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
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	6
Production
Location(s)	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Insight Productions
Release
Original network	The Comedy Network/CTV
Original release	November 24, 1997 – August 1, 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. 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.

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