RETRONTARIO was created to celebrate the neglected corners of Ontario’s rich televisual history; to put back into circulation material which rightly or wrongly had fallen into a black hole and was for all intents and purposes, lost.

Our culture has long struggled with the question of which ephemeral items to keep and place in museums, and which to forget and discard. When it comes to a highly disposable medium like Television, the latter sentiment unfortunately tends to win out. Having spent a considerable amount of time in front of the Television whilst growing up, we at RETRONTARIO had amassed a large collection of “fuzzy memories” which had stayed with us through adulthood, and which we were eager to re-visit; Things like Captain High Liner, “This is CBC”, the theme song from DEAR AUNT AGNES, Astar the robot who could put his arms back on, the disco beat from WUTV Buffalo 29 bumpers, etc., etc. Sadly when we looked to quench this nostalgic thirst on YouTube in its early days, there were no such videos. Not only that, there was nothing online at all which spoke of that golden televisual time for those who grew up in Ontario. This was 2006.