Genevieve Mushaluk, a 33-year-old corporate lawyer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, had her torch snuffed on last week’s two-hour, second-last episode of Survivor. Picked as the final member of the jury, she’ll be in LA watching the finale with the rest of the castaways when the season ends December 18 on CBS and Global.Did she see her elimination coming? Does she have any regrets? Will she ever eat rice again? And what about all those snakes and spiders??Mushaluk tells all in this shorter than usual...
My guest this week has made over three dozen made for television movies, She also headlined Hallmark’s Aurora Teagarden series. Before that, as a child star, she was part of the long-running TGIF family series, Full House, as well as its streaming sequel, Fuller House.Of course I’m talking about Candace Cameron Bure. In 2022, she broke away from Hallmark and joined the Great American Family network. There she is not just one of its busiest stars, she is also a very hands-on Chief Content Offi...
If you work in this industry you know how hard it is to keep ahead in a world that always seems to be pivoting. Streaming, fast channels, multi-platform media brands – who can keep up?Well, one fella is Jamie Schouela, President, Global Channels and Media at Blue Ant Media. I caught up with Jamie a few weeks ago in Toronto when I was asked to moderate a CTAM panel on the future of the industry from a cable perspective. He leads the strategic direction and operations for the company's str...
As we head into another frigid Canadian winter we bring you a podcast about a series that is set and shot in the hottest part of Australia. The series is called Troppo, a term used in north Queensland that means going mad from the heat. Troppo is based on the best selling novel from Candice Fox titled Crimson Lake and it is about a disgraced American ex-cop played by Thomas Jane (HBO's Hung) hired to help an Australian private investigator. They are teamed together on murder ...
After 31 years as host of The Fifth Estate, plus another decade winning Emmys for CBS and NBC News, award-winning investigative journalist Bob McKeown is ready to retire.The Ottawa native never shied away from his assignments, especially when it came to reporting on football and head injuries. Back in the '70s, he was a CFL all-star centre for the Ottawa Rough Riders. He is without a doubt the only three-time recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award to have also won a Grey Cup.On this ep...
Tyler and Jordie Schwartz started their business of selling retro toys and gifts in 2007 as the Canadian Leg Lamp Company. The idea came after shooting their fan film “Road Trip for Ralphie,” an homage to the kid from the 1983 classic, “A Christmas Story.”Next they introduced Moose Mugs from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (1989). Seventeen years later, they’ve branched out to all kinds of retro goodies, including toys, candy, books, games, ugly sweaters and much more.You’ll find them...
When Jess Salgueiro auditioned in person for the role of Eve on Frasier, she had to do it in front of a pair of sitcom legends: Kelsey Grammer and director Jim Burrows.Pressure? Yes and no says the actress, who was born in Winnipeg, Man. She figured there must be hundreds of others lining up to try and win a role on this reboot of a TV classic. With nothing to lose by trying, she told herself, just have fun and see if you can make them laugh.She did, and got the part.Now after two seaso...
Stop me if you've seen this kind of Hallmark series before: an enterprising and attractive single woman (Sarah Drew from Grey's Anatomy) owns a Christmas store on the main street of a picturesque small town. She crosses paths with a handsome, newly single-police officer (Peter Mooney from Burden of Truth). Before you can say, "witness tampering," holiday sparks ensue.Mistletoe Murders, already launched in the US on Hallmark Channel and premiering Nov. 18 om W Network and STACKTV, does s...
If only The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was still around to help us through another turbulent US Presidential election. Pat Paulsen -- where are you when we need you?A key writer/producer back on that 1967-69 comedy variety show was a Canadian -- Allan Byle. Before the Smothers, he worked for Fred Rogers as well as CBC songbird Juliette. Tommy Smothers, who has a knack for spotting talent, insisted that Blye, then in his twenties, be part of the Comedy Hour writing staff. Th...
In Part 2 of my conversation with Ken Levine, more evidence that the Emmy-winner is one of TV's top storytellers.One of my favourite episodes from his excellent podcast, Hollywood & Levine, is the one where he told listeners exactly what he thought of the recent reboot of Frasier. Some might see this as sour grapes from one of the authors of the original series, but I for one was keenly interested in Levine's unvarnished take. He didn't hold back, and repeats what Fresh Hell he sees...
What hasn't Ken Levine done? He's an Emmy-winning screenwriter who has -- with writing partner David Issacs -- written for some of television's best comedies. You may have heard of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Frasier. In his spare time (!) he has also been a disc jockey, a major league baseball play-by-play announcer, a cartoonist, a playwright, a director, a travel writer, an executive producer, a blogger and a podcaster.His weekly podcast, Hollywood & Levine, helped make trips to the cottage fl...
This past spring, the CBS action-drama Tracker became an instant hit, emerging as the No. 1 US network series of the season. On this episode, I speak with the tracker himself, Justin Hartley, who was in Toronto last June promoting the series at the CTV upfront. After a career in soaps (Passions; The Young and the Restless) as well as in primetime (Smallville; Emily Owens, MD), Hartley hit the TV jackpot as Kevin Pearson in This Is Us (2016-22). That led to the 47-year-old actor landing the le...
When you’ve been busy creating, writing and starring in TV shows and films for a couple of decades, who has time for a hobby?That’s been the case for Mark McKinney. This son of a diplomat moved around a lot as a lad and says comedy has always been his hobby. Together with Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson, he’s been performing on stage, film and television as one of the Kids in the Hall since the late 1980s. McKinney also spent a couple of seasons as a writer-per...
The first scene of the new Fox and Global series Murder in a Small Town is set at that most sacred of Canadian television landmarks: the diner from The Beachcombers, Mollys Reach. Seated inside, shooting a first date scene, are two actors representing several generations of Canadian acting royalty: Kristin Kreuk, the Vancouver lass who went from Edgemont to Smallville to Beauty and the Beast to Burden of Truth to starring in this fifth network series, Opposite her is Rossif Sutherland. T...
Ever wonder what it was like to be in Studio 8H opening night in 1975 on Saturday Night Live?Director Jason Reitman wondered and his new movie, "Saturday Night," is a recreation of the hours leading up to airtime on that historic night. Somebody who was there, however, is my guest this week on brioux.tv the podcast: Lorraine Santoli.No, she was never one of the "Not Ready from Prime Time Players." Lorraine, who worked at NBC, was on the floor, pulling cables for the camera operators dur...
TV schedules and programs are like the places where we live. Sometimes they need somebody to come in a do a thorough de-cluttering.As CBC's Dragon's Den heads into a 19th season, who better to join the series as the latest investing entrepreneur than Brian Scudamore? He's the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. You know their slogan: "We make junk disapear. All you have to do is point!"As a pack rat who moved in the past year I know all about clinging to too much stuff. Scudamore tells me on t...
After a two year wait, our long national farmhouse facelift crisis is over! Designer/contractor siblings Carolyn Wilbrink and Billy Pearson are back with a new, third season of HGTV's Farmhouse Facelift. The stylin' siblings--featured twice before on brioux.tv: the podcast--once again barnstorm through Southern Ontario, taking grim-looking concrete block bunkers and turning them, in Episode One for example, into custom country cottages. The eight new episodes also include a makeover of a...
About two hours northeast of Toronto stands The Highlands Cinemas, a hand made movie palace carved out of cedars and mosquitoes. Every summer for 40 years, families from neighbouring towns and villages in Ontario’s cottage country have braved bear cubs in the parking lot to see everything from “Barbie” to the latest “Despicable Me” flick.It is entirely the vision of one of Kinmount, Ont.’s native sons, Keith Stata. “The Movie Man,” a documentary about this remarkable entrepreneur’s Don Quixot...
Hugh Wilson talked his way into a job at MTM Enterprises at just the right time. When he arrived in the early '70s, they were busy making sitcom history with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Wilson, who had no prior TV experience, could often be found up in the rafters, taking a crash course in Funny 101.The result was his first series as a creator and executive producer, WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82).In this "From the Vault" conversation from 2014, Wilson -- who passed away...
The death of comedy legend Bob Newhart July 18 had me scrambling for this "From the Vault" conversation with Bill Daily. Daily was one of Newhart's oldest friends from their Chicago days in the late '50s when Daily was directing and performing in television and Newhart was exploding onto the scene with, at the time, the biggest-selling comedy LP ever, "The Button-down Mind of Bob Newhart."The two reunited on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), a perfectly cast, well-written gem from the glory day...