Look up...waaaay up...!

Middle-aged Canadians who grew up in here from 1958 to 1985 may find the title phrase familiar. The Friendly Giant was a CBC TV show for children in Canada that featured, naturally, a friendly giant played by Bob Homme. Interestingly, the show started in Wisconsin, USA five years earlier but moved north. The phrase came to mind as I was sitting on the GO train which had stopped opposite the CN Tower while waiting for a platform to open up at Union Station.

The show's introductory sequence panned over models of the village then zoomed in on a model of a castle while a harp played off scene. It then faded into an interior view where the giant set some tiny chairs for us and invited us inside. He then told us to "Look up....waaaay up!" so we could see him (he was a giant after all). The giant, named Friendly, would tell stories, chat with puppets such as Rusty the Rooster or Jerome the Giraffe or accompany the Jazz Cats to play some songs. In all, over 3,000 episodes were made of which over 850 still survive.

Check out the shows intro and some other Friendly Giant videos on YouTube.