From Jim Bawden:
Link: Beyond The Spectrum Is Must-See TV
It’s the sheer honesty and deep commitment of two parents that should immediately strike you when watching the brilliant new TVOntario documentary Beyond The Spectrum: A Family’s Year Confronting Autism.
The 86-minute production premieres on TVOntario Wednesday Oct. 18 at 9 p.m. and is must-see TV at its best. Continue reading.
From Jim Bawden:
Link: Much Too Young: Must-See Canadian TV
Don’t get distracted by the glut of new and returning TV series  popping up all over your TV screens this fall.
Save some time for the brilliant new Canadian made TV documentary Much Too Young which has its world premiere Thursday September 21 at 9 p.m., which is World Alzheimer’s Day. Continue reading.
From James Bawden:
Link: Little India: Village of Dreams A Must See
It’s entirely appropriate for the brilliant new documentary Little India: Village Of Dreams to premiere on Canada Day –it runs Saturday, July 1 at 9 p.m. on TVOntario.
Filmmaker Nina Beveridge tells me on the phone the ambitious film took a year and a half to plan and make –and that included multiple shooting days in the neighborhood. I well know the location in east end Toronto along Gerrard St. East just before Coxwell–I attended Riverdale College at Gerrard and Jones, graduating in 1964, when Riverdale was an all white Protestant bastion. Continue reading.
My orange-skinned preschooler buddy has got himself a spinoff! Yes, Opie, who has been taking the fear out of kindergarten for kids and parents with Hey Opie! on TVO for the past couple of years, leaves school for a new series setting him at home.
Opie’s Home, debuting Tuesday at 10:50 a.m. on TVO, sends the friendly four-year-old—performed by Jordan Lockhart—home for the summer to spend time with his mom (Aisha Alfa), dad (Jim Annan), Gram (Claire Riley) and next door neighbour, Mr. Kabashio (Graham Greene).
TVO Kids, marblemedia and The Jim Henson Company have got educational and truly entertaining kids’ programming down pat and Opie’s Home is no exception. The first seven-minute instalment introduces trust and responsibility in an interesting way as Opie is allowed to handle his dad’s cell phone so he can take a “big boy” selfie. There are a few near-misses along the way—running on stairs with electronics in your hand isn’t the safest—but Opie is successful in landing “the funnest fun” selfie ever with some help from Snackasaurus. Episode 2 gets a little more serious, as kale smoothies don’t sound like fun at all to Opie and Gavin.
Opie’s Home airs Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:50 a.m. on TVO and anytime on TVOKids. The series will premiere later this fall across Canada on Knowledge Kids and CityTV Saskatchewan.
Images courtesy of TVO.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to be everywhere. Running behind a group of students prepping for their prom in Vancouver, kayaking up to supporters outside their cottage … I almost expect to see him in line with me at Starbucks. So, it’s nice to see Sophie Grégoire Trudeau getting some airtime as well, as one of several guests on TVO’s newest kid’s series Canada Crew.
Created by Ben Mazzotta and executive-produced by Maria Kennedy, Canada Crew—debuting Monday—is part of the public broadcaster’s Summer of Canada lineup that includes Opie’s Home and Kid Diners; both of those series bow on Tuesday. Mazzotta and Kennedy were meeting with Marney Malabar, TVO’s director of kids TV, to go over ideas for Now You Know when she asked for content tied to Canada’s 150th birthday. The independent producers batted around ideas in the car ride home.
“We were saying, ‘What if we did this? What if we did that?'” Mazzotta recalls. “We came up with an idea that morphed into what we see now.”
“We went with our strengths,” Kennedy says. “We know puppets through Now You Know and having high-profile guests on a show. We wrote a concept based on that.” Canada Crew‘s puppet hosts are Bebe the Beaver, Mo the Moose and Gavin the Canada Goose; the trio travels to every province and territory introducing kids the things that make Canada what it is: people and places, food, pastimes, animals and nature, and the national anthem. Big-name guests in the 26 seven-minute instalments include, aside from Trudeau, celebrity chef Susur Lee, hockey great Darryl Sittler, Olympic kayaker Adam van Koeverden, WE Day founder Craig Kielburger and Major Indira Thackorie of the Royal Canadian Air Forces Snowbirds team.
“Bebe is excited by everything,” Mazzotta says. “She’s precocious, she’s really funny, energetic and not afraid of anything. Mo is a little more cautious, studious and uses an iPad to research facts. And Gavin is a little more of a bumbling character, falling and tripping and forgets he can fly.” Together, they aim to educate viewers not only about the history of this country and what makes us unique from the rest of the world but to entertain too.
Mission accomplished.
Canada Crew airs at 8:20 a.m. ET and 2:30 p.m. ET on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on TVO Kids and is available on TVOKids.com.
Images courtesy of TVO.
