After successfully launching MuchMusic in 1984, they switched to all night movies and once again, brilliantly, enlisted the City itself as a character in its own unfolding story: denizens of after-hours Yonge Street (back when it was grimy, soulful and a smidge dangerous) reminded viewers they were watching "Late Great Movies on Citytv!" Every commercial break shout out created instant camaraderie with shift-workers, insomniacs, ogling teenagers and whatever other assorted miscreants who were up at 4:00a.m. In the early '80s when 24/7 broadcasting was a new reality, Citytv populated the wee hours with music videos.
#Baby blue movies city tv movie#
Trash, cheese and outright crap were celebrated at Citytv, first with The Not-So-Great Movie strand and then most memorably with the aural alchemy of The Voice, who with one gruff and ready sentence could sell you on a bad movie quicker than a million dollar advertising campaign could on a good one.
#Baby blue movies city tv tv#
Not to mention the Late Great Movie phenomena, born out of large film collections which any other TV station would have rejected with a barge pole. Plenty of film enthusiasts from Toronto swear by the higher education they attained watching Great Movies, in an era before VCRs or Pay-TV. Themed weeks were popular - Godzilla, James Bond, Planet of the Apes, Elvis, Woody Allen, Shaw Brothers, Universal Monsters and Disaster films. The fanfare evolved, with each progressive intro getting more complex and exciting: watching these, you knew that something special was about to flash onto your screen. The Great Movies skein screened double bills every night, with tacit acknowledgement that viewers were cool ("Before you go out tonight, see what's on Great Movies.") This was a marked contrast to other broadcasters' passive treatment of their audience.
Watching Citytv in the '70s, especially the Baby Blues, was an act of insurrection.Īs the Baby Blues cunning stunt achieved Moses Znaimer's goal of bringing both wanted and unwanted attention to Citytv's humble UHF location, (as well as probably inspiring David Cronenberg's masterpiece Videodrome, but that's another story.) the station also carved out a reputation for itself by showing regular movies too. Even after all these years, people still talk about the Baby Blues with reverence because they not only helped defrost Toronto's frigid attitudes towards sex, but more importantly pushed the buttons of those wholesome squares who controlled television at the time.
No amount of programming wizardry or post-modern playlist shuffling, however, could ever come close to reproducing what it was once like to be a patron of that most eclectic festival of cathode ray mayhem, witness to a heady yet irresistible parade of high-brow art house, home grown Canadiana, beloved Hollywood classics and low-grade, gormless sleaze guaranteed to rattle, titillate and challenge our senses all hours of the day and night: Citytv's Great Movies.Īs one of the core three tenets of old Citytv's identity - "News Movies Music," movies played a crucial role in forging their destiny, or rather, Baby Blue movies did. Whatever our fancy, we live in a time of unprecedented access to movies.
#Baby blue movies city tv free#
Today, we are overwhelmed by how much choice we have to indulge that love, from TIFF to the reps, uncut and commercial free HD channels, $5 Blu-rays, streams, on demand, pirating or even just using our phones to gaze upon YouTube.
0 kommentar(er)
