TV & Film

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Maggie Muggins

Today's Special Crew

TVO Bookmice

Muffy and Nina

Drop-In (1970)

Drop-In was a Canadian television series for youth broadcast on CBC Television from 28 September 1970 to 1974. Various hosts were featured throughout the course of the series to present a variety of topics.

The show was broadcast three times per week in the 1970-1971 season. This was increased to four times per week in the following year.

Prior to the fall launch of the series, eight preview episodes were aired on CBC Television beginning 7 July 1970. These were entitled Dress Rehearsal, but otherwise featured hosts such as Susan Conway, Lynne Griffin and Rex Hagon who would be seen on the regular series from that October. Nina Keogh was also part of the Dress Rehearsal cast.

Although the program was eclectic, shows usually concentrated on a specific theme, such as magic (with guest Doug Henning) or love or changing fashions. Hagon, Conway, fellow hosts Pat Rose and Nina Keogh, and occasional visitors Lynne Griffin and Jeff Cohen explored such topics through in-studio interviews and filmed reports. Drop-In also included puppet performances by Nina Keogh, comic sketches, called the Drop-In Little Theatre, and music by semi-regular Ron Nigrini's Gentle Rock Band, and by guest bands, such as Copper Penny, Milestone, the System, Yours Truly, and the Perth County Conspiracy.

Polka Dot Door (1971)

Polka Dot Door was a long-running children's television series produced and broadcast by TVOntario from 1971 until 1993. The show, which aired Monday to Friday, was set in a large playhouse. The show was an adaptation of the long-running BBC children's show, Play School.

Each episode had two human hosts, always one man and one woman, although there were many different human hosts over the course of the series. The same pair would host the show for a week; the next week would bring a new pair of hosts.

Hosts of Polka Dot Door included Denis Simpson, Gloria Reuben, Tonya Lee Williams, Taborah Johnson, Cindy Cook, Catherine Bruhier, Rex Hagon, Garth Mosbaugh, Jim Codrington, Sherry Miller, Johnnie Chase, Gordon Thomson, Carrie Loring, Nerene Virgin and Nina Keogh. In the show's first decade the most frequent host was Alex Laurier.

Readalong (1976)

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 (voiced by Jack Duffy) 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.

Puppeteers: Noreen Young, Bob Dermer, Nina Keogh

Today's Special (1981-1987 Muffy)

Today's Special is a Canadian children's television show produced by Clive VanderBurgh at TVOntario from 1982 to 1987. It also ran on Nickelodeon and the Faith and Values Channel (now the Hallmark Channel) as well as many PBS stations throughout the United States. It was set in a department store, based on the flagship location of the now-defunct Simpson's in Toronto. Many sequences for the show were shot at the Queen Street West and Yonge Street store after hours.

Core characters included Muffy Mouse (puppet, Nina Keogh): A mouse who speaks in rhyme and lives in the store. Young, childlike and more mischievous than the other characters, she likes to ride her scooter, plays the piano, enjoys playing tricks on people, and is obsessed with eating snacks (especially cheese). She is usually the first one to get upset or frustrated over a situation. As a mouse, she is afraid of cats, and hates it when people mention them.

The Friendly Giant (1982)

The Friendly Giant was a popular Canadian children's television program on the CBC from September 1958 through to March 1985. It featured three main characters: a giant named Friendly (played by Bob Homme), who lived in a huge castle, along with his puppet animal friends Rusty (a rooster who played a harp and lived in a sack hung by the castle window) and Jerome (a giraffe). The two principal puppets were manipulated and voiced by Rod Coneybeare.

The Magic Library (1989)

Bookmice (1991)

Mr. Dressup (1992)

Mr. Dressup was a Canadian children's television series which was produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1967 to 1996. The series starred Ernie Coombs (an American who later became a Canadian citizen) as Mr. Dressup, a character who had started on the earlier series Butternut Square. The show aired every weekday morning, and each day Mr. Dressup would lead children through a series of songs, stories, arts, crafts and imagination games, with the help of his friends Casey and Finnegan, a child and a dog who lived in a treehouse in the back yard. Judith Lawrence was the puppeteer who brought Casey and Finnegan, along with other occasional puppet visitors like Alligator Al and Aunt Bird, to life.

In later years, Judith Lawrence chose to retire from the show. Rather than cast a new puppeteer in the roles of Casey and Finnegan a team of new puppeteers were brought in, including Karen Valleau (Chester the Crow), Nina Keogh (Truffles), Jani Lauzon (Granny), Cheryl Wagner, and later, Ruth Danziger (Annie), Jim Parker (Alex) and Bob Dermer (Lorenzo the Raccoon). The new characters would visit Mr. Dressup, and over time, became the lead characters, as Casey and Finnegan appeared less and less in the show until they quit appearing altogether. This was done gradually so children wouldn't notice the absence of Lawrence's beloved Casey and Finnegan characters upon her retirement. When Casey and Finnegan stopped appearing on the show it was explained on screen that Casey and Finnegan were now attending kindergarten. With the addition of new characters, new sets were also added including the community centre and the trading post.

The Santa Clause (1994)

The Santa Clause (1994) is a Christmas film released by both Walt Disney Pictures and Hollywood Pictures, starring Tim Allen. Scott Calvin is a father who finds himself contractually bound to become Santa Claus when he unintentionally puts on the previous Santa's suit.

Hello Mrs. Cherrywinkle (1996)

Hello Mrs. Cherrywinkle was a childrens' educational television program that aired during the late 1990s. It centered around the adventures of the title character, Mrs. Cherrywinkle, a stout woman full of energy who interacted with a variety of puppets in her home and garden

Groundling Marsh (1997)

Groundling Marsh was a Canadian children's television series featuring puppets. The show was produced by Portfolio Entertainment and J.A. Delmage Productions. It included songs and animated segments, and enjoyed a certain amount of success and popularity during its time. The only merchandise produced for the show were videos and they are now exceptionally rare and no longer produced. In the United States, it aired on PBS and the Disney Channel. It received funding from the International Production Fund, formerly the Maclean Hunter Television Fund. This series premiered October 1, 1995. Groundling Marsh was nominated at the 12th Annual Gemini Awards for Best Pre-School Program or Series. John Pattison was also nominated for a Gemini (Best Performance in a Pre-School Program or Series) for the episode "Bah Hegdish". The show had its series finale on November 28, 1997. The show is still seen on CTVglobemedia-owned educational station Access Alberta in Canada.

Groundling Marsh took place in a magical swamp, possibly a parody of Point Pelee National Park (coincidentally, this show is Canadian-made) Most of the characters are Groundlings, but look very different from each other. They can be described as any combination of animal, human, elf and plant. One of the characters is a robot (Stacks). Generally, humans never appear in the series except as an alien presence represented by a boot or a voice. Most often, humans come to the marsh to dump trash and disrupt the ecosystem (another reference to Point Pelee, except there it was development that was the threat). The show was designed to be educational and so the story of each episode includes morals such as friendship, honesty, caring, and protection of the environment.

Crystal, voiced by Nina Keogh, is Eco's grandniece. She is covered in fuzzy light blue fur. The skin of her face is blue, and she has a whispery voice, very large, white eyes with small black pupils, a small red nose at the end of her snout, long thin fingers, and extremely long, furry ears that hang down her back. These ears give her the power to hear long distances; she can also see in the dark like Galileo. It was once said that she is part bat, and she lives in a cavern. In her introduction episode, Crystal comes to visit Eco and has to wear glasses to protect her eyes. She soon becomes fast friends with Maggie.

While not one the original characters, Crystal continued to appear on the show, sometimes as the main protagonist of an episode, as in Crystal and the Ice wind. A running gag is Hegdish's tendency to annoy her by mispronouncing her name (calling her "Crispy", "Creepy", "Cookie", "Cracker", "Christmas" or some other variant).