Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jason Agnew: Toronto Mike'd #69

Episode Date: February 20, 2014

Mike chats with Jason Agnew about being The Game Show Guru, The LAW: Live Audio Wrestling, Sunday Morning Trivia! on Newstalk 1010, The Convenioneers, Splatalot!, the new Tiny Talent Time and much, much more.

Welcome to the 69th episode of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. I'm Mike from torontomic.com. Joining me is Jason Agnew, host of live audio wrestling, Sunday morning trivia on News Talk 1010, and the new Tiny Talent Time. And hosting this audio file are the good people at Core Fusion. Hey, Jason, long time no see. Yeah, not since the days of Bishop Allen Academy and hosting a hockey pool in a high school with your brother. We got to start with this story because how we know each other is pretty, pretty remarkable little tale. So you were very good friends with my brother, Steve.

Yep. And I remember because my mom and your mom lived on the same street. Yeah, you guys, we were there first and then you guys moved. And I think. Well, I never lived there. Oh, that's right. I was gone already. So it was just you.

It was just your two younger brothers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and of course, you guys went to, I went lived there. Oh, that's right. I was gone already. So it was just you. It was just your two younger brothers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, of course, you guys went to – I went to Michael Power. Right. And Ryan followed me there. And Steve went to Bishop Allen Academy where you were. That's where I was. And you guys were all tied there.

He married a girl from Bishop Allen Academy. He did, indeed. He did. And I never thought that they liked each other in high school. They didn't. And then all of a sudden they're like getting married. There's babies involved now. I think it was a business arrangement.

Well, there you go. It's like, I need someone to have my child. Are you interested? Would you like to move into my house? Hey, whatever floats your boat. Steve's still there too. He's like,

Yeah, Steve bought the house for my mom. Two streets over from me because I moved back into that little hood as well after. So you moved a little bit north? A little bit south. Can't afford the north. I'm only in Canadian television.

Well, look at how south you had to come to see me. Yeah, but you're by the lake though. It true it gets nicer here at lake promenade it goes up to like a million bucks yeah yeah so i just do you ever get the smell down here from lake ontario though when it blows in well i haven't been here long enough to know okay well i've only been here yeah because i'll let you know because what i have noticed is uh there's like little bugs that seem to appear for a week or two in September that is a new phenomenon. This is little things I'm learning about the neighborhood, but I haven't been here for a summer yet. Well, I'll come back next year and you can let me know about how that

worked out for you and how the flooding that's about to happen, how you take to that. Flooding? What? Well, there's a lot of snow out there and it's all about to melt. We'll see how this house holds up because mine flooded two years ago and it was $ thousand dollars worth of damage i don't like this podcast episode and i saved 69 for you so yes indeed for the kids performer that i now am todd shapiro wanted 69 i'm not surprised and i said no it's going to jason well he's uh no it was going to jeff merrick don't you lie okay don't you lie you had to flip merrick and i because merrick's he's got a real full-time job and he's got a apparently there's some hockey games this week that are really important so true he was yeah right now merrick is supposed to be sitting in your seat and i mean i wanted to talk to the live audio wrestling guy back to back and when he bailed

yeah you got the other guy i'll get the other. The guy who took over his seat on that show as well many years ago. And apparently someone, at least one person on Twitter, was surprised to hear you're not the original host of Live Audio Wrestling. Yeah, because I've been there for so long now. I've been working with the law. I started in 99 working with Merrick, and he just kind of took me under his wing for a few years while he was doing that. And he created the show. for a few years while he was doing that, and he created the show. And then once he went on to do different things at Mojo Radio and then moved on to do his XM gig and then moved to CBC

and now made what I think might be the most strategic and best decision in the world of hockey ever. Because Rodgers' multi-billion dollar deal with the NHL. He right plays right time. Now Jeff Merrick, who would, you know, Ron McLean is the institution over at CBC, and there was a certain glass ceiling there. But Jeff jumps from the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast over to Sportsnet.

Sportsnet buys all of the hockey rights. Yep. He's the next Ron McLean. So good on Jeff. I actually have, I'm going to ask him that question. Is he gunning for McLean's job? Well, it seems. Because he's the McLean, although, because he's not the Cherry, because he's too...

No, no, no, no. Jeff, even when he used to be on Live Audio Wrestling, Jeff was the straight man who would give you all the facts, and then even at that time, Dan Levransky was the mouth, and he was there as the color, as opposed to the play-by-play. All right, we're out of sequence here. We're going to get to Live Audio. No worries.

I want to finish our story. We're still not done with the hockey. We're still talking about when we were just high school students. So I remember Steve, my brother, saying to me that there was a playoff pool and we draft at Bishop Allen Academy. So at this time I was at U of T. I remember taking

the Royal York bus to Bishop Allen to sit in a room to draft this hockey pool. And I remember it was great fun. And you were the commissioner. I was. It was my draft format that I had. And I remember it was great fun. And you were the commissioner. I was. It was my draft format that I had. And it wasn't one of those pick anyone you want. It was a draft.

So once a guy's gone, you can't have him. Excellent format. I love it. Beautiful format. Do you still do this? I'm going to tell you in a minute. Okay. I'm going to tell you in a minute.

Okay. But a point is a point is a point. Yep. And once a guy's gone, Sidney Crosby goes to one guy, and you pick numbers out of a hat. And if you get them, you get him, and no one else can get him. And it's like the snake thing, so you go down, and then you come back up.

Yeah, like six to one, one to six, if there's six guys, and you go through ten rounds. And I remember one year, it was so big, there were two pools. Yes, two divisions, which is great. I'm now against that, but we'll get into that. So now I don't care how many I got. I don't care how deep we go. If somebody has to draft Colton Orr, so be it. See, you're saying names that I don't care how many i got i don't care how deep we go if somebody has to draft

colton or so be it see you're saying names that that i don't know anymore colton or no you see because uh as as i found out because mike you've been doing your blog for a while and and i was uh googling myself yesterday to see that the tiny talent time alerts and all of a sudden i came across a page okay and this is what i found on it from April 1st, 2006. Long time ago. From someone named Toronto Mike, who I did not put together. Oh yeah, we gotta get into that too. That I once knew back in the day. This is what I get here.

About the hockey pool. The first few drafts I attended were actually held at Bishop Allen High School near Royal York and Queensway. The guy who used to run it completely dropped out once he became a legitimate grade C celebrity. You can check out his ByteTV bio and see if you know him. If you

don't know him from ByteTV, and I'm guessing you don't, you might know him as one of the hosts of Live Audio Wrestling. Why Jason Agnew dropped out of our annual playoff pool like a hot potato is still unknown. But my guess, he's hanging out with big time mucky mucks at the Fan 590 like Roger Lajoie and Norm Rumak. That all went to his head. That's hilarious. but my guess he's hanging out with big time mucky mucks at the fan 590 like roger lejois and norm

rumac that all went to his head that's hilarious so hold on let me do the math that's eight years ago i guess pretty snarky i will write snarky but not too harsh no no no i thought it was very funny so so tell me because at some point you drop this pool like a hot potato literally like so you're the commissioner yeah so you kind of you're the straw that stirs the drink. You keep the stats and everything. And at some point, you're out. Yep. And you know what it was?

Was it Roger Lejoie? Roger, we can talk about him. He is just a fabulous individual. I saw you quote him on your, I was on your website. I do. I do quote him. Roger really helped me in my career. But you know what it was?

Actually, I stopped playing hockey. And when I stopped playing, I stopped following. And that was about the same time that i started really getting in depth with the world of wrestling because wrestling was more uh was much faker than hockey yes well it is but you know we also have the other side where we cover mma as well and that was actually all merrick that is okay so you just got you just lost interest in the sport i did i completely lost interest in the sport i don't follow it anymore Guess who took the reins and became commissioner? Good old Mike. Yes, yeah.

We never missed a beat. So we never missed a season. I mean, except when they didn't play hockey that one year. But what could I do? I thought about drafting AHL players, but I'm like, nah, I don't want to draft St. John's, may I believe. That's tough. I'm not that desperate.

So we never missed a beat. You're welcome back anytime, by the way. We're probably going to draft here. If the due date, so my kid is due the same day as the hockey pool draft oh man so it'll be an interesting to see what happens there um but i'm told my wife priorities i told her like i'll be there as soon as i can you've seen this draft is over i've been there done that you've done you've had two kids whatever right the latest i'll be i said is two hours yeah and labor is going to be longer than that you never know yeah you know we'll see if i have to have the draft at you know st joe's then so be it i like it what's just down the street it's not far no so uh okay so i took the

reins and this hockey you know i know everyone's very interested in our hockey pool it's a big deal to those i'm sure it is steve you know i think jump moved out to like alberta so we lost him but you know alexi's still in this thing. Mark Felice. That's what I was going to ask. So he's on my Raging Storm slow pitch team. Oh, my. So every week, we've been together over a decade now.

So I've become quite tight with MoFo. But yeah, these guys are still getting together every April. Anytime you want back. This format, though, I have not dropped the format. Because I use the format every year, that draft 1 six to one that type of thing for the royal rumble we actually there's one uh event per year in professional wrestling that we actually do a pool with okay and it's all the guys same format i've just taken it to from sport to sports entertainment so uh i'm a little out of the loop is Is Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff still wrestling?

He's in the Hall of Fame, but no longer wrestling. Because when I was at Hulkamania in 87. Yes. You mean the big event down at the Exhibition Stadium. Yeah, they called it Hulkamania. No, it's the big event. Yes, it was. Trust me.

Okay. Because my ticket stub said Hulkamania. Really? Because me and Chris Lang went. Yeah. So I was there, and I was 13, I think. And I was a big fan at the time. And it said Hulkamania on the ticket stub.

And we were sitting there, and because you're live, you don't have... Commentary. You don't have... It would have been Gorilla Monsoon. Bobby Heenan? Or Jesse Ventura? It was those three guys. Okay, yeah.

And nobody there to tell me that it was a two and a half count, because we all thought Orndorff beat Hogan and had the belt. And then they had to do Saturday night's main event with the cage match. Was that after that? You don't remember? to tell me that it was a two and a half count because we all thought Orndorff beat Hogan and had the belt. And then they had to do Saturday night's main event with the cage match. Was that after that? I don't remember. I think it was the cage match where they both jumped out of the cage

and hit the floor at the exact same time. Wow. Major controversy over that. I can imagine. Oh my goodness. That's crazy. That magic though, that set off my career though, Mike.

All right. So let's talk about how your career sets off. So after you drop the pool, the playoff pool, like a hot potato, how do you end up starting in radio? Tell me about the beginning. I went from Bishop Allen to Ryerson for radio and television arts. And it was like the one place where I wanted to go

and wanted to be and actually thought that I would end up in television. And I wasn't looking forward to my first year, which was all radio. That's how the program was split. And I went in there with an open mind and really enjoyed it. Like really, really enjoyed my first year. I think radio is really cool to this day. You can pretty much do it all yourself as we're sitting right here basically doing a form of radio.

Practically. Yeah, it's great. So from that, like I didn't like wrestling when you knew me in high school. I didn't really follow it i went out of it for a few years but i loved it as a kid and then in 1996 97 it was 97 uh bret hart and sean michaels had this angle where bret hart was a good guy in canada and was a bad guy in the u.s and i was fascinated by how this was choreographed to the fans and how you can walk across a border and all of a sudden your entire character is changed. So I started watching again and got into it like crazy.

That's when Stone Cold hit the Attitude Era, the NWO. Hogan was Hollywood Hulk Hogan, and I jumped into it, as did a lot of my friends in university. Being in radio, I somehow bumped into a show called Live Audio Wrestling, which was late nights on the fan 590, Sunday nights from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. Love the show. Loved American. At that time, it was Big Daddy Donnie with the two hosts. I emailed in and just said, listen, I'm a first-year student at Ryerson. I love your show, but I think I can make it sound better just by cutting interviews and imaging.

And the thing with being at the fan, no one really likes wrestling um oh yeah well because it's not a sport yeah i can see that there's a real stigma around it and i know merrick actually struggled with this and i have as well wrestling can open doors for you but it also like everything i've done in wrestling radio doesn't count for regular radio well it's really tough so uh but i went in and said you know what let me image the show, cut your interviews and just hang out. And Merrick was all too happy to bring me in. And that led to a job at the fan. And then we transferred to 640. Then we went to 1010. Then we went to, you know, we've been all through the map for like 15 years.

So I'm glad you're on. I'm glad we switched you and Merrick and get you in first. So it sounds like Merrick played a big role in getting you your start. He did. I mean, he was the one that welcomed me into the Law family and helped me get the gig at 590. And he was also a guy that I just saw working crazy hard all the time. And at that time, you know, really not seeing the dollars come back because getting paid for a wrestling show, that's kind of weird, right? Like I don't even know what slash if he was making any dough back in the day because I wasn't. I was just volunteering.

It did lead to a job at the fan, which was great. It was a great start. But there were years where we didn't get paid for doing the law. What did you do at the fan? At the fan, I was an operator. So I was, you know, pressing the buttons. They don't get paid either, right? It's like coffee money.

No, they do get paid. But it was something that, you something that I very much enjoyed doing. I find that a good operator can add a lot to a show, editorializing with music and with proper clips at the right time if you're paying attention to the show. And that's actually what I find is very rare in radio, to get an operator like that. And with the law, there was myself, and then it moved to uh john pollock and then waiting and now brayden harrington have all been our operators for the show uh and adding that editorial bit whether it's the right music to play with what we're saying and to make it really work really adds a lot to the show and is it uh who are some of the 590 hosts i i actually pretty familiar with the

590 hosts back then back in the day yeah back in the day when uh the jays were you know perennial contenders we went back to back and then we had the leafs we won the 10 in a row in 93 and gilmore and then sundin i was listening to a lot of sports radio so those guys would have still been there because the fan didn't change for a while i was there in in 99 2000 all right okay so the guys are ahead of you there you were right when you were uh uh you know chirping me on your blog. Roger Lejoie. I was working with Roger a lot on the weekends.

He's fantastic. Love Roger. I was working with Norm Rumak a bit, too. Stormin' Norman. You got it. The vampire, right? Hammerhead alert, everyone. Hammerhead alert, yeah.

And I got to do the run of the schedule. I mean, with being there about within six months, I had done every show, from Bobcat to the morning show at the time, which was initially Derringer and Marsden and then Marsden and landry right so i worked with all of them and it was uh it was a really cool experience you ready to trash any of them or any of them jerks no i'll tell you i'll tell you one thing john derringer was uh if you get in his bad side he's feared right i know someone on his bad side okay and yeah he's a sounds like he's a complete asshole to this friend i have who get on his good side and he's a complete asshole to this friend I have. You get on his good side, and he's a great guy.

And there was, within about two months of me working there, I was just doing overnights, ESPN Radio just pushing buttons. And his operator, Craig Venn, was on vacation. And they had another guy that was supposed to come in and film the morning show. Dude didn't show up for, he was half an hour late. And the first part of the fan, I don't know if it's still like this, something called the scoreboard, where if you're the operator at that time, you were using two computers simultaneously. I'd never used one of the computers. And so I'm trying to fire clips as Marsden and Derringer, you know,

talk and expect, and I was firing the wrong clips, the same clip numerous times. And he walked out and afterwards, the op that was filling in ran in. And he goes, Jace, thanks for hanging in. You're a good guy. And then he's like, to the other guy, he's like, oh, great. You're a really fucking team player, you asshole. How about you get in the goddamn seat and wake up on time to be here?

He was not in the good graces of Mr. Derringer. I was, though. And after that, you know what? I worked with Derringer on Q107 when Craig was there and filled in for him, and he was always really nice to me. And Craig was a lobster boy. Yes, lobster boy. That's right.

And he's working in Oshawa, is it? Yeah, Craig's at The Rock now. I think he's doing the morning show at The Rock in Oshawa, 94.9. Cool. And Storm and Norman, quick question. So I remember him in the Hammerhead Alerts, and he was quite entertaining. He was a diehard Lee fan. He thought Wendellark was better than gretzky it was a lot of ridiculous stuff like that at some point didn't he like become a sabers guy and and don't you have any

recollection of this like i remember uh at some point he decides to be a sabers guy instead of a leafs guy and in my opinion that was like the end of this great shtick like then it sucked and he was I think it was let go shortly thereafter and I was gone at that you're long gone but I mean I know Norm I'll forget Norm on this show he'll do it because he's now I think he's working with uh he is on somewhere he was on Sirius for a while uh with Hardcore Sports because we were there as well and I think he was back to do an overnight to the fan at a certain point yeah I do know he came back in some less probably less paid role as i know he was let go as like a permanent full-time guy yeah i have no idea long like a lot of people are long gone they're like uh barb de julio as she was just recently like yeah yeah yeah and i mean other guys like mike hogan who i really

enjoyed working with at the fan he's over at tsn radio yes he does the argo games yep yeah well mike he's the argo guy he's the argo guy and uh what's his name uh lunch bag let down guy gourd stelic uh was like oh yeah i don't know where gourd is now he's sort of on still i think he's on sports net something like that i think he was pulled over to sports net and that was pre the merger so now you have sports in the fan because it's sports net 590 listen 590 made a great decision in my opinion when they brought on tim and sid i think those guys are fantastic we talked about them recently and elvis my regular co-host uh talked about him a couple of episodes maybe last episode we talked about tim and said yeah they're great i think that they're amazing i think they appeal to a younger demographic i

don't know either one of the guys personally but i remember just they one of they used to follow wrestling on the score so i would see see them occasionally. And there was some very funny line commenting on wrestling and relating it to sports. And I wrote in to Tim, and I just said, hey, man, I just wanted to say that was really funny. And I just wanted to let you know that. And he wrote back saying, oh, shit, the guy from the law is writing in. This is amazing. I listen to you all the time. And I'm like, that's kind of neat.

That is cool. Sid just recently did a rant about the ice dancing controversy. So we got the silver and they were talking about the judgment and the fix and all that. And I thought it was a pretty damn good rant. There's a YouTube clip out there somewhere. I saw it. Actually, it popped up on my Facebook feed. So people are spreading it, which is great.

Yeah. They seem to. Yeah, they have it. And did you watch? My buddy Elvis, who normally sits in that seat. Not Stoico. Not Stoico. Not Stoico, unfortunately, because he probably would have watched. But Elvis makes fun of me because every four years, I'll watch ice dancing.

I would never watch it outside of the Olympics. People do that, though. People watch weird events that they have no interest in. Who would watch Skeleton outside of the Olympics or Luging? Well, Skeleton, there's a real chance for death. So morbid people might watch skeleton or luge. It goes really fast. Ice dancing, there's a real chance for broken bones.

That's true. And bruising. Well, I don't know. They don't even do the triple lutz's and the sow cows. It seems like ice dancing has a very little chance of broken bones. But the twirler guys, they're always going to fall. But ice dancing, they never seem to fall. You know what?

That was a question. I don't watch it. I don't watch it. You don't watch it. I've avoided the... Yeah, that was one of the questions that was posted in the feedback for me. Does he watch ice dancing? That was his question. Yeah.

No, I do not. I haven't watched the Olympics at all this year, actually. The only time I pay attention to it is when I'm writing trivia. I'm addicted to the Olympics. Okay. I have to admit, I watch a lot of Olympics. Quick question that was posted on that entry, questions for Jason Agnew, and it's about wrestling.

Thoughts on Chris Benoit and Owen Hart and their legacies. Very different stories. Very different stories. How will the legacies be perceived of each? Well, Owen Hart, obviously Owen Hart was the one who fell from the rafters at Kemper Arena, and he he was you know a really great guy uh just well known of being a real you know jokester backstage a really genuinely nice guy a family man and uh he'll always be remembered as that and owen was someone

who never he was a great technical wrestler and never really received the success he could have had if he were to have continued on if he didn't pass away there um and i think he really got caught up with the brett hart controversy uh where there was the infamous survivor series 1997 where brett went to wcw after he was betrayed by vincent man and owen stayed in the wwe and was supposed to be pushed as you know the new canadian hero never really got that push. So Iron Mike Sharp never got to stay the Canadian hero, wasn't he the guy? Well, he was Canada's greatest athlete. Remember, I'm a mid-80s guy, so these references.

So in actuality, though, he used that moniker, but was the second person to use it because Gene Koniski used that as well. I don't know, Gene. Well, that's back in the day. That's before both of our times. Back to Owen Hart, I remember in the mid to late 80s brett hart was a big deal because he was part of the heart foundation right jim the anvil knight you got it whose daughter natalia is now in the wwe wow because i remember the uh that tag team and it was yeah i remember they called i remember we called brett the hitman heart we called him grease ball yes because his hair was all greasy yeah it's water

but he was but that was not a... I guess you'd call them heels. Is that the law term? In the Hart Foundation were heels. They were positioned with Jimmy Hart. Mouth of the South on the wrestling album. Yes, yes. I had the wrestling album, except I had it on cassette. Okay. The wrestling cassette. I have

the albums, present tense. What was your favorite song from that one? Oh, well, from the first one, because that was the first one tense what was your favorite uh song from that one oh uh well the from the first one because that was the first one there was pile driver after right right from the first one first one um maybe uh for everybody yeah by roddy roddy i'm my favorite which was actually a take on it was kind of a cover because the original song was called fuck everybody get out of here and they changed it to for everybody and that was roddy so you know i could do this whole hour on the rest that that original forget the

pile driver i was gone by then all that matters is me jason okay i had that first one and i listened to it front to back over and over again and i loved it i was just thinking eat your heart out rick springfield yes that's great don't go messing with the country boy. Grab them cakes. And I liked when... If you only knew... Captain Lou Albano. And George Steele. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Sound of Music, whatever it's called. Yeah, it was a great album.

A lot of people have no idea what we're talking about right now. In the Land of a Thousand Dances? Yeah, that was a great cover. And I memorized it, so I knew... I know. Stop the music, stop the rock and roll. This is Hot Rod talking. I'm telling you, I knew every word from that.

Okay. And this is what I get a lot of, actually, when people talk to me about wrestling. It's, really? That's still going on? Because, Jason, you were supposed to grow out of this. You were supposed to until it became a launching pad for a lot of what I do nowadays. Totally understand. Oh, and in regards to Benoit.

Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Not to just pass on that. Obviously, it's a sensitive topic. Chris Benoit is one of the greatest technical wrestlers ever but it's really impossible to ignore what happened with benoit with the murder suicide and killing both his wife nancy and his son and uh truly tragic very tragic and and what's sad about doing a wrestling show is the only time that uh mainstream media really pays attention to professional wrestling aside maybe from a little bit of wrestlemania if duane johnson comes back

is when tragedy happens is when there's a death but it does seem to happen a lot recently a little bit less but yeah you're dealing with an industry where in the 80s you know uh there was a lot of drugs there was a lot of coke there was a lot of steroids there was a lot of boozing and the lifestyle was hard being on the road all the time and these guys are dying of their hearts exploding in their yes like uh yes i was gonna say like uh macho man for example yeah i loved macho man and he really did a great job of distancing himself from professional wrestling in the latter stages of his life spider-man hey bone saw you hear his rap i've heard his diss on hogan okay i have the i have the album, but that's the only song I listen to. Be a man.

Be a man, Hulk. My son, my 12-year-old, loves it. He loves rap, and he loves it when there's diss tracks or whatever. I caught myself on Roll starring Roland Spiderman or whatever. When he goes at Hogan for his straight-to-video movies. Do you have the Hogan album? There was a Hogan album from WCW as well. Does he rap on it?

I believe it might be a Hogan rap as well. I got to dig that up. There's one. There's a really weird track on it called Hulksters in Heaven or something like that. It's just so bizarre. I read yesterday Hogan once opened a restaurant in like, there's a big mall in Minnesota. Pasta Mania. Yes.

It was closed in a year or something. Yeah. He made some really bad investments. He also claims that he was the first one to get the phone call for the george foreman grill it was supposed to be the hulk hogan grill oh yeah and he claims this and then he tried the hulk hogan grill it failed miserably he tried something else too there was another like infomercial product that he was he was pimping and it really didn't work out he's made hogan's had a rough time for the past couple years i mean he was in the hospital having back surgery and was on sedatives

and decided to take a dump and film himself do it and put it on Twitter. Wow. Like, what a weirdo. And then Gawker.com posted the porno with him doing Bubba the Love Sponge's wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's coming back at WrestleMania this year as the host, not to actually wrestle. How old is he? Jeez, he is 60? 60 60 60 or 61 now yeah incredible 60

i think he just turned 60 this year so his heart has a is uh only got a couple years left well it's i mean it's sad to say but you know there's always that risk with obviously hogan you know had done a lot of steroids back in the day and uh it steroids basically you know make muscles bigger and your heart's a muscle no i i mean there was a rash you're right it's slowed down recently but there was a rash of like the the guys i watched in the 80s just bulldog yeah just dying young yeah and even like miss elizabeth yeah that was a little bit different that was a drug overdose different drugs yeah the illegal well i don't know steroids cocaine i think it was cocaine. I think it was cocaine.

Yeah. But, yeah, just a lot of that. I mean, even really early on, like one of my earliest favorite wrestlers was Junkyard Dog. Yeah. And I remember so, he was gone so soon, or Adrian Adonis. That was, Junkyard Dog, though, was a car accident. He was driving to, I believe, an ECW show,

driving to or from. Adrian Adonis, as well, was a car accident that happened. So they're just shitty drivers. Apparently. They're on the road a lot, though. I mean, it's crazy. They're driving from place to place, and it's a really hard life for these wrestlers. And just think about that. When we were watching back in the day as kids, and we're watching this painted as larger-than-life cartoon characters on TV, clearly aimed at children in the 80s.

Meanwhile, the lifestyle is just a mess. clearly aimed at children in the 80s meanwhile the lifestyle is just a mess and uh you're right about named at kids and we're gonna get into this soon because you're one of your latest ventures is i guess aimed at young people yeah my career for the past three years has been aimed at young people it's crazy we're gonna get into that but uh i remember the wrestling uh cartoon that aired on saturdays rock and wrestling i loved it i loved it and there was a scene and it's i still joke about it with my kids like where andre Giant got into a subcompact car. And I remember his head and his arms outside of the sunroof, because of course he couldn't nearly fit.

He couldn't get in, yeah. And I remember him saying, It's too small. And it's just for some reason. That's stuck in your head? It's stuck in my head. Did you know that on that show, and I didn't find this out until recently,

until he passed, but James Avery, known for playing Uncle Phil. Shredder. Shredder as well on teenage mutant ninja turtles was the voice of the junkyard dog on hulk hogan's rock and wrestling that's a great piece of trivia and of course you're a trivia guy that's why i know that you know i'm a trivia guy un un unpaid though and uh just i play i play jeopardy as often as possible right enjoy it so uh quick question about mojo so how you were at mojo radio yeah how long were you there well what we did is we went from the fan and uh jeff merrick thought that it would be a

great idea for us to go over uh to mojo actually we went to talk 640 first and there was basically the idea that we would do a wrestling and hockey saturday night 640 had the least rights so we would do a show at five o'clock on saturdays then we'd also have our 11 o'clock spot on sunday night so we were doing two shows a week it's a great idea i think the the powers that be over there knew that the mojo format was coming so they brought us over we were a great fit to be guy geared radio i tell you mojo was the most fun i've ever had in radio with guys like ripken johnny b chris maavridis. I bonded with those guys. A lot of them took me under their wing. I had a great time operating there.

And I thought that the channel to this day, people still talk to me about it. I was at a burger joint in Scarborough recently and it had a big banner like chosen as Ripken votes it as the top burger joint in Toronto. Like, I don't know how old that banner is. That has to be. Ripken's been gone a long time.

2001. Yeah, he's back in Winnipeg now. He's a great guy. I really enjoyed my time with Ripken and I really liked working with old that banner is. Ripken's been gone a long time. 2001, yeah, he's back in Winnipeg now. He's a great guy. I really enjoyed my time with Ripken, and I really liked working with him and Johnny B. Did you ever overlap or bump into the Morning Guys on 640? H&F? H&F, yeah.

Humble and Fred? I didn't. I opt their show one time on very short notice when Bingo Bob couldn't do it. He was a guest on Toronto Mike. He was. I saw that. Good guy. And I really didn't

have that much of a crossover with, uh, with Humble and Fred. Okay. So you can't tell me about the time like Humble was a dick to you or you get no, I tell you, you know what, again, I'm going to tell this, I'm just going to sound like a bad operator here because I did that morning show and it was, uh, it was the day before they had called me and I just moved into my new place and they're just like, we made a scheduling error. error bingo Bob can't do this show can you come in and do it I'm like I don't know your format he's like Bob will leave you notes and I did something like massively wrong I think I ran the hum the exact same humble report that he does like two in a row and he's just like hey man whatever it's radio it's live it's gone you worry about it what's that gonna do and it

was a great advice it's true like it's already happened past tense yeah this is live radio and that's part of the fun agreed so like that's what i tell myself every time i f up on this little podcast of mine you know you can also edit though if you choose you can edit i could but you don't so lazy i haven't edited a thing i even leave alan cross's phone calls in. Phone calls in, yeah. Your own phone calls during Jonathan Torrens' podcast. I do snip the three seconds of dead air at the beginning and the three seconds of dead air at the end. I'll clip those.

That's pretty much my editing. I saw you rolled in the music and intro live. It's all live. This is going to be uploaded and I'm going to do nothing after we're done. I'm going to compress and then throw it out. Away it goes. I was talking to Alan Cross. i know you worked with him briefly we'll get into that but uh uh he has a podcast called geeks and beats and his partner on the show michael hainsworth who's like a business reporter guy he will spend like two days

editing like you know two days of editing and then he puts it out there i like i'll spend less than two minutes yep well everyone has their priority content is king right listen i was saying that when i was working for bite because sometimes our stuff didn't look pretty but it was oh tell me about bite okay uh bite tv and i referenced it in that snarky uh entry i wrote about you back in 2006 so how did you get involved with bite and how did bite i remember bite being an internet thing am i dreaming no we had pushed well the way i got involved in bite uh is i i went from doing the wrestling stuff and continued on with radio and i'm still working in radio to this day always kept it as you know weekend thing but i got a gig uh doing a show called bang tv on on global

television right that moved to teens dating as well on global. I think that's the first time I, because I knew you as the hockey pool guy. And I think Bang TV is the first time I stumbled across it. And I'm like, that's Jason Agnew from the hockey pool. So it was such a weird way of, I just went for an audition right out of university and managed to get this thing. And it was a really cool opportunity.

It was global and it was noon on Saturdays for half an hour. It was about music and extreme sports and pop culture. And, okay, I had a partner that would do the extreme sports part, because that's not my thing. But anyone that rolled through town that was going to do more than just much music and the edge, I'd get the interview. So Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, Avril Lavigne, Our Lady Peace,

all these bands that would roll through, I would get interviews with them. So it was super cool. So I did that for, I don't't know almost two years along with teens dating was thrown in there as well and then i produced a car show which i hated my life doing that it was called tuner transformation on speed channel just the worst you on your website i saw you referenced it as the worst gig of your life is it because you just didn't care about cars no fake that or because the exec producer was just a twat. He was just all into putting himself on television. And yeah, he'd work hard, but he wasn't a producer. And the organization of it was just horrible. Every week, I was at least doing one 24-hour shift. So it would be shoot during the day, edit overnight, and then shoot the next day. Every week. That really takes a toll on you and i wasn't enjoying i'm not a car guy i wasn't really enjoying my life uh and listen i do like producing but this was just not the show for me uh but from there it was neat the i was working at pieman studios at the time and a

gentleman named jeffrey elliott uh was working with pieman studios to start Byte TV and had it in mind four years before it actually launched in April of 2005 and saw me on Bang TV doing my rants that I used to do and thought, you know, this guy would be a good guy to start my channel. And when the divide came with the Pymes staff, he's like, he came to me and he's like, would you like to produce and host Byte? And I said, well, that's a challenge. That's pretty crazy. That sounds interesting. And we started off. Now, the reason why you think it was an online thing is because we were way up the dial on Rogers TV.

And the days before I had a digital service or whatever. So we were way up the dial there. So we did put a lot of our content online. And part of doing that was to try to make online and television and do the interactive thing. And that was a big part of the mandate of the station where we used to use the phrase, you know, we are where you are or wherever you are, we are. I think one of the slogans I came up with, along with it was all short form content. So the slogan I came up with was where ADD is A-OK. Very good.

Which was frowned upon by many investors once the company expanded. But I very much enjoyed it, as did my boss. okay very good which was frowned upon by many investors once the company expanded but uh i very much enjoyed it as did my boss uh and uh yeah and because of that we actually won an emmy in 2007 for get out of here yeah we won a real emmy an international emmy so there is a statue for bite tv outstanding interactive service oh so you didn't get a statue i didn't get a statue you deserved one thanks man it could be like on your bathroom oh right on my dining room table so you didn't get a statue. I didn't get a statue. You deserved one. Thanks, man. It could be in your bathroom. Oh, right on my dining room table, so you can see it with a spotlight on top of it. Or you could tape it to the hood of your car. That'd be great.

Did Tom Hanks do that with one of his Emmys or something? Well, when you have just tons of Emmys, you can do that, right? He's got spares. Mine would be in a casing where no one could touch it. I once held a Gemini award, and then I had a picture taken of me holding the Gemini. And as a joke, a complete joke, I posted an entry on TorontoMike.com. I just won a Gemini for best blogger

on the movable type platform. And it just shocked the shit out of me. How many sincere congrats I got from people reading it. I felt terrible, and I still laugh about it. Occasionally, I'll talk about my Gemini award because I just thought it was so outlandish to say you won a Gemini for best blog on the movable type platform 2003 or whatever. I thought it was so out there that everybody would get it was a joke.

No, people don't know. People don't know what, I mean, with the Gemini, people don't realize what is awarded. And then with an Emmy, when I say Emmy, I get that, come on. No, you didn't, because people recognize Emmy, right? They think it's like US, they think HBO, and they think, yeah, like Sopranos. No, there's, I get that. Come on. No, you didn't, because people recognize Emmy, right? They think it's like US. They think HBO. And they think, yeah, like Sopranos. There's a statue at my boss's house.

So Byte TV, I know I want to talk about the conventioneers, because it's my favorite Jason Agnew vehicle. It's my favorite Jason Agnew vehicle, too. So maybe you can tell me a little bit about how you hooked up with Matt Chin and how that got cooking. Yeah, this was

a really neat occurrence. And it was all kind of by fluke. When I was – when Byte TV started and we were looking for content and just getting content from up-and-coming talent. And I had someone write me, a friend of mine from Meyerson, saying there's a kid near Oshawa. He's actually in Pickering, and he does a little show out of his garage, very Tom Green style. And I said, oh, and I watched it. It was Matt. And, uh, I laughed my ass off. Like, I'm like, this kid is funny. So I got him in and I'm like, we'd like to put, I got him in for a meeting and he's the most quietest, meekest, mildest kid ever. And I said, uh, we'd like to put your stuff on TV. And he's like, great. Okay. I'm like, okay. And like,

what are you doing now? He's at Centennial college.ennial college i'm like well do you have an internship he's like yeah it's coming up like where are you going he said oh i don't know like how about you come we're here and granted we were in mississauga and he was in pickering but he made the drive-in every day and i became my intern uh and i saw him filming at the everything to do with sex show and he was doing a bit for his my show with matt chin i was there doing bits for up for bite tv with my co-host at the time uh nicole karkic who's now on the weather network and we i was like hey matt like let's do a bit together for the network you work there are your shows on we'll just do this combined little bit and he's like okay cool so three two one we go we ended up spending the whole bit making fun of nicole right and i was like what's going on here this is really interesting how this just came about without us saying anything to each

other organic right so i went in the next day or like the next week to my boss and said what if you know what if matt and i just went to conventions and like talked to people and did funny bits and first of all he said matt, Matt, who? I said, Matt, our intern. He's like, the guy that doesn't talk. Right. And like, we actually thought he was depressed for the first two months that he worked there. And, and he's like, well, go give it a try. And that was the genesis. We went to the motorcycle show in January of 2006. And we did 102 episodes of this series and got to travel all across the country by season five.

It's funny because people who attend conventions are inherently like- Passionate. Yeah. And anyone who's passionate about something, it could be a science fiction thing or whatever, it's like they're ripe for being poked. Yeah, they are. And we would walk in, as the series really developed and came into its own, we thought, hey, why don't we

wear suits because then uh people will think that we're doing the news and we'll ask to do an interview and they're going to be pushing their product and we are going to screw around with their yeah and even when people see a camera and a guy in a suit and a microphone you'll be surprised they're like a moth to a flame absolutely and uh it was a great run uh you know it's a show that matt and i worked on together uh we named it we produced it run. You know, it's a show that Matt and I worked on together. We named it, we produced it, we edited it, we wrote it, we did sketches at the beginning of it. And despite him leaving for a little bit, we eventually got through seven seasons of it. And it was amazing. It was really the thing that I'm most proud of in my career is creating this

little show. I think it's the most popular show that nobody knows about by any like do you own this show or is there any so bite tv owns it it's still all online at youtube.com slash conventioneers tv uh but uh bite owns it all i mean it's one of those things where i was an employee for bite i was their executive producer so they owned everything like the guy who invented the chicken mcnuggets okay There's a great monologue in The Wire, my favorite television series of all time, where this guy's saying, the guy who invented the Chicken McNuggets must be freaking rich or whatever.

And then the guy explains the reality of the situation. He's a guy on a payroll who works for McDonald's and McDonald's gets rich. The guy gets a salary. Or Stan Lee, right? Didn't Stan Lee work for Marvel and he got paid as a Marvel guy? He doesn't make big

money because he invented Spider-Man. Is that why he's doing all these conventions still to this day at 90 years old? He's the best. He has a cameo in every single Spider-Man movie. He does. Well, most Marvel movies. Most Marvel movies. You're right. Okay, so what's Matt Shin doing now? Well, Matt is... We actually just took a trip

to LA together to see what could happen. Well, we figured we actually just took a trip to L.A. together to see what could happen. Well, we figured we'll finally dive in. But Matt is talking to different companies here in Canada. We chat occasionally. We're actually not friends. We work together. We know each other very well.

But much like Martin and Lewis or Abbott and Costello or Pen and Teller, did Siskel and Ebert not like each other either? Yeah, apparently they hated each other apparently outside of the show, but they were respectful of each other professionally. But apparently they would never hang out. Yeah, Matt and I don't hang out. At first, I really thought it was strange how we're absolutely polar opposites in real life. Yeah, he's like an introvert, you're an extrovert. Yeah, I find that there's two people that do on-camera stuff.

One, where you're an extension of your own personality. That's basically myself yeah two like matt or i've always find tom green to be a good example uh back in the day where really introverted on camera red light goes on who is this person and his uh cable 10 show was amazing for anyone that's kind of in our age range and even even matt who's a little bit younger completely inspiring i remember I remember watching him on Cable 10 and going, I want to do this. Them, him, and The Buzz with Darren and Mo. I swear, when I think of your beginnings, I think of The Buzz because I went to university with Darren. Oh, did you?

He was at St. Mike's too at U of T. And I used to see him on campus, but again, I watch him on The Buzz and I love The Buzz. Yeah, Darren, I know Darren, and The Buzz was a real love The Buzz. Yeah, Darren, I know Darren, and The Buzz was a real inspiration for conventioneers. The stuff done out on the street, the thing that I found is when they had the parameters taken off and they went to Comedy Network

and were allowed to really play the race card all the time and swear, I thought it hurt the series. It became less creative. And also, it was, you're on the street. You're on the street again. You're on the street again. With conventioneers, I was like, if we change where we are every week and every episode there's new jokes sure so that was my thought great and i gotta get darren in this play in this room actually i just realized darren jones is on my hit list i gotta get him in here because

yeah he's a funny guy because i think he's over he left mtv or something he did and i don't see him anymore cbc i think he's i think he's still on contract to CBC. He did one of their reality series, picking the lead in, I think, Sound of Music. Oh, yeah. There was something. I didn't see it, but I saw it promoted. So I think he hosted that. And recently I've seen him, I believe he's been appearing on Hockey Night in Canada in

the stands. Get out of here. Yeah. Doing kind of the fan stuff. Yeah, I believe so. That's amazing. And I once went to Yuck Yucks and saw Mr. Mo performing at Yuck Yucks.

I saw his first set ever at Yuck Yucks. Okay, crazy. Yeah, he went up. And Mo is actually now, he's pulled out of the business. He's not really even doing stand-up anymore. He's a social worker. And he works out in Scarborough.

Very interesting. Now, I know everyone listening probably had that question. Where is Mr. Mo today? Yeah, there you go. Very good. Okay, so this is Byte TV stuff, and Byte TV sounds like it was great for your career,

but what happened? Why are you not at Byte TV today? Byte TV grew up and got purchased. So Byte TV was owned by Glassbox Television. It had expanded to also include Aux TV, which we referenced earlier. I want to talk about that again in a minute because I actually really like Aux TV.

Yeah, you were saying that when you were talking to Alan. So it expanded to Aux and they bought Travel and Escape and then the company was bought and merged. Michael McMillan, who originally started Alliance or Alliance Atlantis, I think. I don't know. This is my exit here. I believe he started alliance

he came in he bought both companies merged them together and the my boss jeffrey elliott took his leave and i knew when jeffrey was saying goodbye i was his guy like i was his right hand man for all of you're like odd man out basically i was and i knew that my time was done plus uh they really stopped producing original content and i was their head producer so if you're not producing content you don't really need a producer and you were making big bucks and they probably yeah oh just dollar dollar bills yo canadian if you can afford a house in toronto you've got to be making big bucks i'm in tobago still is it i know you that's nice enough it's still you gotta be making something you gotta be making something uh that's uh okay so that's the end of your bite tv era and you mentioned alan cross and you actually when you

when you came over here today you mentioned you had listened to the alan cross because of course alan cross you mentioned uh he would drift from the mic which you're not doing you sound great but he would drift from that's great so now if alan gets word of this it's like agnew is criticizing your mic technique uh alan's criticizing sorry uh jason agnew is criticizing your mic technique. Alan's criticizing, sorry, Jason Agnew is criticizing my leveling, okay? But you introduced me to a tip, a pro tip on how I could level it when somebody's quieter than the other, which is great. But you mentioned you listened to the Alan Cross interview, and then you mentioned you worked with Alan. I did. So when did you work with Alan Cross?

Well, there were two things that I did with Alan Cross. Number one, when I finished Bang TV back in about 2002, I thought, I've been doing so much with music, I'd like to do some music radio. And I was working at Mojo at the time, so I was like, Mojo and The Edge are brother stations. So I didn't know Alan, but I knew of Alan. He was the program director there. So I made up a little demo, and I sent it to him,

and I got an email back. And he's like, come into my office. So I'm like, oh, this is really neat. I've listened to Alan forever and have the utmost respect for him. Of course. Of course. So I go into his office, and he sits there in his comfy chair, and I'm just kind of sitting there.

He's like, okay, great. So this is your demo. And he opens up a CD player and puts it in, and he's like, we're going to listen to it together. And I'm like, oh, what is going on here? But that's great. Oh, and he would play about 20 seconds, pause it. And he's like, so what did you think of that?

And we went through my three minute demo bit by bit. And he gave me all these tips. And it wasn't just that's great. That's great. It was like, how can you make this better? I'm all for constructive criticism because it only makes you better. Dude, I'm so on board with that. How do you get better if you don't know what you're doing wrong yeah where there's room for improvement so i this was

one of the most helpful experiences ever in my radio career that's wicked he did it with me twice and at the end of that he said like you're in toronto i can't just throw you on the air you're good you have a passion for what you're doing but this is this is a hard jump for you and i had also just taken the contract with Byte in 2005, and I actually emailed Alan. I'm like, I'm going to go do this. I appreciate you spending time with me, but this is a great opportunity.

And he understood. So fast forward, I think 2008 or 2009, Ox launches. Alan's immediately a part of this, which was great. They grabbed Alan Cross. They grabbed Barry Taylor, who I always thought was really great as well and had a real eye and an ear for up-and-coming talent. He was fired from 102.1 the same day they fired Martin Street. Right. And Barry's now doing comedy as well with Comedy Records. But when Alan was brought in,

he was brought in to do a show called Explore Music with Alan Cross. And it was part of the digital Explore Music brand that Chorus was doing at the time. But it was going to air on Ox. And I had a talk show at that time on Byte called The Surf. So what we would do is we would shoot Alan's half hour show and then I would do my show live later in the night. So I became the producer of Alan's show, which was really a neat experience for me to kind of have the tables turn where, OK, now I'm your producer and I'm thinking, the hell am i gonna say to alan cross this guy is like a radio god he's dude i was there two weeks ago what do i say to alan cross he's you know one of the most knowledgeable men in canadian media and i'm just like how do i produce this show and i remember

the first day on set we're shooting promos and alan and jeff woods at the time was his co-host had to do a 30 second promo hi i'm alan hi i'm jeff join us for explore music uh you know We're shooting promos. okay, game show. I got a little more respect for you now. And that was great. And then at the end of first season, he came to me and he's just like, I want to sit down with you to know how I can make this show better. I'm like, really? And he's like, yeah, you're the TV guy here.

I'm the radio guy. Let's make this show better. So season two, I started booking guests and put like panels together of like all, my favorite show that I did was having three Much Music, former much music VJs which three it would have it was Master T yeah uh Kim Clark Champas and Simon uh oh he used to do the wedge why can't I remember his name he was a super nice guy someone out there right now is

going uh I don't remember Simon's last name he was an editor I'm having trouble remember and I I lived and died with much music in that era I'm having I'm having trouble remembering, and I lived and died with much music in that era. I'm having trouble remembering Simon. Oh, really? Simon the Wedge. Oh, he was great. He was like an editor at the channel and then was pulled onto TV, so he had this just natural charisma,

and he's just a super nice guy, and I'm totally blanking on his last name, and I feel terrible. So someone out there is remembering. But Master T, who, Tony Young, right? Yes. I remember he used to talk on Extend-a-Mix. He would talk to like, he was talking to his keyboard or something.

Yeah. What was her name? I forget what the name was. Was it Roxy? Roxy. There you go. It was Roxy. Hello.

Hi, Master T. That was ridiculous. And then, I don't know, PJ Fresh Phil, you know? Yeah. Phil Guerrero. Yeah. I used to, in the early 90s, I spent a lot of time at the Phoenix on Monday nights for Strange Paradise. And Phil would go,

and he would just jump up and down for like four hours by himself at the Phoenix. I'd see him every week. I know. He was just manic, jumping up and down while they played Nirvana and Offspring and all that stuff. But he had a similar bit where he would talk to a TV monitor. Yeah, it was a TV monitor, and I forget the name of it. What was that was that name it had a mouth on it that was a big thing for a while in toronto

television stuff did you ever have a thing you talked to um no i just had like a cast of characters yeah i'm gonna steal that bit now okay because you and i don't know you know how uh howard stern so i don't know if he anointed himself king of all media but he became king of all media okay and i became king of all media. And I always thought in my head, I always thought, it's like he gave himself that title. I'm not sure if he got it from someone, but it's like a stock or whatever. And then I've seen the title Game Show Guru. Yeah, around me.

So you gave yourself that title. I did when I started doing Sunday Morning Trivia. I used it in my intro for that. And it's picked up here and there. I think it was picked up by the Tiny Talent release that just went out a couple days ago. Yeah, I mean, I hosted a show called Brain Battle on Global. Okay. I was going to say, because you host a lot of stuff.

Like, you're the game show guru. You're the game show guy. Tell me about that, and then I want to hear about Splat a lot. Right, which was a total different turn on my career. But while I was doing By uh out of pymes studios uh global and this dutch group came to pymes and said hey we want to do a daily game show game show slash call tv kind of rip off show um where you would call a number and you could answer a question but it was this weird raffle way to get in i don't know it was it's called call tv

and it's a big format in europe and uh but had contestants on this one, so it was super fun. And along with that, it was one hour live, no commercials, at 11 a.m. every morning. And I got chosen for the host of this thing. It was one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my career, to have an hour live every day. What's it called, Brain Battle? It was Brain Battle, yeah. There's still some. Listen, here's a little factoid afterwards. I love this, let's go.

From Brain Battle. I forget, what's the dude's name who cut people up last summer? Oh. And they put him in mailboxes and stuff? You know, because there was a possibility he was on, I wrote a big entry about him. He was on, he was on Brain Battle. Okay, that's, yeah, his trial's coming up.

And he was in Berlin. He got caught in Berlin. Yeah. That guy. And yeah, I can't believe I don't remember the name right now, but only because there was an entry I wrote where he was commenting on an entry about himself on TorontoMike.com,

and they were looking at whether it was him. Wow. Yeah, so, damn, I can't remember his name. But, oh, I do remember his, hold on, because when we were looking for men, was him wow yeah this is so damn i can't remember his name but oh i do remember his uh hold on because when we were looking for men boys lucas yeah lucas magnata that's it lucas magnata and i would i always wondered about uh magnata wines and how they took to that press release right because i was just like oh you might want to change they don't like that no uh but so he was a he was a contestant if i believe it's still up there if you google uh luca Magnata brain battle.

But be careful what you end up with. No, no, no. A lot of this stuff's been taken down. But if you actually Google images, Luca Magnata, spell it right with a K, brain battle, a picture comes up. The problem is the picture of me. Oh, my God. It's terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Yeah, he was a weirdo contestant on the show. Very little screening process uh went into putting these contestants on but it was i mean it was a really a fun show to do and a rush every day and then i got competent he's the he's the only like uh serial potential serial killer i guess the only pin one guy on him but he's to torture cats and shit and put the videos online this guy's a sick fuck oh absolutely all right. I just remember him as a weirdo. Yeah, the trial will be pretty sensational, I think, whenever we get to it just because of males' body parts

to the Prime Minister. Real weirdo. And dude was just in love with fame and stuff, apparently. Anyhow, so he was on the show, which creeped me out when I found that out. So I did that show and I did another show called Pop Q, which would have been another live show.

It went from one till two on the E-Network, which CH was called the E-Network at the time. Oh, right. There was a branding thing there. Yeah, it was all over the place. It's all coming back to me now. All over the place. Now it's back to being CH.

But not CHCH. They decided to be just CH. Or am I dreaming? I think it's CHCH again. They did CH for a while. It came back ch again all right they did ch for a while it was on tv for a while it's had but now uh channel zero owns it and they've done uh they've done some pretty good things with this oh yeah we'll get into something they're doing in just a second so tell me okay so game show guru what other stuff would we know like i did a show recently a

couple years ago called door to door which was a traveling game show so like cash cab but we go to your home and we ask you questions about your hometown. That was really neat. I got to travel across North America doing that show. We only did 10 episodes, sadly, but it was one of my favorites. Those three, and then Sunday Morning Trivia I'm doing on Newstalk 1010. So the Sunday Morning Trivia,

that airs still, right? Oh, yeah. And that's every Sunday morning, what time? 9 to 11 on Newstalk 1010. So, okay, great. That's a big station. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Newstalk 1010, I mean, I was on there doing the law, and then they brought me back to fill in for the trivia show, and Ben Mercer left, and I've been doing it for two and a half years now.

So it's been great. It's a super fun show to do. I love doing radio just to interact with people, and that's definitely a different side of my radio persona than is heard on live audio wrestling. And it's nice to hear weekend programming on am stations that isn't paid advertising advertising or reruns there's a lot of that like on the 640s of the world you know because that's actual original live that's actual like a show pretty much everything on news talk on the weekend there's a great amount of it that

is specialty programming but it is live and it's great and it allows you to really uh try out different people on the radio and i think that's what the program director there was doing okay and splat a lot so splat a lot incredibly popular if you're between the ages of like 7 and 12 you know this show uh it's on ytv it runs all the time uh it started in 2010 it's essentially uh easily said wipe out for kids. And add in a bit of American Gladiators as well. Because it's set in a castle. And there's larger than life barbarians that shoot goo and slime and things at these kids between 12 and 15 as they run through an obstacle course. Well, what was the famous slime show?

Uh-oh. What was it? Back in the 80s? Oh, you're the famous slime show? Uh-oh. What was it? Uh-oh. What was the, back in the 80s? Oh, you're thinking you can't do that on television. Atlantis was only in one season. I think it was in season six or something like that. But that was like an Ottawa show, and then it got picked up down in the U.S. as well.

And everyone got slimed. Yes. I just remember sliming. If you said water, you were covered in water. If you said I don't know, you were covered in slime. There you go. On the show. So, yes, the slime continues on splat a

lot so i've done two seasons of that and and the great thing about it is they were uh they cast myself and my partner matt chin oh cool at the time so we're the hosts of that someone uh believe steve sloan who's now the executive producer for hockey night in canada was our exec producer on that knew me from the law saw me on conventioneers with Matt, and thought, you know what? These guys, yeah, they do kind of adult comedy here, but their gimmicks can transfer to kids. And it worked out really well. And the nice thing about being paired with someone I'd already worked with

for five years at the time was no learning curve to pairing hosts together, dynamics already in place, and our writers were absolutely great in picking up on what we did on that other show to make it kid friendly but it's still it's older guy younger guy taller guy smaller guy and they really played to our gimmicks and uh it was really fun really fun show and i guess that was helpful to have this sort of doing a kid program like that because i saw a press release earlier this week very fresh information here yes you are the new host of CHCH's new Tiny Talent Time. Yeah, everything old is new again.

I remember that show. As I found out in the past two days after the press release went out, everyone remembers this show. We're the right age group. Yeah, you're right. Well, it ran for 35 years. That's right. How do you miss it?

30 years. I think 62 to 92, I think it ran. And Bill Lawrence was the original host. Yeah, that's the first big question is, in fact, I'll quote my friend Andrew Stokely, who had fond memories of meeting Bill Lawrence early in his career. And he helped me set up the studio, actually. He wanted to know your thoughts on taking over the finger snaps of the magical Bill Lawrence. We will be doing that.

We will be doing a couple times an episode asking our contestants on the show if I could snap my fingers and make one of your wishes come true, what would it be? So if you couldn't snap, you would not have been a candidate. No, that's right. That was the audition. Jason, can you snap?

You got it. That's how Canadian auditions work. That's right. That makes sense. Okay, so this is exciting because this will be a high-profile kind of big deal, and you're the fate. Who's your co-host? It's myself and Jacqueline Colville, who's on The Morning Show on CH.

So it's the two of us. They're going with two hosts this time as opposed to just one, Bill Lawrence. I mean, Bill did the show for 30 years. So we're trying to obviously, you know, a little nod to the past, a tip of the hat to the past, and then to try to, you know, redo this show and make it new. If you, the show is remembered very fondly, Mike.

Right. And there are certain things where you remember them from your childhood. And then if you were to watch them again, it would change your perception of them. Yeah, there's lots like that i i went back before auditioning and and watched some clips on youtube and things were slower television was slower back in the day so we are going to speed it up a little bit you have to i suppose today kids and their ipads and everything in the video games like you just you can't maintain you can't do that anymore uh so i

think uh and also you know bill was there uh to facilitate and you know ask the kids very open-ended questions so i'm gonna try to get a little bit more in depth have a little bit more fun uh you know appeal to both it's a family viewing that we're going to aim for you know appeal to kids but appeal to their parents parents friends etc and hopefully i can inject a little bit of funny into it as well i mean that's that's my goal with my Splat-A-Lot background. And you record in Hamilton? Yeah, we'll be doing it at the same studios that the original Tiny Talent Time was done. The same studios for me, actually, of where the phrase Don't You Dare Miss It on Maple Leaf Wrestling was.

Billy Red Lions. Billy Red Lions. I remember that very well. I've been using Don't You Dare Miss It since, jeez, I think back maybe 2005 or so. Oh, man. That brings me back. I love Billy Red. I always loved how he ran down the cards and got to interview the guys.

I remember, yeah, I remember distinctly the Channel 11 wrestling show. Maple Leaf Wrestling or WWF Cavalcade would air on Channel 11. I was glued to it every Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. And I remember Billy Redd. And as an ode to him I've used, don't you dare miss it. I'm going to try to push the producers to let me use it on Tiny Talent Time as well. Because I think it would be great to be saying that on CHCH. When does this thing hit our television sets?

September 6th. So it is a while away. We're taping in April and it's going to air in September. It's going to be part of CH's fall launch. Well, congrats, man. That sounds like a cool gig.

So you were excited to get this one. Yeah, it'll be, it'll be really cool. And there's a real difference for me with this one because, you know, most people, all right,

you do kids TV and, uh, you know, they think that I'm on the course for splat a lot when in actuality, we're not splat a lot, fully taped. And then Matt and I go on and do the commentary for it, whether it be in front of a green screen or whether it be in a studio just doing play-by-play so this will actually be interacting uh with the kids on set at tiny

talent time and i have been warned that back in the day there was uh something called the uh the vomit bucket that was kept off to the side at Tiny Talent Time, and apparently kids do get stage fright, and there was some vomiting that happened. That's disgusting. Yeah. Listen, I think, because people are, a producer had said to me, well, we just hope you don't get vomited on.

I'm like, no, I hope I do get vomited on, because that is a viral video. That is, yeah, that'll be everywhere. It'll be all of, I'll post that one, okay? Host gets vomited on by small contestants. All right. There'll be a former guest on Toronto Mike

puked on during CHCH reality talent show. I would love it. I think it would be really, really fun. I mean, as long as the kid's not mortified about it, which is, you know, the real... Oh, yeah, because the Star Wars kid, apparently, had, like, serious issues with this. You gotta be careful. The real challenge of, you know the real oh yeah because the start the star wars kid apparently had like serious issues yeah that's you gotta be careful the real challenge of you know working with kids and having them go out there and perform is that they're really putting themselves out there and

at that age you know really fragile as far as getting criticism yeah you can't be like old simon cowell on these kids these kids you gotta be gentleness and and tiny town time is not a competition it's it's a showcase uh it is going back to a simpler time in regards to that part of the format so there's no judgment it's it's just a matter of you guys you kids have had the courage to come out here and perform that's amazing uh let's show off your talent and no snark no there's gonna be no snarky jason agnew that you get from conventioneers uh on this particular program. All right. I have a couple of minutes left.

Do you have any, my big question of the day, any dirt or embarrassing stories about my brother, Steve? About your brother, Steve. Anything? Oh man.

He won't listen to this. I know you weren't prepared. I've, I've, you know, I live like literally three blocks away from Steve and I have not seen him. I believe he doesn't leave. Oh,

he does. He oh he does uh he walks to work because he works at like bluer and islington oh does he yeah oh well i don't i don't leave my house anymore either i mean i go out at night all the time to comedy bar but uh i don't often uh hang out in the neighborhood so when was the last time so okay so you see because she runs and stuff like where i've seen her at the grocery store. Oh, at the no frills. Yeah. With his son. You know, my first, the first house I bought was across the street from where it used to be a Heinz L's, but across the street from the no frills there. Yeah.

So that's where, that's where, um, you know, as you refer to it, you're legitimate C grade Canadian celebrity shops. Was that a fair assessment? Like, absolutely. You're still C, right? That's a compliment is what that is. I don't even, I'm telling you, C, I think, uh. What's, so Jono would be like C, right? That's a compliment is what that is. I don't even... I'm telling you, C, I think... So Jono would be like B, right?

Jono's a... Is Jono A? He's definitely a B. No, he's definitely a B. Okay, then I'm way below. He's above you. Yeah, he's above you. It's hard to rank him because you got like a local...

Todd Shapiro is a good example. So Todd Shapiro, it's remarkable to me. I see the stats for downloads and stuff. His episode, by far the most downloaded episode I've ever recorded. Well, because you had a scoop with Todd too, because there was just a giant controversy coming out of the Dean Blundell show. Absolutely. But it's amazing in terms of GTA recognition,

people of interest in Todd Shapiro's stories. They're on the radio every day for what they do about 14 years or something like that demo like which is younger than us uh i think yeah you're four years i know because you're my brother's age so you're four years younger than me but that demo is younger still younger than you and they're just that's download download download download but uh actually you know what my first uh internship was on jono vision get out of here even before the law i went and did an internship with JonoVision. This is Andrew Stokely, who I mentioned

before. He tells me he did... He worked on JonoVision. He was an audio guy. Audio guy, yeah. I didn't interact with him. I was in the office with the story producers and with Jonathan, who was... I just remember meeting Jonathan and it was one week, and then I met him two weeks later,

and he remembered my name. He was just like talking to me he's he was uh you're a nice guy but i knew you before because of the our previous histories but jonathan who i'd never met before in fact he had never heard of me right okay that's the best part is i could have had no listeners this could have been like a podcast i share with my mom or whatever he still took a cab ride from downtown for 40 bucks and sat in that seat for an hour when nicest guy he's when i was doing the surf talk show out in uh at in mississauga with bite tv uh i you know reached out to jonathan who was in town doing some radio work and again he took a cab out there and i'm like dude i would have sent a driver he's like oh you know i just i just took a cab out it was 80 bucks to get to mississauga i'm like i will drive you back jonathan like what

are you doing he's a super nice guy. I mean, you've had Alan Cross, who has been very inspiring in my career. Yeah, he was great. Jonathan Torrens, who I hold in very high regard. You know what, that's why I needed to have you. And I have Jeff Merrick next week. Jeff Merrick next week?

This is the story of your life, Jason. Yes. This podcast is for you, buddy. Oh my God, all of a sudden we're a One Direction song. You don't have any chance, you have no hookups with maestro fresh west do you because i'm trying to get on the show i've never reached out a couple of times you know who would if you can contact a farley flex i know they work together because i saw him this summer

there was a the lakeshore fest or something on lakeshore like near islington and he was the uh host and it was like tiny talent time they had kids doing their talents right on the stage it was a street festival and the new hood i went over and i yeah farley flex was the host that was this summer there you go so there you find farley and i and he'll be able to connect you with maestro and i thought maybe jonathan could help me because they're on mr d together right right because everyone's apparently on mr d they asked you yet to make an appearance i'm non-union so i cannot make an appearance on mr d i that's's why I live in this weird little non-union scope there. But a lot of my friends that I hang out with, a lot of improvisers and a lot of talented people that have run through the Second City system are on Mr. D., which is fantastic.

So you have no dirt on my brother. I'm sorry. No dirt on Steve. You know, that's the only reason I invited you in today. Just to get dirt on Steve. I need somebody who knew him in high school to tell me the truth, because I never went to his high school. I know my brother Ryan.

I know his dirt. I was at high school with him. Steve went to Bishop Allen. I had no connections. Man, he was just a very quiet individual who would appear on camera for me when I was editing in high school. Do you have any of that footage anywhere? Oh, yeah.

That I have. If you can score me that, I'll take that. It's better than nothing. Good stuff. And that brings us to the end of our 69th show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike

and Jason at Agnew Jason. See you all next week. Thank you.