Here’s a nostalgia trip for those of you who watched TVOntario during the late seventies and early eighties: a montage of images from its daytime educational shows. Did any of you ever watch Parlez-Moi, Write On!, H&G Mysteries, Bits and Bytes or Math Patrol?
Images courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
14 replies on “Vintage TVOntario Images”
Hi! Great memories, but please you have to tell me the name of the show with the boot. I’ve been looking for the name of that show for YEARS. Please email me, or comment back!
@Jesse: The show with the boot was called Readalong:
There’s a site that has more stills from the show here.
Funny – for reasons beyond my understanding, I had the theme song to Fables of the Green Forest stuck in my head the other day. All of those images remind me of my childhood – the only one missing is that reading program set in a department store after hours (there was an old security guard, a mouse that spoke in rhyme (Muffy?) and Jeff the mannequin.)
I’m not from Ontario, but do remember those puppets, especially the Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque ones. Do you remember the name of the show? And was that the show with the Gnu Gnews? (Although some days I worry I imagined the Gnu Gnews.)
@Marion: You’re thinking of The Great Space Coaster, which was not a TVOntario show, but a syndicated show that appeared on UHF stations in the early eighties. Here’s its intro sequence:
The gnu of which you speak is Gary Gnu, shown below:
And I can’t mention The Great Space Coaster without posting the video for the Family Guy parody:
Rebecca: The show in the department store was Today’s Special.
Readalong was first aired the year I was in kindergarten. They used to show it in the morning and then repeat the same episode in the afternoon.
Bits and Bytes was on for the first time shortly after we got a home computer. I remember the content seemed a little Mickey Mouse to me at the time, but I still kinda wish that glowing animation style was available in a user interface–especially with the voiceover.
Oh. My. God.
Billy Van and Bits and Bytes.
Now I know why I ended up in tech!!
For me the Metric Report with Heather Conkie is the unforgettable 1970s TVO program.
I still don’t really get hectares though … but that isn’t her fault.
I was trying to describe “Write On” to some friends the other day. I remember the KISS makeup-ed rock star episode and his song about commas splices, and the episode where Mr. Morton was a vampire who always punctuated with colons, with his fangs, and could only be weakened by the sight of a sentence needing a semi-colon, which he couldn’t do.
Can someone tell me the name of the one with the kangaroo? It was something about counting and he was a detective? There is a picture of the beginning of the show above.
There was a small movie about a boy who decovered a clock that struck 13 and he would go back in time what was the name of it
I think the kangaroo was Sydney and the show was Math Patrol.
Jesse: the name of the show is Readalong.
I have several episodes on VHS tape that I once did a video trading project with some years ago.
If anyone out there is interested in getting episodes, please email me at “jamieleesmit2010@gmail.com” and we can work something out.
I do really love this website as I have seen some other shows like Polka Dot Door, and Sharon Lois & Bram’s Elephant Show through TV Ontario back in those days.
TVO is Gone Forever