Ed the Sock

All you want to know about Ed the Sock

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Photo of Ed the Sock

Ed the Sock is a puppet that became a Canadian television personality in the 1990s, best known for its appearances hosting programming on MuchMusic and its own talk show, Ed's Night Party, later renamed Ed & Red's Night Party. Ed the Sock has a scowl, a cigar sticking out of its mouth and a rough, gravelly voice.

Ed the Sock was created (and played) by Steven Joel Kerzner for The Late Late Show. Kerzner was a producer in the 1990s at Newton Cable, then a small cable system in Downsview, Ontario. Over this time the show went through several co-hosts which included Harland Williams, Eric Tunney and Tim Rykert. After Newton Cable was purchased by Rogers Cable in 1993, Kerzner was able to repackage the program for a wider cable audience with Ed the Sock as the star.

The new show attracted the interest of producer John Brunton, who took the program to CITY-TV. This show, co-hosted by Howard Glassman (better known as half of the local radio morning show Humble & Fred), debuted on February 10, 1995, at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. Brunton later departed the show after having some creative differences with Kerzner.

Kerzner was also a political aspirant, running unsuccessfully as a candidate for school trustee and for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in the 1990 Ontario provincial election. A fiscal and foreign-policy conservative, Kerzner's political heroes at the time included Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. In recent years, however, he has offered left-of centre views, arguing in favour of rights for same-sex couples, care for the homeless and other causes. It is fairly common for Canadian fiscal conservatives to also be socially moderate or liberal.

Besides Ed's Night Party, which is now seen in countries around the world including the United States (late night on the G4 Network), Ed was a fixture on MuchMusic. The show is in the late-night slot because of its overt depictions of sexuality, primarily involving sexualized women and Ed's off-colour remarks. Among Ed's shows were Ed's Big Wham Bam, a weekly live two-hour program; and the annual Fromage, a program which features and mocks the cheesiest videos released in the year, which Ed began hosting in the late 1990s, following former host and Fromage creator, MuchMusic VJ Christopher Ward.

Ed was joined on Ed's Night Party! by Liana K, a buxom redhead who became Ed's first female co-host and his most popular one, and who also is featured in a pin-up calendar, offered on Ed's official Website. For several years, Liana has been the senior producer and writer of all Ed's projects. On the addition of Liana as co-host, the show was renamed Ed & Red's Night Party.

Ed and Liana were co-hosts of the 2007 Constellation Awards.

Ed & Red's Night Party is scheduled to end it's CITY-TV run on August 31, 2008. Creator Steven Kerzner has stated that, while the weekly TV show may be ending, the character will likely live on in other projects already in the works.^[1]

Ed is based on two actual people, whose names remain undisclosed.

Some people contend that he inspired the creation of Ed's American counterpart Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. The controversy dates back to when Ed had agreed to appear on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The appearance was suddenly cancelled, and one to three months later, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog debuted. Ed afterwards expressed such resentment towards Triumph that NBC (the network that airs O'Brien's show) stated they "didn't want Ed anywhere near Triumph" when Conan visited Canada for a week of shows during February 2004.^{[citation needed]}