Who is Les Lye and why do we count him as one of Ottawa's Comedy Greats?

Because not to would be an oversight of epic scale. An oversight you'd expect from an uniformed buffoon or neophyte entertainment reporter. You know, DORKS! Not the OCR.

After almost a half-century in show business, Les has done it all. He is one of Ottawa's most gifted humorist/comedians, and one of the best-liked members of the entertainment community. He was BARTH the cook on "You Can¹t Do That On Television." He was Floyd in "Willy and Floyd", he was the CJOH movie critic. He's Les Lye fer Chrissakes.

LESLIES LYE & NIELSON GO TO SCHOOL

Originally born and raised in Toronto, he graduated from both Riverdale Collegiate and the University of Toronto's Victoria College. In 1944 he volunteered for the RCAF, only to be transferred a year later to the army, when the war effort had a great need for more troops. Following his military discharge in 1946, he returned to his education, becoming a member of Lorne Greene's famous Academy of Radio Arts, where he was a "Graduate of Distinction". A famous pal was a fellow graduate Leslie Nielson. (Okay, Nielson graduated the year ahead of him and went to New York on a scholarship.) Diploma in hand, Lye's broadcasting career was about to begin.

Back in Ottawa by 1948 he found work at the new local radio station CFRA. By 1953 he had moved back to Toronto, where he hosted a late night comedy show on Jack Kent Cooke's CKEY Radio. Soon he returned to Ottawa again and his fame began to spread in earnest. Valley listeners and fans would talk about his morning broadcasts and his comedy exchanges with his alter ego. "Abercrombie".

LES LYE and RICH LITTLE

The goofy voiced Abercrombie, who was as "real" to radio listeners as any Fred Allen caricature, proved Lye's writing mettle and it was during that time that a youthful Rich Little honed his skills working with Les. The idea for Rich's first comedy album was created and written by Les and Rich, a spoof of the Diefenbaker years entitled, "My Fellow Canadians".

IT'S CALLED A TELEVISION MACHINE

TV brought new opportunities and in 1958 Les became host of the CBOT program, "Contact". He became also became a staple at CJOH-TV and was the MC of the first live audience show at their Merivale Road studios, in 1961, with Joe Brown and the Happy Wanderers. This started a 30-year partnership between Les and Channel 13; as interviewer, comic, sportscaster, movie reviewer and featured performer on both late night and early morning shows. He was also a quizmaster on CTVs "Fractured Phrases" and a writer-performer on Global's satirical news progam "Shh! It's the News!" with Don Harron. (Shades of "This Hour has 22 Minutes.)

RADIO - HIS FIRST PASSION

At this time, radio work also continued with him bouncing from CKOY and CKBY-FM. Les' first passion was radio and he still hit the air doing comedy. In those pre-digital days he used to do a two man radio show for years, but the other voice was also him. He would pre-tape some of his dialogue and then talk on top of it, and then sing a song harmonizing with himself. (Can anyone say George Formby?) Anybody who didn't understand tape would get into big arguments, and he¹d receive phone calls saying, "I just bet my friend ten bucks that there are two people." Les would reply, "Well I'm sorry, but you lose." Then they'd say, "Yeah, but you were singing a song together."

THE UNCLE NO ONE TALKS ABOUT - UNCLE WILLY

While at CJOH, Lye struck up an acquaintanceship with fellow performer Bill Luxton, and the chemistry of the team of Lye and Luxton gave birth to two of our most enduring characters, and one of our longest running TV series.

While the rest of the world was in a frenzy about the mop-topped Beatles, Ottawa was assailed by it's own Saturday morning mop-top sensation (though ours were wearing wigs and false dentures.) The vaudevillian extremes of a show, dare we say, a milestone. Uncle Willy and Floyd. The world would never be the same. Uncle Willy and Floyd, a local kid's show that followed the bizarre adventures of a doddering old man (Bill Luxton) and his insanely overbitten nephew, Floyd (Lye), as they first, managed a movie theatre, then a computer lab, and finally a hotel.

In the early days, the show was simply an excuse to package cartoons. But soon this mix of sight gags, puppets, bad chroma-keys and topical humor went syndicated in Canada, and continued airing for well over 20 years. Les co-wrote the show and along with partner Bill Luxton, and it ended up as a half-hour Saturday morning sitcom tradition for Ottawa kids. (Okay, maybe not the popular kids.)

Luxton and Lye still appeared at various functions and special events as their old friends, Willy & Floyd, well into the 1990s.

FROM FRANK RYAN TO FATAL ATTRACTION

In 1978, producer Roger Price arrived at CJOH from Britain. After seeing Les perform in a local hospital telethon, he approached him to offer him a role in a TV show he was producing which would be in the mold of one he'd done in Britain. Les would play the father, teacher, bad chef, and many other characters created for this mad-cap Laugh-In rip-off for kids. The first tapings were January 1979. The die was cast.

THEY DID DO THAT ON TELEVISION

In the film Fatal Attraction you can see Mike Douglas' kids watching You Can't Do That On Television. The show made Les famous. None of original episodes of You Can't Do That On Television exist, because it was at first a live show. (In one tragic anecdote, Les actually received a letter from a woman wanting a dub. Apparently, in the first year of the show they used to go out and do things in restaurants. One of them was a pizza eating contest, and she had written to tell him that her son was one of the featured guests found in the restaurant for the contest. The boy was killed six months later and she wondered if we had the tapes of it. They looked all over, but none of the inserts from the early days were saved.) Likewise, no copy exists of the first role Les ever played. A bus inspector down at a real bus stop in the snow in January of 1979. He was an old guy who belittled the kids while dressed as a bus inspector.

He enjoyed working with Price and had a lot of creative freedom with his characters, ranging from a Groucho Marx dentist to the now legendary Barth the Chef. It's rumoured a blooper tape exists which Nickelodeon had made, showing some of the highlights from the show, and has the, as yet undeveloped, main characters Les played on the show from the beginning. They show the first time he did anything in the studio as Ross - a name that he gave the to character (Ross Ewich = Raw Sewage), NOT the (studio director) Ross that everybody knows. He had no mustache, and his hair was gray. He decided he should look younger, so he began to have my hair dyed every month. They slapped on a mustache, and that was the beginning of Ross. Most of the characters he did were supposed to be younger than he was at the time. (About 54 when taping started). The rest, is, as they say, local broadcast history. 

The show was ultimately sold to England, Finland, Spain, Australia and the biggest success of all, the United States with Nickelodeon. As recently as l999, pirated copies of the show have turned up in Saudi Arabia with Les dubbed into Arabic.

ALANIS - LES

Alanis Morisette was briefly a cast member on You Can't Do That On Television and Les asked producer Roger Price why he wasn't using her very much. Price was of the opinion that she had a 35 year old's mind in a 12 year old's body.

Alanis was most remembered by the cast for her performances whenever someone left the show. "Goodbye" parties were fairly common on the set of YCDTOT because someone's voice would change and they'd get the axe. Alanis would often bring her tape machine and sing at these little shindigs. Using her beautiful voice to send off someone who had the misfortune of NOT having one. (Isn't it ironic? Dontcha think? -.ed)

After she left You Can't Do That On Television Les phoned her and asked if she would like to appear on the kids' show, Uncle Willy and Floyd. By this time, Willy and Floyd were the owners of a hotel, so he wrote a script for her and she sang a couple of tunes on one episode. That was last time they worked together.

In the 1990s Les ran into Alanis in the hallway of a station and didn't say anything just to see if she'd recognize him with his white hair and white mustache. At first she didn't. Then she stopped, turned around and yelled, 'Les, oh my God!' She threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug. They briefly caught up on what they'd been doing and Les complimented her on the spectacular career she'd been having since YCDTOT.

Alanis now lives in Los Angeles California. Does she think of Les? Who cares! Because WE DO damnit.

MORE OF LES!

Les was the CJOH movie critic for many years, (Until it became cheaper to downlink some genericized crapola from Toronto.) For 13 years Les' acerbic insights about popular cinema followed the local news.

As an actor, he appeared on network TV dramas and documentaries, including "Quentin Drudges", "'The National Dream" and "Family Court". He also appeared opposite Luxton and Elsa Pickthome in the comedy, "Boing, Boing" and, perhaps his most memorable local theatrical credit was co-starring with Bill Luxton in Neil Simon's "Ihe Sunshine Boys" on the stage of the Ottawa Little Theatre.

TODAY

Les continues working in the new millennium. As well, he and his wife, Jonni, are proud parents and grandparents. They are among the founding members of the Ottawa branch of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and have remained active members of JDF.

He continues penning chapters in a book about his life whenever he finds time to get around to it.

Les is always among the first volunteers to lend a helping hand for causes and charitable fund raising events. He is still fondly referred to by his fellows in the industry as the "Sunshine Boy."

POST-SCRIPT - LEGENDARY STINKAROO'S

"UFO Kidnapped" Les as Sam the burglar in a cheesy lame sci-fi kid's fantasy out of Carleton Productions in the mid-80s. (Produced by the You Can't Do That-Denim Blues mob.)