|
Mark Breslin
Mark Breslin, is a Canadian entrepreneur, producer, stand-up comedian and actor best known for being the co-founder (along with Joel Axler) of Yuk Yuk's, the largest chain of comedy clubs in Canada. On December 29, 2017, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada by Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada. Breslin graduated from York University with a B.A. Honours in English Literature. Soon after graduating, he became Director of Theatre and Music for Harbourfront Corporation, an innovative cultural organization which produces events and activities at numerous venues on Toronto's waterfront. He is a founding member of the Canadian Comedy Awards, and was a comedy mentor for the B.C. Festival of the Arts. In 1976, Breslin and his collaborator Joel Axler opened the first Yuk Yuk's, in the basement of Toronto's 519 Church Street Community Centre. Four years later, Breslin and Axler opened Yuk Yuk's first permanent venue at 1280 Bay Street in the Yorkville district. Ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississauga surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and later designat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Humour
Canadian humour is an integral part of the Canadian identity. There are several traditions in Canadian humour in both English and French. While these traditions are distinct and at times very different, there are common themes that relate to Canadians' shared history and geopolitical situation in North America and the world. Though neither universally kind nor moderate, humorous Canadian literature has often been branded by author Dick Bourgeois-Doyle as "gentle satire," evoking the notion embedded in humorist Stephen Leacock's definition of humour as "the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life and the artistic expression thereof." The primary characteristics of Canadian humour are irony, parody, and satire. Various trends can be noted in Canadian comedy. One thread is the portrayal of a "typical" Canadian family in an ongoing radio or television series. Examples include ''La famille Plouffe'', with its mix of drama, humour, politics and religion and sitcoms suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laugh Attack
Just for Laughs Radio is a Sirius XM Radio channel featuring uncensored comedy from Canada. It was created in November 2005 as a result of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) regulations for Canadian content on the XM Radio Canada platform, originally as Laugh Attack until 2013 and then as Canada Laughs from 2013 to 2019."SiriusXM Canada spruces up its Canadian line-up". ''Canada NewsWire'', May 6, 2013. In conjunction with the Just for Laughs comedy festival, the channel was rebranded as Just for Laughs Radio on February 25, 2019 and will broadcast content from Just for Laugh events as well as independent content by Canadian comics. History As Canada Laughs, the channel featured uncensored Canadian stand-up and sketch comedy. This channel, The Verge, Radio Parallèle, and/or ATN-Asian Radio were sometimes preempted by XM Radio Canada in order to air extra NHL play-by-play on channels 235 - 239. Laugh Attack was not added to Sirius after t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable television. Its service included 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional traffic and weather channels, and 23 play-by-play sports channels. XM channels were identified by Arbitron with the label "XM" (e.g., "XM32" for " The Bridge"). The company had its origins in the 1988 formation of the American Mobile Satellite Corporation (AMSC), a consortium of several organizations originally dedicated to satellite broadcasting of telephone, fax, and data signals. In 1992, AMSC established a unit called the American Mobile Radio Corporation dedicated to developing a satellite-based digital radio service; this was spun off as XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc. in 1999. The satellite service officially launched on Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telemedia Radio Network
Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing. The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CKAC remained the company's radio flagship for its entire existence. Telemedia was held privately until it became publicly traded in the late 1980s. Telemedia's magazine assets, including ''Canadian Living'', ''Harrowsmith'', ''Homemakers'' and the Canadian editions of ''TV Guide'' and ''Elle'', were sold to Transcontinental Media in 2000. Standard Broadcasting subsequently acquired Telemedia's broadcasting assets in 2002, and sold some of them in turn to Rogers Communications and Newcap Broadcasting. Stations acquired by Standard Through later transactions, almost all of these stations are now owned by Bell Media. Ontario * Hamilton - CHAM, CKLH, CKOC * London - CKSL, CJBK, CJBX, CIQM * Pembroke - CHVR * St. Catharines - CHRE, CHTZ, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HGTV
HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, approximately 95,628,000 American households (82.2% of households with television) receive HGTV. The network was bought by Warner Bros. Discovery, then known as Discovery, Inc., in 2018, since which it has been ranked as No. 4 in audience size among cable networks. History Kenneth W. Lowe (then a radio executive with The E. W. Scripps Company and, subsequently, the chief executive officer of Scripps Networks Interactive) envisioned the concept of HGTV in 1992. With modest financial support from the E.W. Scripps corporate board, he purchased Cinetel, a small video production company in Knoxville, as the base and production hub of the new network. Lowe cofounded the channel with Susan Packard. Cinetel became Scripps Productions, but it found p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenny Vs Spenny
''Kenny vs. Spenny'' is a Canadian reality comedy television series starring Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice, where they face against each other in competitions. The loser of each episode performs an act of humiliation, usually selected by the winner. Hotz and Rice created the series in addition to serving as executive producers, and it was typically shot in their hometown of Toronto (the pilot was filmed in Los Angeles), based mostly out of the house they shared. As of November 2008, the show airs on CBC, Global and Showcase in Canada, Comedy Central in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, The Comedy Channel in Australia, Animax and later, Sony MAX, in South Africa, Italia 2 in Italy, FX in Portugal, on Jim in Finland. The series concluded with an hour-long Christmas special that aired on December 23, 2010, at 9 pm ET/PT on Showcase. It aired in Latin America on Sony Spin for a short time. The series was nominated for the Canadian Comedy Awards in 2010 and 2011 and for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friday Night With Ralph Benmergui
''Friday Night! with Ralph Benmergui'' was a Canadian television variety show, which aired on CBC Television from 1992 to 1993.Greg Quill, "Friday Night! at first glance". ''Toronto Star'', November 3, 1992. The show initially aired at 10 p.m., following ''Prime Time News'', but was moved to 11 p.m. in January 1993 and aired in the later time slot for the remainder of its run. The show debuted October 30, 1992, and was hosted by Ralph Benmergui, formerly of ''Midday''. The house band, called simply "The House" and including musicians such as Matt Zimbel, Doug Wilde and Taborah Johnson, provided the music in the first season; they were replaced in the second season by Look People, led by Jaymz Bee.Tony Atherton, "For Benmergui show, the only way is up; Only thing the show has in common with last year's flop is the host". ''Montreal Gazette'', October 8, 1993. It was one hour long and had an American late-night talk show format: an opening monologue by Benmergui followed by comedy s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CTV Comedy Channel
CTV Comedy Channel (often shortened to CTV Comedy and formerly known as The Comedy Network) is a Canadian English-language specialty channel owned by Bell Media which focuses primarily on comedy programming. The channel first launched on October 17, 1997, and operates two time-shifted feeds, running on Eastern Time Zone, Eastern and Pacific Time Zone schedules. History In September 1996, 1155636 Ontario Inc. (a company majority controlled by Baton Broadcasting, with the remaining interests held by Shaw Communications, Shaw Cable, Astral Media, Astral Broadcasting, and Les Films Rozon inc.) was granted a television broadcasting licence by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for The Comedy Network. The channel launched on October 17, 1997 as The Comedy Network. The network used the slogan "Time well wasted", a parody of the slogan of U.S. channel A&E (TV channel), A&E's at the time, "Time well spent". Through various acquisitions over the years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Movie Network
Crave (formerly The Movie Network or TMN) is a Canadian premium television network and streaming service owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc. Launched in 1983 as the national service First Choice, early difficulties and a subsequent industry restructuring led to its operations being restricted to Eastern Canada from 1984 to 2016; it then held a regional legal monopoly on movie-based premium TV service in its territory until the launch of the present-day Super Channel in 2007. The service, which changed its name to The Movie Network in 1993, resumed national operations in 2016, when Movie Central (which previously held a similar monopoly in Western and Northern Canada) wound down its operations and transferred its subscribers to TMN. In 2018, TMN merged its operations with the Bell-owned over-the-top (OTT) streaming service CraveTV, and both services were renamed Crave. With the changes, the OTT version of the service added a premium tier, "Movies + HBO", which add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
