Most people around my age would recognize Les Lye, especially if they just got Nickelodeon around the early Eighties. Although I was 14 when we first got cable TV in Houston (which was amazing because you received over 30 channels, including MTV), my brother Brian was the more avid watcher of the kid-friendly station. He frequently watched You Can’t Do That on Television which starred Lye as the primary adult antagonist to the tweener-dominated cast…and yes, I knew Alanis Morrisette (the queen of pre-packaged angst until Hot Topic came along) was a cast member, it’s how I won tickets one morning on K-Geezer in 1996. Moving along, Brian enjoyed the program. I was at the indifferent age, wanting more grown-up fare, hence the constant griping from my parents leaving the television glued to MTV. Still, I watched it if there was nothing better to do.
We figured out the show was Canadian eventually, not by the accents but through other details: the uniforms of authority figures, money and signs with words containing those extraneous letters Americans don’t need in ‘color.’
I hope Mr. Lye was compensated well before he retired for his show’s major contributions to 800-pound gorilla Nickelodeon has become. YCDToT is the source of the green slime which is poured on people’s heads at the Kid’s Choice Awards, the Nick-themed resorts (in Orlando and cruise ships) and the afternoon shows. The writers of Robot Chicken even remembered the trigger phrase in their first season ending.
Pop quiz, other than Jeremy and Somara (who I know watch RC religiously), what was the trigger phrase on Lye’s show to get slimed?