Name that play.

March 1, 2006 9:20 AM

I'm trying to find a serial radio play that CBC Radio ran around 1985-1989. The show was about a regular guy who is elected prime minister of Canada. His cabinet consist of just a couple people including the minister of defense, an Indian Chief who is in some way associated with a turtle.

At one point the PM launches a pre-emptive military strike on the USA and has some success because

• a) the US is not expecting it and
• b) Canada is privy to all their plans because of our link up with NORAD. < ?li> It's wildly funny and I'd like to get a recording. Can anyone nail down the artists or title? Previously asked but not answered. I've contacted the archives a couple times with no response.

posted by Mitheral to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

I've got no specific info, but if you get desperate you could try going to archives.cbc.ca, clicking "Advanced Search," then under the "by Program" check "Radio" and then you'll have a list of every radio program in the archives. If you might recognize the name when you see it, going through that list might work.

I see shows from the sixties and the forties on there so it definitely goes back far enough but I don't know how comprehensive it is. But even if it gave you just the name, that might help.
posted by winston at 11:12 AM on March 1, 2006

Response by poster: It was probably part of the morning side program. Another series that played around the same time was the series Midnight Cab and I don't see that listed so they probably aren't listing these kinds of content.
posted by Mitheral at 6:14 PM on March 1, 2006

Wasn't Midnight Cab more recent than that? Like late 1990s? The series you describe sounds familiar to me, but I it's very foggy. I can't believe you haven't gotten a response from CBC archives. This seems like something they shouldn't have too much trouble finding. Maybe you could try asking them for a list of Morningside dramas that ran from 86 to 89.
posted by teg at 9:54 PM on March 1, 2006

Surprisingly, the CBC archive search lists doesn't show a lot of the older radio comedy shows. Most comprehensive list I could come up with of CBC radio comedy shows that covers the timespan is from good old Wikipedia ist of radio comedies produced by or for the CBC. Unfortunately, no matches on the description, although there's not a info link to everything on the list. Best time period match I found was The Norm, but it's sketch comedy, not sitcom or series, and the two recurring characters listed don't match either.
posted by mdevore at 12:44 PM on March 2, 2006

I set out searching info on Morningside Dramas, on the off chance...

You might try contacting some of the people who quote it in their Bios or CVs, for example.

There was a book collecting Morningside Dramas from 1990-91. Also, you might try contacting one of the many people who were involved in Morningside Dramas: example, search.

Google's coverage of alt.radio.networks.cbc goes back to late 1994, but it is pretty spotty (I wonder if there are any better usenet archives?). Many of the early daily hotsheets seem to be missing, but there are still tones available. They aren't going to help for this problem, but it's a useful resource.
posted by Chuckles at 2:29 AM on June 29, 2006