Hal Johnson explains how Body Break intersected with racism

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Canadian duo Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod are best known for their vintage exercise show, Body Break.

But what many people may not have known is the idea for the show was born after Johnson, a black man, experienced racism while applying for a job at TSN in April 1988, the fitness icon explains in a new video posted to his Facebook page Tuesday.

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Johnson was hired by TSN as a sports reporter, but then was subsequently told the network already had a black reporter and they couldn’t have more than one.

The next month after the incident, he met McLeod. But then on June 8 that year, Johnson was hired as an actor promoting Woodbine Racetrack.

“There was three of us — myself, a white young lady and a white guy,” he explained in the video.

“We’re rehearsing cheering and then about half an hour of that, the assistant director goes to the director and says something and the director tells the white guy and girl to switch positions, so the white girl is on the end. I talked to the assistant director in the buffet line and ask him, ‘Why did you switch the two of us?’ He laughed and said the client didn’t really want you next to the white girl because god forbid someone might think you’re with the white girl.”

Johnson, now in his 60s, recalls he didn’t get mad, remember the wise words his father told him — “Don’t get mad because when you get mad, you can’t find solutions.”

After lunch that same day, Johnson created a storyboard and thought about how people could live, work and play together.

“It won’t be this attitude that it’s white and black and Asian and persons with disabilities and male, female,” he said. “So I came up with this idea, and the idea is Body Break.”

Johnson and McLeod had already discussed working together on a fitness TV show and shopped the premise around to different networks, but faced constant rejection. Johnson approached a program director at TSN about the show and that person was on board with the concept — except for Johnson’s skin colour yet again.

“He said, ‘Yes, we’ll take it, however, the problem is you’re black and the young lady is white and we don’t think the Canadian public is ready for a black and white couple together.”

The sports network said they would sign up for Body Break, but only if Johnson was swapped out for a white man.

The pair left and thought about what Canadian government branch promoted multiculturalism and fitness. Two days later, they met with ParticipACTION. They signed a contract to produce six initial episodes and then subsequently filmed 65 more for ParticipACTION. In 1998, the couple got married.

“Without TSN spawning me to think to go that route, without the racism they displayed, without the racism of June, 1988, that client at Woodbine Racetrack, all those little things created Body Break,” he said.

“We’re happy to have hopefully given helpful fitness tips to Canadians for 32 years, but also enlightened you that we all can live, work and play together, regardless of our ability, disability or skin colour.”

Johnson also said on his Facebook page he had the opportunity to grow up in Canada and go to University and work in the United States.

“As a black man, my perspective of both countries is quite different than those of my white friends,” he wrote.

“Racism in the U.S. is in your face. It’s always present. But in Canada, it’s there but subtle…In the last three weeks, I have had numerous white friends call me and ask me a wide variety of questions. They have all asked “what can they do”? I simply say LISTEN. For my entire life, in order to succeed, I have had to become a chameleon and conform to society. For the first time in my life I feel white people want to learn and want to listen.”

jyuen@postmedia.com