Season 3: 1996-97
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sept. 28, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script |
| Notes: A sentimental favourite of mine. This the first show of The Great Eastern on the regular CBC schedule, now in a half-hour format. This is also when I started keeping the web page in earnest and collecting sound clips – nine were enthusiastically clipped from this show (in audio archive). Future themes are introduced here: Economology (in Wordworks), Oougubomba (in The Vault). The repartee between Kathleen and Paul is especially good, and there’s a barnburner “Don't Probe Me” in the gym piece. A bonus: the script for this episode has been preserved complete and is reproduced here. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Oct. 5, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Taxi Hector Penfold Interred BCN Schedule Political Panel Paul’s Pot Paulitorial |
| Notes: The taxi piece has some famous lines in this episode. Andy Jones plays Wilber the disaffected cabbie: “Some big shot producer comes down from New Brunswick, hires all these glamourous movie stars to depict a way of life that is, in fact, mean, dirty, crude, ultimately unsatisfying, personally humiliating, and never, ever, ever worth the effort.” Ahhh. Also, tv critic Hector Penfold, Morris Jesso, Paul Benoit and the Political Panel... | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Oct. 12, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script Traffic Alert |
| Notes: It's the UNSJ episode: The University of the Future, with show trials, a chair in Economology and the famous chocolate accelerator: “In scientific terms it’s quite complex, but put in simple laymen’s terms, our goal is to make nobs juicier, and Mr. Big bigger.” This is also the episode where Margaret Atwood (quite bravely) agreed to be mistook for Margaret Laurence in the opening segment. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Oct. 19, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro The Vault Sketches of Miles BCN Programming Highlights Puff and Toe University of the Air Robbie Burns bicentennial Paulitorial |
| Notes: Highlights this week: the vault goes back to the future with a report on the 1963 conference on technologies of the future...contains Ish’s memorable line: “Forced by the thrust to back of the cylinder where they were mushed up against the wall and rendered into a foul human soup.” Also, Miles, The Bummer Years, which was featured as a web page, but now we have the script for the unintelligible portions of the piece. Miles was one of Ed Riche’s best performances, in my opinion. Also, Puffy Barbour and Toe Rowsell (“I don't know Puff, the man’s got a nice ass but...”) and the Robbie Burns piece, which set the standard for Mad Scots long before Mike Myers.... NB: The Intro script contains a short bit by Paul that didn’t make it to air. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Oct. 26, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Wordworks Wearing the Wire: Economology Morris Jesso interview BCN Programming Highlights Spongy Downs Political Panel Outro |
| Notes: The Tale of the Wooly Beast highlighted this show, a fearsome children’s rhyme that merited it’s own web page at the time; now we've got the complete text, which has a few extra verses. Wearing the Wire reanimates Barbara Frum, and Morris Jesso is at his lip-smacking best in a full-length interview. The Spongy Downs piece grows on you – I remember shrugging when I first heard it, but a close listen with the aid of the script is rewarding. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Nov. 2, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script |
| Notes: The BCN Open House episode, chock full of throwaway lines and sotto-voce asides – you must read the script. At about 7:25 you can hear the Mad Scot from episode four in the distance. I also have a fondness for this show because my son Nick (who was 9 then) has a role as the right-wing kid at the Great Eastern mike: “...the media is controlled by the left, they're the ones putting the kibosh on the death penalty....” This episode culminates in the hallucinogenic trip into the radio realm when Ari Uldmanis convinces Paul to put on the Cerebradio. At the time, this merited its own animated GIF... | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Nov. 9, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script |
| Notes: Paul’s brief hockey broadcast career is featured in The Vault: “...these men on blades, clad in blue and red, they seem to be carrying the weight of the world, in an existential funk as glide across the solid state H20. Do I pass or do I kill myself they ask?” Ish's memorable line: “Poor Dick Irvin didn't roll in the wet spot, did he?” This piece resulted in the Satan's Minions animation. Also of note: Blaine Hart shows Paul the Internet, where they find Gas Pedal Gals: “Look at that. That is amazing. What incredible ... technology. Ooooh my, she’s driving a standard, more clutch ...” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Nov. 16, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Monkey Shines Fashion Report Moth Interviews What’s That Noise? Datamine Uncle Jack’s Shack Paulitorial |
| Notes: The central piece in this episode is Paul’s visit to Infobelt, the top secret datamining facility lured to Newfoundland by the Tobin government. Splendid throwaway lines like: “Premier Tobin was so happy about snatching you away from those smug bastards in New Brunswick that he sent Frank McKenna an obscene photograph of the Newfoundland cabinet.” The consumer profile of Paul derived from his Canadian Tire credit card had me ROTFL. Also good: the promo for The Paul Moth Interviews (“Now these Hezbollah guys, just what is it again they’re trying to do?”). As usual, there are little extra bits in the scripts that are worth the read. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Nov. 23, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Wordworks Please Make it Stop What’s That Noise? Community Announcements Rare Books Delbert Onglow Paulitorial |
| Notes: “Do you know that the Giller Prize is worth $25,000. I could use that kind of coin....” Disingenuous Paul discussing his new manuscript with Kathleen Hanrahan. Other highlights: a lot of Delbert Onglow this episode – a feature interview with the “man Charles Bukowski once described as having the worst personal hygiene and grooming in letters” and a promo for Please Make it Stop. Also Paul’s trip to the rare book dealer: “...Looks pretty old... Printed in some place that starts with Guten and ends with Berg...” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Nov. 30, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Complete script Paulitorial Outro |
| Notes: The Miracle of Economology episode. If you only listen to one episode from this season, this should be it. It’s got everything: anal probes, the possibility of casual sex for Paul, Pepito, Liquality, Vitality, Tranquility.... | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Dec. 7, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Wordworks Cabot Promo What’s That Noise? Paris in the 70’s Tobacco piece Letter to Ashley Outro Teaser |
| Notes: Back to normal after the exhausting Economology episode, we've got Wordworks (“Ah yes ... here's a debutante being sick ... all that Veuve Cliquot...”), a brilliant piece on the Paris intellectual scene (“So Gilles and Felix haul out shovels and a set of leggo, and insist they're going to reconstitute a structuralist body of knowledge on Barthes’ corpse...”) and J. Richard on tobacco sponsorship (“Cry baby! Who's to say Jazz didn’t cause that cancer?”). | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Dec. 14, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script |
| Notes: The special Little Billy Penton's Christmas in the Mines episode in its entirety, with Seafaring Santa and the whole gang. The play itself is available here. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Dec. 21, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script Outro |
| Notes: Christmas tales from Paul: Stealing Sister Ursula’s Shoes; The Move to Los Angeles; the Race for the Border. “And suddenly she pounced! In one movement, a great black curtain in my peripheral vision, an ivory claw at the end of a monstrous bat’s wing, snatching me up out of my seat by the hair, throwing open my desk and finding ... her shoes.” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Dec. 28, 1996 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Complete Script |
| Notes: This is the New Years special on Carlos, Duke of Portugal, featuring an extended interview with Ian Trumble, who discovered the script, and extended excerpts from the play...“Oh! Free me from this place of fright and noise/O New founde yet cursed land/O vile isle...” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Jan 4, 1997 | MP3 (10.2 MB) |
Roll Complete Script |
| Notes: The Newfoundland Radio Awards: a spectacular show. Listen for the barely audible asides, the string of celebrities (Lister Sinclair, Sheilagh Rogers, Rick Mercer). Roger Greeley is in it. You’ll even find me, as hapless weather-guy Vince Tremblett: “Oh Christ in heaven, we’re going down! Mayday, mayday, mayday ...” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | Jan 11, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Cabot Correspondent The Vault What’s That Noise? BCN Programming Highlights Fall Ratings Medicine Chest Paulitorial Outro Traffic Alert |
| Notes: Amelia Eirhardt receives a gift of hard biscuit in the Vault. Paul talks ratings with an image consultant. “How do you do, ma'am. On behalf of the people of New Found Land, allow me to present you with this commemorative gift of hard biscuit.” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Jan 18, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Wordworks What’s That Noise? Studio O Trends Interred Paulitorial |
| Notes: Kathleen is back a book on local theatre (“They say that you and the Novembrists had essentially abandoned revolutionary theatrics ...”); Paul takes the controls in Studio O (“Get a load of this Krupps-Funkenscheit gear!”); and Lawrence and Geraldine on trends for 1997, which include rotary cell phones and “vagrant” cologne, smelling of rye and a touch of vomit. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | Jan 25, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Submonoism Uncle Jack’s Shack The Vault What’s That Noise? Programming Highlights Political Panels Outro |
| Notes: A moving piece on the death of the “last of the Submonists”, Marlon Rallentando: “He was strongly opposed to content.” J. Richard gets his apologies on the political panel, and the Vault explores the trippy, youth-oriented days of Ben Trovato: “Man, half a hit of Travato, and you’d be tripping for a week.” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Feb 8, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro The Vault Cabot Correspondent BCN Programming Highlights Bonhomme What’s That Noise? Paulitorial Outro |
| Notes: Titled “We're Walking” in the script documents, this is episode where BCN technicians go on strike, including our beloved Hollis Duffett. Ish has a delicious Vault piece from the great 1959 coal-stokers’ strike (this includes actual tape of Premier Smallwood’s infamous harangue against the International Woodworkers Association during the bitter woods strike of 1959). This also has the Bonhomme, Michelin, Pilsbury reunion piece, and Paul humming the outro after the techs walk. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | Feb 15, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Town Beat What’s That Noise? BCN Programming Highlights Political Panel Wearing the Wire Paulitorial Outro |
| Notes: Paul gets mobbed by striking BCN workers but is saved by J. Richard in the Hummer. The strike is causing havoc at the station (“The Five o'clock News at Five-thirty has been re-scheduled.”) Listen carefully for Carl Jonson's debut as a porn star on the political panel... | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | Feb 22, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Ice Fishing Journal What’s That Noise? BCN Programming Highlights Paulitorial Outro Traffic Alert |
| Notes: The Ice Fishing Episode with Bill Murphy and Ger Cadigan... Bill’s on the liquor; Ger’s having a mid-life crisis; Paul nearly dies. Classic exchange: GERRY: “I'm just trying to figure out who I am.” BILL: “You're an arsehole. Question answered. Go to sleep.” The script contains extra bits cut from the show, like an exchange with the waitress at the truck stop: “If you're heading down to Skin Cabin Pond, you got to watch out for the Arsewan hydro diversion, they're flooding hundreds of secret temples ...” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | March 1, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Andre Lander Medicine Chest Aerobics With Ariel What’s That Noise? Bert Redpath: Imperial Eye Iceland Report Paulitorial |
| Notes: Media consultant Andre Lander tries to remake Paul’s image to improve ratings in a show titled “Twenty-second Nervous Breakdown”. Hilarity ensues. He gets a new wardrobe with Lawrence Royce-Hiscock (“What Spiro’s trying to tell you, Paul, is that that suit looks great on a strapping young Milanese, but it would make you look like an imbecile”), a workout with Ariel Flint (“When the work-out is complete, any parts below the waist still jiggling will have a short interview with me, and the Marquis de Spank”), and a vocal analysis. Plus Victor Squires on mental illness (“You’ve been asking, where would we be without numbers.”) | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 | March 8, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Show Trial Fashion Report What's That Noise? Community Announcements Dumbing Down Canada Outro |
| Notes: Erling's Big Chance. Paul is suffering from ... fatigue ... after the last show and Erling takes over as interim host. Wordworks reviews the Proustian Newfoundland novel Layabout ...Erling is noted as “one of the leaders of the concrete poetry scene”. Plus the Dumbing Down of Canada (“You are among those responsible for the Newfoundland Studies curriculum where children are taught that Western civilization was founded by Newfoundlanders...”). Also a great Fashion Report and Show Trial promo. | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | March 15, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Urbanism Panel BCN Engineer BCN Programming Highlights Firing up the Boilers Paulitorial |
| Notes: The return of coal-fired transmission to the BCN, as Paul broadcasts remotely from the Mt. Scio transmission station. He interviews an obviously miffed director of engineering Luke Chernyansky (“Watch it with the Imfelder Gas Tube! If that bursts you're all dead men!”) And a tour of the bowels of the coal station with the inimitable Ari Uldmanis: “ARI: Beneath the furnace, below the boilers to the very bowels of this vast radio works. To ... ZEE PILOT LIGHT! PAUL: This operates on a pilot light system? ARI: Yeah, why not. Come on.” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | March 22, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Intro Hillman Khartoum BCN News 1966 Cabot Correspondent Uncle Jack promo What’s That Noise? Community Announcements Listeners’ Letters Outro |
| Notes: Master mechanic Derek Gallant looks at Paul’s 1962 Hillman Khartoum, a stove-oil powered vehicle that plays news from 1966... We look in on Cabot Correspondent Norm Parmenter, looking green in the bowels of the Matthew (“There's nothing worse than the dry heaves.”) In Listeners' Letters, Paul explains his bridge partnership with Deng Xiaoping (“We split over The Unity and Struggle of Opposites and the Takeout Double”). Plus there’s a great Uncle Jack's Shack Promo — “You are a beautiful woman Mrs. Coombs.” | |||
| Show # | Airdate | Files | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | March 29, 1997 | MP3 (6.5 MB) |
Roll Vault Interred Promo Variety Meats Programming Highlights Greased Stern |
| Notes: Last show of the season. Wartime Soviet radio in the Vault: (“PAUL: Holy Mother! I thought this was just a closet. ISH: Standard Masonic design feature.”) An interview with Chubb and Stubb Laracy of Variety Meats: (“Consider the white pudding.”) plus a visit to UNSJ Radio, where Paul hears the “Greased Stern” parody of The Great Eastern: (“Is that a giant nautical machine in your pocket, Paul, or are you just glad to see me?”). And the yuppies are dying in the millions on Interred. | |||