My Life, 10 Years Ago, in a TV News Magazine

Flipping around the channels tonight, and I discover that YTV is currently doing this thing called YTV Retro, where they're re-running a lot of their most popular programming from 10 years ago.
I tuned in to an episode of The Anti-Gravity Room. I remember, back in college, I was always glued to this show. A co-production of YTV and the Sci-Fi Channel, the Anti-Gravity Room was this weekly news magazine show dedicated to comic books. To date the show, the episode I caught featured these top stories:

• An interview with DC editor Mike Carlin about the new Superman. Yes, it was the dawn of the "Superman Blue" period.
• A review of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for the N64.
• The hot news that Batman: The Animated Series had begun producing new episodes
• An interview with indie comic book artist Seth about his self-published series Palookaville.
• A round table discussion with Wildstorm's stable of artists (including Jim Lee and J. Scott Campbell) about superhero fashion design.
  

With news like that, I would place this episode in, oh, early 1997.

Watching that episode was a real flashback for me. That was the news that I really cared about back then. Actually, it's the kind of news that I still care about. I think the Anti-Gravity Room faded from existence in 1998 or so...one of the last news stories on one of the last episodes I caught was that Bryan Singer had just signed on to do X-Men.

I wonder whatever happened to the hosts of The Anti-Gravity Room? Let's see here...creator, producer, and host Nick Scoullar moved to Belgium. He does an Internet-based talk show now called Instant Talk Show. No new episodes for a year...yikes.

But to us Canadians, the big kahuna, the main man on this show was Phil Guerrero. I'm sure we all remember him hosting the Zone in the 1990s...he was THE face of YTV in that decade. He became a major Canadian television personality. And now...he's gone. Faded from existence. According to the Internet Movie Database, the last credit to his name was in 2001, meaning that while he ruled the 90s, I guess there was no place for him in the 00's.

Hey! He's got his demo reel on YouTube!





I tell ya, this guy is due for a comeback. Come on, CTV! Corner Gas is going off in a year! Give him a sitcom pilot or something!

That's my image of the 1990s, man. Phil Guerrero, strutting down the street, rocking out to to some Nirvana on a Walkman, and sipping on a Crystal Pepsi.