Rideau Hall

CA

Comedy
English     0     2002     CA

Overview

Rideau Hall is a Canadian television series broadcast begun in 2002 on CBC Television. It starred Bette MacDonald, Fiona Reid, Jonathan Torrens, Joe Dinicol, and Rejean Cournoyer. It is a sitcom about an earthy, one-hit wonder disco queen named Regina Gallant who is recommended for appointment as Governor General by a conniving Prime Minister anticipating she will become a national embarrassment in the job, allowing him to move ahead in eliminating the position, along with the Canadian Monarchy. Regina is brash and loud and highly unsuitable for a formal position, but has a charming common touch. Each episode has her becoming embroiled in one scandal or another, usually not of her making, only to have things resolve in her favour by the end. Reid plays her prim and proper executive assistant, Torrens her flakey gay secretary, and Dinicol her laconic, level-headed son. Cournoyer plays the Prime Minister's aide. Barry Flatman played the P.M. in the pilot, but did not appear in the regular series. The series brought in fairly good ratings for the CBC and it was expected the show would be renewed for a second season; however, the show was cancelled after the Canadian Television Fund's budget was cut by the federal government and CBC could only afford to keep its more popular shows, like Royal Canadian Air Farce, on the air. Six half-hour episodes plus an hour-long pilot were produced.

Similar

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960 and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife, a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee, and a precocious young son, Opie. Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. Andy Griffith stated in a Today Show interview, with respect to the time period of the show: "Well, though we never said it, and though it was shot in the '60s, it had a feeling of the '30s. It was when we were doing it, of a time gone by." The series never placed lower than seventh in the Nielsen ratings and ended its final season at number one. It has been ranked by TV Guide as the 9th-best show in American television history. Though neither Griffith nor the show won awards during its eight-season run, series co-stars Knotts and Bavier accumulated a combined total of six Emmy Awards. The show, a semi-spin-off from an episode of The Danny Thomas Show titled "Danny Meets Andy Griffith", spawned its own spin-off series, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., and a reunion telemovie, Return to Mayberry. The show's enduring popularity has generated a good deal of show-related merchandise. Reruns currently air on TV Land, and the complete series is available on DVD. All eight seasons are also now available by streaming video services such as Netflix.

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The Andy Griffith Show
1960