I’ve already given you a Flashback Friday entry on a Canadian import that was just so very, very wrong. Now it’s time to do one on a Canadian import that was VERY right.

If there was one thing that I think pushed me the most in my crusade for cable television when I was little, it had to be You Can’t Do That On Television. All the cool kids on my block were always talking about this show. We even would sometimes “play” YCDTOTV (yeah, I don’t really know how to explain this one other than to say this involved sitting in our friends’ dad’s fishing boat, playing different characters from the show [I was always “Moose”] and shooting each other with a water hose…these were far simpler times, eh?).

Needless to say, my crusade was successful (probably more so because my dad wanted the Discovery Channel, but I like to think I was just that convincing a debater, even at the young age of 10). Those daily visits to the Childrens Television Sausage Factory were a bit like ABC Afterschool Special by way of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Each show focused on a topic like divorce or personal hygiene in a “very special” way that only a bunch of Canadian kids hanging out in school lockers, Blip’s Arkaid, or Barth’s Burgers could possibly do. It was simple, silly fun and, other than a sliming or watering (or the occasional pie to the face), no one ever was hurt…just left in need of a shower.

Some of you may also be aware that before she sought musical retribution (against, apparently, Dave Coulier, of all people 😮 ) on a dance through the desert in black leather pants, Alanis Morissette was on YCDTOTV. I don’t remember her, but A) I think I had stopped watching by the time she became a cast member, and B) I think she was only on five or six episodes.

What brought this show to my mind this week was actually some sad news that I read at my favorite Canadian correspondent’s blog. Les Lye, who played every single adult male role on YCDTOTV throughout its entire run, passed away at the age of 84 on July 22. Whether as Christine McGlade’s constant foil, Ross, or Barth, the purveyor of the scariest burgers that side of the Canada/U.S. border, Les was a wonderful comedian and a major player in this awesome part of my childhood memories.

Now, if you check out the official YCDTOTV site, they discuss some of the spinoffs, including You Can’t Do That In Comics. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but I used to save these strips every month from our cable guide. I’m willing to bet that I still have most, if not all of them, rare though they might be. I even think I know exactly where at my parents’ house they might be located. Guess I’m going to have to take a closer look next time I go home…

So, keep looking up whenever you find yourself muttering the dread phrase, “I don’t know,” stay clear of the borscht at Barth’s, and enjoy this, the mother of all slimings!

I’m a gimmicky kind of wolf sometimes. Probably not as much as I used to be, since age seems to bring with it an ever increasing shadow of surliness into my life. I think I’m going to be one of the most curmudgeonly old people in the history of oldness.

As a young pup, though, I loved gimmicks. So a pump-action water cannon with about a 2-liter-sized reserve tank? Oh, you betcha I was on board for that! This was most assuredly the next generation in summertime water gun warfare. I knew it was something I needed to have if I was going to be the Big Wolf in our annual school picnic water battle. So I saved my allowance for a couple of weeks so I could buy the Super Soaker 100, which at about $30 was a rather pricey gimmick at the time.

This was one of the most awesome piles of crackable plastic I’ve ever owned. And, yes, it did crack. And leak. I remember doing routine repairs on my Super Soaker 100 in preparation for big water battles. I had to if I wanted it to work properly. And model glue goes a long way indeed in doing up your plastic artillery. I imagine, though, that were I not the resourceful wolf that I always have been, I would have been sorely disappointed with this purchase.

This gun also taught me a very valuable if somewhat creepy lesson about human nature.

As I already mentioned, each year we would have a “School’s Almost Out” all-day picnic, which included our traditional water battle. This particular year I was already a marked wolf. Everyone knew from the previous year that I was packing a Super Soaker, which I had wielded with gleeful impunity and frightening precision (I was very proud of the fact that I could blast you square in the face if I had to, although I preferred to aim for lower areas, like the neck or armpit).

That year I ended up walking away a bit more scathed than I had the previous year. However, the one encounter that outshines all others in utter strangeness and creepiness came from an underclassman about whom I knew nothing beyond his name. As I was shooting at him in response to the dousing he’d just given me with a liter bottle, he charged at me like a Pamplona bull. His intent was to grab the gun for himself. He nearly succeeded until my somewhat feral response, which was to grab a clawful of whatever I could reach on him before he got away.

Remove your mind from the gutter, please. I ended up with a handful of his shirt…and pieces of his back skin embedded under my nails. You are permitted to shudder now. Yes, I marked him with my at the time always sharp and always painted black nails. He stopped, lifted the back of his shirt, where I saw three welted stripes that were, in some places, dribbling tiny rivulets of blood.

I was quite horrified at what I had just done, until I realized that he was somehow pleased by this. Even as I apologized, he stood there with the most discomfiting grin I think I’ve ever seen. I found out later that he showed those scratches to everyone he could, each time explaining happily that he’d gotten them from the Junior girl with the water cannon. He also would say increasingly sadomasochistic comments to me each time he saw me the rest of the day about how he’d been bad and perhaps I needed to deal with him more harshly.

Ew.

Who knew a Super Soaker would introduce me to the potential I could have had as a dominatrix?