Marko Oinonen
Submitted: February 28, 2015
These days I live in Ajax near Toronto and I found your site via Bing when I was looking for CKSO airchecks - and your site delivered in that regard. We also used to listen to CKSO at a camp that we stayed at down near Estaire since there was no TV there.
Too bad there doesn't seem to be any CKSO TV clips on the web - I remember that in 1977 CKSO TV had several days of programming relating to their 25th anniversary but it did not include any old CKSO TV clips specifically (only still photos of Judy Erola in studio with an RCA B&W CKSO TV camera in the shot, and other similar stills), and reruns of old syndicated '50's TV shows like "I Love Lucy", etc. I recall that Peter Mallette may have hosted these retrospectives, before he left to work for CBC Radio in Sudbury.
I remember seeing the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on CKSO in 1970 - it was the film of them performing "Let It Be" from the film of the same name, and a puppet animation sequence set to the song "Octopus' Garden". I also used to watch game shows like "The New Beat The Clock" in the afternoon, and an evening show where teams of men vs. women played silly games. Also remember the Finnish Santa Claus around Christmas, but could never convince my mum to let me be on that show.
I still remember the "Here Comes Summer" bathtub races and bikini contests at the Bell Park Amphitheatre in the late '70's and early '80's sponsored by 790 CKSO and Cranston, and those yellow round with red lettered "CKSO" stickers! Also around 1980 a promo where someone won a Ford Econoline Mountain Dew custom conversion van!
Also my friend in kindergarten appeared on the Saturday morning "Cummy Burton TV Show" on CKSO TV Channel 5 in early 1974 - the show was live but included cheesy filmed inserts such as "Diaper Downs" with baby crawling races.
As for radio, my parents would listen to the "Finnish Hour" on Sunday on both CKSO FM and CIGM FM religiously, brought to us by Pine Hill Lumber in Lively. I suppose it could be classified as 'Finnish country music' for the latter format station.
