brioux.tv: the podcast

Send us Fan Mail  What’s up, doc? Well, for one thing, they are now showing classic Bugs Bunny cartoons on Turner Classic Movies. I first saw these seven-minute miracles back in the 1960s on The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour . When I wanted to read more about them there were two guys who had the scoop: Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck. These two lifelong friends have been telling the story of Termite T...

Send us Fan Mail Seven hundred episodes of a Canadian TV series? Aside from Hockey Night in Canada , what could this be? Well, on Tuesday, March 3, CBC will air the 700th episode of This Hour Has 22 Minutes . The satirical sketch series began way back in 1993. On this episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, I speak with two of the current front five players -- Stacey McGunnigle and Chris Wilson. (Mark...

Send us Fan Mail On a special mid-week episode of brioux.tv: the podcast, meet Tara Bosch. Like Monday's podcast guest Jay Klein, she is walking back into the Dragon's Den a Canadian success story. Both came up with better ways to take sugar out of everyday snacks. Bosch, from Surrey, BC, had a sweet tooth but yearned for a healthier alternative. She started experimenting in her basement...

Send us Fan Mail Some of us just chew gum. While he was chewing it over, however, Jay Klein thought: how can I make gum better? Klein is the founder and CEO of PÜR, a brand committed to making snacks better-for-you and still taste great and fun to chew.  Born in Florida, he moved to Toronto to study at York University and founded The PÜR Company in 2010. He took his sugar- and aspartame-free gum i...

Send us Fan Mail Who is that on the flight deck of the Starship Athena? Why it is none other than Raoul Bhaneja who has boldly gone on to wow audiences across Canada on stages as well as in feature films and television. The Manchester born, Ottawa-raised actor-musician plays Chancellor Kelrec, head of the Star Fleet's War College , in Paramount +'s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy . Intervie...

Send us Fan Mail The former Baronesses are back as Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill launch into Season Two of Small Achievable Goals (Tuesday nights on CBC; also streaming on demand on CBCGem).  The writer-producers play Kris and Julie, two women at different stages of peri-menopause and menopause, who talk about it on their peri-meno-podcast. Hot topics include hot flashes, HRT's, and e...

Send us Fan Mail Barbara Williams first media job was as a receptionist at the all-news radio station CKO. She quickly rose up the ranks, eventually becoming President of Shaw Media, COO of CORUS and for the past seven years Executive Vice President of CBC.  This month she retires, with former Paramount content licensing head Douglas Smith named CBC’s new EVP. In this conversation, recorded in Dec...

Send us Fan Mail In Part Two of my look at the return of Saint Pierre  meet Robina Lord-Stafford. Not only does she have one of the coolest names in Canadian television, she is also, along with Allan Hawco, the co-creator of the CBC police series. Plus she lives in the same town north of the GTA where I live, Orangeville, Ont. This podcast episode, therefore, was recorded right at my kitchen table...

Send us Fan Mail At the start of this conversation recorded before Christmas at the CBC broadcast centre in Toronto, Allan Hawco reminded me that I've been tailing him for 20 years -- back to the launch of Republic of Doyle in 2005.  Hawco and costar Josephine Jobert are back with 12 new episodes of Saint-Pierre, the highest-rated sophomore series on CBC. The police procedural is shot on loca...

Send us Fan Mail One actor/comedian I have had on my most sought-after list since this venture began in 2019 is my guest this week on brioux.tv : the podcast. Jonny Harris just happens to be a busy guy, working two CBC series at once. On Murdoch Mysteries , now in its 19th season, his character Constable Crabtree has been a fan favourite since the very beginning. His own series, Still Standing , s...

Send us Fan Mail Did you hear about the lady lawyer who dropped her briefs and became a solicitor? No? Me neither but BC-born Kayla Wallace plays the kick-ass law shark on Landman , now streaming on Paramount+. The second season premiere of this Taylor Sheridan series was such a hit that a third season has already been ordered.  Landman stars Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris the titular Landman,...

Send us Fan Mail The year 2025 has certainly been a good year to stand up for Canada. Who better to turn that mission into a TV special than Rick Mercer? The former This Hour has 22 Minutes and Rick Mercer Report firebrand returns Sunday, December 28, with Rick Mercer Stand Up for Canada . The hour-long comedy special, featuring fellow comics Sophie Buddle, Mayce Galoni and Julie Kim, was taped be...

Send us Fan Mail Here is something I've been working on for a while -- a video podcast salute to a true TV pioneer: David Boreanaz, Sr. If you grew up in the '60s or '70s you may know him as Dave Thomas. No, not the SCTV comedy legend, but the host of Rocketship 7 . Follow this link to blast off back to Mr. Beeper, Promo the Robot and the glory that was the space race. Buckle up for...

Send us Fan Mail Dick Van Dyke really has had the time of his life. Celebrate his centennial with three friends of the podcast: former New York Times TV critic Bill Carter, Dick Van Dyke Show expert and "Walnut Times" publisher David Van Deusen and Cinecon president and fellow film collector Stan Taffel. You'll also hear archival interviews with Van Dyke himself, original Van Dyke S...

Send us Fan Mail Some actors are thrilled to land a role on a TV series that lasts six or 13 episodes. Then there are Melody Thomas Scott and Peter Bergman. As all soap fans know, they’ve starred for decades as Nikki Newman and Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless. The series is in its 52nd year on both CBS and Global. Scott and Bergman, who were interviewed in Toronto this month, say the fac...

Send us Fan Mail Who is this lawyer writing and producing hit medical dramas? He is David Shore, who got his start in Canada writing for Traders before crossing the border as a writer-producer on The Practice and Law & Order . Besides his hits he was involved with a few great misses, including EZ Streets , a short-lived series that was HBO before HBO, and two with great lead actors, Hack and S...

Send us Fan Mail Twelve years after their storyline wrapped on NCIS, Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly have reunited as their crowd-pleasing characters on NCIS: Tony & Ziva. As executive producers of this series, the two actors had a say as to where this series would be shot, and they picked Europe -- smart move if you're going to be spending six months on the job. No wonder the actors,...

Send us Fan Mail Ryan Reynolds said he just didn't want to live in a world without a John Candy documentary. So he produced one, and it's a beauty.  "John Candy: I Like Me" premieres Friday, October 9 on Prime Video. Colin Hanks -- whose dad Tom Hanks starred opposite Candy in 1984's "Splash," directs. Hear from both Reynolds and Hanks, along with, in an exclusiv...

Send us Fan Mail Former New York Times television columnist and bestselling author Bill Carter joins me for a wide open discussion about the White House attack on late night talk show hosts. Me and Bill celebrate Kimmel, more than ever our hero for going Brooklyn-rogue and standing up to bullies Donald Trump and his FCC chairman Brendan Carr. Carter talks about going backstage during Kimmel's...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever made a bucket list of places around the world you'd like to visit? Eugene Levy did for Season Three of The Reluctant Traveler , streaming now on AppleTV+. This season finds him flying to Mexico, India, Vienna, Ireland, Vancouver, Louisianna, Korea and even London. His tour guide in The UK was none other than The Prince of Wales. “I was really taken aback with ho...

Send us Fan Mail In the '60s, Dini Petty broke ground with Toronto radio station CKEY as Canada's first female traffic reporter to fly solo in a helicopter. After 5,000 hours in the air she landed her pink chopper and went on to a stellar career as a news anchor at Citytv and as a talk show host at CFTO’s The Dini Petty Show . Now, at age 80, she’s back with Trailblazing Talks with Dini...

Send us Fan Mail The Blue Ant founder and CEO and former Alliance Atlantis chief rang the bell earlier this month on the Toronto Stock Exchange. His company's reverse takeover of Boat Rocker delivered more Canadian content -- including top-rated The Amazing Race Canada -- to a diverse portfolio MacMillan already successfully shops around the world. You'd think he'd be exhausted from...

Send us Fan Mail Where do documentary filmmakers go to find that historic clip or interview nobody else has? Many turn to the CBC Archives in Toronto.  The vast, climate controlled vaults at the CBC Broadcast Centre are home to approximately 1.5 million hours of digitized material. Those restored holdings are drawn from over 90,000 cans of film, 215,000 videos and over 270,000 audio assets. Classi...

Send us Fan Mail If you are a fan of comedy, film, television, movies, music, or even Bazooka Joe bubble gum jokes, join me this week in conversation with Frank Santopadre.  For over eight years and 600 episodes he brought comedian Gilbert Gottfied in like a tugboat to harbour in the truly amazing Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal podcast. Santopadre, as you’ll hear, just didn’t become the Geor...

Send us Fan Mail If you've already listened to Part 1 of my conversation with writer-producer-podcaster Frank Santopadre, you just know there was more  to explore. This is the second half of our terrific conversation.  Here the focus is more on life after Gilbert Gottfried and Frank's eventual decision to create an entirely new podcast that would be Fun Fr All Ages.  If you haven't...