You Can't Do That on Television

You Can't Do That on Television (YCDTOTV) was a long running Canadian children's television program that ran from 1979 until 1990.

The programme debuted on February 3, 1979 on CJOH-TV (a CTV affiliate in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). At the time it was a low-budget, local comedy show. It included phone-in competitions through which the viewer could win prizes. This portion of the show was done live, thus explaining why the first two seasons of the show are termed "live" even though most of each episode was pre-taped. As well, music videos were often shown (usually three per episode). The lone adult on the show was veteran comedy actor Les Lye.

After the show's first successful season, it was decided to create a national (network) version of the show, shortened from an hour to a half hour, removing the local content, adding a laugh track, and replacing the music videos with live performances from hit bands at the time, such as Trooper and Max Webster. The show was re-titled Whatever Turns You On (and featured Ruth Buzzi of Laugh-In as a second adult performer), but because the timeslot was somewhat inappropriate for a kids show (Tuesday nights), it suffered from poor ratings, and was canceled after one season.

In 1981, the show returned to the original, local "You Can't Do That on Television" format. After a season of decent ratings, it came to a point where it was unknown whether or not the series would be renewed. It was then that a fledgling children's network in the United States called Nickelodeon took an interest in YCDTOTV. Roger Price, creator, and Geoff Darby, director of the show then cut down the entire 1981 season of episodes into a half-hour format similar to Whatever Turns You On. These new, edited versions were created for national and international syndication, and they were used most notably in late 1981, when YCDTOTV debuted on Nick and quickly became their highest rated show. Over the next few years, the ratings gradually declined in Canada, but YCDTOTV continued to go strong on Nick, where it aired five times a week.

By 1987 however, YCDTOTV was going through some serious changes. The 1987 season consisted of only five episodes (and the Adoption episode was banned after only one day of accidental airing). In addition, many of the "veteran" cast members such as Matt Godfrey, Doug Ptolemy, Vanessa Lindores, and Adam Reid had now all grown too old for the show. Christine McGlade, who was probably the most well-known cast member in the show's history, had departed the previous year. There was to be no 1988 season, because creator Roger Price moved and CJOH refused to make new episodes without him. The show resumed production in 1989, but the only kid cast member to make the transition from '87 to '89 that the long term older viewers could remember was Amyas Godfrey, and thus these people began to refer to the 1989 and 1990 season as "new episodes".

In 1988, YTV started broadcasting the show daily.

1990 was the final year of You Can't Do That on Television. It remained on the air on Nickelodeon in re-runs until January of 1994, when Nickelodeon dropped it for good. It was only seen on weekends by this time.

Alanis Morissette, a cast member, later became a highly successful musician.

The show included several unusual recurring gimmicks. Each episode had an "opposites" section, introduced by a visual effect of the screen rotating 360 degrees. When this happened, the cast would say, "It must be: the introduction to the opposites," and several sketches would follow in which the normal principles of daily life were reversed, often with children having authority over adults.

Another unusual feature of the show was that certain key words would result in cast members having substances poured on them from off-camera. When someone said "water", a large amount of water would mysteriously cascade onto them from off the top of the screen. Likewise, when someone said "I don't know", green slime would pour on them from above. This was known as being "slimed", and may have been responsible for the eventual adoption of slime as one of the emblems of Nickelodeon. Other substances and other colors of slime were occasionally poured in some episodes.

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86ycdtotvcast.jpg
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(1986 YCDTOTV cast: Bottom row: Stephanie Chow, Andrea Byrne. Middle row: Matt Godfrey, Doug Ptolemy, Amyas Godfrey, Vanessa Lindores, Alanis Morissette. Top row: Adam Reid, Les Lye, Alasdair Gillis)

See also

• List of You Can't Do That on Television episodes

External links

• You Can't Do That on Television - The Slime Society (http://www.ycdtotv.com)
• You Can't Do That on Television pictures (http://www.ycdtotv.de)
• Barth's Burgery (http://www.barthsburgery.com)