On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of French-language radio in North America, The duty explores this medium in transformation.
In the media, there will be no mystery, everything is just starting over, recycling, recovery and recovery. It’s a big comeback, everywhere, all the time, often with the same subjects, the same angles, the same formulas in the same shows. From mornings to talk shows late night, who said that TV was reinventing itself?
The genealogy of the radio humorous genre inevitably goes through The festival of humor. This weekly CKAC production lasted on the air for more than 20 years, until 1995. It quickly became the most listened to in Canada, even if the production was only broadcast in Quebec, relayed in about forty stations. .
The history of this media monument occupies one of the most instructive sections ofAn exceptional man, memoirs by Louis-Paul Allard written by Robert Bernier and published these days by Un mondedifferent editions. We learn that CKAC launched this program, which has become a classic of the first century of radio in Quebec in the mid-1970s, in an attempt to improve its ratings by focusing on three axes: information, public affairs and humor. . The station then suffered from the combined competition of the FM band and TV.
Louis-Paul Allard, who already had a long experience of radio as a host, suggested to the management to improve the offer developed by short capsules (the no less famous Insolences of a telephone of his friend Tex Lecor) by launching a complete program devoted to laughter. The success of At Mivillea daily Radio-Canada fixture in the 1950s, encouraged the revival of the slot.
Every morning we treated the heads of public figures with sketches, imitations, a note from Father Ambroise Lafortune and a fairly biting overall tone. A bit like the deceased The evening is (still) young and its daily derivatives The day (is still young) and Johnny BBQ. We repeat: nothing is lost and everything is transformed in the media.
“I am a child of the radio, said in a telephone interview Mr. Allard, born in 1945. We were connected to it from morning to evening. At Miville marked me, but deep down, it had nothing to do with The comedy festival. When I arrived at CKAC, director Paul-Émile Beaulne and I were going to see well-cooked things. Rather, the influence comes from there. I suggested that we take inspiration from this formula by including songs. He wondered if it would work. I replied that it was enough to choose the right distro for it to work. »
find the right tone
The quartet called to the microphone brings together Mr. Allard, Tex Lecor, Pierre Labelle and Roger Joubert, the latter three being now missing. The show was recorded live, first at Place Bonaventure, then at the O’Keefe lounge, in the brewery of the same name, where the free beer helped stimulate reactions.
The show’s success also depends on its writers, who are seven or eight at the same time to provide the material, the equivalent of a Bye Bye weekly. The future humorist Pierre Légaré is one of them, as is François Avard (The Bougons, Elvis Gratton, the movieetc.) and Stéphane Bourguignon, who has become a screenwriter for successful series (life, life, All on me, Fatale-Stationetc.).
I’m a radio kid. We were plugged into it from morning to night.
“At first, we had to adapt and find the right tone for it to lift. But when it took off, it was amazing. We had a lot of means, but the means cost less than today. There was also a vacuum. People were turning to TV, and we still believed in radio and we invested in making it work. »
The notoriety of the show allowed him to travel to France and to be invited to the National Assembly for a recording where the elected officials again paid the price for spoilsports. “We hit them all the time and we kept hitting them when they received us,” said Mr. Allard, still laughing a good time.
Several hats
The biographical work highlights that it wants to pay tribute to the centenary of CKAC, founded in 1922, but also to the 50th anniversary of legal aid, of which Mr. Allard, a lawyer by training, is one of the co-founders. He worked as director of information for the Commission des services juridiques and designed several information campaigns, including hundreds of capsules of the series The legal minute and Do you have a minute?.
“I learned law, I wanted to do law, not to practice, but to popularize, says the one who is still a member of the bar. By practicing, you have to specialize. With extension, I touched on all areas. I was educating myself by writing the capsules. »
He therefore also had to reconcile his role as a civil servant with his serious (on TV) and humorous (on the radio) animation work. A bit as if Marc Laurendeau had continued his career with Les Cyniques while working in a ministry and being a columnist at the Montreal-Morning…
“I did a lot of radio and a little TV, replies Mr. Allard when asked about this position, which is as ethically questionable as the old ones. jokes of mononc’. I had a very serious image on TV, and people didn’t believe I was the prank guy on the radio. It was a trompe-l’oeil, or a trompe-l’oeil. I have always respected the hats I wore when I wore them. And then I was quite friendly with the politicians of the time. »
Witness the many photos reproduced in the book on which we see the comedian-host-civil servant accompanied by the leaders and elected officials of all parties.
Despite everything, Louis-Paul Allard could and still can keep his outspokenness, as the very first pages of his biography show. They tell of his childhood in Lac-Mégantic, which instilled in him an immoderate passion for fishing and happiness, and ultimately made him a pioneer of the ecological cause since he co-created the À court d’eau movement (1984) then the Quebec Environmental Foundation.
His distant personal memories quickly branch off on recent news with the evocation of the tragedy of the night of July 6, 2013 which mowed down downtown Lac-Mégantic and dozens of residents. Mr. Allard took the opportunity to speak out loud and clear against post-disaster reconstruction and against the railway bypass project. He speaks squarely of a fiasco.
“It’s very ugly,” he said in an interview. I don’t blame the mayor, but people took advantage of the situation, I dare say. The reconstruction and demolition of what was left of my city was, from my point of view, a scandal. There have been speculators and men of prey around this site. »