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I asked the producer/director Jeff Green and the head writer Michael Cormier, to give us an introduction to the early days of the show.
 Jeff Green: In some ways this project was unusual because some of the principals had an established relationship with the primary production house, which was a local television station. Ottawa/Pembroke’s CHRO had hired the local children’s performance troupe Salt & Pepper Theatre to visit area public schools and lead theatre workshops with the children as part of a community outreach commitment. Having received good reports on the success of these workshops, the station decided to offer the troupe a half-hour weekend morning slot.
While the casual reader might think that this is the kind of “in” anyone would need to get a production started at a TV station, the fact is that the only important element was the timing. Had anybody submitted a more apparently viable proposal than ours at that particular moment we might not have been so lucky. In other words, if you are thinking about trying to get a project started you shouldn’t rule out local television as they sometimes have programming commitments to be fulfilled and it will often be in the interest of their license requirements if they can get it done locally. Again, timing is the key factor, so try to get somebody on the inside who knows where their budget is going, and when.
Michael Cormier: I ran a children’s theater company in Ottawa in the mid to late 80’s called Salt & Pepper Theatre Co., along with my good friend, Rob Eastland. We had appeared as guests on two or three occasions on a CHRO-TV afternoon talk show hosted by Pat Leonard, who we eventually cast as Cowboy Pat in the pilot episode. Every time we were there, Pat would introduce us around the station and encourage us to get our own show, to which I would always laugh and tell him that I thought that everyone should have their own TV show. In truth, and unknown to the future Cowboy Pat, ever since I first saw "The Dick Van Dyke Show" on TV when I was a kid, all I have ever wanted to do was write television comedy.
 A few weeks pass since our last appearance on the afternoon talk show. Then early one Wednesday morning, a woman from CHRO called either Rob or I (I’m not clear on this detail) asking where our proposal was for the children’s TV series they wanted to make. Apparently, there was a budget deadline looming at the station. Whichever one of us who took the phone call told her that we were just putting the finishing touches on it, and it would be in their office by Friday. Of course, we had done absolutely nothing up to that point regarding any such proposal. We then quickly arranged a breakfast meeting at Rob’s.
Jeff Green: Just because we had an "in" doesn’t mean we got a show right away. The fact is the station was under the impression they were going to be getting an extremely simple, low-intensity, low-production-value program that would essentially be a one-camera recording of the workshops the troupe was doing. This way they could invest a minimum in manpower and hardware for the initial shooting and the final editing would be similarly simple and economical. A secondary factor was that we had every intention of shooting and doing the editing in Ottawa, and the CHRO facilities in Ottawa are designed only for news-gathering, meaning a minimum of studio space and effects capability.
My background is in radio, and I had met the Salt & Pepper team when I had produced and directed a weekly children’s program for them on a local FM station. They had enjoyed their work with me, and so, having no media experience themselves, when they were offered the TV slot they came to me to see if I was interested, which I was.
 Michael Cormier: As I recall, Jeff Green just sort of appeared out of nowhere just when we needed him; very much the way that Chip, his character on Cowboy Who? did. Jeff had produced a radio comedy series of ours called The Salt & Pepper Radio Show for CHEZ 106 in Ottawa, and we all hit it off resoundingly. I suppose it just went without saying that, should we find ourselves with a TV series, he’d be our man in the booth.
Jeff Green: However, I also knew that the reason they had come to me was because I would want to do something more than the less-than-thrilling show the TV station was expecting, and so I agreed to get involved if they understood that I would not only be directing and producing but also co-writing, and most probably editing as well.
Michael Cormier: We picked a cowboy theme for the show because the very notion seemed so silly and out-of-touch that it made us all laugh. I seem to recall writing the script for the pilot the day we got the phone call. By Friday, we had a new committed and enthusiastic partnership and a proposal on the desk of the nice lady at CHRO-TV. After that, I’m kind of fuzzy on the details.
| “It’s as anarchistic as the Marx Brothers, as psychedelic as “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” and as innocent as “Winnie the Pooh,” and produced on a shoestring by some very clever and creative folks who appear to have broken into some second rate TV studio…” |
Jeff Green: As it turned out at this time the Salt & Pepper company was itself in flux, and the final team that came together for this project was just myself and two others, Rob Eastland and Mike Cormier. We began a series of intensive meetings, and soon had hammered together an over-arching concept and general story for a complete new series of 13 shows
Michael Cormier: I remember the three of us spending a great deal of our time together doubled over with laughter. One of the greatest sources of laughter was the very fact that such a stodgy, country-style TV station was actually allowing us to produce this freaky show, let alone put it on the air.
 Jeff Green: This we still had to pitch to the station, which to this point still had no idea of our change in plans. So it was that we ended up sitting down with CHRO Executive Producer and spinning him this new concept. What he immediately saw was that what had been a micro-budget production had suddenly become something else that called for a lot of studio shooting in a significant set, and a whole mess of editing. The only thing that gave him the impression that it was at all do-able was my assurance that I was an accomplished video editor and that I would be doing all the cutting in the news edit suite in after-hours times. Since the studio shooting did not represent all that much more involvement than the original concept, and since we would be handling everything else the station agreed to cover the costs of a pilot.
Michael Cormier:For the next four seasons, we were a crew favorite and one of the few shows the station produced, which the employees watched at home on their own time. If that’s not success, what is?
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