Open Mike with Mike Bullard (1997)

Overview

Open Mike with Mike Bullard was a Canadian late-night talk show which was broadcast live from 1997 to 2003 on CTV and on The Comedy Network in primetime. It was hosted by comedian Mike Bullard and initially taped at a studio at the back of Wayne Gretzky's restaurant in Toronto, Ontario before CTV moved the show to Toronto's historic Masonic Temple. Open Mike with Mike Bullard featured two or three panel guests and one musical or comedy performance nightly. The show's bandleader and musical director was Orin Isaacs. Part of Bullard's comedic style was interacting with audience members during his opening monologue, often deriving humour from finding ways to poke fun at an audience member's expense. In the summer of 2003, Bullard's contract with CTV expired. He did not like their practice of shutting the show down for summers; he knew that it interrupted his exposure and he did not like to see reruns that were dated. He arranged and signed a multi-year deal to start a new, similar show on Global called The Mike Bullard Show. The new show retained many of the people and sketches from Open Mike, but CTV had replaced his show by carrying The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in his old time slot. The Mike Bullard Show was no match for that competition, and his show was cancelled in 2004 after only 13 weeks. Bullard's multi-year contract with Global prevented him from working elsewhere at that time, so he ended up with no exposure at all for a long time.