Just Like Mom is a Canadian television game show which ran from 1980 to 1985 on CTV. A total of 595 episodes were taped at CFTO-TV in Toronto, Ontario. It was hosted by Stephen Young during the show's first season, but from the second season on, it was hosted by the husband-and-wife duo of Fergie Olver and the show's creator Catherine Swing. Olver announced the series during its first season.
Just like 3's a Crowd, the game show is obviously another one of the newlyweds' game show clones.
Fergie Olver is terrible as a host, because he was perverted with the participants, which mainly are little girls.
Speaking of he being perverted with the underaged participants, Fergie Olver actually flirted with underage girls on the game show and tried to kiss them, which is unacceptable, making the game show being very uncomfortable to watch. Several people on the internet accused him of being a pedophile, a creep and a predator because of his flirting with the girls, although he himself did not confirm these accusations against him yet to this day. Even his ex-wife Catherine Swing who was at the game show shouted out at him saying "Dirty old man".
The taste test is very bad, since the point structure is flawed (originally the moms wrote a number on the card but were replaced by paddles) and the mothers eating the unpleasant dishes from their children, mainly the only dish the participants are making that is seen on the game show, it's just putting mustard in peanut butter balls. According to the game show's producer Paul Burford in a interview on the Toronto Mike'd Podcast that during this round, Catherine Swing would survey each contestant to ensure they were preparing the recipe with some accuracy, in efforts to prevent families from scamming the bake-off by pre-set strategies, such as using excessive amounts of ketchup and other approaches.
The prizes (except the Disneyworld one, which is the only memorable prize of the game show) are largely cheap.
The Only Redeeming Quality
The host from the first season, Stephen Young was a great host and wasn't controversial unlike Fergie Olver. However, he did have some questionable tendencies.
The co-host from Seasons 2-5, Catherine Swing was also good and better than her ex-husband Fergie Olver since she was kind and also motherly to the participants.
Trivia
The co-host from Seasons 2-5, Catherine Swing was previously Miss Canada, most notably from 1978.
