Paul's Homepage | Subatomic Humor

Here's some stuff I've done for CBC Radio.

In Edmonton, you can hear me on Radio Active (Thursdays at about 5:55 PM) and, again, Friday mornings on Edmonton AM.

Across the country, you can hear me Friday mornings on This Morning.

More stuff at mp3.com:
some of my more recent stuff is in mp3 format at my mp3.com page.


Some of these sketches are encoded in Quicktime, some use Realaudio. Do you prefer one format over the other? Let me know!

Shameless plug: If you like my radio stuff, buy my book! 100 Years of Subatomic Humor now on sale!
To hear these sketches you need Quicktime 4. If you don't have Quicktime 4, get it here. (It's free.)

The Gaspe Alliance Monster (This Morning, June 22, 2000) The Alliance has broken through in Quebec, issuing thousands of new memberships in Gaspe. Or has it? Turns out hundred of these new memberships are bogus. So are these new Alliance members real or not? To find the answer we must enter the world of mystery...

Click here to listen.

Big Brother II: Electric Boogaloo (Radio Active, June 1, 2000) They've dissolved the Big Brother database, and Big Brother's left without a job.

Click here to listen.

Traffic (Radio Active, May 25, 2000) The pedestrian taffic report.

Click here to listen.

Rock em Sock em Debating (This Morning, May 25, 2000) The Alliance debates were really boring.

Click here to listen.

Gladiator (This Morning, May 18, 2000) Joe Clark, gladiator!

Click here to listen.

Air Canada/Canadian Airlines (Radio Active, May 11, 2000) Air Canada and Canadian are now the same company -- a monopoly. Some of their new commercials.

Commercial One
Commercial Two
Commercial Three

Drugs (This Morning, May 11, 2000) The government's looking for a contractor to supply it with marijuana for medical experiments. That calls for one thing... drug humour!

Click here to listen.

Nuclear (This Morning, May 4, 2000) Canada's defense and foreign affairs ministers were fighting in public this week.

Click here to listen.

Hat of Justice (Radio Active, April 27, 2000) Calgary's getting new hats for their meter maids (and men). Cowboy hats! Yeehah!

Click here to listen.

Backroom (This Morning, April 27, 2000) A former back-room strategist, Tom Long, announced he's going into politics this week. But what exactly is the back room? Where is it?

Click here to listen.

Pre-News Wrapup (Radio Active, April 20, 2000) The news just before but not at the top of the hour.

Click here to listen.

When Media Attacks! (This Morning, April 20, 2000) The media's turned ugly on the Prime Minister this month. That's because they're wild animals.

Click here to listen.

Spy Trouble (Radio Active, April 13, 2000) Canada's spy agency... CSIS.. is having labour problems. More than a hundred members of the agency have launched a lawsuit against the federal government. They say morale is low.. and that they're owed millions of dollars in backpay and bonuses. Here to explain the crisis at CSIS... is Paul Mather's World of Things.

Click here to listen.

Weather Report (This Morning, April 13, 2000) The PM caused some controversy on his trip overseas. Just goes to show you you shouldn't travel abroad without being prepared, so here's the international weather.

Click here to listen.

The Vanishing Rich (Radio Active, April 6, 2000) The delegates at this week's CEO Summit in Toronto warned of a brain drain unless there are more corporate tax cuts. Here's a bit about the plight of the rich, forced to leave Canada and head to greener climes.

Click here to listen.

Another sketch about the Canadian Alliance (This Morning, April 6, 2000) Joe Clark wants the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance to change their name. Clark argues that by using the word "conservative" the Alliance is creating confusion between themselves and the Progressive Conservative party. But does anybody actually confuse the two parties? Correspondent Peter Brown reports from Edmonton.

Click here to listen.

Reform Party (This Morning, March 30, 2000) The Reform Party disappeared this weekend, replaced by the Canadian Alliance. The pundits continue to argue over what this means for federal politics, but there's another, more down-to-earth question: what will become of all the now-obsolete Reform Party brochures, letterhead, and bumper stickers?

Click here to listen.

Polar Lander (Radio Active, March 30, 2000) NASA has released the results of an independent investigation into the failure of the Mars Polar Lander. The $203 million spacecraft disappeared last December on its way to the red planet. This week's report blames the mission's failure on mismanagement and underfunding, and claims NASA has been trying to do too much with too little. Paul Mather's World of Things now takes you live to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where a NASA spokesperson is about to make a statement.

Click here to listen.

Captain Edmonton (This Morning, February, 2000) Here's a skit Peter Brown and I did for Basic Black. It's pretty Edmonton-centric, so you may or may not get it.

Click here to listen.

NORAD (Radio Active, March 16, 2000) Canada has a tough decision to make. Should we join the new American missile defence program... or should we say no and risk our position in Norad. Here with some answers... is Paul Mather's World of Things.

Click here to listen.

Boot Camp (This Morning, March 16, 2000) The leadership issue was front and centre this week. Here's a boot camp for leadership hopefuls.

Click here to listen.

TSE (Radio Active, March 9, 2000) Analysts are still trying to figure out what went wrong at the Toronto Stock Exchange this week. Trading was stopped twice when the TSE's computers crashed. Here with all the answers is PAUL MATHER's WORLD OF THINGS.

Click here to listen.

Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? (Radio Active, Feb. 24, 2000) Paul Mather's World of Things has a look at trash TV.

Click here to listen.

How to be Middle-Class (This Morning, Feb. 23, 2000) Here's another one I did for This Morning: The budget is going to feature a middle-class tax cut, and that's left some higher-income Canadians loudly proclaiming that they, too, belong to the middle class. There's moneymaking potential in this sudden outbreak of reverse social climbing...

Click here to listen.

Hotel MIR (Radio Active, Feb. 17, 2000) To most of the world.. the russian space station Mir is a broken-down, obsolete, dangerous wreck.

But to a group of investors.. it's a DREAM VACTION SPOT. The investors have signed a deal to rent Mir and turn it into a holiday resort.

What will you get for your twenty million dollar ticket? Here's a preview of hotel Mir.

Click here to listen.

Hackers! (Radio Active, Feb. 10, 2000) The computer hackers' attack on some of the world's biggest websites has created confusion.. terror.. and dread. Luckily for us there is a line of defense...

Click here to listen.

HRDC (This Morning, Feb. 3, 2000) The Liberals faced a big scandal this week when an audit discovered the Human Resourced Development Department hadn't kept proper records for the approximately $1 billion they hand out each year. Here's their excuse. (This Morning played this nationally on CBC. Good gig!)

Click here to listen.

Ethical Funds (Radio Active, Feb. 3, 2000) Ethical Funds Ltd. introduced ethical investment funds to Canada. Now they're suing another company for starting another fund using the word "ethical."

Click here to listen.

Cat Bylaw (Radio Active, Jan 27, 2000) There's a new cat bylaw in Edmonton. How do you enforce it? The cat patrol!

Click here to listen.

Hockey Plea (Radio Active, Jan 20, 2000) "The federal government's multimilion-dollar plan to bail out Canada's six professional hockey teams continues to draw scorn from policiticans and the general public." -- CBC Newsworld. How can we keep the teams in Canada without government subsidies? We have to look into our hearts.

Click here to listen.

The News at 5:54 The news right before, but not at, the top of the hour.

Click here to listen.

The XJ11 The U.K. government is considering implementing a satellite monitoring system to catch speeders. Car fans and auto organizations are up in arms about it, so the government released this promotional tape pushing the concept.

Click here to listen.

Beatles Anthology: (Radio Active, October 1996) Apple records was re-releasing yet another Beatles compilation containing more as-yet-unreleased Beatles "gems."

2 minutes 40 secs, 240K

Click here to listen.
Muffled Music for Muscle Cars: This sketch is pretty self-explanatory.

Click here to listen.

Iditarod: (Radio Active, March, 1997) The Iditarod is dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome. We had arranged to speak with Jeff King, last year's winner, but Jeff cancelled at the last minute, so instead we have on the line Chimo, the lead dog on Jeff's team.

2 minutes 47 secs, 148K

Click here to listen.

Ginger Spice: (Radio Active, October, 1998) It's the end of an era; the end of a dream. Ginger Spice has just quit the Spice Girls. We take you now to a special report.

4 minutes, 14 secs, 320K

Click here to listen.

Elmo The Elephant: (Radio Active, January, 1998) In 1953, Kellog's held a contest where children were asked to pick the new mascot for Frosted Flakes. Tony the Tiger won, but what about the other mascots?

6 minutes, 24 secs, 328K

Click here to listen.

Financial Report: (Radio Active, February, 1998) And now it's time for the financial report.

1 minute, 68K

Click here to listen.

Windows '98: (Radio Active, October, 1998) On the eve of the product launch of Windows '98, Peter Brown tours Microsoft.

4 minutes, 368K

Click here to listen.

These sketches are streamed in RealAudio. If you don't have the RealAudio player, get it here.

Canadian Stunt Cycle: Eddy Knieval, Canada's premiere daredevil, operates entirely on government grants, so he mostly jumps over noted Canadian authors.

(This one's just a clip from a longer sketch, and may or may not make any sense to you.)

Canadian Stunt Cycle

Bank Merger: The Royal Bank and The Bank of Montreal, two big Canadian banks, want to merge but the government said no. Now they're mounting a "grass roots" campaign complete with demonstrations, a booklet, and a web site. Here's a sneak peek at some of the radio spots they're producing:

Bank Merger 1

Bank Merger 2

Acts of God: A sketch I did for Definitely Not the Opera

Acts of God

Breaking into This Old House: Another sketch I did for Definitely Not the Opera

Breaking into This Old House

Safe Bank: And, yet another one for DNTO.

Safe Bank!

If you like this stuff, you can always make me look good and email the people I work with at Radio Active or This Morning. Although, it's probably best if you only email them if you actually heard the piece on the radio.

Need Help? Here's the Quicktime help page and here's the RealAudio help page.