Night Walk TV Series

VIDEO BY EPISODE | COMMENTS


Playlist: Night Walk / Night Ride / Night Moves / Night Glide


MICHAEL SPIVAK
brought to life the 1986 Night Walk TV series by assembling top Toronto area jazz musicians, composing all songs and writing all lyrics, and producing sound sessions in a Global Television Network studio, as well as hiring Bill Elliott to direct visual elements in what is now considered an early example of “slow TV.”

With full permission from series originator and creator MICHAEL SPIVAK, owner of the production company Jaylar Productions Limited, this is the official website of the Night Walk TV series.

Elliott came up with the idea of a first-person trip in and around downtown Toronto using an open air Jeep and driving down the Don Valley Parkway with the relatively new Steadicam camera stabilizer. He created and edited the videos to complete MICHAEL SPIVAK’S vision of late night jazz music over filmed footage. SPIVAK worked out his vision with one of the owners of Global Television, Seymour Epstein. Four original episodes were filmed, featuring cinematographer David Crone.

An alternative to Global TV’s overnight test pattern, Night Walk was scheduled to begin airing at 4 a.m. ET on the morning of May 3, 1986. The first Night Walk episode features the Yorkdale Subway Station; Yonge Street’s Sam The Record Man, A&A Records, and Pizza Pizza (967-1111); Yorkville; Yonge Street at Eaton Centre; the Glencairn Subway Station; and The Sheraton Hotel and Royal Bank Plaza (PATH).

Night Ride followed by the early morning of June 22, 1986. See a snippet of TV Guide for the night of June 23, 1986 . Both shows were filmed in one night, on May 2, 1986 between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. Night Moves was also filmed in one night, on October 5, 1986, and began airing beginning at 3 a.m. EST on the early morning of December 7, 1986. Night Walk: Episode 2, featuring the same soundtrack as the first episode and footage from the Night Moves shoot, made its first appearance by May 1987. These four episodes were replayed nightly on Global Television throughout Ontario and parts of Canada until August 16, 1993.

Over the original show’s soundtrack by MICHAEL SPIVAK, the My Night Walk YouTube channel published the following updated and new episodes:

All updated episodes, except Night Ride, Ep 2, featured video footage from Johnny Strides’ YouTube channel. A big thanks to Johnny for the incredible 4K video taken on March 25, 2019 in Koreatown (North York/Willowdale), May 10, 2019 near Yonge-Dundas Square and an evening walk in the PATH; September 7, 2019 in Little Tokyo and Chinatown, and September 30, 2019 in Queen West; and August 30 in Yonge-Eglinton and October 5 in Nathan Phillips Square and Queen West during Nuit Blanche. Night Glide featured 4K60 footage filmed on October 5, 2019 (33 years to the day from the final original Night Walk series shoot featured in Night Moves and the second Night Walk), and Night Glide, Ep 2 featured an early snowfall in Toronto on November 11 and 13, 2019.

Sara Hamilton and David CD
Sara Hamilton and David’s CD featuring their five songs on Night Glide

The tunes in all episodes, except Night Glide’s songs 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, were composed by MICHAEL SPIVAK. Sara Hamilton and David, featured on the first Night Walk episode, performed all songs on Night Glide except the second song, “Where Will You Take Me?,” which was composed and written by SPIVAK. Bill Young, creator of the My Night Walk website, YouTube Channel and brand, directed and edited the 2019 Night Glide episodes and edited all other 2019 episodes.

The live stream of all episodes has been running 24/7 on the My Night Walk YouTube Channel since March 15, 2017. We hope you enjoy reminiscing with the amazing music and camerawork in these shows that were each broadcast more than 2,000 times in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

CBC interviews the team that filmed the episodes

VIDEO: EPISODES

ORIGINAL SERIES (1986)


Night Walk (1986) – 56 min.


Night Ride (1986) – 56 min.


Night Moves (1986) – 28 min.


Night Walk: Ep 2 (1986) – 56 min.

4K EPISODES (2019)


Night Ride: Ep 2 (2019) – 56 min.


Night Walk: Ep 3 (2019) – 56 min.


Night Moves: Ep 2 (2019) – 28 min.


Night Glide (2019) – 28 min.


Night Glide: Ep 2 (2019) – 28 min.


Night Walk: Ep 4 (2019) – 56 min.

VIDEO: LIVE STREAM, ALL EPS


Live Stream, all shows

COMMENT

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COMMENTS

Brian I. – April 2022
I remember watching this series at a very young age. I remember my mother was taking care of me being sick at the time and we were watching tv at this late hour and this so happened to be on. Then from that point forward I would wait until everyone was asleep then sneak into my living room and turn on Global and wait for the Global Test pattern countdown to end which would lead to watching Night Walk. I was so happy when I discovered this channel on youtube a while back and now I use it as my background ambience when I have trouble sleeping.

Mark W. – March 2022
Just fantastic memories while in college, coming home from working at Subway at 3am to have a drink and relax to night moves. I now live in the US, but any chance I get I’ll pull up these classic jazz filled dreams.

Darryl T., Oshawa, Ontario – August 2021
I used to watch the original show in 1986, when I was young. This show is the reason why I like jazz music, today. Always watched it throughout the years wherever I could find it. Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to put the high quality video together with this unbelievable music. Amazing work! Cheers!

Chris W., Los Angeles – March 2021
I’m sitting at home in LA but I grew up in London ON and remember watching these shows at home and dreaming of getting to a big city like Toronto. Usually I’d be half out and would just zone out and fall asleep to the music. This series IS Toronto. This has made me incredibly happy. Thank you so very very much.

Herbert M. – February 2021
I viewed your “walk down” Yonge St from Bloor May 12, 2019. I used to do that up to 1990 when I would visit every record store along the route then reach Sam The Record Man & later HMV. All that is gone/history & I haven’t been to Yonge Street in ages. No CD store; no me. Today, doing that route is a no due to my using a walker & leg issues.

Paul B., Toronto – August 2020
Such gorgeous music and videography, both the older and the newer. Many Thanks to all involved and the share to all of us.

Andrew R. – February 2020
Thank you so much for bringing these back! I have been searching for years to try to find them. They are some of my earliest memories, from when I was very young child living on Windermere Ave. I remember staying up after everyone had gone to bed to watch night ride. Thank you!

Jeffrey A., Kingsville – July 2019
I think CKLW in Windsor also played Night Ride.

Michael Lake – June 2019
These videos help me unwind after a stressful day.

A J – February 2019
I’ve never forgotten this series. It’s so vivid because I always had trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep and this was my sleeping aid. It was relaxing and helped me drift into a comfort sleep, but that was when the program was over for the night. These were special moments that I would like to see return becuse Toronto has changed so much since 1986, as has my life. My sleeping still is not better, I would say it’s probably worse but at least I can watch the clips and enjoy until I begin to drift again. Thanks for making this part of my life.

Ken – February 2019
Jan. 2019: I’m lying in bed drifting off to sleep, listening to ambient music by Ben Cox, and one piece sparked a memory of this program. Trolling through YouTube looking for ‘Toronto after dark 1980’s tv show’ and variations led me here. Always a night owl, I would have this on the TV after everything else went off the air. If I’d known that infomercials were in the future I would have found a way to record these for posterity. Many thanks to the producers giving permission and to you for having the foresight to save these artifacts from the past!

Michael L., Cambridge – February 2019
A little Trivia for you guys David C crone who was the camera man for these shows was also credited as camera man for season 3 episodes of Sharon Lois and Bram’s Elephant show. It seems to me he was working around Toronto both in the day time and the night as well

Paul, Stratford – January 2019
The memories these videos bring back. I sat here with tears in my face, Because i remember the videos, i remember walking those very streets in Toronto . I remember coming home and finding my now deceased father asleep in his favorite chair with this on the TV . You dont know the joy you just brought me…

Thank-you.

Rick C., Hamilton – December 2018
I love these and remember watching and daydreaming about walking these walks. I’m proud of them and TRULY wish somebody would reenact this series again seriously !!

Michael, Toronto – June 2018
What can I say this to me brings back all of those good memories of old school Global T.V. Fun fact camera man for Night walk David C Crone worked at the time of this show as camera man for season 3 of Sharon Lois and Bram’s Elephant show.

Rick, Toronto – May 2018
Hats off to you for creating this, clearly on behalf of many this was much needed, and to some degree some guilt on my part for not creating something like this myself, however you have done likely a better job of it. I too have all of these on VHS, captured in those years on the worst of the worst Memorex tapes, on varying qualities (SP, EP, etc) and recorded these very special jazz tracks (Canadian Jazz History) to MP4 from a thrift store VCR in 2008. I was in touch with Global and I believe Mr. Spivak in approx. 2003, I recall there was some considerations to copyrights on the music (it should have been commercially released) and Global ended up giving me some type of a corporate-political answer pretending to not know what I was talking about, despite being in touch with their archives department, and knowing their policies on media retention at the time.

From the subways, to Spadina, to the hotel lobbies, the neon lights long gone from the Convention Centre’s basement walls, after watching it for all this time on and off from the tapes, the songs seem to meld with the streets and the time I remember in the late 80s when Toronto was a fraction of the city it is today.

You’ve done a great service to many from posting this, and creating this site. As with yourself, and your story, I think this show provided a connectedness to Toronto for even Torontonians, but to many across the province, providing a glimpse, or unique portrayal of the city to people in rural communities across the province and beyond. You should be very proud of this, thank you.

Devon, Toronto – January 2018
I remember watching these late at night as a kid, I must have been up way past my bedtime! I live in Toronto and the city has changed so much since then, I was thinking it would be great to refilm these, same time of night, and follow the same route, and upload them side by side to see the how drastically different downtown Toronto is! What do ya think?

Sylvain, Quebec – January 2018
I am so glad that you put the entire series as it was presented from 1986 to 1993. I was 24 and lived in Ottawa when it started. I suffered from insomnia, so this wonderful music and the images were my companions into the wee hours of the morning. I wish this would be put on a DVD. Thank you for bringing back something so wonderful into my life.

Rachel – December 2017
Great stuff! Did you ever make it to Toronto? I hope you did, it’s my dream too. I want to visit while listening to the smooth Jazz soundtrack. All the best!

Jim, Los Angeles – December 2017
Awesome, finally someone got these up in their entirety. It would indeed be nice to find the masters, as there’s a lot lost in the blacks. Has anyone ever tried to precisely map the locations? So much has changed in 30 years, doing an exact reshoot (where possible) in 4k with a modern camera and gimbal could be a real trip.

Creative Director – November 2017
Would it be too much for someone to crank this stuff onto a DVD (with chapters) for easy access? I’d be happy to pay for these ALL. Thanx!! – ’80’s Night Owl & Club Rat’

Kenneth, Ottawa – October 2017
Please make an appletv app so that I only have to push one button to watch. I watched this hundreds of times.

AJ – October 2017
The Godfather of Slow TV — so glad to have this, it is helping cure my insomnia and providing chill-as-hell visual white noise whenever I need some grainy video artifacts to go with my Canadiana. Absolutely perfect, a timeless work of quasi-accidental art. Thanks for creating this site as a shrine to this strange, amazing video series.

Steve – September 2017
Finally the full episodes! Now only if someone can get their hands on the masters to get it in the best possible quality. I contacted Global about 15-20 years ago about this show. While they were quick to reply unfortunately they were no help. Now thanks to you I get to relive my 80’s insomnia in its entirety. Great job and thanks!

Daniel F., Toronto – September 2017
I’m so grateful. Thank you for making this website dedicated to Night Walk and uploading the complete episodes. I came across clips of Night Walk/Ride/Moves about two years ago on YouTube and instantly became enthralled and would share the clips with all of my friends. Thank you for scratching my itch. I can now enjoy the full episodes.

James Kirk – June 2017
wow this brings back memories. this is what got me into jazz and generally being mellow. thanks for this.

Michael Lake – June 2017
Nice to see all of the old Night walk full episodes on Youtube keep up the good work man this show brings back great memories of my childhood when I was little i had trouble sleeping and this helped me get to sleep.

Natsuhiko Shimada – June 2017
Nice to meet you, I’m Japanese. I found a “night walk” by chance. That was too great! When I was a child I remembered that I saw a similar program on TV. It may have been a “night walk.” Thank you so much for exposing these… I am looking forward to uploading from now on! best

Nina Keogh, Toronto – April 2017
Michael is a brilliant composer and wonder I have known him since the late 50s when he was a CBC producer/director. I am so thrilled that his beautiful ‘night rides and walks’ continue to bring joy to listeners! The musicians are Canada’s tops!

Big Will – March 2017
Great stuff!!! You got mentioned on Twitter from @1236 & @retrontario
Wish Global would produce something like this again. Very inexpensive to make…
Ever thought of making a new one?

Steve – March 2017
I used to watch these all the time. Thank You!

Thomas Phillips, Toronto – March 2017
This has been a lifelong dream of mine, to have just a constant stream of the night series… You’ve made me a very happy fellow!

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Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/mynightwalk

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Night Walk · Night Ride Toronto TV Series, 1986-2019