William Richardson

Bunny Watson was a Canadian radio program, which aired Saturdays on CBC Radio One and Sundays on CBC Radio Two.

Named for Katharine Hepburn's librarian character in the movie Desk Set, the show was hosted by Bill Richardson and produced by Jennifer Van Evra and Tod Elvidge in Vancouver. Inspired by the Hepburn character's quote that she "associates many things with many things", Richardson explored a particular theme each week through a free-association sequencing of music, literature and film.

The show first aired in the summer of 2004. In one of the show's most notable episodes, on October 2, 2004, the poet and performance artist Meryn Cadell came out as transgender.

The program ceased to air on the full CBC network in 2005, although repeats continued to air for some further time in Nunavut to fill a scheduling hole created by time zone differences, and on Radio One's Sirius Satellite Radio channel to fill a scheduling hole created by the satellite channel not broadcasting local programs.

Wikipedia

Read today in the Globe and Mail that Bill Richardson is happily stocking shelves, at Whole Foods. Yes he might be happy but I am not.

That Corporation that serves the people of Canada has a poor memory except for telling us about traffic problems on the Second Narrows Bridge.

It was Bill Richardson’s Bunny Watson that inspired me to begin my blog in 2006 and to make it much like Richardson’s program in that my now over 5500 blogs deal with free association.

I have fond memories of Richardson hosting a Western Magazines Award evening (when we had really good magazines in Vancouver and in Canada). A particular writer (I will leave him unnamed) kept winning all the awards. After each award he gave long speeches and in one of them he even dealt with Martin Heidegger. The last prize of the evening was a weekend-for-two at the Empress Hotel in Victoria. And our winner was that winner. When the winner went up to collect his prize, Richardson loudly said, “Congratulations and I hope your butt falls off.”

From that point I became a rabid fan of Richardson and appreciated that the Renaissance man had a very good foundation in music. His Saturday Afternoon at the Opera was superb.

With that stellar CBC Radio arts reporter, Paul Grant retired to Moose Jaw and with his position not having been replaced, the propagation of culture news is pretty well gone from our local CBC stations. I can only cite CBC Ideas and The Debaters as superb intelligent programs. Otherwise intelligence seems to be stuck on that Second Narrows Bridge.

You all at the CBC should be ashamed. You are part of this peculiar defect in Vancouver, a City with a poor memory for its past.