The Great Eastern (radio show)

The Great Eastern
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Mack Furlong Steven Palmer Ed Riche
Written by	Mack Furlong Steven Palmer Ed Riche
Presented by	Paul Moth
Opening theme	Marc Johnson, Samurai Hee-Haw
Ending theme	The Plankerdown Band, The Jig is Up
Country of origin	Canada
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Glen Tilley
Running time	ca. 54 min. (1994-1995); ca. 28 min. (1996-1999)
Release
Home station	CBC Radio One
Audio format	Monophonic

The Great Eastern was a radio comedy show on CBC Radio One. It ran from 1994 to 1999.

Billed as "Newfoundland's Cultural Magazine", The Great Eastern was an hour-long summer replacement show on CBC Radio One for the first two seasons, and then became a half-hour regular show for the next three seasons. Purportedly a culture, arts and entertainment show on the Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland (BCN), The Great Eastern was in fact a satirical and parodic comedy which developed an extensive fictional universe of characters and Newfoundland institutions.

The Great Eastern purported to be a long-running show on the BCN of which hour-long and half-hour-long segments were broadcast on Radio One (and, through atmospheric anomalies, to Iceland). It was named, both in real life and in fiction, after the ill-fated 19th-century steamship bearing the same name.

Although content varied from episode to episode, most started with theme music, moved to a hearty introduction and hello from host Paul Moth, a visit to BCN director Ish Lundrigan and the BCN vault for "archival" radio content, the "What's that noise from Newfoundland" contest, and then to the meat of the show, which might involve anything from discussions of the religion/get-rich-quick scheme Economology to Newfoundland Christmas radio plays. Interspersed in most episodes were "community announcements" and promotional material for other BCN shows which further established the world of The Great Eastern.

A central conceit of The Great Eastern was that its characters never broke the fourth wall to suggest that the show, despite its outlandish content, was anything other than real. Its creators actively resisted the CBC's attempts to market it to listeners as a comedy. In 1996, co-creator Mack Furlong wrote to the CBC to protest this practice: "Part of whatever charm The Great Eastern possesses is gained in no small way by the fact that we purport that the show is real, that it is actually, Nfld's Cultural Magazine. The straighter CBC plays this line, the funnier the concept is.... Every good joke needs a straight set up."

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Wikipedia