Etched into the minds of many Generation X and Millennial Canadians is the image of “You Can’t Do That on Television” stars having green slime dumped on their heads. Anytime someone said “I don’t know” on the sketch-comedy show, they got slimed.
“It smelled like Play-Doh,” Adam Greydon Reid, one of the show’s stars, told The Epoch Times in a recent interview. That was one of the ingredients, along with oatmeal to give it texture, and shampoo—the shampoo made it easier to wash out, he said.
Each sliming came with a $50 pay bonus, literally listed on the actors’ paycheques as “$50 slime.”
Mr. Reid was also part of other classic Canadian productions from that era.
In recent years, he has worked largely behind the scenes, including writing and directing the comedy series “Hospital Show” and directing commercials. But he still gets in front of the camera from time to time. He appeared in the 2018 Netflix series “Lost in Space,” and in the 2010 movie “The Lois Wilson Story,” with Winona Ryder. He has a role in Owen Wilson’s upcoming comedy series, “Rambler.”
He grew up in Ottawa, and got his start on the locally produced “You Can’t Do That on Television” (YCDTOTV), which ran from 1979–1990. Behind the scenes, Mr. Reid saw an interesting dynamic of improv and scripting; of wild creativity and orderly production. He said creative lead Roger Price was a “hurricane of imagination” and director Brenda Mason harnessed the chaos into a finished product, with the help of the adult actors Les Lye and Abby Hagyard.
Mr. Reid reflected on the impacts the show had on him and a generation of Canadians. He also hinted that it may return—the possibility of reviving the show is “percolating” right now, he said.
Behind the Scenes
Monty Python was a big influence on the show, Mr. Reid said. Mr. Price often played the British comedy group’s sketches on a TV in his office, with a group of kids crowded around watching.“It was almost like part of our education as young comedic actors,” Mr. Reid said.
YCDTOTV was a drama program for kids, in a way. It included full-day drama lessons. The lessons included improv, where the children often acted out things that happened to them during the week.
“Things that we needed to work out,” Mr. Reid said. Although the show was heavy on silliness, it had a serious undercurrent. Every episode had a theme related to things youth were grappling with in their daily lives.
It could be bullying, poverty, dating, or something more abstract and “existential,” Mr. Reid said; one show’s theme was “time.”
The young actors’ improv often inspired the show’s writers, so the episodes were based on real things that real kids were dealing with. He said acting on the show was cathartic and it used comedy to help kids process difficult issues.
That’s why Mr. Reid, who now has a 16-year-old son, is considering rebooting the series with themes youth are struggling with today.
‘Rite of Passage’
Mr. Reid was slimed on his first episode, the theme of which was “outer space.” Being slimed on his first show felt like a “rite of passage” he said.“You felt special when you were slimed. You took the spotlight for that moment,” he said.
The sliming always looked spontaneous, Mr. Reid said, but was carefully staged. Right before the fateful line “I don’t know,” they would pause filming, clear the actor’s surroundings, and cover everything with plastic. Then taping would resume with a zoomed-in shot featuring the slime dump.
“It was warm and mushy,” Mr. Reid said.
There was a technique to being slimed, he found over the years: tilt the head up a little for the full dramatic effect of taking it in the face.
He was 12 years old at the time of his first episode on the show. His parents had signed him up for what was called the Ottawa Little Theatre, the drama group that the producers of YCDTOTV ran.
To get on the show, he wrote a letter to Mr. Price saying why he thought he‘d make a good addition to the cast. His main bragging point was that he could flawlessly imitate comedians from the 1940s and ’50s, such as Paul Lynde and Carol Channing. It worked, and he made the cut.
Years later, as the show gained traction and its fame spread to the United States as well, he saw hundreds of kids lined up around the building to audition for the show.
Mr. Reid acted on the program until he was 15, then he was brought on as a writer at the age of 16. Production finished in 1990 after 11 years, though re-runs aired for some time thereafter.
The Epoch Times asked Mr. Reid what some of his favourite Canadian TV shows of the ‘80s were. He named “The Friendly Giant” and “Hammy Hamster.”
Mr. Reid said he is honoured to have seeped into the “Canadian collective consciousness” for his role on YCDTOTV and his Heritage Minute role. He has often had people come up to him on the street and say how much they appreciated the show. He recalls meeting one man who said the show helped him integrate into Canadian society as an immigrant.
“Storytelling through humour is one of the best ways to communicate common truths that anyone from anywhere in the world can feel and understand. On a basic, fundamental level, humour is universal. It connects people,” Mr. Reid said.
