Back in the days of the two-channel universe in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was no such thing as Simpsons reruns or Oprah, Edmonton had its very own TV stars.
On Edmonton’s first TV station, CFRN (now CTV Edmonton), staff announcers were local celebrities. Everybody knew the likes of Ed Kay, Norris MacLean and George Kidd – and every kid in town knew Eric Neville.
For a remarkable run from 1961 to 1978 – 4,000 episodes, 140,000 kids, up to two hours a day, three to five days a week, for 52 weeks a year – Popcorn Playhouse was appointment viewing for Edmonton kids.
And Neville, in his guise as Klondike Eric, ran the show.
Popcorn Playhouse made Neville one of Edmonton’s most familiar faces. But hosting a kids’ TV show in the afternoon was not a position he originally sought. “When I was hired at CFRN-TV, no one mentioned Popcorn Playhouse,” says Neville, now 72 and living in central Alberta. “There were three announcers on staff, and I didn’t know it at the time, but seems the rule was last guy hired got nailed for the show. That would be me.”
Prior to coming to CFRN, the Turner Valley-raised Neville served TV and radio stints in Peace River, Calgary (where he met his wife, Barbara, to whom he has been married now for 51 years), Lethbridge and Red Deer. In between, he tried farming. He moved to Hays, Alta. where he “tried operating a quarter section of irrigated weeds, badger holes and a small nasty herd of sheep whose sole purpose was to escape and disappear into the nearest coulee.”
With a second child on the way, Neville landed a job at CFRN, expecting to return to farming in the spring. He ended up staying at CFRN for 28 years.
Neville wasn’t CFRN’s first Popcorn Playhouse host. For the show’s first couple of seasons, there were different hosts and different themes. There was a nautical set hosted by a “captain,” then another with a jungle theme, where the host “dressed up in short pants, pith helmet, pistol in a holster and a monkey he picked up at a pet store each day,” Neville says.