Designed as a summer replacement for the CBC panel show This Is the Law, Double Up was Canada's belated "answer" to the classic Groucho Marx quiz program This Is Your Life. Serving as the Groucho substitute, trading quips with the contestants before embarking upon the requisite question-and-answer sessions, was former lawyer and comedy writer Hart Pomerantz, previously the professional partner of future Saturday Night Live maven Lorne Michaels (the two had already starred in their own variety series, and below the border had written for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In). Though Pomerantz was a fast man with a one-liner, Groucho Marx he wasn't. First broadcast on Mondays beginning July 1, 1974, Double Up had moved to Saturday by the time its last episode aired on October 5 of that same year.
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
