It featured adolescent and teenage actors performing in a sketch comedy format similar to America's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and Canada's Second City Television.

The show was notable for launching the careers of many performers, including alternative rock musician Alanis Morissette, filmmaker Patrick Mills, and television producer and screenwriter Bill Prady.

The show consisted of comedy sketches, music videos, and live phone-in contests in which the viewer could win prizes such as transistor radios, record albums, model kits, etc.

For example, station personality Jim Johnson emceed the disco-dance segments and shared tidbits about the artists featured in music videos.

Veteran comedy actor Les Lye played numerous recurring characters and was initially the only adult to perform in the show's sketches.

Actress Abby Hagyard, who played the maternal character "Valerie" opposite Lye's paternal role "Lance," joined the series in 1982.

Occasionally, the older children in the cast (including Christine McGlade, Sarah West or Cyndi Kennedy) played adult characters.

After a successful first season, a national network version of You Can't Do That on Television entitled Whatever Turns You On was produced for CTV and debuted in September 1979 (its hour-long pilot episode had aired in May).

Four of the hour-long CJOH episodes from the 1981 season ("Strike Now", "Sexual Equality", "Crime and Vandalism", and "Peer Pressure") are available for public viewing on YouTube.

Viewers in the United States were given the opportunity to enter the Slime-In, a contest hosted by Nickelodeon that flew the winner to the set of You Can't Do That on Television to be slimed.

It featured several main cast members of YCDTOTV including Les Lye, Christine McGlade, Kevin Kubusheskie and Adam Reid.

[citation needed] The 1981 episodes were set to air for the last time during a 1985-week-long promotion called "Oldies but Moldies," with contests in which viewers could win prizes such as "tasty, fresh chocolate syrup".

As Nickelodeon was beginning to aim for a younger demographic, and many of the 1981 episodes dealt with topics more relevant to teenagers (such as smoking, drugs, sexual equality and peer pressure), the network opted not to renew the contract.

YCDTOTV has been occasionally referenced during episodes of Robot Chicken, including some of the show's trademark gags, such as locker jokes, Barth's Burgery and green slime.

It was followed immediately by a still shot that is a direct reference to YCDTOTV's opening sequence, with the words "You Can't Do That on Television" written in red over a man's face.

In the NewsRadio episode "The Song Remains the Same", Mr. James celebrates April Fools' Day (in February) by having Joe install the "trigger machines" from YCDTOTV, and then tricks the cast into getting slimed and doused with water.

[10] The Saturday Night Live season 47 episode hosted by John Mulaney features a humorous account of how green slime came to be introduced to YCDTOTV and ultimately Nickelodeon.

[11] In July 2004, to celebrate the program's 25th anniversary, a reunion special called Project 131 with the theme Changes was produced at CJOH-TV starring five members of the original cast.

These included Brodie Osome, Marjorie Silcoff, and Vanessa Lindores (visibly pregnant at the time), Justin Cammy and Alasdair Gillis.

The show's skits gave satirical and exaggerated views of grown-ups as clueless, out of touch, and often using their status as adults to take advantage of kids.

Hosts Christine and Alanis frequently insulted each other and each tried to outdo the other in their roles, reflecting the real-life rivalries and competition taking place among kids in everyday life.

Originally created by Rand MacIvor (under art director John C. Galt), who was inspired by Terry Gilliam's "gilliamations," the opening animation sequence was a sequence of surreal images set to Rossini's "William Tell Overture" performed in a Dixieland jazz arrangement by the National Press Club and Allied Workers Jazz Band.

Another episode, titled "Inequalities," began with a disclaimer that read, "The following program contains certain scenes which may not be suitable for mature audiences, Juvenile discretion is advised" in lieu of a "pre-empted" show.

Some "opposites" features were reversals of the roles and gags related to the show's recurring characters (usually played by Les Lye or Abby Hagyard), such as the cast getting to execute El Captaino at the firing squad or torturing Nasti the dungeon keeper.

In the 1981 and 1982 seasons, Barth had a worker, Zilch (played by Darryll Lucas), whom he frequently insulted and abused, often by hitting him with a pan and knocking him out cold.

Examples of the fictional production company include "Black Eye" ("Bullying"), "Can't Give It Away" ("Marketing"), "Split Down the Middle" ("Divorce"), "Hang Out to Dry" ("Malls") and "Blood Is Thicker Than Water" ("Families").

The post-credit production bumper was generally followed by one final sketch, also borrowing a concept from Laugh-In, in which the jokes continued for a time after the credits finished rolling.

[19] Eventually baby shampoo was added so that it the slime would wash out of the actors' hair more easily after several of the female cast members complained.

In later years, the recipe consisted simply of green food coloring and cottage cheese, though it spoiled if left too long under hot studio lights.

Apart from the central cast as Les Lye and Abby Hagyard, who played the adult character roles, over 100 pre-teen and teenage actors appeared on YCDTOTV between 1979 and 1990.