Do you remember the shows from your childhood? For me, they were The Elephant Show, Thomas the Tank Engine, Big Comfy Couch, and Fred Penner’s Place.
It’s been 23 years since Fred Penner’s Place stopped producing new episodes, but Penner, now 73 and currently on his 40th-anniversary tour of The Cat Came Back, is still making a career performing for children and families across Canada.
“I enjoy what I do,” Penner told The Ontarion. Fred Penner is an accomplished children’s performer, and former host of Fred Penner’s Place which aired on CBC from 1985 to 1997. After a 40-plus-year career, Penner’s drive and dedication to his craft has not swayed in the years since the launch of his show.
“I like getting up on a stage and I like presenting my thoughts and feelings to an audience. I like how they respond to me. It is, truly, my life’s work. Forty… what is this, 48 years?” Penner laughed to himself in disbelief.
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“Never underestimate your ability to make a difference in the life of a human being, of a child.”
In the mid-’80s, CBC faced budgetary cutbacks that resulted in the cancellation of The Friendly Giant. CBC reached out to Penner to ask if he would be willing to host a TV program as a replacement. He said yes, but he was initially at a loss of how to do it.
“I never considered [a TV program], that was not part of the plan,” Penner said.
When creating the show, Penner drew inspiration from his experiences as a child.
“I started thinking about scouts, oddly enough,” he said. “I was in scouts for a time, and in scouting, if you’re going on a journey you mark your spaces.”
Fred Penner’s Place opened with Penner walking through the woods with a backpack admiring the scenery. He walked along the water, saw a bird in a tree, wandered through the trees to look at a little forest critter, to ultimately end up at the log which entered into Fred Penner’s Place. “I was just re-remembering my scout rules at the beginning.”
After wandering through the forest to his “sanctuary,” as Penner put it, he would crawl through the iconic log.
Speaking to the design of the introduction, Penner’s show reads very much like Mister Rogers Neighbourhood in the sweeping view of his neighbourhood ultimately welcoming the viewer at his front door, only in this case it’s a journey through the woods into a small little nook in the trees. “I thought, If I’m going to create a TV series for children, I want it to be a protected space,” Penner said. “I want it to have calm, I want it to be gentle, I want it to be safe.”
The sense of calm and safety carried throughout the episodes, setting a tone of comfort and curiosity. Penner said that the concept was intentional.
“For me, it was about direct communication,” Penner said. “When I talk to the camera, it was not going to hundreds of thousands of people, it was going to the one child.” Penner elaborated that his goal was to guide the child and expand on their curiosity. “We are here together, to share in something. What is it? Well, we’ll find out.”
Penner continued, “The curiosity of life was part of Fred Penner’s Place, and children don’t need flash and fast activity to draw in curiosity.”
The general sense of child-like discovery and exploration was prevalent from the first episode until Fred Penner’s Place abruptly stopped producing new episodes in 1997 following management changes at CBC’s Children’s and Family Programs division.
But Penner’s career didn’t end with the show. He continued to tour and write music built for families, and he has worked with World Vision for nearly two decades. In 2019, he released “Somebody Believes,” which he tells us he was inspired to write while listening to a speaker during a World Vision event three years ago.
“He spoke about his life journey, and one of the phrases he used was ‘somebody believed in me and that’s why I’m here today,’” Penner said, speaking about Edgar Gonzales, a World Vision employee and former sponsored child. “And I thought, well there it is. That is probably the most universal topic that I’d like to present is having somebody believe in you, in your life, is critical.”
Forty years on from his release of the album The Cat Came Back, Fred Penner’s career is still going strong.
“I’m still getting calls,” Penner explained, “People are still interested in what I’m presenting. I mean, that has to be where it comes from because you can’t force yourself on an audience. The demand has to be there if it’s going to work at all.”
The demand is there. Penner’s The Cat Came Back 40th Anniversary Tour touches every region of the country which started in Regina, Sask. on Feb. 1, 2020, and comes to a close in North Vancouver, BC on Apr. 5, 2020
Fred Penner’s years of working as a children’s entertainer has left a long lasting impression on a generation of people. He is in the same ranks as Mister Rogers and a cherished Canadian icon. While his show may have ended, his work continues to help guide children through their most vulnerable years worldwide.
“Never underestimate your ability to make a difference in the life of a human being, of a child.”
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