Remember this one? It aired in the seventies on TVO or CBLFT in Toronto. It was an educational, live action, French language children's programme. The show featured two spacemen, and a woman who lived in a giant flower, which would peel open to reveal her. The sets were very small. Do you know the show's name?

would you remember the day of the week or time it aired?

I can't recall.

I think I got it.

Les Oraliens.

From Wikipedia:

Les Oraliens was a French language children's television show made in Québec from 1968 to 1970; it was the first television program produced by the newly-formed Radio-Québec, known today as Télé-Québec. Its stories revolved around aliens Calinelle (played by Lisette Anfousse) and Picabo (played by Hubert Gagnon), who both wore matching orange suits which included a mask and a mushroom-shaped headdress. The pair befriended the human Francolin upon arrival on earth. Other characters included the talking bird Couac (a puppet voiced by Gaétane Laniel) and the mechanical dog Millimagino.

The show's foremost purpose was language acquisition, which was conveyed by the way the aliens used their superpowers: in order to magically accomplish difficult or impossible tasks, they would state a sentence to be repeated and then silently mouthed it while children at home were supposed to say it. Les Oraliens, unlike a contemporary children's program with a similar premise, Les 100 tours de Centour, was more about proper pronunciation than sentence construction.

The show's purpose was also conveyed by the recurring bad guy, le Furotte (played by André Cartier), who always mumbled incoherently. There have been a few commentators over the years who have perceived in his speech pattern a parody of rural and working-class Quebec French, and have criticized the show as an effort to stigmatize some aspects of Québec French.

I don't think it was Les Oraliens. I remember the show. Don't remember the name. It was weekday mornings probably around 8:00 -8:30 am in Windsor on CBC ch 9. They were short segments. From the video's on youtube Les Oraliens is not what I remember. The spaceman wore actual space men that wore silver suits with space helments. One was heavier then the other. and the women that lived in the flower that you mentioned. I was 4 years at the time. So memory might be off a bit. Oh Please some one out there must Remeber it. I even went to CBC in Toronto and asked about this show and they had no information.

OMG. I have been trying to figure this one myself. For a while, I thought I maybe imagined this show, but it's exactly as you described. The spacemen and the woman whose house opened up like petals peeling open. I used to watch it when I was a kid in Ottawa. I couldn't remember if it was TVO or a TV station from QC.

Has anyone reached out to you outside this forum with the name of the show?

I've been trying to remember the title of the show myself, although I do remember it airing mid- to late morning, say in the 9:30-10:30 range, during the week--I'm not sure whether it aired only once a week or was a "stripped" (Monday-to-Friday) show like Mr. Dressup.

I also remember certain other aspects of it. The set designs were very simple on a You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown kind of level--very sparse backgrounds, if they were used at all, and relatively simple set pieces (the orange dome-shaped spaceship, which had a couple of porthole-like windows, was likely modelled on a dome-shaped tent). The only notable departure from this simplicity was that mechanical effects would have been used for the flower set piece--its four petals were built to be strong enough for the woman to walk the length of one of them, as though it were a drawbridge. I think the spaceship's main door might have been built around a similar principle, though I don't remember whether the door opened down like a drawbridge or up like the doors of a Lamborghini.

I remember one episode in which the spacemen and the woman were in an average-sized room in one scene; this room may have been intended to represent at least part of the interior of the woman's flower-house. This room set, in contrast to the other sets, was dressed to the max, painted in a variety of colors (the show would have been produced during the transition from black and white to color).

For the end credits (and probably the opening credits as well), a chroma key/zoom effect was probably used, because I definitely remember shots showing the ship flying through space against a black "space" background--the ship would "pass" the camera and "fly off" into the background. It's about the only way you could produce such an effect on a budget that small.

I don't think the show would have aired on TVOntario. That channel didn't start broadcasting in Ottawa until October 1975, and I seem to recall the show airing earlier than that (probably around 1971-1973 to capitalize on the last Apollo moon missions and perhaps also the launch of Skylab). In the Ottawa market the show probably aired on either CBOFT (the French CBC) or the TVA network. I'm not sure whether TVA had an Ottawa station at the time; we probably got the feed from Montreal.

Is it possible the show might also have been distributed, at least in part, on 3/4" videotape for playback in schools around that time? I seem to recall seeing at least one or two episodes in color in my kindergarten class around 1971-72--I don't think it would have been cost-effective in those days to equip the classrooms with a cable TV feed, and it seems to me the signal we got was much clearer than rabbit ears would allow.

Maybe I wasn't dreaming after all! I remember a show quite similar to your description. I watched it in b&w, so I wouldn't remember the colour parts you describe. I grew up in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and suspect the show was on TVO, CBLT, CKCO, CFTO or CHCH. I remember a scene in which the men were working in the back yard doing carpentry and painting.

This is how I described it on www.rickstv.com forum in 2007, with nobody recognizing it:

March 30/07 from Paul:

...I recall a short segment that had a fat man paired with a skinny man in a Laurel and Hardy type friendship. It was filmed in black and white and I think they travelled by way of a spaceship. I believe they spoke French and it was likely a segment within another show. Perhaps it was just a dream...

(Anyone???)

www.rickstv.com/tvo/feedback2007.html

Maybe this website would be helpful...

emissionjeunesse.blogspot.ca

Émissions jeunesse au Québec

Vous êtes nostalgique de vos anciennes émissions jeunesses? Vous cherchez un dessin animé rare dont personne ne se souvient? Sur ce site, je vous propose de redécouvrir tous les vieux trésors qui ont joué sur les écrans québécois de notre jeunesse. Si vous cherchez une ancienne série jeunesse de Radio-Canada, Radio-Québec, Canal-Famille, Ciné-Cadeaux, il est très probable que vous la trouverez ici!

Thank God I'm not crazy.

I have been searching this one out for years. I just today solved my other mystery show "The Starlost".

Growing up in London I always thought that the spaceship the coolest, but dangit, I can't remember the name.

I hope we can find someone to answer this.