Peppiatt and Aylesworth

Peppiatt and Aylesworth were Canada's original television comedy team. The team consisted of Frank Peppiatt (March 19, 1927 – November 7, 2012) and John Aylesworth (August 18, 1928 – July 28, 2010).

John Aylesworth was born on August 18, 1928, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and performed on radio as a child. He left high school before graduating and went into the advertising business as a writer, working together with Frank Peppiatt.

Frank Peppiatt was born to Frank and Sarah Peppiatt in Toronto, Ontario, on March 19, 1927. He attended the University of Toronto, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1949. He took a job with his Toronto classmate, Norman Jewison, after college working on college stage productions.

They "were total cutups at the ad agency" where they worked and were approached by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation based on their reputation to write sketches.

They hit the airwaves coast to coast long before their more famous counterparts Wayne and Shuster decided to leave their wildly popular radio show. Aylesworth had done some radio as a teenager and Peppiatt had done some theater prior to landing the first ever comedy series on Canadian television, After Hours on the CBC in 1952. That program is also notable as giving Bernard Slade his start in television. Aylesworth also created Front Page Challenge, a current events and history game show that ran on CBC Television from 1957 to 1995.

They later went on to write and star in two more Canadian TV series On Stage and The Big Revue. Several of these programs were produced by future Oscar winner Norman Jewison and directed by Norman Campbell.

This was a golden age for Canadian television with actors William Shatner, Christopher Plummer, Lorne Greene, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Goulet, gameshow host Monty Hall, and directors like Arthur Hiller and Norman Jewison all getting their start with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

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