1950s
Crossword Quiz
A literate quiz program in which moderator Kim McIlroy provided crossword puzzle-style clues to James Bannerman, Ralph Allen, editor of Maclean's magazine, and two guest panelists. Morley Callaghan replaced McIlroy as moderator starting 20 March 1953.
Dancing Storybook
Members of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet company returned to the air in spring 1959 with another broadcast for children, Dancing Storybook. The fairy tale-style stories revolved around two young people who searched for a patch from a magical coat left to them by their father. As the series of adventures progressed, the young searchers meet with curious per ...
Date With Frosia, A
A Date With Frosia replaced CGE Showtime for part of the summer of 1954. Regularly featured performers included harpist Donna Hossack, keyboard player Dorothy Bromley, Lois and David Adams, dancers with the National Ballet, a quartet called the Enchanted Strings (Elsie Dunlop, Erica Zentner, Lois Thomas, and Lillian Nickoloff), and a quintet of female v ...
Dateline
Dateline was a series of half-hour, historical dramas on CBC. Dateline boasted extensive research in the Public Archives and the aid of authorities in history from the Archives, the Royal Military College, the Canadian Army, and verification for accuracy in costume design. Nevertheless, the program used events of the past, principally the military pa ...
Dateline U.N.
The CBC provided Canadian viewers with regular coverage of the United Nations, direct from New York, and telecast on both English and French services, starting with the Ninth General Assembly. At the time, of course, the Korean War and the division of the country and the cold war were hot issues, as were the questions of French colonialism in Tunisia an ...
Day of Decision
Day of Decision combined dramatic reenactment and discussion to explore moments in history when men and women were compelled to make important decisions in the history of the world. The dramatic segment took up about twenty minutes of the half-hour broadcast. At the moment that the character must make up his or her mind, the scene switches to a panel di ...
Denny Vaughan Show, The
Pianist and arranger Denny Vaughan and singer Joan Fairfax appeared in this popular summer series in 1954. When it attracted Lever Brothers as a commercial sponsor, starting in the 1955 season, it had changed format. Where the summer show had been a relaxed and unassuming musical program, the regular season broadcasts had more glitz. With its major prod ...
Detective Quiz
In this quiz program, produced by Peter Macfarlane in Toronto, investigator Morley Callaghan challenged viewers to guess the criminal from clues onscreen. The show lasted only three weeks in the first month of CBC television programming.
Discoveries
Discoveries was a fifteen-minute science show for children in the twelve to fourteen year old age group, produced in Winnipeg. Dick Sutton, the curator of the Manitoba Museum, introduced shows on topics in nature studies and natural history. The first series aired nationally on the CBC network and continued to be produced and broadcast locally after tha ...
Dixieland Jazz
This half-hour CBC-TV broadcast was a musical program that starred cornetist Trump Davidson. The same year, Davidson headlined a radio broadcast, on the Trans-Canada network, from Toronto's Palace Pier dance hall.
Documentary '60
Documentary '60 succeeded The Candid Eye as a series of twenty-six, half-hour films produced by the National Film Board for the CBC. In part, it continued the work of the earlier program in showing seven of the vivid, yet informal, direct cinema productions overseen by NFB producer Tom Daly. The series also included programs produced by David Bairstow a ...
Don Messer's Jubilee
Don Messer's Jubilee appeared on the CBC in the same time slot for virtually an entire decade, and became one of the most beloved programs CBC television has ever produced. It presented a selection of old-time, country, and Maritime-flavoured folk music, and gained the loyalty that characterizes audiences of traditional, country music.
After CBC canc ...
Dorchester Theatre
This was a summer series of half-hour dramas, produced in Montreal by Ken Davey. The plays included original works in English and translations of scripts previously produced on the French language service of the CBC. Titles included Teeter Totter, by M. Charles Cohen, The Bicycle, by Marcel Dube, and The Imperfect Crime, by Eloi de Grandmont.
Down Yonder
On Down Yonder, fiddling emcee Don Ramsay and Fred Kent's Northernaires have used as guests cackling roosters and a large morose St. Bernard dog. But the show featured a wide variety of local and celebrity performers of the day.
Drama at Ten
Drama at Ten, a CBC TV summer series, repeated one hour productions that had been previously presented on GM Theatre.
Ed and Ross
In this half-hour, weekly broadcast for children ages 8 to 14, Ed McCurdy and Ross Snetsinger lived in a magical house. Snetsinger's hand puppet pal, Foster, led them through the building's sliding panels into secret passages. They all enjoyed themselves by making up secret societies, by inventing and building gadgets, with music led by singer and guita ...
Education Today
Education Today comprised 2 half-hour programs on higher education, and included talks with businessmen about young people who returned to school after having spent some time in the work force.
Eleanor
In her 1955 summer series, singer Eleanor Collins, pianist Chris Gage, dancers Lennie Gibson and Denise Quan, the Ray Norris Quintet, host Alan Millar, and their weekly guests performed music around a particular theme each week. In the 1964 series, Collins was backed by a trio led by Chris Gage, and they and guests such as trumpet and trombone playe ...
Explorations
Explorations was a CBC series of films, interviews, and demonstrations of aspects of the social and physical world. In the first season, Explorations was broadcast every second week. Subsequently, it aired weekly, and the series then usually organized with subseries of two to six weekly parts. The 1957-58 season was produced on a coast-to-coast basis, w ...
Exploring Minds
A series of college lectures, Exploring Minds was produced in several production centres across the country. The CBC developed the program in association with several institutions of higher learning: Carleton and McGill Universities and the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia, Ottawa, and Manitoba.