About Call for Help

Hosts

Leo Laporte Longtime TechTV host Leo Laporte helms Call for Help, but also hosts various other shows including his own tech radio show and a tech podcast network called TWiT. Laporte attended Yale, has written his own software and has authored numerous help books. His blog and website is at www.leoville.com

Chris Pirillo Between 2001-2003, Call for Help was hosted by Chris Pirillo. Pirillo hosted the first Call-For-Helpathon, but was terminated from TechTV for unspecified reasons. Currently Pirillo runs Lockergnome, a blogging network, provides tech-related correspandance for CNN and other news outets and life-streams via ustream.

History

Premiering in May of 1998 on ZDTV, Call for Help was easily one of the longest running tech shows on TV. Originally hosted by Laporte, ZDTV became TechTV and C4H was later hosted by Becky Worley and then Chris Pirilillo when Laporte shifted his focus to The Screen Savers. Two years later, Pirillio was eventually laid off and Laporte was again put at the helm of the C4H ship. The show also had a short co-host stint by current X-Play host Morgan Webb. In May of 2004, Call for Help fans were stunned when it was announced that the show would be canceled with the network’s merger into G4, despite the show being second in network ratings.

Summer of 2004 brought relief, as Rodgers Communication, a part-owner of TechTV Canada commissioned Laporte to begin making new episodes of Call for Help in Toronto. Laporte was joined by new co-hosts Andy Walker and Monica Litonjua, later replaced by Amber MacArthur. The show was briefly shown on the US’s G4TV, however was dropped from the schedule late in 2005 after low-ratings in questionable time slots. Currently the show does not air in the US, but episodes can be bought for 99 cents each on Google’s video service.

In December of 2006, Rodgers Communication commissioned Greedy Productions, the same production company behind G4 shows Judgment Day and The Electric Playground, to produce the next season of Call for Help. The show will move production to Vancouver and the crew will be laid off. Although MacArthur left the show in November 2006, Laporte will stay on as host. To be renamed “The Lab with Leo Laporte” the final episodes under the C4H moniker aired in January 2007.

In early 2008, it was announced that due to low ratings, “The Lab” would not be renewed for another season, thus ending Call for Help’s 10 year saga. Reruns of The Lab continue in G4TechTV Canada. Laporte continues to work on his TWiT podcast network, as well as a syndicated radio show.

BTW!

• Call for Help was the longest running show on G4TechTV Canada
• Laporte also co-hosted The Screen Savers
• Call for Help is the 2nd show in G4 lore to have a name change (The Lab with Leo Laporte)