|
Author
|
Topic: Hibernating or extinct? Original black-and-white Hinterland Who’s Who TV spots
|
Adam McCreath
Film Handler
Posts: 52
From: Ottawa, Canada
Registered: Jan 2013
|
posted July 10, 2013 05:59 AM
This is from the National Post this morning; I thought it was interesting since I remember these well and immediately though our this forum. I wonder if someone here has these stashed away lol?????
Hibernating or extinct? Original black-and-white Hinterland Who’s Who TV spots missing on 50th anniversary
The beaver has slapped its tail and disappeared into a dark pond. The loon and gannet have flown out of sight. The moose has lumbered into the deep woods — and vanished.
There’s a tantalizing mystery haunting this summer’s 50th anniversary of Hinterland Who’s Who, the iconic wildlife education program that millions of Canadians will know from those once-ubiquitous TV public-service announcements that offered citizens 60-second lessons on the feeding traits of chipmunks or the breeding habits of cougars, and then gave countless Canuck comedians the perfect fodder for parody.
But back to the mystery — and cue the eerie flute music.
The four original, minute-long mini-documentaries that officially hatched Hinterland Who’s Who in the summer of 1963 have gone missing. And anniversary organizers from the Canadian Wildlife Federation and Environment Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service have searched everywhere — film vaults, archival repositories, government office basements and retirees’ attics — for what would constitute a genuine treasure of 20th-century Canadian cultural heritage.
And yes, they’ve scoured YouTube, too, which is brimming with pirated HWW television spots from the 1960s and ’70s — including those glimpsing the secret lives of the fabled First Four: beaver, loon, gannet and moose. But these clips date from no earlier than 1966, when the original 1963 black-and-white PSAs were replaced with colour-film versions to keep pace with advances in TV technology and public tastes.
“All of my official sources have dried up,” lamented Annie Langlois, the Ottawa-based Canadian Wildlife Federation’s co-ordinator of Hinterland Who’s Who and chief organizer of the program’s 50th birthday party.
At the Canadian Wildlife Service, an arm of Environment Canada that actually predates the creation of the department itself and which originated the Hinterland Who’s Who outreach effort, officials combed through storerooms for the historic films and “there was nothing,” Ms. Langlois told Postmedia News.
The National Film Board, which produced the footage for the seminal TV spots, conducted a search of its archival holdings and came up empty. Ditto with Library and Archives Canada, the CBC and other potential possessors of the vintage audio-visual treasures.
“I believe that people at the time didn’t see them as being relevant anymore, because of colour TV,” said Ms. Langlois. “They may not have kept them at all.”
But she isn’t giving up hope yet, and is inviting Canadians who might know the whereabouts of one or more of the four landmark films to contact Hinterland Who’s Who via its website: http://www.hww.ca.
“I’d like to hear from anyone,” she said. “It would be lovely.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/09/hibernating-or-extinct-original-black-and-white-hinterland-whos-who-tv-spots-missing-on-50th-anniversary/
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
