Created by: Roger Price
Produced by: Geoffrey Darby, Bryn Matthews, Jeffrey C. Weber, John Findlay, Geraldine Laybourne, Robert Wilson, Roger Price, Geoffrey Darby, Brenda Mason
Premiere date: February 3, 1979
Episodes: 5 Episodes
Original airdate: 1986
You Can’t Do That on Television was a Canadian sketch comedy television series that first aired locally in 1979 before it began airing in the United States in 1981.
It featured preteen and teenage actors in a sketch comedy format similar to that of American sketch comedies Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and Saturday Night Live. Each episode had a specific theme normally relating to pop culture of the time. During its original run, the show was seen as one and the same with the cable network Nickelodeon in its early years on the air, achieved high ratings, and is most famous for introducing the network’s iconic green slime.
The show was also notable for launching the careers of many performers such as Alanis Morissette, filmmaker Patrick Mills, and television producer and screenwriter Bill Prady.
The show was produced by and aired on Ottawa’s CTV station CJOH-TV, and was marketed specifically for an American audience. After production ended in 1990, the show continued in reruns on the Nickelodeon cable network in the United States through 1994, when it was replaced with the similar themed sketch-comedy variety program All That.
The show is the subject of the 2004 feature-length documentary You Can’t Do That on Film, directed by David Dillehunt and released in North America by Shout! Factory in 2012.
