and NOW...for something COMPLETELY different...:
Canadian puts the joke on US
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff, 5/29/2001MONTREAL - So, did you hear that Canada is finally granting the vote to citizens of Irish ancestry? And that diabetics in this realm of permafrost and muskeg bog can take heart that legalization of insulin appears just around the corner? And the country's public school system is expanding to offer Grade 9? That's the good news. On the down side, it's doubtful that Canada will find the moral fiber to end its unhappy custom of stranding old folk in the Arctic to cut social security costs. And global warming poses a threat to the national Parliament building - constructed, as everyone knows, of ice bricks in the form of a giant igloo. What in the world do folks in the superpower next door think of all this? That's the question that keeps Rick Mercer - whose deadpan interviewing style is familiar to watchers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation -traveling with television camera from Boston to Berkeley, seeking the US view on the great Canadian issues. And getting an earful. Mining the depths of American ignorance of Canada has yielded prime time gold for the satirical TV news show ''This Hour Has 22 Minutes,'' produced by Nova Scotia's Salter Street Films and aired by CBC. Probably the most popular and certainly the most outrageous segment is Mercer's ''Talking to Americans.''Preposterous questions are put to unsuspecting Yanks - who ramble cluelessly about whether Canada should become part of North America (university student: ''I don't know.''); should continue the national voting system of dropping pine cones or birch bark into ballot boxes (Louisiana man: ''At least you are ecologically sound.''); or whether Canada should keep its navy despite being landlocked. One Floridian helpfully offered: ''You don't need a navy if you don't have any water. Just use us Americans. We'll support you. ''God Bless America, they doubtless muttered in Halifax, St. John's, Quebec City, Vancouver, and scores of other sea ports unknown in Florida when that one aired.''Americans are our great neighbor. They are kind, they are generous,'' said Mercer, a 30-year-old actor-comedian from Newfoundland. ''And they have an uncanny ability to go on and on about things they know nothing about. ''On learning of Canada's heartless treatment of the elderly, a professor at New York's Columbia University doesn't mince words, demanding on camera ''that the government of Canada discourage the tradition of placing senior citizens on ice floes, leaving them to perish.'' Mercer: ''How long have you been teaching here?'' Professor: ''Nine years ... History.'' On the streets of San Francisco, interviewees show serious empathy for the ultrasensitive denizens of Hull, Quebec - pledging without hesitation to expunge a cruel if hitherto unrecognized slur from their vocabularies.''I am one American who will never use the word `hullaballo,' because it is hurtful to Canadians,'' a most correct woman grimly assures Mercer. In Des Moines, Iowans are happy to hear of Canada's desire to forsake the 72-minute hour in favor of ''American time.'' No one challenges Mercer's assertion that Canada keeps a 20-hour day. And Governor Tom Vilsack is happy to break from the demands of office to offer encouragement to the plucky people of the North. ''Canada, congratulations on your new 24-hour clock,'' intones the governor, flanked by beaming aides. In Manhattan, Mercer asks a group of construction workers whether they think that ''given the situation in Saskatchewan'' the US should ''escalate the bombing and send in the ground forces.'' Growled one swaggering hard hat: ''If we're going to get into it, let's getinto it all the way.'' You'd think Canadians might find this more painful than hilarious. But you'd be wrong. When the segments were spliced together and aired last month as ''Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans,'' the one-hour show drew the highest ratings for a comedy special in CBC history.The masochistic yucks in some ways typify the US-Canada relationship. Canadian author Margaret Atwood once described the border between the two countries as the world's longest one-way mirror - with Canadians, invisible to American eyes, peering obsessively south. ''It's the ultimate Canadian joke, and it's really at our expense because wecare so much what Americans think,''' said Mercer, who comes to American screens this fall as star of ''The Industry,'' a comedy-drama about the entertainment business that debuts on the Bravo network. ''Every Canadian knows so much about the US. You know so little about us,''he said in an interview. ''Yet Americans are so kind and generous they'll almost always take time to talk to the poor little Canadian. ''Hospitality was the order of the day when one southern governor interrupted his busy schedule to offer moral support for Canada's scheme to encase Parliament in a refrigerated dome as a precaution against global warming: ''Hi, I'm Mike Huckabee of Arkansas wanting to say congratulations, Canada, on preserving your national igloo!'' The reception was just as thoughtful in Harvard Yard, where students and profs furrowed their brows as Mercer sought reaction to Ottawa's plan to ''give Irish-Canadians the vote as a counterbalance to Quebec separatists.'' The future leaders of the world's greatest democracy were cautiously supportive: ''I think that's probably a good idea,'' offered one graduate student, while another read aloud a statement favoring the concept of ''a vote for Irishperson citizens'' in Canada. ''It's just meant to be funny, we're not trying to drive home any great political point,'' said Mercer, adding that he seeks comment from a wide spectrum of Americans. ''Except we avoid military guys,'' he said. ''They seem to be the ones with a clear concept of geography, and usually laugh off our questions.'' Otherwise, Mercer said, ''we keep upping the ante, thinking, `Here's a question so absurd no one's going to believe it in a million years.'' 'But they always do.'' And so the trio of Canadians continues to wander the land, asking Americans 'thoughts on Canada's dreams of getting its first FM radio station, its second telephone area code, and - someday - even a real university to call its own. One big problem for his homeland, Mercer tells an interviewee, ''is that medical science shows 80 percent of Canadians are developmentally disabled -you'd say `retarded' in the old days. So what should we do?'' The big-hearted American gave the neighbor a sympathetic smile. ''Maybe it's your environment,'' he said. ''So you should celebrate. You are what you are. Find the good side.''
ho ho ho...rofl. |
