14 Facts About Allan Novak

Allan Novak produced comedy videos in the mid-1980s for Toronto's The Second City.

Allan Novak worked on the 1985 Genie Award telecast as a writer, and was nominated for the 1986 Gemini Awards.

Notable on the series were several location-based sketches that Allan Novak directed featuring Mike Myers as 'Wayne Campbell' and another that debuted Myers' well-known 'Dieter' character - later to appear on 'Sprockets' on Saturday Night Live.

In 1989 Allan Novak edited the first season of the Canadian comedy series The Kids in the Hall and then directed location comedy segments for the Newfoundland-based series CODCO for Salter Street Films.

Allan Novak edited: Married Life which received a Cable ACE nomination for best editing; The Newsroom, season one, a Gemini award winner for best editing; More Tears, Foolish Heart and Foreign Objects.

Toronto arts columnist John Allemang said: "Allan Novak's compressed editing did much to give Ken Finkleman's satire its distinctive look".

In 1999, Allan Novak created the Gemini award-winning Loving Spoonfuls, a cooking and culture series about grandmothers, for Winnipeg-based WTN network.

In 2002, Allan Novak was executive producer and director of The Joke's on Us - 50 Years of CBC Satire.

The next year Allan Novak was executive producer of The Joe Blow Show, a Gemini-nominated pilot for The Comedy Network; he helped create Second Time Around, a 13-episode comedy reality series for W Network, with host David Gale.

In 2006 and 2007 Allan Novak created and produced Punched Up, a hybrid comedy-reality series for The Comedy Network.

Allan Novak then began a four-series relationship with Toronto broadcaster Ralph Benmergui.

Allan Novak is a two-time winner of the Banff World Television Festival I-Pitch award, and is a two-term board member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

Between September 2008 and August 2010, Allan Novak was a vice president at Temple Street Productions, a Canadian production company partly owned by BBC Worldwide.

Responsible for the company's non-scripted television shows, branded entertainment, and factual programming, Allan Novak developed and sold the concept for a series called Recipe to Riches, which combined the supply chain of a major food manufacturer and store chain, Loblaw, with a reality TV concept.