Max Ferguson, OC (February 10, 1924 – March 7, 2013) was a Canadian radio personality and satirist, best known for his long-running radio programs Rawhide and The Max Ferguson Show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Biography Early life Max Ferguson was born on 10 February 1924, in Crook, Durham, England, the second son of William George (George) Ferguson and Isabella Frances (Isabel) née Finnegan. In 1926, with Max barely past his second birthday, the Ferguson family emigrated to Canada, departing from Cobh, Ireland on 22 May aboard the Minnedosa, and arriving in Montreal, Quebec on the 29th. They eventually settled in Ontario. Other than an occasional trip to Ireland, visiting relatives in his mother's birthplace in County Laois (aka County Leix and Queen's County), Ferguson was raised in London, Ontario, and graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a BA in English and French. Career In the summer of 1946 he was hired as an announcer at radio station CFPL in London, but later that year relocated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the opportunity to join the CBC as a staff announcer with the local station in the CBC Halifax Radio Building. According to his autobiography, And Now...Here's Max (1967), he was appalled to find among his assignments the task of hosting a cowboy music show called After Breakfast Breakdown. To protect his anonymity, and in hopes of quick reassignment, he improvised the character of "Old Rawhide", assuming the voice of an elderly ranch hand and giving colourfully disdainful appraisals of the songs he introduced. The character was a breath of fresh air to listeners of the staid national broadcaster, and they relayed their approval with volumes of mail. Accepting his fate, Ferguson devised an entire repertory company of raucous and bizarre characters to interact with Rawhide (all voiced by Ferguson) to amuse himself and his audience, creating daily skits which parodied literary classics and satirized current events and CBC personalities. Recurring characters (other than Rawhide) included pompous, adenoidal CBC announcer Marvin Mellobell, The Goomer Brothers, Little Harold, The Black Widow Spider, and the adventurous Granny. In 1949, the show's popularity led the corporation to transfer Ferguson to its head office in Toronto, where he would broadcast nationally. Rawhide's first coast-to-coast broadcasts caused something of a national controversy when a Member of Parliament rose to denounce the show for its low humour and abuse of the English language.