Parlez-moi was an educational television series which was produced and broadcast by TVOntario from 1978 to 1980, with repeat broadcasts for several years afterwards. The host was Marc Favreau, who also played Sol the Clown.
The Stationary Ark was a documentary television miniseries hosted by zoologist Gerald Durrell on location at his Jersey Zoological Park in the United Kingdom. It was based on his 1976 book of the same name. The series was produced by Canadian company Nielsen-Ferns and aired from September to December 1975 on CBC Television and TVOntario. Ark on the Move, a follow-up TV series, was also hosted by Gerald Durrell.
The Polar Sea is a 10 part television series that follows an incredible amateur expedition through the fabled Northwest Passage during a summer of revolutionary change in the Arctic.
Read All About It! was a Canadian educational television series that was produced from 1979 to 1983 by TVOntario that aired during the early to mid-1980s; It also aired in repeats in the 1990s. It starred David Craig Collard as Chris, Lydia Zajc as Lynne, Stacey Arnold as Samantha, and Sean Hewitt as Duneedon, ruler of the galaxy Trialviron. In the second season Michael Dwyer joined the cast as Alex. The main goal of the show was to educate viewers in reading, writing and history. Each episode ran for approximately 15 minutes. Eric Robertson composed the music for the show.
Write On was an educational television show which was produced and broadcast by TVOntario.
The series starred Jack Creley as Mr. R.H. Morton, Diane Dewey as Miss Newton, and Paul Brown as Henry Kent.
The premise of the series is of the misadventures of the staff of a small newspaper under the editorship of the tyrannical Morton with his subordinates, Miss Newton the secretary and Henry Kent, a young reporter. Considering Kent has poor writing and grammatical skills for a professional journalist, the staff have numerous events that illustrate various lessons about writing. Furthermore, Kent often have equally educational daydreams where he is a dashing hero illustrating various writing concepts.
Every episode of Write On was five minutes in length. They were written by Ken MacKay and Jed MacKay.
Elliot Moose is a Canadian children's live-action and animated series which was aired on TVOntario in Canada and PBS in the United States as part of the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch until it was cancelled.
Currently, the series airs on the TV station Qubo in the United States. Based on a series of children's books by Andrea Beck, its 104 episodes show the adventures of a young moose named Elliot who lives in a place called "The Big House", and shares adventures while having lots of fun with his friends; Beaverton, Lionel, Socks, and Paisley. The series was produced by Nelvana, then later on Corus Entertainment.
The series was developed by Jed MacKay and produced by Marianne Culbert. The series was unique in that half of the stories were animated, and half were live action; reflecting children's real world of play and their imaginary world. The music was composed by Bruce Ley and Jed MacKay.
Téléfrançais was a French language children's television show, produced by TVOntario from 1984 until 1986. The series of 30 ten-minute episodes has become a popular teaching tool, and is used by many educators to teach French as a second language to elementary and middle school children. The show's name is a portmanteau for télévision and français.
The show follows the adventures of two children named Jacques and Sophie, and Ananas, a talking pineapple who resides in a junkyard. Other recurring characters are Pilote, Ginette, the Annonceur, Monsieur Pourquoi, Louis Questionneur, Brigitte Banane, and the comic skeletal musical group Les Squelettes. The programs were produced by Jennifer Harvey and directed by David Moore. The catchy theme and all of Les Squelettes' songs were written by the team of Bruce Ley and Jed MacKay.
All the characters and scripts were created by Ken Sobol.
Zardip's Search for Healthy Wellness was an educational Canadian television show from the 1980s intended to teach public health messages to schoolchildren. Zardip Pacific, played by Keram Malicki-Sánchez, is an alien from a planet whose inhabitants are becoming sick as they do not know how to live a healthy lifestyle. He takes the form of a boy and ventures to Earth to report the habits of humans to his home planet. He befriends a group of teenagers, who instruct their new and ignorant friend on topics ranging from nutrition to exercise, all the while unaware of Zardip's true identity.
The show has a cult following among Canadians who attended grade school in the late 1980s and early 1990s, due to memories of watching the videocassettes in class, or watching the shows as they aired on TVOntario.
Children's Underground Club of United Moose and Beaver for Enthusiastic Reporters or Cucumber, was a TV show produced by TVOntario in the 1970s, and repeated in the 1980s during TVOntario's daytime kids' programming.
The show featured a human-sized moose and beaver often reporting from a treehouse. By sending in a story or some artwork to the show, one could become a member of the Cucumber Club.
Some notable people appeared on the show:
⁕A young John Candy guest starred as a character named Weatherman
⁕A young Martin Short guest starred as a character named Smokey the Hare
⁕An interview featured a nine-year-old Jeff Healey.
Bits and Bytes was the name for two Canadian television series, starring Billy Van, who teaches people the basics of how to use a computer.
The first series debuted in 1983 and the second series, called Bits and Bytes 2, in 1991. The first series also included popular comedian Luba Goy as the instructor to Van. The intro sequence featured a montage of common computer terms such as "ERROR", "LOGO" and "ROM", as well as various snippets of simple computer graphics and video effects, accompanied by a theme song that very heavily borrows from the 1978 song Neon Lights by Kraftwerk. The series were produced by TVOntario. The Writer-Producers of Both Bits and Bytes and Bits and Bytes 2 were Denise Boiteau & David Stansfield.
The original series featured an unusual presentation format whereby Luba Goy as the instructor would address Billy Van through a remote video link. The video link would appear to Luba who was seated in an office on a projection screen in front of her. She was then able to direct Billy who appeared
Every program had a number of elements woven into the plot line that invited its audience to "Join In!"; in games, songs, puzzles, or stories. The cast also broke the fourth wall, talking to the camera, and thus the audience, as if they were right there on set. The songs broke away from the usual children's format, offering a wide variety of rhythm and styles. The cast also sang live on each show.
All About You was an educational television series that was syndicated to numerous educational and PBS stations during the early and mid-1970s, mainly as part of weekday in-school telecasts.
The series was first produced at WHRO-TV, "Hampton Roads ETV", in Hampton, Virginia. In 1974, production of the series was moved to WGBH-TV Boston, where it was produced in association with WGBH's in-school television initiative, the "21-Inch Classroom". The 1974 episodes were distributed in the US and Canada by the Agency for Instructional Television; this is one of a few WGBH series to have not been distributed by NET or PBS.
Readalong was an educational, Canadian television program for young children, first produced in 1976 for TVOntario.
The program taught fundamentals of reading with the help of live child actors and puppets, including a comically dressed grandmother figure named Granny and anthropomorphic footwear: a brown, male boot and pink, female shoe named, appropriately, Boot and Pretty. Other characters were Mister Bones, the Explorer, House, and the Thing.
The Granny, Boot, and Pretty puppets are now housed at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Noreen Young, who designed the puppets, also created puppets for other programs, including Under the Umbrella Tree. The characters were developed by Ken Sobol, who also wrote all the scripts for the series. The show's music was composed by Eric Robertson.
Big Ideas is a Canadian television series produced and broadcast by TVOntario, on the air since 2001. The program showcases public intellectual culture. It was conceived by Wodek Szemberg who continues to serve as producer of the program. The show presents public lectures by acclaimed university educators and other distinguished guests. The show is intended for a general audience. The original host, Irshad Manji, was succeeded by Canadian actor/director/playwright Andrew Moodie on 2006-01-07. In September 2011 Piya Chattopadhyay took over as host.
Big Ideas airs on TVOntario on Saturday and Sunday at 5 PM, with repeat airings at 5:00 AM on Sunday and Monday morning.
In 2007, Big Ideas held its Best Lecturer competition for the second time. Dr. Michael Persinger, from Laurentian University, received the best-lecturer award.
Podcasts of the current lectures are available through the Big Ideas website as well as from iTunes.
Polka Dot Door was a long-running Canadian children's television series produced by the Ontario Education Communications Authority from 1971–1993. PDD was created and developed by a team of employees from TVOntario hired and led by original series producer-director, Peggy Liptrott.
Significant contributors to the creation and development of the series in 1971 included Executive Producer Dr. Vera Good who laid the conceptual foundation of the show, Educational Supervisor, Marnie Patrick Roberts, Educational Consultant L. Ted Coneybeare, Script Writers/Composers, Pat Patterson and Dodi Robb, Animator Dick Derhodge and Dr. Ada Scherman, a professor at the prestigious Institute of Child Study in Toronto who was consulted in the early stages of PDD's development and is responsible for giving the show its name.