The Trouble with Tracy
Encyclopedia
The Trouble with Tracy was a Canadian
television
series produced by CTV
for the 1970–1971 television season, with intended distribution by the U.S.-based National General Pictures
. It is considered by some to be one of the worst situation comedies
ever produced.
The show was produced as a daily show, and aired weekday afternoons at 3:30 pm from September 14, 1970. The economic and time pressures of producing 130 episodes in a single season (seven shows were filmed every five days) meant cheap, wobbly sets, no outdoor filming, a laugh track
instead of a live studio audience, the use of single takes, the reuse of 25-year-old radio
scripts, and other shortcuts that resulted in a poor-quality product. Even flubbed lines and bloopers sometimes ended up airing, because the show could not afford retakes.
at the studios of CFTO
, the show was set in New York City
and featured a newlywed couple. Tracy Young (played by Diane Nyland
in a miniskirt
) was the dishy wife to Doug Young (Steve Weston
), a young advertising executive and exasperated husband. Other regular characters were Doug's hippie brother-in-law Paul (Franz Russell), who was constantly asking Doug for money, and Tracy's nagging mother, Mrs. Sherwood (Sylvia Lennick
).
The show was based on scripts written by Goodman Ace
for the 1930 to 1945 American radio comedy Easy Aces
, though the story was updated by making Tracy's brother a hippie and the addition of other topical references. In addition, the show's pilot
was originally titled The Married Youngs, a play on The Young Marrieds
, focusing on the Youngs' last name; however, when the show went to series, producer Seymour Berns changed the name to The Trouble with Tracy, after his daughter, Tracy.
The show aired Monday to Friday, with 130 episodes produced for its original run. These episodes were repeated in the afternoon time slot until late into the 1970s.
regulations. Cultural critics, including Geoff Pevere
, have suggested, however, that as unsuccessful as the result was, the show deserves some credit as one of the first truly ambitious attempts to create a scripted television series within the financial constraints that have often plagued Canadian television production.
While American television networks have both the financial scale and the diversity of programming to take a loss on an unpopular series by cancelling it early, CTV had little choice but to air the entire series, regardless of its ratings or quality, in order to recoup as much of its investment as possible. The network was still in a precarious financial position, having only modestly recovered from its near-bankruptcy in 1965, and still had neither the national reach nor the audience of CBC Television
. Furthermore, the network was running as a cooperative
of its affiliated stations — meaning that network programming had to be funded and produced by individual stations, in a manner more comparable to the United States' PBS
or Britain's ITV
than to modern expectations of a commercial television network.
The largest real difference between The Trouble with Tracy and a poorly received American show, in fact, is that because of the above factors, it lasted longer, and had more time to become remembered than an American series of similar quality would have. In fact, just one year earlier, ABC
had cancelled Turn-On
, also commonly named as one of the worst shows in television history, after just a single episode — and some ABC affiliates did not even wait that long, pulling the show during a commercial break before the first episode had even finished airing.
By contrast, while The Trouble with Tracy at least represented a sincere attempt on CTV's part, many Canadian radio stations during the same era were responding to the new Canadian content regulations by burying Canadian music in obscure time slots known as "beaver hour
s".
, that needed to be filled inexpensively) the show became something of a cult favourite
to a whole generation of Canadian viewers, especially those who first saw it as teenagers.
Barenaked Ladies
frequently played a song called "The Trouble With Tracy" live in concert in the early 1990s. However, except for its title, the song is not related to the show. A live recording is included as a B-side on the band's 1993 CD single "Brian Wilson"; the song also appears on their rare early releases Buck Naked and Barenaked Lunch. The song was based on a poem by Steven Page
called "The Trouble With Robon."
In March 2003, The Comedy Network
, a Canadian specialty channel owned by CTV, announced that it would air a pilot for new version of The Trouble with Tracy, based on the original scripts, on April 1 of that year. If successful, this pilot would lead to a 13-episode series starring comedian Laurie Elliott
as Tracy and David Lipovitch as David. Elliott and Lipovitch both participated in a press conference to promote the new production. The actress who played the original Tracy, Diane Nyland Proctor, herself joined this advance media campaign and conducted interviews for the press.
Although the Comedy Network held the press conference in mid-March, and Nyland did her interviews at around the same time, this was, in fact, an April Fool's joke and the "pilot" consisted only of a brief intro sequence which segued into an episode of The Gavin Crawford Show
. Perhaps not expecting an April Fool's joke to be set up in March, some media, including the Toronto Star
and CTV's own Canada AM
, did fall for the prank.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series produced by CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
for the 1970–1971 television season, with intended distribution by the U.S.-based National General Pictures
National General Pictures
National General Pictures was a Distribution and Film production company which was active between 1967 and 1973. NGP produced nine motion pictures inhouse and was the distributor of eighty films....
. It is considered by some to be one of the worst situation comedies
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
ever produced.
The show was produced as a daily show, and aired weekday afternoons at 3:30 pm from September 14, 1970. The economic and time pressures of producing 130 episodes in a single season (seven shows were filmed every five days) meant cheap, wobbly sets, no outdoor filming, a laugh track
Laugh track
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...
instead of a live studio audience, the use of single takes, the reuse of 25-year-old radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
scripts, and other shortcuts that resulted in a poor-quality product. Even flubbed lines and bloopers sometimes ended up airing, because the show could not afford retakes.
Premise
Shot in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
at the studios of CFTO
CFTO-TV
CFTO-DT, broadcast on channel 9 and cable 8, is a television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, owned by Bell Media. Currently branded as CTV Toronto, it is the flagship station of the CTV Television Network, and was one of the charter members of the network when it was launched in 1961. It...
, the show was set in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and featured a newlywed couple. Tracy Young (played by Diane Nyland
Diane Nyland
Diane Nyland Proctor is a Canadian actress, director and choreographer. She is best known for portraying the title role in the 1970-71 CTV television series The Trouble With Tracy.- Awards and recognition :...
in a miniskirt
Miniskirt
A miniskirt, sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, is a skirt with a hemline well above the knees – generally no longer than below the buttocks; and a minidress is a dress with a similar meaning...
) was the dishy wife to Doug Young (Steve Weston
Steve Weston
Steve Weston was a Canadian television and theatre actor. He is best known to Canadian audiences from his stint as the husband in the sitcom The Trouble With Tracy, and as a series regular on the sketch comedy series Bizarre...
), a young advertising executive and exasperated husband. Other regular characters were Doug's hippie brother-in-law Paul (Franz Russell), who was constantly asking Doug for money, and Tracy's nagging mother, Mrs. Sherwood (Sylvia Lennick
Sylvia Lennick
Sylvia Lennick, née Paige was a Canadian comedic actress. A supporting cast member of Wayne & Shusters television comedy troupe, she was most famous for her role as Calpurnia, with the famous catch phrase "I told him, Julie! Don't go!", in the Julius Caesar sketch "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga".In...
).
The show was based on scripts written by Goodman Ace
Goodman Ace
Goodman Ace , born Goodman Aiskowitz, was an American humourist, working as a radio writer and comedian, a television writer, and a magazine columnist....
for the 1930 to 1945 American radio comedy Easy Aces
Easy Aces
Easy Aces, a long-running American serial radio comedy , was trademarked by the low-keyed drollery of creator and writer Goodman Ace and his wife, Jane, as an urbane, put-upon realtor and his malaprop-prone wife...
, though the story was updated by making Tracy's brother a hippie and the addition of other topical references. In addition, the show's pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
was originally titled The Married Youngs, a play on The Young Marrieds
The Young Marrieds
The Young Marrieds was an American daytime soap opera which aired on ABC from October 5, 1964, to March 25, 1966.The program was created by James Elward and written by Elward with Frances Rickett. Authors John Pascal and Francine Pascal also wrote for the series. It was produced in Hollywood by...
, focusing on the Youngs' last name; however, when the show went to series, producer Seymour Berns changed the name to The Trouble with Tracy, after his daughter, Tracy.
The show aired Monday to Friday, with 130 episodes produced for its original run. These episodes were repeated in the afternoon time slot until late into the 1970s.
Context
The Trouble with Tracy is often considered to have been produced solely to meet the demands of the Canadian contentCanadian content
Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...
regulations. Cultural critics, including Geoff Pevere
Geoff Pevere
Geoff Pevere is a Canadian and arts and media critic. He is the outgoing film critic for the Toronto Star, and, starting in 2008, will be the paper's book critic. He is also a host of the movie review series Reel to Real on Rogers Television....
, have suggested, however, that as unsuccessful as the result was, the show deserves some credit as one of the first truly ambitious attempts to create a scripted television series within the financial constraints that have often plagued Canadian television production.
While American television networks have both the financial scale and the diversity of programming to take a loss on an unpopular series by cancelling it early, CTV had little choice but to air the entire series, regardless of its ratings or quality, in order to recoup as much of its investment as possible. The network was still in a precarious financial position, having only modestly recovered from its near-bankruptcy in 1965, and still had neither the national reach nor the audience of CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
. Furthermore, the network was running as a cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
of its affiliated stations — meaning that network programming had to be funded and produced by individual stations, in a manner more comparable to the United States' PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
or Britain's ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
than to modern expectations of a commercial television network.
The largest real difference between The Trouble with Tracy and a poorly received American show, in fact, is that because of the above factors, it lasted longer, and had more time to become remembered than an American series of similar quality would have. In fact, just one year earlier, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
had cancelled Turn-On
Turn-On
Turn-On is an American sketch comedy series that aired on ABC in February 1969. Only one episode was shown and the show is considered one of the most infamous flops in TV history....
, also commonly named as one of the worst shows in television history, after just a single episode — and some ABC affiliates did not even wait that long, pulling the show during a commercial break before the first episode had even finished airing.
By contrast, while The Trouble with Tracy at least represented a sincere attempt on CTV's part, many Canadian radio stations during the same era were responding to the new Canadian content regulations by burying Canadian music in obscure time slots known as "beaver hour
Beaver hour
The beaver hour, or beaver bin, is a satirical nickname for a programming philosophy used by some Canadian radio stations, which was prominent especially, but not exclusively, in the 1970s....
s".
Ongoing influence in Canadian popular culture
In his book, TV North: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Canadian Television, Peter Kenter says "The Trouble With Tracy is universally considered the worst Canadian TV show of all time, especially by those who have never seen it." With re-runs airing as late as the mid-1980s (albeit primarily in tricky time slots, such as early mornings before Canada AMCanada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
, that needed to be filled inexpensively) the show became something of a cult favourite
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
to a whole generation of Canadian viewers, especially those who first saw it as teenagers.
Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian alternative rock band. The band is currently composed of Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart. Barenaked Ladies formed in 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario, then a suburban municipality outside the City of Toronto...
frequently played a song called "The Trouble With Tracy" live in concert in the early 1990s. However, except for its title, the song is not related to the show. A live recording is included as a B-side on the band's 1993 CD single "Brian Wilson"; the song also appears on their rare early releases Buck Naked and Barenaked Lunch. The song was based on a poem by Steven Page
Steven Page
Steven Jay Page , is a Canadian musician. Along with Ed Robertson, he was a founding member, lead singer, guitarist, and a primary songwriter of the music group Barenaked Ladies ; he left the band in 2009 to pursue a solo career....
called "The Trouble With Robon."
In March 2003, The Comedy Network
The Comedy Network
The Comedy Network a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media specializing in comedy programming.The channel operates two time shifted feeds, East and West ....
, a Canadian specialty channel owned by CTV, announced that it would air a pilot for new version of The Trouble with Tracy, based on the original scripts, on April 1 of that year. If successful, this pilot would lead to a 13-episode series starring comedian Laurie Elliott
Laurie Elliott
Laurie Elliott is a Canadian stand-up comedian. She has appeared in The Red Green Show, and won a Canadian Comedy Award as Best Female Stand-up...
as Tracy and David Lipovitch as David. Elliott and Lipovitch both participated in a press conference to promote the new production. The actress who played the original Tracy, Diane Nyland Proctor, herself joined this advance media campaign and conducted interviews for the press.
Although the Comedy Network held the press conference in mid-March, and Nyland did her interviews at around the same time, this was, in fact, an April Fool's joke and the "pilot" consisted only of a brief intro sequence which segued into an episode of The Gavin Crawford Show
The Gavin Crawford Show
The Gavin Crawford Show was a Canadian sketch comedy series that ran from June 19, 2000 to July 1, 2003 on The Comedy Network.The show starred comedian Gavin Crawford, along with an ensemble cast of supporting performers...
. Perhaps not expecting an April Fool's joke to be set up in March, some media, including the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
and CTV's own Canada AM
Canada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
, did fall for the prank.