I Remember…You Can’t Do That On Television

Day 317

A while ago I posted about the shows I used to watch on Nickelodeon when I was growing up, and I mentioned that my favorite show was You Can’t Do That On Television. I wanted to do a special post about this great show from Canada!

Les Lye as 'Ross', 'The Doctor'

'Dad', and 'The Captain'

Where to begin? Well, to start with, the show had a very talented cast of pre-teens and teens, and they pretty much ran the show, although there was a director always around to tease and harass the kids named Ross; he was played by the very talented Les Lye, who portrayed almost every adult character on the show. The host of the show was Christine (often called “Moose” by the other cast members); the cast would often change, but there were several regular cast members, such as Lisa, Alasdair, Doug and Vanessa.

Each show had a specific theme or topic: Medicine, Nature, Technology, Jealousy, Hobbies, Fashion (just to name a few). And throughout the show there would be various sketches and jokes built around the show’s particular theme.

I loved the sketches on the show, and these were some of my favorites:

Barth’s. The kids would often eat at this dive of a diner, where the cook Barth was known for serving the worst kinds of food. Usually one or all of the kids would end up throwing up at the end of the sketch (kids love jokes about puke, you know!) And Barth’s signature catch phrase was “Dah, I heard that!”

Blip’s Arcade. Ah, a definite sign that this show was from the 1980s, as the kids would hang out at this video arcade. If you don’t know what a video arcade is, then I am truly old and thoroughly depressed!

The Classroom. Of course there had to be a sketch at school, and this one featured the talented Les Lye as the fussy teacher. One of the running jokes in these sketches was that the words were always misspelled on the chalkboard - example: DIVORCE was spelled DEVORSE.

The Dungeon. Back then this was a hilarious sketch that featured a kid in chains being mocked by the prison guard…but by today’s standards this might be considered child endangerment. Oh, we were so young and naïve then! And speaking of child abuse…

The Captain and Lisa

The Execution. OK, upon reflection this was probably not an appropriate sketch, as a kid was always shown facing a firing squad about to be shot (although the squad was off camera, so you didn’t actually see any guns!) And the kid was never shot because he/she would always figure out a way to escape by confusing the captain. The kid would yell “stop the execution!” and the captain would say “what is it dis time?!” (he had a thick accent). The kid would figure out a way to be set free, and then the captain would say “that is one sneaky kid!”

There was also a sketch called “Locker Jokes”, in which the kids in the cast would stand inside the lockers then one by one the door would open up and one kid would tell another a really lame, corny joke. Dumb, but funny! And the kids always commented on how bad the jokes were!

And there was a series of sketches called the “Opposite Sketches”, showing the opposite of what happens in real life. Examples: a parent makes her child stop doing his homework and watch TV instead; a doctor pays a patient; a teacher criticizes a student for doing well in school.

Christine gets wet!

But the best part of the show, the part that I fondly remember, was when one of the cast members would say a word or phrase that resulted in either being doused with water or covered in green slime!

Christine gets slimed!

Whenever someone said the word “water” (or a variation of the word, such as agua) they would have tons of water dumped on them. And if a cast member said the phrase “I don’t know” they would have green slime dumped on them. And every show had at least one instance of some getting wet or slimed! It was fun to anticipate and even more fun to watch. And no one was safe! Even Ross, the director, got his share of water and green slime!

Alasdair gets slimed!

I would have loved to have been on the show! In fact, I used to pretend I was getting dumped with water or slime whenever I took a shower! Wow, did I just admit that?! No wonder I'm still single!

There are episodes available to watch on Youtube, and I have had a blast watching a few of them. They don’t make shows like this anymore, and I wish they did!