TORONTO – John Issac, the last remaining Canadian to have watched Open Mike with Mike Bullard, has died at age 78.
Issac, who hailed from New Brunswick, was one of 11 people known to have ever watched Bullard’s late-night comedy show, which ran from 1997-2003 on CTV.
Signed by accident to a contract when CTV executives were in a drunken stupor, Open Mike reached its peak popularity with the episode that aired on August 2nd, 1998. Four people watched that night. One even managed to see the entire episode, though reports at the time suggested this was due to the man’s brief involvement in sadomasochism.
The record for most numbers of concurrent Mike Bullard viewers was reached the following evening when John Stephens and Edith Macrae each watched the same 5 minutes of the show. Macrae later claimed her viewing would not have happened had it not been for a broken remote control. Stephens has since apologized to his friends and family, calling it a profound error in judgement.
Industry experts attribute the long run of the show to the fact that the CTV brass forgot it existed. Airing late at night, most higher-ups at the network went to bed before Bullard’s show hit the airwaves.
“To be honest, I just thought we went to some crappy infomercial during that time slot”, said one former CTV employee. “I was horrified when I found out.”
Last year, a CRTC review examining how Open Mike ever got to air was famously cut short when a human rights tribunal ruled that forcing CRTC staff to watch past episodes amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
