Network: CTV Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1987 to 1992
Broadcast Medium: Television
The Rockets in this children’s Saturday morning television series were a group of young performers aspiring to careers in show business – and were played by a talented bunch of youngsters who were making confident steps in that direction themselves. Michael Golden, Robynne Kazima, Simon James, Chioma Patterson and Joelle Prober were The Rockets, and their mentor, choreographer and aerobics instructor Janice was played by Janice Dunning. Janice had already enjoyed great success in an earlier children’s television series, Let’s Go.
Part musical and part comedy, The Rockets was all the richer for the close to 400 original songs written for the series by Victor Davies, who accompanied the group on keyboards with stalwart support from Dan Donohue on guitar. As Michael Golden recalls, “There was always a song for each week’s problem, a song for the solution to the problem, and a song to do with the show within a show which we were rehearsing.”
While the residents were strong enough to carry what became a very popular weekly show, there were occasional guests, of the calibre of Rick Hansen and Ma-Anne Dionisio. The Rockets was produced at CTV affiliate CKY-TV Winnipeg. It joined the CTV schedule on Saturdays at 9:30am in September 1987 – replacing another very successful Winnipeg-originated show, Let’s Go – and ran on the network for five years.
Written by Pip Wedge – May, 2003