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The Best Canadian Shows on Encore+

Encore+ is a YouTube channel set up in partnership with the Canadian Media Fund and the National Film Board. Want a trip down memory lane, or just to make sure that your kids are watching Littlest Hobo ? Encore+ has you covered. 

Due South 

Due South may be the strangest show to come out of Canada. Try explaining it to someone and you’ll get questions like: So he’s a Canadian Mountie but he’s working in Chicago? And he has a deaf, lip-reading half-wolf? And the dude had a sense of smell so powerful he could sniff a rat’s breath and figure out that the rat had been eating barbecue? And they filmed in Toronto instead of Chicago and you can see the CN Tower and everything? And the guy who made this went on to win Oscars? 

The answer to all these questions is an emphatic yes. And there’s even more strangeness to be had. If there’s fault to be found with Due South, it’s that it’s the cause of so many conversations with Americans along the lines of “No, Mounties don’t always dress that way.”

The Littlest Hobo

Is there a voice calling you down the road? Do you make new friend at every stop? And maybe tomorrow you’ll settle down? Then clearly, you need more of The Littlest Hobo in your life. 

Mostly starring London, an extraordinarily well-trained German shepherd, the Littlest Hobo goes from town to town, helping people along the way. And unlike some other TV dog, the Littlest Hobo does more than fish clumsy kids out of wells. He’s helped an ex-con go straight, saved a young couple’s marriage, and enabled a ballerina to defect from behind the Iron Curtain. And to think most dogs can just manage sit, stay, and roll over. 

Are You Afraid of the Dark? 

Here’s a little trivia for you: Hollywood star Elisha Cuthbert debuted as a member of the Midnight Society on TV’s best horror anthology, Are You Afraid of the Dark? 

Of course, we use the word ‘horror’ pretty loosely. Haunted movie theatres, spooky forests, and scary clowns made this series scary enough to enthral a generation of Canadian nine-year-olds but not so scary that they’d end up with nightmares. And who amongst us didn’t want to be able to join the Midnight Society, sit around the campfire, and tell our own scary story?

You can watch all seven seasons of Are You Afraid of the Dark? right here

The Bottom Line

We’ve just scratched the surface here. You can also find episodes of Are You Afraid of the DarkNorthwoodReady or NotMoccasin FlatsRadio Active,This Is WonderlandSlings & Arrows, and more on Encore+. As streaming grows more popular, expect more and more classic TV to show up online.