Posted on April 6, 2013
By Mike Ross
Comedy, Entertainment, entertainment, Front Slider, TV and Radio
In order for Canadian comedians to get an immigration visa to work in Hollywood, they have to be established – and in order to get established, they have to work in Hollywood. “That’s the whole catch-22,” says Edmonton comic Kathleen McGee, whose dreams of breaking into American show business are on hold after being denied […]
Posted on March 31, 2013
By Mike Ross
Comedy, Culture, Entertainment, Front Slider, News, TV and Radio, tv and radio
Baby boomers born and raised in Edmonton still talk about an epic April Fool’s joke played by 630 CHED, which in the early ‘70s was the only station everyone listened to: Ed-Tel will blow all the dust out of the phone lines at precisely 7:30 am on April 1, so the public is warned to […]
Posted on March 11, 2013
By Mike Ross
Entertainment, Front Slider, Music, News, TV and Radio, tv and radio
Last Wednesday, Canada lost the great Stompin’ Tom Connors, King of Canadiana, everyman chronicler of Canadian history and life, the Johnny Cash of his country. A nation mourns. On Thursday morning down in Nashville, former Edmontonian Mike Plume was lamenting the loss of what he called a “father” figure when he was struck by a […]
Posted on February 1, 2013
By Mike Ross
Entertainment, entertainment, Front Slider, TV and Radio, tv and radio
The war on maturity continues to rage hard on all fronts – and “Seed” is just the latest surge. This isn’t just some amusing Canadian sitcom about a charming slacker who sells his sperm and winds up meeting children he thought he’d never see after his sperm bank donor data gets hacked. No, it’s even […]
Posted on January 23, 2013
By Mike Ross
Entertainment, Features, News, TV and Radio, tv and radio
CKUA’s decision to axe its local news programming is troubling enough – but the cancellation of Folk Routes has caused a storm of outrage. Tom Coxworth, host of the popular weekly roots program and fixture of Alberta’s folk music scene, is in limbo. Social media erupted with protests following Monday’s announcement. Some listeners have even […]
Posted on January 22, 2013
By Mike Ross
Entertainment, news, TV and Radio, tv and radio
Some attendees at Oprah Winfrey’s “inspirational evening event” at Rexall Place on Monday night were under the impression that select members of the audience would get that special chance to ask a question of the Queen of Talk. Wrong. Turns out that only George Strombolopolous got to talk to her on stage, after a 70-minute […]
Posted on January 21, 2013
By Mike Ross
Features, Front Slider, news, TV and Radio, tv and radio
You can launch like a mighty rocket roaring into the sky, and everybody says “Wow!” Or you can do it like a balloon full of hot gas, until someone notices, “Hey, how’d that get up there?” In Radioland, this is the difference between a “hard” launch and a “soft” launch. The perfect example of the […]
Posted on January 18, 2013
By Mike Ross
Entertainment, news, TV and Radio, tv and radio
Millions, perhaps billions of people hang on Oprah Winfrey’s every word. OK, hundreds of millions. Celebrities line-up at her television confessional. She’s presides over a global media empire. She can make us laugh, cry, get mad or say “Aha!” Her generosity has touched millions. She attends to the poor. One word from Oprah can bestow […]
Posted on January 7, 2013
By Mike Ross
Entertainment, entertainment, Front Slider, life, Music, TV and Radio
Musicians and other performers are deeply conflicted over the end of the NHL lockout – judging from the gust of passionate comments on social media after Sunday’s good news. Amongst the expected grumbles of “who cares?!” and cheers of “yay! drop the puck!” was a nagging worry that the return of Edmonton Oilers games will […]
Posted on December 31, 2012
By Mike Ross
Comedy, Entertainment, entertainment, Film, The Latest, Theatre, TV and Radio
We should’ve known what would happen if we put Mark Meer on the list. Of course he was voted GigCity’s Edmontonian of the Year – in a landslide, with 68% of the vote. He’s such a tireless self-promoter and wields such a formidable clout in social media that winning our little contest/social experiment was a […]
Posted on December 28, 2012
By Mike Ross
Culture, Entertainment, entertainment, Front Slider, Life, Lit, Music, TV and Radio, Visual Arts
The most popular stories GigCity published in 2012 started in January with a viral video of “strange sounds in the sky” that prompted a local debunker to create a hoax video to prove the original was a hoax, but the plan backfired when her video went viral, too, as did the article we wrote about […]
Posted on December 26, 2012
By Mike Ross
Comedy, Entertainment, entertainment, Film, Lit, TV and Radio
If Time magazine can choose a “Person of the Year” from eight billion prospects, we can certainly do it from among the mere one million citizens of Edmonton. It’s kind of like Vue magazine’s “best of Edmonton,” but there can only be one. We just don’t have the budget. The only criteria was “made waves […]