This one's for the little readers. For those who say that the globalization of television is a new phenomenon or that the presence of "Canadian editions" of television programs (like Idol) are eating away at the country's cultural distinctiveness, allow me to offer the following, thanks to the fine people at tvdays.com:
A few things worth noting:
1. The Canadian edition of Howdy Doody retained some of the characters in the American version, like Clarabell, Howdy Doody, and Phineas T. Bluster. However, the voices were provided by Canadian actors. The show was also set in "the great north" and had a couple of distinctive characters, including Ranger Bill, played by James "Scotty" Doohan.
2. According to the entry in the Encyclopedia of Television, there were both Canadian and Cuban editions of the show. The Canadian version began in 1954 and aired on the CBC.
3. Kids shows are interesting examples of attempts to localize programming from other countries. One of the best examples, of course, is the Canadian edition of Sesame Street. Here's a thoroughly strange 1975 essay by Morris Wolfe, the former television critic for Saturday Night magazine, talking about the globalization of Big Bird.
4. I couldn't help but notice how the reference to "safety clubbers" during the "news" portion at the beginning of the show reminded me how references to membership resonate in the idea of "sports racers" that made the show with zefrank so popular during its one-year reign as the toast of the video blogging world. Onward to better things, zefrank -- and here's hoping you don't go the way of Amanda Congdon. Oops, too late.
3 comments:
Ooh, nasty!
But is there not a difference between appearing in ads and being ad-sponsored? Also, The Show was running ads for many months before this Dewar's deal. The whole media-industrial complex would crumble without the support of advertising, so what's the big deal?
Michael Newman,
Thanks for the post.
The only big deal is that much of the language around new media practices -- like videoblogging -- seems to thumb its nose at the practices of the mainstream media. And yet some of its practices (such as being able to deliver audiences to advertisers) now are the same as the hated MSM. Now you know I don't have a problem with this, because I liked "The Show" a lot. However, we'll have to be always mindful of the relationship between vloggers, audiences, and advertisers more closely when we interrogate the rhetoric of the "alternativeness" of alternative media. But this is a subject you know well. And you know I'm not that nasty, am I?
Hmmmm....
Why focus on Canadian television to tell the story of 'international adaptation'? Surely, the trade in television formats is a much broader phenomenon than Canadian editions.
Aren't game show formats syndicated internationally?
Isn't the Idol franchise -- as well as Big Brother & Survivor -- an international phenomenon?
Hasn't The Office spawned several international knock-offs?
Wasn't All in the Family an imitation of Till Death Us Do Part (right down to borrowing scripts and situations)?
My point is: if we start by asking "what shows have been Canadianized?" -- as though we needed to defend ourselves against American TV -- we may miss the fact that "Canadianization" is merely a local example of a global phenomenon whose roots are almost as old as TV itself.
One last example: CTV Wide World of Sports was a Canadianized version of ABC Wide World of Sports. It protected us from American sportscasters but gave us Ernie Afghanis.
PA
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