Canadian and Australian Shows on U.S. Television

[Mr. Mike]

I don't know if anyone's posted this, so here it is.

We've heard about British shows airing on American television, particuarly on public television stations (Monty Python's Flying Circus, Benny Hill, Dave Allen at Large, The Prisoner, The Avengers, The Professionals, and Dempsey & Makepeace usually come to mind). So what about shows made in both the Great White North, Canada, and the land Down Under called Australia that were syndicated either on PBS stations or on independent stations?

There's a few shows that come to mind that I can think of:

Canadian shows syndicated in U.S.
The Forest Rangers
The Littlest Hobo (1980s version)
Check it Out!
My Secret Identity
DaVinci's Inquest
Cold Squad

Australian shows syndicated in U.S.
Prisoner: Cell Black H
Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
The Sullivans
Mother and Son (was seen on PBS stations)

Can anyone think of other shows coming from either place?

 

[ajc_trw]

Canadian Shows
SCTV
Kids in the Hall
Red Green
Corner Gas
Bizzare

Aussie Shows
The Paul Hogan Show

 

[Davros2006]

Newly-syndicated from Canada to the U.S.: Heartland (new episodes continue to air on CBC)

 

[anotherguyTN]

THere was a recent thread on this on the National TV board: http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=177387.0

 

[mleach]

Last year at a Colorado flea market I was checking out a 1972 edition of the Rocky Mountain News that showed that the infamous Canadian sitcom "The Trouble with Tracy" was airing on Denver's KWGN-TV. Until then I had no idea this show was seen outside Canada and the boarder cities like Buffalo and Seattle.

The King of Kensington ( CBC ) for a brief time back in 1977 was airing on Washington, DC's WTTG.

 

[Toledo Eleven]

The Beachcombers (CBC) is currently running on ALN in the U.S.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I remember seeing "King of Kensington", but I can't remember which broadcast or cable outlet carried it.

 

[Tim L]

I remember seeing "King of Kensington", but I can't remember which broadcast or cable outlet carried it.

I want to say it was in Cleveland on either on WJW-TV 8 (or WJKW) or WUAB-43..I think on Saturdays at 7PM

 

[liradioisbad]

All the Degrassi shows, which is originally made in Canada. The ones in the 80's-early 90's were on Showtime and PBS. The current one is on TeenNick (with episodes also in broadcast sydication).

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I remember seeing "King of Kensington", but I can't remember which broadcast or cable outlet carried it.

I want to say it was in Cleveland on either on WJW-TV 8 (or WJKW) or WUAB-43..I think on Saturdays at 7PM

That sounds about right. WUAB rings a bell with me.

 

[azumanga]

Last year at a Colorado flea market I was checking out a 1972 edition of the Rocky Mountain News that showed that the infamous Canadian sitcom "The Trouble with Tracy" was airing on Denver's KWGN-TV. Until then I had no idea this show was seen outside Canada and the boarder cities like Buffalo and Seattle.

According to this Wikipedia article on the show, an American syndicator tried syndicating the program to US stations, but failed. But until now, I didn't know that the program was actually seen on US stations.

The King of Kensington ( CBC ) for a brief time back in 1977 was airing on Washington, DC's WTTG.

Other than the aforementioned WUAB, WTOG in Tampa Bay also carried the program around this time.

Also, according to a retro TV listing someone posted here awhile back, WFGX in Fort Walton Beach also carried "King" -- in 1985. (Though I don't know if it was just the first couple of seasons as of 1977, or the entire run since then (CBC canned "King" in 1980).

 

[easttxtv]

KXTX/39 aired Pacific Drive, an Aussie soap, for a year in the late 1990s. Very uncharacteristic for the DFW-area station at the time; it was an indie that showed classic reruns during the week and westerns/movies on weekends. By the time Pacific Drive began airing, Ch.39 was in an LMA with KXAS/5 (this was before Ch.39 flipped to Telemundo and before it became an O&O). I've never heard what the reason was for 39 or 5 to even try a show like that in the DFW market (much less what the ratings might have been), when the only accented imports to air in the market before were the successful Britcom reruns on KERA/13. I watched Pacific Drive a few times; it was interesting, but got cheesier as time went along.

 

[bpatrick]

Last year at a Colorado flea market I was checking out a 1972 edition of the Rocky Mountain News that showed that the infamous Canadian sitcom "The Trouble with Tracy" was airing on Denver's KWGN-TV. Until then I had no idea this show was seen outside Canada and the boarder cities like Buffalo and Seattle.

According to this Wikipedia article on the show, an American syndicator tried syndicating the program to US stations, but failed. But until now, I didn't know that the program was actually seen on US stations.

The King of Kensington ( CBC ) for a brief time back in 1977 was airing on Washington, DC's WTTG.

Other than the aforementioned WUAB, WTOG in Tampa Bay also carried the program around this time.

Also, according to a retro TV listing someone posted here awhile back, WFGX in Fort Walton Beach also carried "King" -- in 1985. (Though I don't know if it was just the first couple of seasons as of 1977, or the entire run since then (CBC canned "King" in 1980).

WAGA carried it in 1977 on Sunday nights at 10.

 

[Ultimajock]

...a short-lived 1979 syndicated Canadian product was Whatever Turns You On, a sketch comedy co-starring Ruth Buzzi. It was intended as a CTV Canadian network version of a local show CJOH/13 Ottawa was running on Saturdays, and Buzzi was brought aboard to make the thing palatable to U.S. indie programmers. It didn't last the full 1979-80 season, but the local show was eventually repackaged and ran for 13 years on Nickelodeon under its original title, You Can't Do That on Television...

 

[Corky Marlowe]

After "Due South" ended on CBS, it resumed production in Canada, and that version of the show aired in syndication in the States.

 

[onairb]

Ion/I showed the Canadian crime drama Durham County late last year, and may have even aired the start of the second season early this year, before the channel...had issues.

 

[bpatrick]

In the early '70s Anything You Can Do, a game show
similar to Beat The Clock. In the 1971-72 season Gene
Wood was hosting Anything and announcing Clock,
which Jack Narz hosted at the time. Wood left Anything
at the end of the season, after several contestants were injured
despite the producers' assurances that all the stunts were safe.
In the meantime, Narz was having issues with Mark Goodson over
the price of airline tickets from his home in LA to Montreal, where
Clock was taped; seems Goodson didn't want to reimburse him.
Narz left, Wood took over as host, and Don Harron became the host
of Anything until 1974. Wood, of course, became better known
as an announcer than as a host, most notably Family Feud.

At any rate Anything was syndicated in the U.S. at the same
time it played on CTV.

 

[Ultimajock]

...kinda surprised that nobody's yet recalled The Galloping Gourmet was produced at CJOH in Ottawa as well...

 

[bpatrick]

Wasn't there a sci-fi show, The Starlost, that
was produced in Canada and aired in syndication in
the U.S. around 1974? I recall WAVE in Louisville carrying
that show, and that one of the stars was Robin Ward, who
hosted the 1980-81 version of To Tell The Truth.

Wayne and Shuster's specials were, like Benny Hill's, edited
into a series and syndicated after Benny got hot, around 1980;
I remember KTVT carrying them. Also, an American expatriate,
Don Lane, went to Australia, had a successful daytime talk show
there, and it had a small syndication in the U.S. around the same
time.

 

[soundsandsports]

Since Degrassi (saw a bit of the old school version on PBS and most of TNG by the way) and You Can't Do That on Television (a freakin' classic) have already been mentioned, I know of some other children's shows that were imported from Canada...

Of course, before the transition from Discovery Kids to The Hub, that network shoved the Canadian/Australian co-production "The Saddle Club", basically "The Babysitters Club" on horses. The show has also gotten airtime on PBS stations.

Speaking of PBS, my affiliate down here in Nashville, WDCN at the time (now WNPT) aired several educational shows, Today's Special, which got airtime not only on PBS but Nickelodeon for a year or so (because I remember watching it on both channels, some show that taught French, and what I'm pretty sure was a game show, and they came from TVOntario (basically Canada's East Coast version of PBS)

The only other Australian shows I can think of straight away is "Spellbinder", which aired on the Disney Channel from 1996 to 1998, then ran on what was then Fox Family Channel until 2000, and Out There and H2O, some decent Aussie outputs which aired on what was then The N. Spellbinder was actually an Aussie/Polish co-production, and I think it was ahead of its time, a great live action series...

Outside of that, by my count, there have been 23 cartoons imported from Canada outright, and about 10 or 15 US/Canada co-produced cartoons, then of course there are the imported Canadian shows that came to Noggin/The N/TeenNick this past decade...Radio Free Roscoe, Instant Star, South of Nowhere, About A Girl, and Whistler, which was one of the first shows ever aired on the network.