TV Garth Visits Toronto Gay Pride 2011!

Greetings TV Garth readers! Every year I make the trek to downtown Toronto for the annual Gay Pride festivities. Since 2009, it has become my goal to find as much TV related mayhem as possible during the celebration! This year I was overwhelmed with how many reporters I saw, and I wanted to do a special post to showcase it all! The highlight was being interviewed by Global's Christina Stevens on the day of the parade! Sit back and get ready for a recap that's proud as a peacock! (More on that in a bit!)

Friday July 1

Not too long after arriving in downtown Toronto, I spotted a City TV news crew setting up a live shot!



Reporter Cynthia Mulligan was getting ready to report on Pride near the Churchmouse & Firkin pub! Check out her story by clicking here.



Of course I had to snag a pic with Ms. Mulligan!



Next up, I noticed CTV Toronto's Colin D'Mello getting ready for a live shot from another section of the street.



Look closely and you'll see he's wearing a rainbow hankie in his front pocket!



It wouldn't be "TV Garth at Pride" if I wasn't Colin out for Mr. D'Mello's picture! (Click here to see many of CTV Toronto's Pride stories!)



During the Trans March I saw Global Toronto's David Shum interviewing some of the folks who were in the parade.



Later that night at my hotel, I saw his story on Global news. (Seen via hotel cable, and not OTA unfortunately!)



I was proud as a peacock (and perhaps a little tipsy at this point) after my pal Mr. A surprised me with an NBC pillow that he'd ordered online from the NBC store!



Since it was around 11pm, I posed with my new friend alongside the newscast on Buffalo's NBC affiliate WGRZ. (Again, seen via hotel cable.)



Nothing says Pride like a rainbow flag, alcohol and dogs wearing inappropriate outfits on TV!



Saturday July 2

I was waiting with friends for the Dyke March to begin and squealed when I saw CTV Toronto's Colin D'Mello again! He probably thought I was crazy, but I couldn't help wanting to Snapple up as many pics of TV personalities as I could get!



Toronto city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam appeared during the march!



Later, I saw Kristyn Wong-Tam over the air on Global Toronto's July 3 newscast when I got home Sunday night. (Seen via Toronto's CIII, RF65.)



CFTO's Colin D'Mello was interviewing one of the allegedly "controversial" groups that marched in the parade that day. He did a great job reporting over the weekend, and sent out this neat Tweet after the Sunday parade: "Pride today was awesome! Was manhandled by both sexes, hit on, soaked with water and pretty damn happy to be a part ot it all!"



Global Toronto's David Shum was also sniffing out potential stories during the march.



Check out David Shum and his cameraman chasing the action!



You can see David's story here:



I was surprised to see a CHCH cameraman there too! (Click on the pic and enlarge it via Flickr to see the detail on the microphone!)



After the march I came across a City TV cameraman and reporter Saphia Khambalia! Click here for Saphia's story where she awesomely states that the goal of the Dyke March is to "kiss old stereotypes goodbye." (Contrast that with Cindy Pom's Sun News story which is a tad more stereotypical.)



Sunday July 3

Christina Stevens from Global National interviewed me right before I marched in the Pride parade! It was a total thrill and I loved the experience! (Stevens asked me about my thoughts on Toronto mayor Rob Ford skipping out on Pride.)



Here I am with Global's Christina Stevens and her cameraman!



Check out the story here:



I also saw Sun News reporter Cindy Pom with her cameraman getting ready to cover the parade! (Currently Sun News is both a cable specialty channel, and still available over the air on analog 52 and digital 66.) Click here for Cindy's story, which she ended with, "You've heard the expression 'over the moon'? Well I guess you could say that people are 'over the rainbow.'" That's probably the most Pom wonderful use of a Pride cliche in a news report I've ever seen!



During the parade march we passed the Shaw Media building which includes Global TV!



Speaking of Global, we passed a hands on billboard for their new Summer series Combat Hospital.



As the march continued, I got to see Global Toronto's Laura Zilke reporting live during the Pride parade!



I couldn't pass up the chance to take a pic with Ms. Zilke!



Later that night when I got home, I saw Zilke's report on Global's 11pm news! (Seen via Toronto's CIII, RF65.)



Check out the full story here:



I was impressed that dozens of people climbed the roof to celebrate over the air reception with that classic antenna! (Either that, or they just wanted a better view of the parade. I prefer to believe the former.)



It was hot outside, but CP24's Gurdeep Ahluwalia was pretty scorching himself. He was joined by the divalicious Melissa Grelo to host cable news channel CP24's Pride Parade coverage! (I heart CP24 for always doing live coverage of the full parade on TV!)



Here's one more pic of CP24's Gurdeep Ahluwalia and Melissa Grelo for good measure! After the parade, Gurdeep Tweeted "What a blast! Best party in #TO." Love him! (And not just because of those tight blue jeans...although that does help the love!)



A delicious pic of the CTV tent and a CP24 satellite truck straddling a McDonald's!



I also captured some Fierce Diva Action as I snapped the fabulous Andrea Bain doing Pride coverage for Yahoo Canada! Click here to check out her story!



After the parade was over, I bumped into an awesome City TV street team that was promoting Modern Family! The woman on the right generously gave me her last City TV Pride themed wristband! (She made my weekend!) Also check out the awesome sign featuring Modern Family's gay couple Mitch and Cameron!



Here's the City TV Modern Family Pride wristband in all its glory! I love it!



Click here to see my full Flickr set of Pride 2011 pics (including some outtakes!)

Stay tuned to TV Garth for more proud coverage of TV related fun!

The "Fagbug" Adventure at Toronto Gay Pride 2010!

Greetings TV Garth readers! Before I do my official Toronto Pride recap (including my adventures with TV personalities, reporters and reception) I wanted to blog about marching in the parade with an awesome car known as the "Fagbug" and present my interview with the women behind it!

At last year's Toronto Pride I was dressed in drag as "Anne Tenna" as a tribute to my love of television reception. This year because I was slightly lazier and didn't want to spent a giant chunk of the weekend shaving, I was "Man Tenna". As Man Tenna, I had a shirt created that showcased some of my favourite TV station logos (all from pics of my actual reception!)



I was strutting my stuff, and getting ready to march with a few friends when I saw the Fagbug fabulously sitting in the Parade route. I spotted the New York state license plate and was curious what city the car was from. (My dream was to bump into people from out of town and see if they were from any of the cities I've picked up long distance reception from.) We struck up a conversation and when they mentioned being from Syracuse, NY I shrieked and told them that I pick up WSYR occasionally from my house! That's Sonya Parrish and her partner Erin Davies pictured with the Fagbug below.



Davies recently created a documentary about how the Fagbug came into existence and her experiences travelling with it. It all started in Albany, NY when a rainbow sticker on Davies' car led to someone spraypainting the words "fag" and "u r gay" on the vehicle. Davies eventually decided to leave the graffiti on the vehicle and embarked on a roadtrip through the US and Canada to collect peoples' reactions to it. A year after that roadtrip, it was made over into the version you see here. Find out the whole scoop on http://www.fagbug.com Also check out a great article from the Syracuse Post-Standard here.



When we were talking with Erin and Sonya, they asked if we'd like to march with them and carry a Pride flag behind the car. It was a neat opportunity and we agreed. You can see us carrying the flag below (photo by Louie Chan.)



I also took the opportunity to interview Erin and Sonya about the car, the film, and Syracuse television! Watch the interview here:



Roughly two weeks later the Fagbug travelled to Rochester, NY and I squealed when I saw it was featured in a story by Matt Molloy on WROC! Click here for the article and video.

I was a little sad I didn't get to capture the Fagbug story "live" on WROC (I was at work so I couldn't even check if I was getting reception of it.) But I was picking up Rochester, NY stations during the closing weekend of their Pride festivities. Guess what I saw on the late Sunday news?



That's right! I got to DX the Fagbug via Rochester's WHAM (RF13) only a short time after marching with it! The pic above was from the July 18 newscast.

Stay tuned to TV Garth for more fabulousity and TV related treats!