brioux.tv: the podcast

Send us Fan Mail Christmas came early for me this year as I got to talk to Dick Cavett about Groucho Marx. The occasion is the December 27 premiere of American Masters "Groucho & Cavett"  on PBS.  Dubbed "the thinking man's talk show host," Cavett emerged as a clear alternative to Johnny Carson's Tonight Show while on ABC from 1969 through 1975. (Other networks ke...

Send us Fan Mail Another podcast episode about the 1972 hockey Summit Series? Yes and here's why: a second documentary looks at the landmark eight-game series from a very different angle.  "Ice-Breaker: the '72 Summit Series" premieres Tuesday, December 27 on Super Channel Fuse. The film, by director Robbie Hart and executive producer Peter Raymont, takes viewer deep inside the...

Send us Fan Mail Mary Walsh says she was born to play the tart-tongued older "Missus" living downstairs from a sad sack young bachelor in the very funny comedy The Missus Downstairs . The award-winning series is back for a second season, including a special Christmas episode (featuring Andy Jones), on Fibe TV. Co-starring is the man who lived the story, Newfoundland comedian Dave Sulliva...

Send us Fan Mail By far the most-downloaded episode of brioux.tv: the podcast has been a conversation I had two years ago with Murdoch Mysteries star Yannick Bisson. The actor is back to talk about "Baking All the Way," a new Super Channel House & Home/Lifetime original he stars in and directs this holiday season. Bisson stars opposite Cory Lee on the festive flick, which is about a...

Send us Fan Mail "Thufferin' thuckotash!" Have you heard Eric Bauza as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Marvin the Martian, Sylvester & Tweety and many other classic cartoon stars?  He says his five-year-old son can tell his Bugs from that of Mel Blanc but I can't, and I've collected dozens of classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes over decades of...

Send us Fan Mail As a young Toronto school teacher, Linda Schuyler decided to introduce her Grade 8 students to the art of filmmaking. As it says on the inside flap of her new book, "The Mother of all Degrassi: A Memoir" (ECW Press), this was a momentous decision. "It set in motion a career of storytelling for an age group largely ignored by TV executives... and creates one of the m...

Send us Fan Mail Actors and actresses from When Calls the Heart have been among the most-listened to guests in the three years since brioux.tv: the podcast was launched. Clearly, "Hearties" are everywhere, and in Canada they subscribe to Super Channel. The service has a fascinating history. Think of how the media landscape has lurched from one disruption to another this century. Super Ch...

Send us Fan Mail If you could only talk with Charlie Hunnam for 11 minutes, what would you ask? That's how long I had with the UK-born actor, who was recently in Toronto promoting his new AppleTV+ series Shantaram . The 42-year-old former Sons of Anarchy star plays quick-thinking jailbird Lin Ford on AppleTV+'s new big-budget drama. Ford's motto: escape or die. Hunnam is also a prod...

Send us Fan Mail I think I was about 35 before I figured out that Billy Van played all those crazy characters on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein . The series, consisting of 130 episodes cranked out over nine months, premiered more than 50 years ago in 1971. It is one of the most eccentric and enduring, locally-produced, TV shows ever made in Canada. It broke so many rules in childrens televis...

Send us Fan Mail I like my podcast guests to feel comfortable. That's not always possible over a zoom call, but that didn't stop Jennifer Finnigan, currently back for a second season on CBC's comedy-drama Moonshine .  For our interview, the Montreal native chose to stay in bed. That is a level of intimacy and/or laziness usually reserved for close friends or relatives so I'm fl...

Send us Fan Mail With a one-year-old baby at home, Meaghan Rath says that, yes, she is living the joys of her TV series, Children Ruin Everything . The sitcom is now into its second season Monday nights on CTV. The Montreal native confirms that "Mommy Brain" is a real thing but at least her son is sleeping through the night. Meanwhile, she is enjoying year two on the series. Guest stars...

Send us Fan Mail Strays star Nicole Power is well known from her five-season stint as Shannon Ross on the CBC comedy Kim's Convenience . Last season, her character was spun off on her own series Strays , where she became manager of a Hamilton animal shelter. On this podcast, besides her own series, she talks all about her latest role on Kim Cattrall's upcoming Netflix drama Glamorous , w...

Send us Fan Mail Another milestone in Canadian television is reached with the 50th anniversary of the launch of The Beachcombers . Jackson Davies, who played constable Constable through most of the 18-season run as well as two reboot movies in the early 2000's looks back at the iconic series. The CBC drama starred Bruno Gerussi-- who plays Nick Adonidas -- and Pat John -- who played Jesse --...

Send us Fan Mail Eric McCormack's the perfect podcast guest. The Emmy Award-winning Will & Grace star has so many wonderful showbiz stories and is generous when it comes to sharing them. Hear some of them now before he saves them all up for his own podcast -- one of the projects he has on his plate for the new year. Hear the Scarborough, Ont., native on the following: The time he cracked...

Send us Fan Mail Hudson & Rex 's two-legged lead, John Reardon, joins Bill Brioux in conversation prior to the start of Season Five. The new season begins Sunday, Sept. 25 on Citytv and it's a big one with 20 new episodes. Guest stars? Road trips? Season Five has both. Murdoch Mysteries fans will spot Daniel Maslany crossing Rex's path. There's also a two-part storyline tak...

Send us Fan Mail The Canada vs USSR eight game hockey tournament of 1972 galvanized the nation 50 years ago this month. One of the standouts for Team Canada was Montreal Canadiens defenseman Serge Savard.  Sixteen million Canadians, out of a nation of 22 million, watched the final game. Here is something I never realized back when I watched the series on TV with my high school pals: Canada never l...

Send us Fan Mail Writer-director-showrunner Peter Mitchell snuck me into a couple of episodes of one of his hit shows -- and yet he still talks to me! On this podcast, we have a great conversation about Murdoch Mysteries , back for a 16th season starting September 12 on CBC. We also talk about the other hour-long Canadian TV drama he executive produces for Shaftesbury, Hudson & Rex . Mitchell...

Send us Fan Mail  Here is one of my most valued interviews: one-on-one with Michael Landon, in his office in Culver City, Calif. The conversation took place in March of 1991. As you'll hear, Landon is in top form: funny as hell, wise in terms of television and life. What none of us knew at the time was that he had mere months to live. On assignment for TV Guide Canada, I flew home to Toronto...

Send us Fan Mail I kid you not: there were Tonight Show hosts way before Jimmy Fallon was even born. If you thought late night started with Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, think again. When the Tonight Show premiered nationally on NBC in 1954, Steve Allen was the man behind the desk.  I interviewed him 30 years ago, in 1992, about Leno and David Letterman's fight for Carson&ap...

Send us Fan Mail Before you say goodnight, Gracie, listen to my decades-old interview straight from the vault with comedy legend George Burns. The conversation was recorded in December of 1985, back when Burns was about to turn 90 and I was a rookie writer with the Canadian edition of TV Guide magazine. The audio was recorded 37 years ago on a Sony cassette tape I've kept among dozens of othe...

Send us Fan Mail Mary Mammoliti -- a home cook and a food blogger with a significant loss of vision -- has no trouble finding her way around the kitchen. She is also very at home in front of a TV camera. The second season of her AMI-tv series, Dish with Mary, just started airing on Tuesday nights and can also be streamed on demand on AMI.ca and the AMI-tv App.  Listen as Mary describes how she piv...

Send us Fan Mail We catch up with comedian Ron James as his bestseller, "Ron James All Over the Map," is nominated for the Stephen Leacock Award. If you haven't read it yet, the book is 100 per cent Ron, all in his voice -- 275 pages; four commas! James is also pumped to be performing a rare standup set July 16 at the Avon theatre as part of the Stratford Festival. His post-pandemic...

Send us Fan Mail After a two year delay, The Amazing Race Canada is finally back on the starting line. Host Jon Montgomery returns and shares his thoughts with Season 8 set to kick off Tuesday, July 5 on CTV. Jon's love of Canada is genuine and infectious as you can hear on this podcast episode. The Olympic gold medalist addresses the challenges in re-mounting Canada's most-popular summe...

Send us Fan Mail "Henderson has scored for Canada." Those five words, spoken by radio and TV legend Foster Hewitt, had me and five friends jumping up and down all over my parent's house on September 28, 1972. We had just witnessed history as Team Canada came back to defeat The U.S.S.R. in an eight game hockey summit series that put the Cold War on Ice. This episode, I speak with aut...

Send us Fan Mail Part Three of "Battle of the Network Stars: Executive Division" features CBC Executive Vice President Barbara Williams. Williams, a respected industry veteran who called the shots at Global prior to joining CBC,  oversees all of the public broadcaster’s English language programming services. This episode finds her just back from the Banff TV fest and fresh off the news o...