By Mark Leiren-Young Forty years ago today, on October 1, 1972, CBC launched “The Beachcombers,” making Canadian television history and the Gibsons tourist industry. “The Beachcombers” became a fixture for Canadian families for almost 20 years. A few weeks after the show’s cancellation in 1990, I interviewed Robert Clothier – aka Relic, the show’s crusty […]
Culture
Spider-Man when he was Approved by the Comic Codes Authority
By Mark Leiren-Young I read Spider-Man in the original Sanskrit. No, I’m not old enough, or lucky enough to have picked up Amazing Fantasy number 15, which featured the first ever appearance of everyone’s favourite wacky wall-crawler, whose latest movie incarnation debuted in North America this week, but I also wasn’t introduced to Peter Parker, […]
Exit, tap-dancing
A BoB short: Canada doesn’t got “Canada’s Got Talent” any more. Rogers Media and Citytv have announced that the series will not return for a second season. “After careful consideration of all factors, including the current economic climate, Citytv has refocused its programming strategy and will not be producing ‘Canada’s Got Talent’ for the 2012-13 […]
TV’s new normal
By Mark Leiren-Young “The DVD legitimized TV as an art form,” Glen Mazzara, executive producer of the monster smash “The Walking Dead,” told an audience of TV creators and broadcasters during an onstage Q&A at the Banff World Media Festival earlier this month. The DVD also changed the TV viewing experience — a change that’s becoming […]
Burlesque dancer teases B.C. censors
A BoB short B.C. liquor laws have forced Miss Rosie Bitts, a Victoria-based burlesque dancer, to cancel her PG-13 show Shimmy Town. The performance was supposed to take place on June 29 at Svelte Cocktail Lounge in Victoria. The choreography included a kiss between Bitts, 37, whose real name is Trinda Reed, and a male […]
Francesca Eastwood: woman up
By Emily Olesen When Francesca Eastwood, 19-year-old daughter of legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood, recently desecrated a $100,000 Birkin Bag on the reality series “Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” she was only trying to please her boyfriend. Thirty-year old celeb photographer Tyler Shields, a favourite with young Hollywood actors such as Emma Roberts and the cast of […]
Green, gay, and duping the news
By Mark Leiren-Young Green Lantern is gay? It sounds like big news, doesn’t it? It was reported like it was big news. And, of course, loopy American Christians opposed to living in the 21st century proclaimed that DC’s decision to change an iconic character’s sexuality was corrupting their children. Leaving aside the fact that comic […]
Justin Bieber, criminal batterer? Seriously?
A BoB short: Okay, seriously . . . Justin Bieber “is a suspect in a criminal battery”? We don’t believe it. And not because we’re Beliebers, but because . . . seriously: Justin Bieber? We believed it when Sean Penn was accused of attacking a photographer in 2009, mostly because there was plenty of video […]
She shoots, she scores
A BoB short: Paulina Gretzky has cracked Maxim’s list of the world’s 100 most beautiful women. The magazine dubs her “Twitter’s sex kitten” — a reference to the series of racy pictures that Wayne Getzky’s little girl posted to her 25,000+ followers last year before daddy reportedly had a talk with her. She later admitted […]
Arcade Fire wear red square on SNL
A BoB short: Quebec’s striking students received some high-profile musical support last night when Montreal’s Arcade Fire appeared on “Saturday Night Live” wearing the symbol of the student movement, a red square. The Grammy-winners, along with Nick Fraiture of The Strokes, accompanied host Mick Jagger on a version of the Rolling Stones’ 1965 single, “The […]
