Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Earl Warren and Etta Sawyer about to carve poultry on the front cover of Etta Sawyer at the House of Warren: Kitchen Capers at CFRB (Toronto: Personal Library, 1979). When browsing [...]

Source: The Toronto Star, October 3, 1988. On yesterday’s edition of Metro Morning, host Andy Barrie announced his retirement from waking up Torontonians for fifteen years. Since arriving in Toronto from Montreal in the late 1970s, his style has drawn praise from listeners of public and private stations for his ability to put a human [...]

Source: The Toronto Star, November 19, 1936. Isn’t it wonderful when four stereotypical figures can come together in perfect harmony thanks to a humble can of spaghetti? We never suspected that the finest spices from Asia lurked within our sloppy Saturday childhood lunch. Paying homage to the League of Nations might not have been the [...]

Source: The Telegram, December 2, 1948. We can picture it now—a giant, disembodied head floating in the locker room of Maple Leaf Gardens, hovering near his microphone as he interviews battle-scarred hockey players preparing to dazzle the rest of the country with their skills over the airwaves on Saturday night. Interviewees were too focused on [...]

As Torontoist reported earlier today, media mogul Ted Rogers passed away early this morning. Today’s ad features Rogers alongside his father, who was one of Canada’s broadcasting pioneers. In 1925, Edward Samuel “Ted” Rogers Sr. designed the first radio to run on electricity instead of giant, expensive batteries, an event commemorated on a plaque at [...]

Good advertising is meant to stop you in your tracks, but a new ad campaign for local radio station CFRB might leave you frozen in disbelief. This month, CFRB contracted ad agency zig to create a witty series of guerilla-style street ads (read: illegal) meant to highlight polarizing issues of urban life. “Is advertising out [...]

Cow herds and invalids were among the radio listeners that spent over 10,000 mornings waking up with Wally Crouter. His run as CFRB’s morning man from 1946 to 1996 saw his comforting style stay afloat in the ratings against competitors like top 40 radio and shock jocks. Crouter felt that one of the keys to [...]

Several ways to interpret the stated goal of “reporting some of the happier happenings in our community”: An opportunity for budding reporters to hone their skills on enlightening human interest stories and positive community events that fly under the radar during a typical grim news day. A momentary respite from the sensationalism creeping into the [...]