some of my best rats are friends

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While on a stroll downtown a few months ago, I picked up a cheap bound volume of Maclean's magazine, covering the first half of 1979. You'll see plenty of material from this tome when the federal election finally drops, as these issues cover the campaign that led to Joe Clark's minority government.

(Yeah, I know the 1980 election is a closer parallel to one we're about to have, but I work with what I have!)

Until then, and until the sun engulfs the earth, I'll dig into these magazines to highlight the ads, as they tell us as much about the time as the articles do. Full-size versions of these ads will also appear on my Flickr site.

Let's begin with a CBC Radio teaser from the January 29, 1979 issue:

If only Ed Grimley was pictured with the singing rats. That would have been comedy gold. Short would have been in his second season onstage with Second City when the show aired.

We're sad to report that the all-rodent musical craze this show spawned lasted 36 minutes in the summer of '79, when the SPCA cracked down on a Montreal theatrical company that used real singing rats during a production of Marat/Sade.

No info on the web about this show, though Google suggests I should check out "some of my best rates are friends". Does anyone know anything about this production? Should CBC have rerun it during the strike?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I was a grad student in psychology working with rats at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia when this aired and could not believe how much this show rang true with what I was doing and how I was feeling.

BDF
11:00 AM
Unknown said…
I've got a recording of that radio play.
11:55 AM
Anonymous said…
I remember it when it aired on CBC! It was in two parts and as I remember it, the second part was never aired; must have been too close to the bone for some people. I've been trying to find the audio on the web with no success so far
8:21 AM
Anonymous said…
My dad taped this for me on a reel to reel,I loved this radio broadcast! I transferred it to cassette tape, but don't know if they would still play.
6:16 PM
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