Television

On July, 21st 2009 someone very near and dear to my heart died. Les Lye, a great comedic actor from Canada died at the age of 84.

He started out doing radio shows back in the early 50′s on Canadian radio. Later he would join Bill Luxton in the in the mid 60′s as the kids comedy team of “Uncle Willy and Floyd” which ran for some 20+ years. Until he was tapped to do a children’s show on Nickelodeon. That show would go on to run 143 episodes and span 3 decades. All of which Lye was a part of, and played nearly every adult character.

Go ask your mother...

I can remember watching that show as a little kid and just laughing and having the best time. My parents even used to watch it with my sister and I when it was on. My mother to this day still will tell my sister and I, “Don’t encourage your father.” Memories of that show will out last most any television or movie quotes I have filed away in my brain.

Recently I was able to find on the internet a collection of the entire series of You Can’t Do That On Television, on DVD. The rights to the show have been fought over for years and years, some say Lye has the rights others say Nickelodeon does, maybe even some Canadian television station has them. It doesn’t matter, the set that I have could be called bootleg I guess. They are copies of the shows that were obviously recorded on a VCR then transferred to DVD. The quality is pretty poor, but again it doesn’t matter. I can still watch them, hear them, and in some cases recite the lines word for word. Now that Les is dead they may finally decide on who really owns the show and maybe even make a “real” DVD set. If that is true, then I will be first in line to pick it up.

Most remembered TV face of the 80's

You Can’t Do That on Television spawned several things that were influential on nickelodeon and in some cases television in general. For one, the green slime that is used on other shows came from YCDTOTV. Just the simple phrase “I don’t know” was enough to bring down a bucket of the green gooey stuff on your head. You could also just as easily get doused with a bucket of water but uttering “water” on set. It was simple and childish, but hell, it WAS a kids show. I think I even remember the Family Guy using that bit at some point. YCDTOTV also was a jumping off point for a lot of child actors. They would get their start on the show do a couple seasons then move on to bigger and better things. Just look at the IMDB listing for that show. Granted the names aren’t very familiar but those kids have all pretty much been busy playing roles here and there on TV ever since. The most glaring example of that was Alanis Morrisett. Personally I always liked the episodes/seasons with Moose, Lisa, Alasdair and Kevin  Kubusheskie. They will always be the best group of kids on that show.

Les Lye 1924-2009

Anyway, it’s just a shame that Les Lye dies and no one (including myself admittedly) knows about it, at least here in the states. Also, in 2003, Lye and Luxton were honored with lifetime achievement awards from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, for their work onWilly & Floyd. Lye continued to work as an active member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and was writing a book of his memoirs at the time of his death.

I saw a post somewhere about this that made me laugh, it said something to the effect of: I can no longer make a snarky comment about a cheese burger with out thinking that some how, some where, Les heard that.