Wednesday, September 9, 2020

I'm Anarkyvist: Speakers Corner Promo - Citytv - 1997




In early 2011 I felt it was time to start digitizing my VHS collection of over 200 tapes. To YouTube I went and signed up under the improbable and somewhat mysterious name of "Anarkyvist". The project got off to a good start, but after the initial volley, I seemed to lose interest while gaining other convenient distractions. It.'s time to go back to those VHS boxes and the conversion process, but for now I will take a look back here on this blog....

It began from the booth at the northwest corner of Queen and John here in Toronto....

Speakers Corner ran on Citytv stations from 1990 to 2008. What started out as a simple concept allowing people to speak their minds on editorial issues, quickly turned into something bigger and more. For one Canadian dollar coin (the Loonie), one could do their thing for television for a maximum of two minutes. Anything went, even if some segments could not be aired due to some lewd behavior. Some actors and musicians who made appearances: Harrison Ford; Mike Myers; the Barenaked Ladies; and Madonna.

Occasionally I saw the interstitials and watched the half-hour version of Speakers Corner.

Now I see a social document.

6 comments:

Greg Woods said...

Our pal Barry Morse appeared on one of the half-hour shows, I think in the late 1990s, reciting Shakespeare.

Simon St. Laurent said...

When I bumped into him years ago, here in Toronto, I should have said:

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.”

Greg Woods said...

A friend told me he used to be seen riding his bike a lot around the Humber-Kingsway area in the late 70s-early 80s. Must have had a house there while he was shooting all those Canadian films around that time.

Simon St. Laurent said...

After I saw Barry Morse in the Yorkville Library here in Toronto, a friend told me I should have whispered through the stacks: "I heard you're looking for a man named Richard Kimble."

I'm generally pretty quick on my feet, so I'm surprised I had not thought of that. Another choice would have been: "Victor...."

We could have chatted about how much he disliked working on Space: 1999. Morse was put off by the lack of quality scripting and the emphasis on Thunderbirds-type explosions. We would have bonded on that one.

Greg Woods said...

Do you remember when that would've been? I forgot he also shot the interstitials for "Strange But True" around 82-ish?

Simon St. Laurent said...

Summer of 1988.

Interestingly enough, I was looking-up travel guide books on England.