John Brunton has had a wildly eclectic career as a Canadian TV producer.

A programming chameleon over his 30 years as head of Insight Production Company, Brunton has put his stamp on Canadian music, comedy, sports, drama, reality TV, documentaries and much else in between.

That creative polygamy is due, Brunton insists, because TV can be a fickle mistress. ‘Everyone has said to me, specialize, specialize. But I’ve really felt if you were pigeon-holed, it would be hard to survive the cyclical nature of television,’ he explains.

Brunton’s maverick producing style also springs from first carving out a TV career in the shadow of his father, a hard-driving coach of the Hamilton Tiger Cats who went on to become a successful businessman.

‘He was a great role model. But at times he was like Archie Bunker and I was like Meathead. We loved to debate,’ he recounts.

Brunton’s artistic wanderlust saw him flip early experience on music shows with performers like Shania Twain and Celine Dion into producing live TV tunes shows like The Juno Awards and Canadian Idol.

He also turned early TV skating specials with Kurt Browning, Scott Hamilton and Torvill and Dean into the 2009 hit competition series Battle of the Blades for the CBC by building on relationships with skating agent Kevin Albrecht and veteran coach Sandra Bezic.

Insight became the go-to producer for reality TV after Brunton and his team stick-handled local versions of Project Runway Canada, Deal or No Deal Canada and Are You Smarter than a Canadian 5th Grader.

Brunton has excelled in TV comedy with series like Hatching, Matching & Dispatching and The Jon Dore Television Show.

And Insight parlayed early drama efforts like the innovative teen drama Ready or Not into Falcon Beach, which ran for two years on Global Television and ABC Family.

This from a humble, ever-thankful TV producer who started out as a gopher, fetching coffee and taking out the garbage after joining Insight in 1976.

Brunton also moonlighted as an experimental filmmaker and, with serendipity, sent two of his shorts to legendary Hollywood producer George Schlatter of Laugh-In fame as he produced NBC’s Real People series starting in 1979.

Two weeks later, Brunton received his first call from the coast.

‘He (Schlatter) called me personally, said he’d pay me $10,000 a piece for the films and said we should chat about doing more,’ Brunton recalls.

Chat? Brunton bolted for the airport and flew to Los Angeles in time to personally greet Schlatter the next morning as he came through the front door.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Brunton recalls Schlatter blurting out when shaking hands with the Canadian kid on the phone. A couple hours later, there was a second hand-shake as Schlatter handed Brunton a cheque for $100,000 and an assignment to crisscross North America to make short films for Real People.

Brunton recalls upgrading to business class on the return flight, and fishing in his pocket every few minutes to count the zeroes on the cheque.

‘That was really the beginning of a great opportunity to work in TV,’ he sighs.

But as an indie producer forever going where his head and heart send him, Brunton a year later parted ways with Schlatter to focus on running Insight as its new owner from 1980.

The Toronto producer’s first big project was Heart of Gold, a three-part history of Canadian rock and roll produced in 1982 for the CBC and Labatt’s.

The 1980s also brought the Scott Baio-starring drama The Truth about Alex, Tucker and the Horse Thief, directed by Allan King, and the comedy series Test Pattern.

By 1994, Insight was producing a series of skating specials that showcased Brunton’s ability to fuse the documentary, music, drama and sports into a TV program. And in 1996, Brunton produced his first Juno Awards, hosted by Alanis Morissette.

Live TV is a rough and ready business, and one Brunton insists is suited to someone who craves an occasional adrenaline rush. That said, he’s just as quick to deflect credit onto his crack Insight production team, who manage to remain cool under the pressure of live TV where, if you make a mistake, it goes out.

That team includes business partner and sister Barbara Bowlby, who joined the company in 1984. Opposites attract when it comes to this successful brother-sister management team.

‘If I’m the risk-taker and the thrill-seeker that wants to make my heart beat faster, she’s the one with the steady hand on the tiller,’ Brunton explains.

Other cool Insight hands include supervising producer Lindsay Cox, who has been with the company for 18 years, and Louise Wood managing the recent fog and volcanic ash-plagued Juno Awards in St. John’s Newfoundland, and fellow producer Mark Lysakowski long ruling the roost at Canadian Idol to ensure each episode’s creative elements and script clocked in under schedule.

‘If you don’t get to Desperate Housewives on time, Ivan Fecan will have your head on a platter,’ Brunton insists.

Upcoming challenges at Insight include a Canadian version of Top Chef for Food Network Canada, which plans a spring 2011 launch. Also in the pipeline is Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shockingly True Stories, co-produced with Ripley’s Entertainment.

And current passion projects include a documentary and scripted mini-series based on the story of Greenpeace, the environmental group that originated in Canada and to which an eco-conscious Brunton was aligned early on.

And Insight plans its first riff into feature film production, Paddle to the Amazon, based on the best-selling book about an Amazonian canoe adventure.

But Brunton’s biggest career highlight remains his first gig with Hollywood legend George Schlatter, which finally earned him a father’s respect. He recalls the jumble of thought and emotion that came as Brunton personally told his father about his good fortune.

‘My dad, he kind of welled up a bit. He realized at that moment, probably, I was very serious about what I planned to do with my life and career,’ Brunton says.

‘He thought this crazy son of his had balls,’ he adds.