Open Mike with Mike Bullard

Open Mike with Mike Bullard
Genre	Comedy
Written by	Mike Bullard Sean Tweedley
Presented by	Mike Bullard
Country of origin	Canada
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
Production
Location(s)	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	CanWest Global Communications
Broadcast
Original channel	CTV
Original run	24 November 1997 – 1 August 2003

Open Mike with Mike Bullard was a Canadian late-night talk show which was broadcast live from 1997 to 2003 on CTV and on The Comedy Network in primetime. It was hosted by comedian Mike Bullard and initially taped at a studio at the back of Wayne Gretzky's restaurant in Toronto, Ontario before CTV moved the show to Toronto's historic Masonic Temple. Open Mike with Mike Bullard featured two or three panel guests and one musical or comedy performance nightly. The show's bandleader and musical director was Orin Isaacs. Part of Bullard's comedic style was interacting with audience members during his opening monologue, often deriving humour from finding ways to poke fun at an audience member's expense.

In the summer of 2003, Bullard's contract with CTV expired. He did not like their practice of shutting the show down for summers; he knew that it interrupted his exposure and he did not like to see reruns that were dated.^{[original research?]} He arranged and signed a multi-year deal to start a new, similar show on Global called The Mike Bullard Show. The new show retained many of the people and sketches from Open Mike, but CTV had replaced his show by carrying The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in his old time slot. The Mike Bullard Show was no match for that competition, and his show was cancelled in 2004 after only 13 weeks. Bullard's multi-year contract with Global prevented him from working elsewhere at that time, so he ended up with no exposure at all for a long time.^{[original research?]}

The show is significant to the history of Canadian Television as the first successful and long-running Canadian late-night talk show. It was instrumental in exposing new Canadian talent, particularly musicians, to a national audience.

Segments

• "Open Mike Viewer Of The Week" - Sean Tweedley would make fun of one of the viewers in the audience, but they would be given a digital camera as a prize.
• "The Canadian Quiz" - The last guests would be asked three questions about Canada at the end of every show. Officially, the guests were supposed to get all three questions right, but they usually ended up winning the prize regardless. As the segment was sponsored by Canadian Tire, the prize would usually be one of their exclusive products.
• "The Insider" - An entertainment-themed monologue.
• "Who The Hell Do You Think You Are, You Drunken Bastard?" - a game played at a local bar where the name of a celebrity would be taped on the head of each contestant. They would be given three clues from Mike and had to use them to guess who they were.
• "What did you buy at Canadian Tire and why?" - a crew member would visit the Canadian Tire across the street from the studio and ask shoppers when they left what they had bought and why.