33 Brompton Place

Obviously, Reviewer MYECK never saw this show. The review (written 20 years after it aired) describes scenes that were never in the program. While it is true that the program was produced on a relatively low budget, the sets were top notch as was the sound and general production values. No "green screens" were employed as was reported by that reviewer. Generally the show received excellent reviews. As one reviewer reported, "It was just like daytime soap operas except that the sheet was six inches lower." 33 Brompton Place was written in the United State by US writers. It was originally planned to be taped in the US. The references to Kitchener, Ontario were written into the script long before the decision to produce in Canada. It was not gratuitous... it was funny. The Canadian Content rating for the series came from the fact that it was shot with an all Canadian cast.

This show became my definition of Showtime "original" series in the early 1980s. Ultra low budget, terrible production values, a guarantee of nudity in every episode, and Canadian content, adding up to a cheesy, slightly surreal show.

Although set in Chicago, it was made in Canada under the notorious Canadian Content rules of the time - any show made in Canada had to include a certain amount that was explicitly Canadian. On SCTV they lampooned it by doing Bob & Doug McKenzie's "Great White North". On this show, a female character was from Kitchener Ontario, and every episode somehow she would have to explain about being from Kitchener Ontario. Later on her younger sister joined her, and then SHE would explain about being from Kitchener Ontario.

Their sets were uniformly cheap and obviously fake, and in any room with a window they'd use the worst green screen technology ever to slap in some outdoor view or other.

Since the alleged big draw of the show was the nudity, every episode would have a few nude scenes, and not surprisingly they generally had little purpose other than showing skin.

Possibly the greatest single achievement ever in the history of crappy cable programming was an episode where one of the characters was house-sitting for a rich family in a ritzy suburb, and hey! They had a hot tub, so she invited her two roommates to come join her. The hot tub was surrounded on three sides by glass, diving us the unbeatable combination of a completely gratuitous and pointless nude scene, a cheesy fake set, and outdoor scenery really badly green-screened behind the actors.

Why this show disappeared as soon as it aired is a mystery to me.