In my first year of university, back in 1992, the coolest TV show for us first-year students on an all-male floor was Ren & Stimpy. It was made by Nickelodeon in the U.S., but shown on MuchMusic in Canada. Most of our residence floor would huddle in the TV room to watch. That is, until it was taken off the air after a few months.
Interestingly, we found out later that it wasn't pulled from the schedule because of ratings, but because of regulations. MuchMusic had a license to show music-related programming, and other than the odd episode, Ren & Stimpy wasn't about music. (Fortunately, a few years later Much was able to import Beavis & Butthead, which did qualify as music-related. But I had matured beyond it by then.)
The weird thing is that although we were angry at the time about being deprived of our favourite animated chihuahua and cat-ish blob, we shouldn't have been. As you've surely noticed, the regulators are much more lenient on programming focus now, and MuchMusic has morphed into the teen drama channel. In retrospect, Ren & Stimpy was the first step in that deterioration. Had we known that at the time, I think we would have understood, and preferred to keep Much as a music station, especially if we had known that in just a few years, the Internet would allow university students to pirate all the TV from anywhere in the world that they could want.
Why am I bringing up this reminiscence of cartoons and government regulations? Because today, TSN showed an episode of The Amazing Race. And so, another channel begins its slow fade away.
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