre-empted show for "Safety" (1981) was "Hit and Run on Sesame Street
"). The pre-empted show announcement concept was borrowed from Saturday Night Live
, which introduced their shows with similar announcements in the late 1970s. You Can't Do That On Television has preempted itself on three occasions (Television, Media, and Priorities). The Generation Gap episode did not begin with a preempted episode; instead, a disclaimer read "The following program contains certain scenes which may not be suitable for mature audiences. Juvenile discretion is advised". There was no preempted episode for the Success and Failure episode (1989) because the producers failed to come up with a preempt.
's "gilliamations", the opening animation sequence was a sequence of surreal images set to Rossini's William Tell Overture
, performed in a Dixieland jazz
arrangement by The National Press Club and Allied Workers Jazz Band. Though the theme music stayed the same throughout the entire series run (1979–1990), the opening animation itself changed in different ways.
Sometimes opposite sketches involved cast members not being hit with slime or water after saying the "trigger phrase" (see below section), as in City Life (1987) or Excess (1989). The slime or water would not fall until after the opposites were over, or sometimes not fall at all. Also, an opposite sketch in Heroes (1982) had Lisa Ruddy slimed for saying "I know," rather than "I don't know" (while other cast members said "I don't know" in that same sketch without anything happening to them).
A return to the show's daily subject was hallmarked by another of these inversion fades, and usually accompanied by one of the cast members saying, "Back to reality." These would sometimes occur in the middle of a sketch, resulting in the characters inverting whatever they were doing just prior to the conclusion of the sketch.
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.
into walking in front of the post and saying the word "fire", thus getting shot by the firing squad himself, which was a trademark, and happened almost every time.
Every scene had the same basic format.
Captain- "Ready, aim..."
Cast Member- "Wait a minute, stop the execution!"
Captain- "What is it this time?"
The cast member would then make 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 scene. On these occasions, the scene would end with "Ready, Aimm..." and the cast member flinching, which is when the squad would fire, but it wasn't shown.
There is also one episode in which the cast member cries out to the commander:
"Hurry up, hurry up, start the execution!" This, of course, draws the executioner's attention, and they commence fire.
, a gooey substance, would pour on him from above. This prank 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. In this episode, Lisa Ruddy was the victim of six slimings (a YCDTOTV record). This was a result of continually being asked "What is the largest lake in Canada?", which was the Great Bear Lake. She is then asked how many fish are in it, to which she says "I don't know."
Conversely, the first episode ever to use the slime gag was Episode 6, dated March 10, 1979. In the Detention/Dungeon scene, Tim Douglas is told NOT to pull on his chains by the principal. After he leaves, Tim does just that. A "toilet flushing" sound is heard, and the first YCDTOTV sliming occurs. On the link set in Episode 9 (the "Executive Washrooms" episode), Iain Fingler was slimed after saying "I don't know" after being asked how many goldfish the current Members of Parliament in Ottawa have. After he is slimed, Iain went so far as to say "Ouch!".
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:
For several years afterwards, the slime consisted of this 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. Actors who were scripted to be slimed or have water doused on them would usually appear barefoot in the scene.
Green Slime grew to become a trademark image for Nickelodeon. They later introduced Green Slime shampoo, which was a frequent parting gift for contestants on Nick's popular game show Double Dare, where slime was heavily used, along with several variations such as 'gak' or 'gooze'. Mattel even sold Nickelodeon slime and gak in the 1990s. Nickelodeon's former studios in Orlando
had a green slime geyser and green slime is still dumped on the host of the annual Kids Choice Awards at the end of the ceremony, and on at least one celebrity during the ceremony. It is also still used in ads showing the network's current stars getting slimed from all sides in slow motion, and is used to slime the winner at the end of the Nick game show BrainSurge
, which debuted in 2009.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
that first aired locally in 1979
1979 in television
The year 1979 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1979.For the American TV schedule, see: 1979-80 American network television schedule.-Events:...
before ultimately airing internationally in 1981
1981 in television
The year 1981 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1981.For the American TV schedule, see: 1981-82 American network television schedule.- Events :...
. It primarily featured pre-teen and teenaged actors in a sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
format in which they acted out skits based on a theme for that episode.
After production ended in 1990
1990 in television
For the American TV schedule, see: 1990-91 United States network television schedule.The year 1990 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1990.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
, the show continued in reruns on Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
through 1994
1994 in television
The year 1994 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1994.For the American TV schedule, see: 1994-95 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-Miniseries:...
.
Local television
You Can't Do That on Television debuted in 1979 on CJOH-TVCJOH-TV
CJOH-DT is a television station serving Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and the surrounding region. Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the CTV Television Network....
in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
as a low-budget variety program with some segments performed live. The show consisted of comedy skits, music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s (usually three per episode) and live phone-in contests in which the viewer could win a variety of prizes (transistor radio
Transistor radio
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver using transistor-based circuitry. Following their development in 1954 they became the most popular electronic communication device in history, with billions manufactured during the 1960s and 1970s...
s, record albums, model kits, etc.). The format also included performances by local disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
dancers and special guests such as Ottawa-based cartoonist Jim Unger
Jim Unger
Jim Unger is a Canadian cartoonist, best known for his syndicated comic strip Herman which ran for eighteen years in 600 newspapers in 25 countries....
. Every week the show took its "Roving Camera" to hangouts around town, recording kids' jokes or complaints about life, which would be played on the following week's broadcast. The show's disco dance segments were emceed by Jim Johnson, a DJ on Ottawa's leading pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
, CFGO (which at the time was co-owned with CJOH). Also, after a music video aired, Johnson would tell the viewers interesting facts about the artist featured in the video.
Veteran comedy actor Les Lye
Les Lye
Leslie Earnest "Les" Lye was a Canadian actor. Best known for his numerous roles as one of the two adults on the children's program, You Can't Do That On Television , he enjoyed a television and radio career spanning nearly half a century.-Career:Following a stint in the armed forces after high...
played numerous recurring characters and was initially the only adult to perform in the show's sketches, although actress Abby Hagyard
Abby Hagyard
Abby Hagyard is a Canadian television actress, voice artist, and comedienne.-Background:Hagyard's interest in acting began when she was 19 years old and enrolled in a modeling class with her mother. She modeled for two years and then had a secretarial position in Playboy's New York offices. In...
later joined the show to become "the other grown-up" in the cast roster, and frequently played "Mom" opposite Lye's role as "Dad." Occasionally the older children in the cast (such as Christine McGlade
Christine McGlade
Christine "Moose" McGlade is a Canadian actress and producer, who was the longtime host of the internationally popular kids' sketch comedy TV program You Can't Do That On Television . She was with the show from its very beginning as a local attraction on Ottawa, Ontario, television station CJOH in...
or Cyndi Kennedy) played adult characters.
The show's trademark green slime dousing prank was introduced in 1979, as was the practice of using the phrase "I don't know" as a trigger for the prank.
The show was meant to offer a program for children on Saturday mornings. It made no attempt to be an educational program
Educational television
Educational television is the use of television programs in the field of distance education. It may be in the form of individual television programs or dedicated specialty channels that is often associated with cable television in the United States as Public, educational, and government access ...
. The idea was successful. Only three full episodes from the first season are known to exist; the studio masters no longer exist. However, the episodes can now be downloaded and viewed via several websites.
National television in Canada
After a successful first season, a national networkTelevision network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
version of the program entitled Whatever Turns You On was produced for CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
and debuted in September 1979 (having already aired an hour-long pilot episode in May). The format was shortened to a half-hour, removed local content, added a laugh track
Laugh track
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...
and replaced music videos with live performances from popular Canadian artists at the time, including Trooper
Trooper (band)
Trooper is a Juno Award winning Canadian rock band that developed from a group formed by vocalist Ramon McGuire and guitarist Brian Smith in 1975...
, Max Webster
Max Webster
Max Webster was a Canadian rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s.-Career:The band was formed in 1973 in Toronto, Ontario and originally consisted of guitarist and vocalist Kim Mitchell, keyboardist Terry Watkinson, bassist Mike Tilka and drummer Paul Kersey. Mitchell and Pye Dubois would write the...
, Ian Thomas
Ian Thomas (Canadian musician)
Ian Thomas is a singer, songwriter, actor and author. He is younger brother to famed comedian and actor Dave Thomas.-Career:...
and disco singer Alma Faye Brooks. Ruth Buzzi
Ruth Buzzi
Ruth Ann Buzzi is an American comedienne and actress of theatre, film, and television. She is especially known for her performances on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.-Early life:...
joined the cast and the 22 children from the first season were whittled down to seven: Christine "Moose" McGlade
Christine McGlade
Christine "Moose" McGlade is a Canadian actress and producer, who was the longtime host of the internationally popular kids' sketch comedy TV program You Can't Do That On Television . She was with the show from its very beginning as a local attraction on Ottawa, Ontario, television station CJOH in...
, Lisa Ruddy, Jonothan Gebert, Kevin Somers, Kevin Schenk, Rodney Helal, and Marc Baillon (another first-season cast member, Elizabeth Mitchell, only appeared in the pilot episode). The show was placed in the 7 pm timeslot on Tuesday nights, and had poor ratings as a result. The show was canceled after one season.
Nickelodeon
In January 1981, production on YCDTOTV resumed, and a new batch of episodes aired locally on CJOH through May of that year. The format of the 1981 episodes as aired on CJOH was similar to that of the inaugural 1979 season, with the differences being that each show featured skits revolving around a certain topic (something that carried over from Whatever Turns You On) and that the disco dancers were replaced by video game competitions. The season proper ended in May, but cast members were asked to come back in May and June 1981 to film some additional scenes for the syndicated version of the show (including re-writes or re-shoots of already-filmed sketches to filter out Ottawa-centric or Canada-centric content). At the time the season ended, it was uncertain whether the show would continue. In the meantime, some YCDTOTV cast members continued to hone their on-camera skills through appearances in Bear Rapids, a Price/Darby pilot film that was never picked up, and Something Else, a local game show on CJOH with a format somewhat similar to the live and local episodes of YCDTOTV.Peak years
Later in 1981, the new AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
youth-oriented cable network, Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
, took an interest in YCDTOTV. Nickelodeon originally aired a handful of episodes in edited half-hour form during 1981 as a test run, since producer Roger Price
Roger Price (television producer)
Roger Damon Price is an English television producer, also active in Canada, most notable for creating children's science fiction series The Tomorrow People, Junior Points of View and the Canadian sketch comedy You Can't Do That on Television, which became hugely successful on Nickelodeon in the...
and director Geoffrey Darby had edited the entire 1981 season of You Can't Do That on Television episodes into a half-hour format similar to Whatever Turns You On for national and international syndication
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
. Toward the beginning of 1982, Nickelodeon began airing the entire edited season and YCDTOTV quickly became their highest rated show.
Production on new episodes of YCDTOTV resumed full time in 1982, with all episodes from that point onward made in the half-hour all-comedy format. Also in 1982, Nickelodeon and CJOH had then become 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 in the U.S. on Nickelodeon, where it aired first five times a week and, eventually, every day.
In 1984, You Can't Do That on Television became Nickelodeon's highest-rated television program, lasting until mid-1986. Kids across America were making slime and water sounds with their mouths and sending in their own entries for the Slime-In, a contest hosted by Nickelodeon that flew the winner to the set of You Can't Do That On Television to be slimed (which was later replicated by Canada's YTV, with their version being called the Slime Light Sweepstakes).
Changing of the guard and controversies
By 1987, many of the "veteran" cast members such as Matt GodfreyMatthew Godfrey (actor)
Matthew Godfrey is a Canadian actor and graduate of National Theatre School of Canada.He has taught Shakespeare, Red Nose Clown and Improv in Germany, Norway, Turkey, U.S.A., China, Indonesia, England and India for the International Schools Theatre Association.Godfrey is most famous for his role...
, Doug Ptolemy, Vanessa Lindores, and Adam Reid had grown too old for the show. Longtime hostess Christine McGlade
Christine McGlade
Christine "Moose" McGlade is a Canadian actress and producer, who was the longtime host of the internationally popular kids' sketch comedy TV program You Can't Do That On Television . She was with the show from its very beginning as a local attraction on Ottawa, Ontario, television station CJOH in...
("Moose") had departed the previous year, as had Alasdair Gillis (who had been promoted to co-host with Moose in 1985 before leaving towards the end of the 1986 season); Lisa Ruddy ("Motormouth"), Moose's longtime sidekick on the show, was also gone, having left at the end of the 1985 season. Only five episodes were filmed in this season, the shortest season of You Can't Do That on Television's 15-year span on the air, and one of the episodes (Adoption) proved so controversial that it was banned after being shown twice (a "DO NOT AIR" sticker was reportedly placed on the master tape at CJOH). (Adoption) is the only episode that was banned in the U.S, and the second one banned in Canada (Divorce was the other one).
In addition, Nickelodeon had removed the half-hour edits of the 1981 episodes of You Can't Do That on Television from its daily time slot rotation, along with the 1982 "Cosmetics" episode. The 1981 episodes were supposed to air for the last time ever during a week-long promotion in 1985 called "Oldies But Moldies", which featured contests where Nickelodeon viewers could win prizes like "tasty, fresh chocolate syrup". However, the episodes continued to air until the end of 1987 but were not played very often. Reportedly, this was because Nickelodeon's six-year contract to air the 1981 season expired in 1987, 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
Peer pressure
Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...
); the network opted not to renew the contract. Allegedly, Nickelodeon removed the "Cosmetics" episode from rotation for the latter reason as well (although the "Addictions" episode from that same season was not dropped).
Final years
Roger Price moved to FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1988. CJOH decided not to make new episodes without him due to lack of ideas, and production was suspended. When Price eventually returned to Canada, he wanted to resume production of You Can't Do That on Television from the city of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, but was convinced by the cast and crew to return to Ottawa and CJOH.
You Can't Do That on Television 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.
Opinions on the 1989 and 1990 episodes of YCDTOTV are mixed among longtime fans of the show, particularly regarding the new episodes' increasing reliance on bathroom humour to attract a younger audience than the show had targeted in years past. In any case, the show did not completely sever ties to its past, as many former cast members reappeared during the 1989 season in cameo roles, most notably in the "Age" episode, which was hosted by Vanessa Lindores and also featured cameos by Doug Ptolemy, Alasdair Gillis, Christine McGlade, and Kevin Kubusheskie (who by that time had become a stage producer on the show). Gillis also appeared briefly in the "locker jokes" segment during the "Fantasies" episode, and Adam Reid, who by this time had become an official writer for YCDTOTV, also appeared (and was slimed) at the very end of the episode "Punishment."
The show's ratings declined throughout 1989 and 1990, ranking fifth on Nickelodeon. The network's desire to produce more of its own shows at its new studios
Nickelodeon Studios
Nickelodeon Studios was a television taping studio as well as an original attraction at Universal Studios Florida.-History:...
at Universal Studios
Universal Orlando Resort
Universal Orlando Resort is a theme park resort in Orlando, Florida. It is wholly owned by NBCUniversal and its affiliates. The resort consists of two theme parks , Universal CityWalk , and three Loews Hotels...
in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
, coupled with the poor ratings, caused production of You Can't Do That on Television to officially end in 1990. Though ratings declined, Nickelodeon continued to air rerun
Rerun
A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...
s until January 1994, at which point it was only being aired on weekends.
Reunion
In July 2004, a reunion special called Project 131 was produced at CJOH-TVCJOH-TV
CJOH-DT is a television station serving Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and the surrounding region. Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the CTV Television Network....
starring five members of the original cast. These included Brodie Osome, Marjorie Silcoff, and Vanessa Lindores (pregnant at the time), with cameos by Justin Cammy and Alasdair Gillis. It was directed by David Dillehunt
David Dillehunt
David Nelson Dillehunt is an American film director, television producer and composer. He is most known as director and co-writer of the official reunion episode of the classic children's program, You Can't Do That on Television, entitled Project 131...
and executive produced by Josh Yawn.
In January 2007, the special was released on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Trademarks
Episodes of YCDTOTV included recurring gimmicks and gags. The following is a partial list.Pre-empted shows
At the beginning of each show aired after the 1981 season, a title card would appear featuring a parody title of a TV show, with a silly (often macabre) picture and the announcer making the following announcement: "(TV show) will not be seen today in order for us to bring you this (adjective in character with the picture) production." The pre-empted shows were parodies of current TV shows (i.e. The A-TeamThe A-Team
The A-Team is an American action adventure television series about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces personnel who work as soldiers of fortune, while on the run from the Army after being branded as war criminals for a "crime they didn't commit". The A-Team was created by...
Makes One Cup of Coffee Last Five Hours, "Hanging Out" or "Malls", 1984), movies (i.e. Top Gun
Top Gun (film)
Top Gun is a 1986 American action drama film directed by Tony Scott, and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, in association with the Paramount Pictures company...
Gets Put on Latrine-Cleaning Duty, "Discipline", 1986), or other pop culture icons (i.e. Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
Without Make-up, "Halloween", 1984), and were often relevant to the theme of the current episode (i.e. the pre-empted show for "Safety" (1981) was "Hit and Run on Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
"). The pre-empted show announcement concept was borrowed from Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, which introduced their shows with similar announcements in the late 1970s. You Can't Do That On Television has preempted itself on three occasions (Television, Media, and Priorities). The Generation Gap episode did not begin with a preempted episode; instead, a disclaimer read "The following program contains certain scenes which may not be suitable for mature audiences. Juvenile discretion is advised". There was no preempted episode for the Success and Failure episode (1989) because the producers failed to come up with a preempt.
Opening animation: The Children's Television Sausage Factory
Originally created by Rand MacIvor (under Art Director - John C. Galt), who was inspired by Terry GilliamTerry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
's "gilliamations", the opening animation sequence was a sequence of surreal images set to Rossini's William Tell Overture
William Tell Overture
The William Tell Overture is the instrumental introduction to the opera Guillaume Tell by Gioachino Rossini. William Tell premiered in 1829 and was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement, although he continued to compose cantatas, sacred music and secular vocal...
, performed in a Dixieland jazz
Dixieland Jazz
Dixieland Jazz was a Canadian music television series which aired on CBC Television in 1954.-Premise:The series host was Trump Davidson, a cornet player. He also hosted a radio music series on CBC's Trans-Canada Network.-Scheduling:...
arrangement by The National Press Club and Allied Workers Jazz Band. Though the theme music stayed the same throughout the entire series run (1979–1990), the opening animation itself changed in different ways.
- The Centre BlockCentre BlockThe Centre Block is the main building of the Canadian parliamentary complex on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, containing the Commons and Senate chambers, as well as the offices of a number of Members of Parliament and Senators, as well as senior administration for both legislative houses...
of the Canadian ParliamentParliament of CanadaThe Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
complex was used in the first season and in the original hour-long versions of the 1981 season episodes. In this animation sequence, a person pulls the roof off one side of the building, releasing three balloons bearing the likenesses of the three party leaders at the time: Pierre TrudeauPierre TrudeauJoseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...
, Joe ClarkJoe ClarkCharles Joseph "Joe" Clark, is a Canadian statesman, businessman, and university professor, and former journalist and politician...
, and Ed BroadbentEd BroadbentJohn Edward "Ed" Broadbent, is a Canadian social democratic politician and political scientist. He was leader of the federal New Democratic Party from 1975 to 1989. In the 2004 federal election, he returned to Parliament for one additional term as the Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre.-Life...
. Then, a hand from off-screen ignites the bottom of the Peace TowerPeace TowerThe Peace Tower is a focal bell and clock tower, sitting on the central axis of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The present incarnation replaced the Victoria Tower after the latter burned down in 1916, along with most of the Centre Block...
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 busSchool busA school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...
at the bottom of the factoryFactoryA factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
that transports them to the TV studio (a likeness of the CJOH studios on Merivale Road in Nepean, OntarioNepean, Ontario- Recent quantity of snow :- History :Nepean Township, originally known as Township D, was established in 1792 and originally included what is now the central area of Ottawa west of the Rideau River. Jehiel Collins, from Vermont, is believed to have been the first person to settle in Nepean...
). 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) scene animation than the first version, was introduced in the beginning 1982 season and used for both the U.S. and Canadian broadcasts of You Can't Do That on Television until the end of the show 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.
- The ending of the introduction saw Lye's face in a sketch with his mouth opening up, leading to a stamp put on his face reading You Can't Do That on Television, followed by the screen cracking and finally splitting in 2 pieces which the cast are seen.
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 or with adults encouraging children to behave badly (for example, eating sweets instead of vegetables, or wasting money on something frivolous rather than putting the money in the bank). A show on marketing, for instance, would also have a sketch or four of how not to market something.Sometimes opposite sketches involved cast members not being hit with slime or water after saying the "trigger phrase" (see below section), as in City Life (1987) or Excess (1989). The slime or water would not fall until after the opposites were over, or sometimes not fall at all. Also, an opposite sketch in Heroes (1982) had Lisa Ruddy slimed for saying "I know," rather than "I don't know" (while other cast members said "I don't know" in that same sketch without anything happening to them).
A return to the show's daily subject was hallmarked by another of these inversion fades, and usually accompanied by one of the cast members saying, "Back to reality." These would sometimes occur in the middle of a sketch, resulting in the characters inverting whatever they were doing just prior to the conclusion of the sketch.
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.
Firing squad
Most episodes included one or more firing squad sketches, where Les would play the part of a Latin American military officer with a sword in hand 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 Les LyeLes Lye
Leslie Earnest "Les" Lye was a Canadian actor. Best known for his numerous roles as one of the two adults on the children's program, You Can't Do That On Television , he enjoyed a television and radio career spanning nearly half a century.-Career:Following a stint in the armed forces after high...
into walking in front of the post and saying the word "fire", thus getting shot by the firing squad himself, which was a trademark, and happened almost every time.
Every scene had the same basic format.
Captain- "Ready, aim..."
Cast Member- "Wait a minute, stop the execution!"
Captain- "What is it this time?"
The cast member would then make 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 scene. On these occasions, the scene would end with "Ready, Aimm..." and the cast member flinching, which is when the squad would fire, but it wasn't shown.
There is also one episode in which the cast member cries out to the commander:
"Hurry up, hurry up, start the execution!" This, of course, draws the executioner's attention, and they commence fire.
Locker room
During the famous "locker room" segment of You Can't Do That on Television, cast members, residing in gym lockers with You Can't Do That on Television painted on them, 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 well-known "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 in 1990, with the lockers themselves undergoing a few minor physical makeovers during the show's early years.Production company
Used in a few episodes in the first two seasons and almost every episode in later seasons, the closing credits of You Can't Do That on Television are followed by an announcement of the "company" that produced the program, with the name generally tying in with the episode's main subject. These announcements are given in the form of "'You Can't Do That on Television' is a ______ production." For example, the 1982 "Bullying" episode was a "Black Eye" Production; the 1984 "Marketing" show was a "Can't Give It Away" Production; the "Divorce" episode was a "Split Down The Middle" Production;"Project 131" was a "Changing Day" Production; The "Malls" episode was a "Hang Out to Dry" production. The announcement of the production company generally followed by one final sketch, usually taking place on the link set.Water
Certain key words would have the major result in cast members having substances poured on them from off-camera. This skit came on throughout every episode (along with the Slime, too). When someone said "water" or "wet", a large amount of water would mysteriously cascade onto him 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" had then no longer triggered the water to spray down, thus leaving the job to just the word "water" itself. This, too, was an homage to Laugh-In. Often at times, cast members would try to "dodge" getting hit with water by saying it in Spanish or French, only to still get hit with water.Slime
Likewise, when someone said "I don't know", green slimeGunge
Gunge as it is known in the British Isles, or slime as it is known in America and other parts of the world is a thick, gooey, runny substance similar in consistency to paint. It has been a feature on many children's programmes for many years around the world and has made appearances in game shows...
, a gooey substance, would pour on him from above. This prank 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. In this episode, Lisa Ruddy was the victim of six slimings (a YCDTOTV record). This was a result of continually being asked "What is the largest lake in Canada?", which was the Great Bear Lake. She is then asked how many fish are in it, to which she says "I don't know."
Conversely, the first episode ever to use the slime gag was Episode 6, dated March 10, 1979. In the Detention/Dungeon scene, Tim Douglas is told NOT to pull on his chains by the principal. After he leaves, Tim does just that. A "toilet flushing" sound is heard, and the first YCDTOTV sliming occurs. On the link set in Episode 9 (the "Executive Washrooms" episode), Iain Fingler was slimed after saying "I don't know" after being asked how many goldfish the current Members of Parliament in Ottawa have. After he is slimed, Iain went so far as to say "Ouch!".
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" (red, blue, and yellow 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 AttractionFatal AttractionFatal Attraction is a 1987 American thriller blended with horror, directed by Adrian Lyne and stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. The film centers around a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end, resulting in emotional blackmail, stalking...
. - 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 whitewashWhitewashWhitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a very low-cost type of paint made from slaked lime and chalk . Various other additives are also used...
. - 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.
- Les Lye said the famous line when Tony DanzaTony DanzaTony Danza is an American actor best known for starring on the TV series Taxi and Who's the Boss?, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award and four Golden Globe Awards...
asks him what happens if he takes the wrong cave backstage at the start of the inaugural Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.
For several years afterwards, the slime consisted of this mixture of lime green gelatin
Gelatin dessert
Gelatin desserts are desserts made with sweetened and flavored gelatin. They can be made by combining plain gelatin with other ingredients or by using a premixed blend of gelatin with additives...
powder and flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
; eventually, oatmeal
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is ground oat groats , or a porridge made from oats . Oatmeal can also be ground oat, steel-cut oats, crushed oats, or rolled oats....
was added to the recipe, as was baby shampoo
Baby shampoo
Baby shampoo is formulated so that it is less irritating to the eyes than regular shampoo. Most contain sodium trideceth sulfate. Alternatively, baby shampoo may be formulated using other classes of surfactants, most notably non-ionics which are much milder than any charged anionics used. Baby...
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. Actors who were scripted to be slimed or have water doused on them would usually appear barefoot in the scene.
Green Slime grew to become a trademark image for Nickelodeon. They later introduced Green Slime shampoo, which was a frequent parting gift for contestants on Nick's popular game show Double Dare, where slime was heavily used, along with several variations such as 'gak' or 'gooze'. Mattel even sold Nickelodeon slime and gak in the 1990s. Nickelodeon's former studios in Orlando
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
had a green slime geyser and green slime is still dumped on the host of the annual Kids Choice Awards at the end of the ceremony, and on at least one celebrity during the ceremony. It is also still used in ads showing the network's current stars getting slimed from all sides in slow motion, and is used to slime the winner at the end of the Nick game show BrainSurge
BrainSurge
BrainSurge is an American children's game show aired on Nickelodeon hosted by Jeff Sutphen. The show taped its first season in February 2009, and debuted on September 28, 2009...
, which debuted in 2009.
Pies
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. One whole episode, 1981's Drugs, was constructed completely around the pie-in-the-face gag: to avoid the wrath of the censors, the episode showed the cast getting "high" by pieing themselves continuously over and over, comparing the stupidity of hitting oneself with a pie to the stupidity of taking drugs. Unlike the slime and water, pies were not triggered by any certain word or phrase.Cast
Over 100 child actors appeared on YCDTOTV between 1979 and 1990. Some of the most notable cast members included:| Name | Year(s) | First Appearance | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stephanie Bauder | 1989–1990 | Episode 114: Choices | |
| Nick Belcourt | 1989 | Episode 114: Choices | |
| Chris Bickford | 1989–1990 | Episode 114: Choices | Third and final host. |
| Jennifer Brackenbury | 1989–1990 | Episode 114: Choices | |
| Carlos Braithwaite | 1989–1990 | Episode 114: Choices | |
| Justin Cammy | 1983–1985 | Episode 49: Classical Music | |
| Stephanie Chow | 1984–1987 | Episode 74: Families | |
| Angie Coddett | 1981–1984 | Episode 17: Dating | |
| Eugene Contreras | 1982–1985 | Episode 29: Popularity | |
| Roddy Contreras | 1982 | Episode 35: Television | |
| Ian Fingler | 1979 | ||
| Jonothan Gebert | 1979–1981 | Episode 1 | |
| Alasdair Gillis | 1982–1986 | Episode 31: Vacations | Second official host. |
| Amyas Godfrey | 1986–1989 | Episode 89: Fairy Tales, Myths, & Legends | |
| Matthew Godfrey Matthew Godfrey (actor) Matthew Godfrey is a Canadian actor and graduate of National Theatre School of Canada.He has taught Shakespeare, Red Nose Clown and Improv in Germany, Norway, Turkey, U.S.A., China, Indonesia, England and India for the International Schools Theatre Association.Godfrey is most famous for his role... |
1986–1987 | Episode 91: Know-It-Alls | |
| Abby Hagyard Abby Hagyard Abby Hagyard is a Canadian television actress, voice artist, and comedienne.-Background:Hagyard's interest in acting began when she was 19 years old and enrolled in a modeling class with her mother. She modeled for two years and then had a secretarial position in Playboy's New York offices. In... |
1982–1990 | Adult cast member | |
| Adam Kalbfleisch | 1984–1986 | Episode 62: Moving | |
| Martin Kerr | 1981–1983 | Episode 25: Nutrition | |
| Pauline Kerr | 1984 | Episode 60: Foreign Countries | |
| Kevin Kubusheskie | 1981–1984 | Episode 16: Strike Now | |
| Vanessa Lindores | 1982–1987 | Episode 35: Television | |
| Les Lye Les Lye Leslie Earnest "Les" Lye was a Canadian actor. Best known for his numerous roles as one of the two adults on the children's program, You Can't Do That On Television , he enjoyed a television and radio career spanning nearly half a century.-Career:Following a stint in the armed forces after high... |
1979–1990 | Adult cast member | |
| Christine McGlade Christine McGlade Christine "Moose" McGlade is a Canadian actress and producer, who was the longtime host of the internationally popular kids' sketch comedy TV program You Can't Do That On Television . She was with the show from its very beginning as a local attraction on Ottawa, Ontario, television station CJOH in... |
1979–1986 | Episode 1 | First official host. |
| Alanis Morissette Alanis Morissette Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and also shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination... |
1986–1987 | ||
| Brodie Osome | 1981–1983 | Episode 15: Transportation | |
| Doug Ptolemy | 1982–1987 | Episode 30: Fads and Fashion | |
| Adam Reid | 1984–1987 | Episode 78: Wealth | |
| Lisa Ruddy | 1979–1985 | Episode 1 | |
| Sidharth Sahay | 1989 | Episode 116: Communication | |
| Vik Sahay Vik Sahay Vikram "Vik" Sahay is a Canadian actor best known for playing Lester Patel, a member of the Nerd Herd in the NBC television series Chuck on which he became a series regular from the second season, and Rama in the Roxy Hunter Saga.-Life and career:... |
1986–1987 | Episode 105: Sleep | |
| Kevin Schenk | 1979–1981 | Episode 8 | |
| Klea Scott Klea Scott Klea Scott is a Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Emma Hollis on the Fox television series Millennium. Her most notable films are Minority Report and Collateral.-Career:... |
1982-1984 | ||
| Sariya Sharp | 1989–1990 | Episode 122: Fantasy | |
| Marjorie Silcoff | 1984–1985 | Episode 56: History | |
| Kevin Somers | 1979–1981 | Episode 1 | |
| Amy Stanley | 1989–1990 | Episode 133: Celebrations | |
| Jill Stanley | 1989–1990 | Episode 115: Chores | |
| Christian Tessier Christian Tessier Christian Tessier is a Canadian actor.Tessier first came to television in 1989 on the Canadian children's show You Can't Do That On Television and notably appeared in the 1990s remake of The Tomorrow People, and the motion picture adaptation of Battlefield Earth... |
1989–1990 | Episode 116: Communication | |
| Ted Wilson | 1989–1990 | Episode 114: Choices |