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TAKE COLLEEN JONES ... PLEASE!
I KNOW, I KNOW, IT’S GOIN’ SOUND LIKE I’M
GETTIN’ GREEDY. AS USUAL I AM ASKING TOO
MUCH. BUT I CAN’T HELP BUT WONDER ALOUD:
Now that CTV has found other accommodations
for Liz Rigney, it is maybe possible that
CBC Nova Scotia can finally clip the wings of
its very own screaming banshee.
I refer, of course, to the one, the only Colleen
Jones.
Let’s just say that Liz Rigney was sedate, in
a very deep coma, compared to the long running
antics of gum chomping Colleen Jones.
You know when Colleen Jones is on your
television because you can hear the wailing
from your front lawn.
Equally unpleasant is that in every so-called
“story” Colleen Jones’s long-suffering cameraman
is forced to shoot, he’s also forced to shoot
Colleen Jones as the one and only focal point of
the alleged story.
Either this woman suffers terribly from Nar-
LIZ RIGNEY, FROM PREVIOUS PAGE In the fall of 2005, Liz Rigney finally got the
Ummm, like where do you go after that?
Do you let the dirt under your fingernails pile
up, disguise yourself in dirty, baggy clothes, go
undercover and hang out for the day bumming
quarters on Spring Garden Road, the province’s
unofficial Beggar’s Row?
Or, maybe, Liz, like an excitable first year J-
School intern, already turned that easily predictable
trick and I missed it. I apologize once
more.
So, after near 15 years of Liz Rigney, how do
we sum up her career? Did Liz Rigney live up to
her potential?
Well, we can’t sum up Liz’s television presenter
career in shades of black or white, good
or bad, success or failure.
Her television presenter career is too varied
to be measured by broad strokes.
That said, Liz’s seven or eight years on asinine
Breakfast Television, when the early morning
gigglefest was at it’s absolute birdbrained
best, didn’t do her any good.
She began this madness circa 1996. Liz
Rigney goes all the way back to the BT days of
Joesph Stalin lookalike Kurt Stoodley, and,
of course, up through the ranks of Scott Boyd
and Jayson Baxter.
In short, Liz Rigney stayed too long at Breakfast
Television. She became too closely identified
with that product. Not quite a form of career
suicide, but definitely a form of career castration.
Years later when she moved into the CTV
newsroom. Liz openly admitted her years at
Breakfast Television made it difficult for her to
be taken serious as a television reporter. No
kidding.
I remember standing with reporter Liz the night
health minister Jane Purves lost her seat in
2003 provincial general election. I remember Liz
asking Jane the question, “How are you feeling?”
I remember feeling, for a moment, as if I
was suddenly trapped in a hospital ward.
cissistic Personality Disorder, or she continues
to angle for her own show on Mother
Corp.
I don’t know, some sort of “On The Road
Again” with Colleen Jones, or “It’s a Living” with
Colleen Jones. Hell, maybe Colleen Jones wants
to bring back “Man Alive” so she can star in a
re-make of that? Become a gum chomping, obnoxious
21st century version of Roy
Bonisteel. Who knows?
What I do know is that giving Colleen Jones
her own CBC show would come at Canadian
taxpayers expense.
But as a consumer of CBC Nova Scotia I
strongly feel the right thing to do is to give Colleen
Jones her own regional half-hour show. It
would be the most prudent investment.
I think Colleen Jones would do rather well
working out of CBC North, either Yellowknife
or Whitehorse, which ever one is the coldest
and the bloody farthest from Nova Scotia.
Just a thought.
CTV job she had always wanted, entertainment
hack.
She was turned down for the gig when
Joanne Nugent was replaced by Todd Battis.
She was turned down for the gig when Todd
Battis was replaced by MairiAnna Bachynsky.
But when Bachynsky bolted for Toronto that
fall, Liz Rigney was third time lucky.
It no longer mattered that Liz had also been
passed over in favour of Starr Dobson as
Nancy Regan’s replacement on Live at 5.
Liz Rigney was in her element. She is a natural
born schmoozer, an entertainer, herself,
having released at least two CDs. For those of
you keeping score at home that’s two more CDs
than anybody at Frank Magazine.
Liz is a bit of a softie. For those who know
her on a personal level I am sure she is a wonderful,
faithful friend and an absolute scream to
hang out with.
Liz doesn’t like to offend people. Fact of the
matter is Liz Rigney never set out to be the next
Barbara Frum or Paul Withers in a skirt.
In the entertainment world Liz’s over-the-top
exuberance only mirrored the self-aggrandizing
artzie-fartzies she had to deal with. To some
Liz’s excitable flighty nature no longer stood
out like it once did.
In fact, to some, if you didn’t know better, you
might have thought a time or two that Liz Rigney
was mocking, imitating or doing her own parody
of the excitable artzie-fartzies.
She wasn’t. She was just being Liz Rigney.
Liz Rigney was one of them.
To that extent, Liz Rigney did live up to her
journalistic potential.
But it’s all over now. It’s yesterday’s news.
Liz is “all growed up” now. She has her own
office, her own walls to decorate and she has
put away her childish things.
We wish Liz Rigney the very best.
Does Frank Know?
atlanticfrank@eastlink.ca
Colleen
Jones
YO, HO, BLOW
THE MAN DOWN!
SPEAKING OF NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY
DISORDER, I CHATTED A BIT WITH TELEVISION
FOLK THIS WEEK, BOTH ON AND OFF THE
RECORD.
When the subject of the coverage of Hurricane/Tropical
Storm Earl came up, I could
detect a bit of a groan from two of my friends.
The object of their derision was a piece by
CTV Atlantic’s Paul Hollingsworth.
It was shot down on the wooden dock on the
Halifax Waterfront where all television reporters
go when a hurricane/tropical storm comes
barrelling in on Halifax.
This is done for one reason only, ‘cause they
all want to make like Peter Pan and fly high into
the hurricane sky. Makes for good television. Or
at least that’s what I’m told.
Honest to god, the local television reporters/
producers must just, excuse a bad pun, wet
themselves over this spot.
The one exception is Shelley Steeves, the
Maritime correspondent for the Oakville-based
Weather Network.
Shelley likes to cover hurricanes from Lower
Water Street, just diagonally across from the
Halifax Law Courts, where she long ago discovered
her favourite manhole cover which
bubbles up when the storm really gets going.
Shelly loves that manhole cover. Especially
when it’s boiling over like grammy’s whistling
teakettle on the front of the ol’ coal stove.
But back to CTV.
And don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger,
but two of my friends thought Paul’s piece out
on that favourite wooden dock wasn’t exactly
spontaneous enough for them.
One friend concluded, “You can always tell a
piece by Paul...”
Whatever that means.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2010 ATLANTIC CANADA FRANK 11