The Trouble with Tracy

You think you've seen bad TV? You haven't seen the worst until you've seen this gem. A few seasons were made and then rerun for years on Canadian stations to fulfill Canadian content rules.

The acting was atrocious, the direction non-existent, the production values were laughable, and the writing ... oh, the horror! Add in a tinny laugh-track and cheesy muzak and you've got Trouble. Flubbed lines were left in (and it was on video!), "jokes" were recycled ad nauseam, you could see the walls move when a door was opened or closed. Dyan Nylan as Tracy was cute in her micro-miniskirts but she had little acting ability or comedic timing, and the lines she was given to speak were cringe-inducingly lame. Every embarrassing stereotype was included, every Lucy and Honeymooners setup was ripped off, every stale Henny Youngman joke was massacred.

Simply excruciating, unredeemably puerile, so bad it's not funny! So why is it I wish I could see it again?

To be Canadian seems to mean cutting up Canadian humour. But this show wasn't meant to play to adults (even if some of the lines were to hip for the room). It played in Toronto around 4 pm ! This was meant for teen-aged boys to ogle. And putting the American flag in most of the scene so that it would be picked up for syndication was brilliant.

Oh, sure it was hokey. Sure there were blunders. But it was FUN. Theatre Sports (Improv) at Queens Quay would follow in future years. Anyone taking this as serious missed the point. Heck - they probably hated Razzle Dazzle as well! If the analogy helps - you can have your NFL, but Trouble with Tracy was pure CFL!

Reverse American Plot? I received an email that put forth the theory: "By putting in an American flag and references, this show made Americans look stupid - And thus began (?) Canadian hatred for all Americans"

For years I remember reading about this show "Trouble With Tracy" in the TV Guide. CFTO-TV Toronto every Saturday morning at 6 am! I lived about a two-hour drive north of Toronto and we couldn't get CFTO, but you know how it is - we always want what we can't have.

Well, I knew what I wanted and what I wanted was to see what this "Trouble With Tracy" was all about. Did it have a beautiful girl in the starring role? Was there nudity? Was there suspense? Was it a comedy? It would've been fine if there was some promotion of the show. At least I could've known what I was missing. But, NO! The mystery drove me bonkers, until CTV affiliate CKCO built a re-transmitter in Wiarton, Ontario and began to broadcast "Trouble With Tracy" at the same time as CFTO....Saturday mornings at 6 am!! One Saturday morning I got up and turned the TV on at 5:59 and at last I got to see what "The Trouble With Tracy" was. Yes, the "Trouble With Tracy" was that it was Canadian content and stuck in the harmless 6 am spot so no one would ever see how awful it was.

Talented Canadian Actor Steve Weston died a few years afterward, but many would argue he effectively "died" the first time he appeared on this show. When I saw it for the first time that cold Saturday morning and fell despondent back into my bed, part of me died, too.

I was a child in the early 1970's and like most kids I was in love with TV. We had cable, it allowed me to watch SEVEN! different channels on our 20 inch color TV, when my parents weren't watching, of course. When I was little I discovered I could get up before school to watch TV and my groggy parents didn't care. What's on at 630 AM on a Tuesday in 1975 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada? Not much. The Trouble With Tracy was the only show at that time. I watched it faithfully for a month or two but I didn't think it was very funny. Is this how big people act? Why is everyone so dumb. I remember some of the other kids at school watched it also and I have vague memories of playing Trouble with Tracy in the playground. Anyway, as soon as another channel started showing Rocket Robin Hood I was outta there. I remember thinking that "The Trouble With Tracy" was the dumbest thing that I had seen until sometime in the the mid eighties, when I saw the cable series about the robot girl "Small Wonder"

This was considered by most to be the worst Canadian TV series of all time from the 1970s until other networks made worse (i.e. CBC's "XPM"). The Comedy Network in particular produced a solid number of equally awful flops the first 10 years or so of their existence. Notably the universally despised "PopCultured with Elvira Kurt" but also "Girls Will Be Girls", "Keys to the VIP", "Punched Up", "Upload Yours"..... the list goes on and on.

It was poorly produced with awful sets, acting, writing, direction... but at least it was likable, charming and hilarious in ways other than the creators intended. It was bad but in a "so bad it's funny" kind of way. That's why this show is considered one of the worst but also has kind of a beloved status among TV audiences in Canada, unlike a lot of those other shows I mentioned, which are just "bad but not even in a funny way bad".