Recalling his twenty-one years in the broadcasting industry, Max (alias Rawhide) has come up with the first lighthearted exposé of Canadian radio and TV ever to short-circuit coast-to-coast communications.
The popular Canadian broadcaster has been delighting audiences with barbs at the Establishment ever since starting out in the 1940s with CFPL radio, London, Ontario. He now recalls the highlights of that thoroughly fun-filled career, especially of the happy circumstances which, in 1947, were to inspire his enormousely successful Rawhide radio series.
During the seventeen years Rawhide inflicted his irascible Western drawl on a willing North American public, controversy was the program's byword. An indignant clergyman, in a letter published by the Ottawa Journal, wrote that Rawhide was fit only for "Godless Soviet Russia". One member of parliament actually rose in the House of Commons to denounce what he called poor Rawhide's "ravings"!
Max achived a sweet revenge, however, by perpetuating -- successfully -- one of the biggest hoaxes ever pulled in government circles. He's still chuckling over that one.
In the same engaging style and easy manner familiar to listeners of his current CBC morning show, Max also tells witty tales on many a Canadian celebrity. James Bannerman, Earl Cameron, Commander W.E.S. Briggs, and Lorne Greene -- to name but a few -- are all in for their share of his mischief-making. Certainly no prepared script could hope to match the hilarious backstage antics repeated here: The night Commander Briggs found himself at a loss for clothes, but not for invective, in his hotel corridor ... or the strange case of the swearing minister who broadcast smutty parables ... or Clement Atlee, the guest monkey who failed to go ape over our hero -- but bit him instead!
So whether reflecting on the years spent with his lively cohorts from "Rawhide" days, or describing favourite stories form the archives of the CBC, Max Ferguson, you're on.