DanNospamSay
2011-06-23 01:27:25 UTC
CBC producer broke new ground for 'outdoors' TV
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/producer+broke+ground+outdoors/4948609/story.html
By Drew Snider, Vancouver Sun June 15, 2011
I was eight years old when I first heard the word "Klahanie." My dad
walked into the kitchen and intoned it like a Shakespearean actor.
"It's a Chinook word," he explained. "It means, 'The Great Outdoors.'"
He had been searching for a name for a new TV show, and he'd found it.
Andy Snider, who died June 3 in Victoria, spent 30 years with CBC
Vancouver, most of that time as a producer. He was born in Chilliwack
Jan. 11, 1923 and grew up there and in Saskatchewan. He served in the
RCAF in the Second World War, studied theatre at the University of
Washington, then worked at Vancouver's Avon (formerly Pantages)
Theatre. There, he met and eventually married an actress he had heard
lecture at UW: Dorothy Davies. Their love story ran 50 years.
Dad joined CBUT Vancouver in 1954. He wrote movie notes for the TV
listings -"some were so old, Walter Brennan got the girl" -and
experienced the uncertainty of live TV: circus camels going crazy
under lowhanging studio lights, a stylish Danish chair exploding under
wrestler Gene Kiniski, and a hunting show host lying down with a rifle
to "demonstrate shooting from a prone position."
The outdoors was dad's forte, but not huntin'-shootin'-n-fishin' (the
usual fare in the '50s and '60s). Instead, he produced The Outdoors,
with Bob Fortune and The Open Road, featuring 16mm film footage shot
by B.C. Parks official Chess Lyons. It was all about man with nature,
not against, and Klahanie was the next step.
From 1964 through 1978, Klahanie showcased professional and amateur
nature filmmakers. Masterful editing and sound effects turned raw film
into engaging TV: canoeing the Bowron Lakes; rafting on the Thompson;
the opening of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve (we hiked into Clo-
oose just after Pierre Trudeau's legendary surfing stop); ducking
puffins on an island off the B.C. coast. One popular episode was
simply about walking.
One day, dad found an elderly man sitting outside his office. "I'm
Charles Wright, and I was told you might like to interview me," the
visitor said. That would be Sir Charles Wright, who accompanied Robert
Scott on his tragic Antarctic expedition in 1910. Only on Klahanie.
If you wanted to define Klahanie, a short film dad conceived would
suffice. The Rider showed a horse and rider in Maple Ridge on a crisp
fall morning, set to the Klahanie theme music, Virgil Thomson's The
Plough That Broke the Plains.
Klahanie's popularity seemed to mystify management. When it became a
moving target on the schedule -Friday night, Sunday afternoon,
Saturday night after hockey -dad had a feeling its days were numbered.
A magazine cartoon in dad's office expressed his own feelings: a meek
fellow, getting reamed out by the Big Boss. "Who the hell authorized
you to create an artistic triumph?" In spring 1978, I overheard
someone in a ferry cafeteria say, "Did you see Klahanie the other
night?" That started an animated discussion, raving about the show.
"If only they knew," I thought: the show had just been cancelled.
Dad was downsized out of his job in 1983, but he was never at a loss
for ideas and things to do, so "retire" meant "do something else." He
and mom retired to Oak Bay, raising vegetables, fruit and bees; they
swam and went on long walks; something dad continued after mom died in
2002.
An unexpected heart attack cut him down last August, and nine months
later, the Great Director finally called, "and ... fade to black."
You would never catch dad claiming credit for breaking new ground in
television, but Klahanie showed that viewers were willing to go there.
He wasn't bothered by the fact Klahanie never won awards; he was quite
content to be "Mr. Dorothy Davies," living in the shadow of mom's
theatrical career. But one tip-of-the-hat from his former colleagues
left him quietly proud. When the CBC Pioneers' Association celebrated
the 50th anniversary of CBUT in January 2004, the finale to a video
retrospective was The Rider.
Drew Snider is the son of Andy Snider
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/producer+broke+ground+outdoors/4948609/story.html
By Drew Snider, Vancouver Sun June 15, 2011
I was eight years old when I first heard the word "Klahanie." My dad
walked into the kitchen and intoned it like a Shakespearean actor.
"It's a Chinook word," he explained. "It means, 'The Great Outdoors.'"
He had been searching for a name for a new TV show, and he'd found it.
Andy Snider, who died June 3 in Victoria, spent 30 years with CBC
Vancouver, most of that time as a producer. He was born in Chilliwack
Jan. 11, 1923 and grew up there and in Saskatchewan. He served in the
RCAF in the Second World War, studied theatre at the University of
Washington, then worked at Vancouver's Avon (formerly Pantages)
Theatre. There, he met and eventually married an actress he had heard
lecture at UW: Dorothy Davies. Their love story ran 50 years.
Dad joined CBUT Vancouver in 1954. He wrote movie notes for the TV
listings -"some were so old, Walter Brennan got the girl" -and
experienced the uncertainty of live TV: circus camels going crazy
under lowhanging studio lights, a stylish Danish chair exploding under
wrestler Gene Kiniski, and a hunting show host lying down with a rifle
to "demonstrate shooting from a prone position."
The outdoors was dad's forte, but not huntin'-shootin'-n-fishin' (the
usual fare in the '50s and '60s). Instead, he produced The Outdoors,
with Bob Fortune and The Open Road, featuring 16mm film footage shot
by B.C. Parks official Chess Lyons. It was all about man with nature,
not against, and Klahanie was the next step.
From 1964 through 1978, Klahanie showcased professional and amateur
nature filmmakers. Masterful editing and sound effects turned raw film
into engaging TV: canoeing the Bowron Lakes; rafting on the Thompson;
the opening of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve (we hiked into Clo-
oose just after Pierre Trudeau's legendary surfing stop); ducking
puffins on an island off the B.C. coast. One popular episode was
simply about walking.
One day, dad found an elderly man sitting outside his office. "I'm
Charles Wright, and I was told you might like to interview me," the
visitor said. That would be Sir Charles Wright, who accompanied Robert
Scott on his tragic Antarctic expedition in 1910. Only on Klahanie.
If you wanted to define Klahanie, a short film dad conceived would
suffice. The Rider showed a horse and rider in Maple Ridge on a crisp
fall morning, set to the Klahanie theme music, Virgil Thomson's The
Plough That Broke the Plains.
Klahanie's popularity seemed to mystify management. When it became a
moving target on the schedule -Friday night, Sunday afternoon,
Saturday night after hockey -dad had a feeling its days were numbered.
A magazine cartoon in dad's office expressed his own feelings: a meek
fellow, getting reamed out by the Big Boss. "Who the hell authorized
you to create an artistic triumph?" In spring 1978, I overheard
someone in a ferry cafeteria say, "Did you see Klahanie the other
night?" That started an animated discussion, raving about the show.
"If only they knew," I thought: the show had just been cancelled.
Dad was downsized out of his job in 1983, but he was never at a loss
for ideas and things to do, so "retire" meant "do something else." He
and mom retired to Oak Bay, raising vegetables, fruit and bees; they
swam and went on long walks; something dad continued after mom died in
2002.
An unexpected heart attack cut him down last August, and nine months
later, the Great Director finally called, "and ... fade to black."
You would never catch dad claiming credit for breaking new ground in
television, but Klahanie showed that viewers were willing to go there.
He wasn't bothered by the fact Klahanie never won awards; he was quite
content to be "Mr. Dorothy Davies," living in the shadow of mom's
theatrical career. But one tip-of-the-hat from his former colleagues
left him quietly proud. When the CBC Pioneers' Association celebrated
the 50th anniversary of CBUT in January 2004, the finale to a video
retrospective was The Rider.
Drew Snider is the son of Andy Snider