You Can't Do That on Television (found Canadian TV series; 1979-1990)
The show's title card.
Status: Found
Date found: 26 Jan 2023
Found by: Various users
You Can't Do That On Television was a Canadian sketch comedy that first aired on CTV on February 3rd, 1979 and then premiered in the United States on Nickelodeon on January 2nd, 1982 until its end on May 25th, 1990 for 144 episodes and two specials. It was created by British producer Roger Price (who previously created the children's sci-fi series The Tomorrow People) and the show was the fourth iteration of the format that first debuted on the British sketch comedy series You Must Be Joking! (also created by Price).
The show mainly features comedy sketches performed by a mostly preteen cast that relate to the topic of the episode. The show would also feature the use of green slime and water dumped on the cast, the slime would go on to be a Nickelodeon trademark and continues to be the channel's trademark to this day. The cast would sometimes feature future rock musician Alanis Morissette, filmmaker Patrick Mills, and The Big Bang Theory co-creator Bill Prady.
The show would become a ratings success in Canada and would later score even bigger ratings once the show started airing on Nickelodeon. After the show's end, the latter would rerun the show until early 1994 and would air one episode, 1986's "Enemies & Paranoia" as part of the channel's "Old School Pick" in 2004 but was pulled halfway through the airing. Similar to what happened to an episode of The TNT Show in 2009, the episode contains jokes on then-president Ronald Reagan and Reagan's death made headlines during the episode's airing and was replaced with an episode of The Fairly Oddparents[1]. The show would briefly rerun in 2015 on the TeenNick block "The Splat" before disappearing from the air altogether. A reboot of the show was announced in 2017 with Price involved[2] but was canned two years later due to rights disputes[3].
While the show is well remembered for the time it aired on Nickelodeon, many of the masters of the episodes are rumored to have been destroyed.
Episodes
Season 1
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Live! | Found | |
| 2 | A CJOH Shoestring Production | Found | |
| 3 | Nickel and Dime | Found | |
| 4 | Peanuts | Found | |
| 5 | Repeat | Found | |
| 6 | Ottawa Director | Found | |
| 7 | St. Patrick's Day | Found | |
| 8 | Backstage | Found | |
| 9 | A Staff Privvy/Executive Washrooms Production | Found | |
| 10 | Boring | Found | |
| 11 | Straitjackets | Found | |
| 12 | Local Show | Found | |
| 13 | Sore Foot | Found | |
| 14 | End of the Line | Found |
Season 2
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Work, Work, Work | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 16 | Transportation | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 17 | Strike Now | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 18 | Dating | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 19 | Fitness | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 20 | Safety First | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 21 | Sexual Equality | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 22 | Personal Hygiene | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 23 | Smoking | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 24 | Crime and Vandalism | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 25 | Drugs | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 26 | Nutrition | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 27 | Peer Pressure | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
Season 3
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | Cosmetics | Found (Subscription Required) | Available on Paramount+. |
| 29 | Addictions | Found | |
| 30 | Popularity | Found | |
| 31 | Fads and Fashion | Found | |
| 32 | Vacations | Found | |
| 33 | Rip-Offs | Found | |
| 34 | Bullying | Found | |
| 35 | Culture Junk | Found | |
| 36 | Television | Found | |
| 37 | Sports | Found | |
| 38 | Heroes | Found | |
| 39 | The Not-So-Fair-Show | Found | |
| 40 | Growing Up | Found |
Season 4
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 41 | Media | Found | |
| 42 | Pets | Found | |
| 43 | Medicine | Found | |
| 44 | Rules & Regulations | Found | |
| 45 | Future World | Found | |
| 46 | Nature | Found | |
| 47 | Cooking | Found | |
| 48 | Inequality: Kids vs. Adults | Found | |
| 49 | Rumors | Found | |
| 50 | Classical Music | Found | |
| 51 | Manners | Found | |
| 52 | Fame | Found | |
| 53 | Priorites | Found |
Season 5
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | Courage | Found | |
| 55 | Friends | Found | |
| 56 | Ambition | Found | |
| 57 | Hobbies | Found | |
| 58 | ESP, Magic and Astrology | Found | |
| 59 | Literature | Found | |
| 60 | Clubs | Found | |
| 61 | Foreign Countries | Found | |
| 62 | Marketing | Found | |
| 63 | History | Found | |
| 64 | Body Parts | Found | |
| 65 | Technology | Found | |
| 66 | Moving | Found | |
| 67 | Halloween | Found | |
| 68 | Christmas | Found | |
| 69 | Holidays | Found | |
| 70 | Colleges | Found | |
| 71 | Politics | Found | |
| 72 | Science | Found | |
| 73 | Divorce | Found | |
| 74 | Families | Found | |
| 75 | Malls (Hangouts) | Found | |
| 76 | Seasons (Weather) | Found | |
| 77 | War | Found | |
| 78 | Jealousy | Found | |
| 79 | Wealth | Found |
Season 6
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 | Outer Space | Found | |
| 81 | Wildlife and Animals | Found | |
| 82 | World Records | Found | |
| 83 | Identity Crisis | Found | |
| 84 | Pessimism/Optimism | Found | |
| 85 | Romance and Dating | Found | |
| 86 | Fears, Worries, and Anxiety | Found | |
| 87 | Relatives | Found | |
| 88 | Revenge | Found | |
| 89 | Movies | Found |
Season 7
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90 | Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends | Found | |
| 91 | Pop Music | Found | |
| 92 | Know-It-Alls | Found | |
| 93 | Parties | Found | |
| 94 | Garbage | Found | |
| 95 | TV Commercials | Found | |
| 96 | Country | Found | |
| 97 | Back to School | Found | |
| 98 | Illness | Found | |
| 99 | Enemies and Paranoia | Found | |
| 100 | Contests | Found | |
| 101 | Censorship | Found | |
| 102 | Poverty and Unemployment | Found | |
| 103 | Part-Time Jobs | Found | |
| 104 | Discipline | Found | |
| 105 | Sleep | Found | |
| 106 | Home | Found | |
| 107 | Mysteries and Crimes | Found | |
| 108 | Luck | Found | |
| 109 | Savings | Found |
Season 8
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 110 | Books and Reading | Found | |
| 111 | Adoption | Found | Nickelodeon pulled this episode after two airings.[4] |
| 112 | City Life | Found | |
| 113 | Anniversaries | Found | |
| 114 | Smells | Found |
Season 9
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 115 | Choice | Found | |
| 116 | Chores | Found | |
| 117 | Communication | Found | |
| 118 | Fitness | Found | |
| 119 | Malfunctions | Found | |
| 120 | Cleanliness | Found | |
| 121 | Security | Found | |
| 122 | Pollution | Found | |
| 123 | Fantasies | Found | |
| 124 | Time | Found | |
| 125 | Mistakes | Found | |
| 126 | Punishment | Found | |
| 127 | Beliefs | Found | |
| 128 | Age | Found | |
| 129 | Excess | Found | |
| 130 | Looking Cool | Found | |
| 131 | Lost | Found | |
| 132 | Failure | Found | |
| 133 | First Times | Found | |
| 134 | Celebrations | Found | |
| 135 | Effort | Found | |
| 136 | Sports | Found | |
| 137 | Smoking | Found | |
| 138 | Generosity | Found | |
| 139 | Embarrassment | Found |
Season 10
| # | Episode Title | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 140 | Blame | Found | |
| 141 | Secrets | Found | |
| 142 | Learning | Found | |
| 143 | Privileges | Found | |
| 144 | Inventions | Found |
[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]
Availability
Of the 144 episodes that were produced and aired, only under half of the show's run exists in broadcast quality. A home media release of the show never materialized due to royalties and various streaming releases have popped up in the past decade. The first season of the show is considered by many to be the hardest season to find as the season only aired in Canada and never aired on Nickelodeon, many of the season's masters are considered missing and are rumored to have been erased since it was a common practice at the time.
In 2013, Price uploaded off-air copies of the entire first season of the show to YouTube, but were since been taken down; however, they resurfaced on Archive.org on October 10th, 2021, courtesy of Lost Media Wiki user, "Droog," who claims they have had it on their hard drive for years prior to the resurfacing. Twenty-one episodes from the show's second and third seasons were available on Amazon Prime but have since been unavailable.[17][18][19]
In March 2021, those same episodes were added to Paramount + and can be viewed with a subscription. [20] The majority of the rest of the series has resurfaced online thanks to home recordings from Nickelodeon airings, though not in master quality.
On January 17th, 2023, Internet archive user "AK.Fade" uploaded all of season 9, minus episode 129. Finally, on January 26th, the final missing episode "Looking Cool" was uploaded to MEGA by user "GrigioGuy", rendering the entire series found.
Gallery
References
- ↑ https://nickstory.fandom.com/wiki/June_8,_2004
- ↑ https://avclub.com/exclusive-you-cant-do-that-on-television-is-getting-a-1798539646
- ↑ https://twitter.com/iamjimmyfox/status/1172991613854871552
- ↑ https://cbr.com/you-cant-do-that-on-television-banned-nickelodeon-united-states/
- ↑ https://barthsburgery.com/epguide.htm
- ↑ https://paramountplus.com/shows/you-cant-do-that-on-television/episodes/
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1979&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1981&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1982&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1983&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1984&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1985&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1986&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1987&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1989&p=epg_list
- ↑ http://ycdtotv.com/epg/index.php?year=1990&p=epg_list
- ↑ https://amazon.com/You-Cant-Do-That-Television/dp/B00B3Q748Q
- ↑ https://amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00C0OM9FS/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s2
- ↑ https://amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00FZEZ0C4/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s3
- ↑ https://twitter.com/paramountplus/status/1374803005107675147