Network: CTV Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1970 to 1973
Broadcast Medium: Television
Producers Phil Hobel and Doug Leiterman had a happy knack for producing slick and often award-winning documentary series with a maximum of presentational flair. In their hands, even the most trivial piece of information became a triumph of style over substance. Leiterman had honed his production skills sharply as producer of the controversial CBC series This Hour Has Seven Days. As the 1960s ended, Phil and Doug produced for CTV a series of one-hour specials called The Fabulous Sixties, with one episode covering each year of the decade.
The success of these specials prompted CTV to welcome Hobel-Leiterman’s next offering with open arms, and it too enjoyed considerable success on the network. Here Come The Seventies was a half-hour series that looked ahead at anticipated technological marvels and innovations, and did so with great flair and élan. The off-beat mood for each episode was set right from the opening credits, which featured a naked woman walking into a lake, to music provided by the Canadian group Syrinx.
The theme tune was called Tillicum, which made it to No.38 on the Canadian charts on June 5th 1971, and the group was led by electronic music pioneer John Mills-Cockell on piano and organ.
The filmed series debuted on CTV in September 1970, on Thursdays at 9:30pm, a time period which it held for the three years of its life – by which time the Seventies were no longer coming but had well and truly arrived. It was succeeded for one more season by another, less successful Hobel-Leiterman show, Target: The Impossible (q.v.)
Written by Pip Wedge – November, 2002