The Friendly Giant was a popular Canadian children's television program on the CBC from 1965 through 1985. The program started in 1953 on a Madison, Wisconsin radio station, and was first broadcast on National Educational Television in 1959. The program ran for 15 minutes each morning, and featured a giant (played by Bob Homme (1919-2000)], who like his colleague Ernie Coombs was a transplanted American) in his castle along with two puppets: Rusty (a rooster who lived in a bag and played a flute) and Jerome (a giraffe).

The show is perhaps most famous for its opening sequence, when the castle doors would open, The Friendly Giant would put out miniature furniture for his viewers beside his feet (with only his feet and hands visible), saying, "One little chair for one of you, and a bigger chair for two more to curl up in, and for someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle." and then he would say: "Now look up, look way, way up," as the camera panned slowly upwards to his face. Another show trademark is the simple tune played by Rusty on his flute.