How I Know I'm Still American

IN CASE YOU missed it, a very funny finale on 22 Minutes last night, culminating in a bit on the latest FAUX News fracas.



So how do I know I'm still, in spite of it all the seeming vitriol, (oh Lordy did I hear an earful from my awesome cousin!) a good little American boy?

Critch's button on this desk joke.....hurts, man. It hurts.

Tale of the Tape

GREATEST MOMENT in comedy? Maybe not. But what's interesting is that it plays pretty much like every other one of those sketches. And before you fuckers start with the wingnut "Greg is an alien the laughs are sweetened" shit....they're not.

I think there's a lesson here. Your mileage might vary. There's a lot of that these days.

22 Yoo-hoo

BILL BRIOUX does some nice work contextualizing the Geri Hall 22 Minutes imbroglio, which I took on here, over at his digs, TV Feeds My Family.

Farrell sent her to Queen`s Park at the invitation of the Queen`s Park Press Gallery, who suggested McGuinty needed tweaking about his self imposed five foot personal space limit. The local press wags even offered to keep her hidden until it was time to pounce. She waited for a signal that the session was about to wrap, which she always does. She did her ambush thing, and McGuinty was appropriately awkward. Mission accomplished.

Except NDP MLA and former Sunshine Boy Peter Kormos went ballistic, spinning the comedy ambush into some sort of assault on working people in Ontario. `Get the hell out of here!`he brayed, bringing the encounter to an end.

It all got posted at thestar.com and other places, packaged as a CP video hit. Hall`s crime was that her intrusion took place as McGuinty was speaking to job losses at Stelco in Hamilton and Nanticoke, which definitely is no laughing matter. But this was at the end of the session and this wasn`t the joke Hall or 22 Minutes were ever going to tell.

Still, Hall was quickly tried and convicted, guilty of bad timing. Too bad Kormos never dared to pick on Mary Walsh in all her Marg Delehunty thunder. She would have cut him in half.

I'm still surprised by the amount of vitriol this generated, and how out of hand the whole thing seemed. You know, it adds to my unease generally about news spin, as I've got to say that every news story I've ever had first hand knowledge of has seemed like a massive distorto-fest -- no matter how I was involved -- as an observer, journo, bystander, or participant.

I didn't make too much of this in the other piece I wrote, well, mainly because I was into my own froth about journalists and the Parliamentary Press Corps (which, I now have to say, looks like it was hyperbolic over-reaction in the other direction, in light of Brioux's subsequent reporting. Note to Queen's Park press gallery: Daddy is sorry. [more of a retraction than you'll get at some places. Oh, I kid. I kid because I love.])

Then again, those news organizations did run with the...no, no, no, no, no, Daddy is sorry. Sorry.

But baby, why you make Daddy so mad?

Anyway, having done that kind of producing work for years and years, the least convincing argument I heard from people was, "look at the footage. she bombed."

I've seen about, oh, 5000 hours of raw footage in my time. It always sucks. Part of what I used to be paid for was to make it awesome. It's part of the gig. Also, I think it's awesome that Brioux goes for it and makes the point that I almost made and pulled back from: you would have never pulled that shit on Mary Walsh. Mary Walsh would have taken Peter Kormos downtown and dropped him in the drink, bad back or no.

I heard from a number of people quite close to the show in the aftermath, but didn't feel like quoting or getting into that game, since this isn't a journalism blog, and I'm not really a journalist. I'm glad a real journalist tracked down one of the nicest guys in Canadian show business, 22 Minutes Executive Producer Mark Farrell, for their side of the story.

But I'm also glad Mark didn't talk to me because he (being aforementioned nicest guy in show business) would probably not want me to end by reiterating the following point:

Peter Kormos is a giant douche.

I'd forgotten he was a Sunshine Boy. Goof.

CBC 08 and 22 Too!

JUST A SHORT one to say that I've just returned from CBC's cavernous broadcast centre on Front Street, where they held their winter launch event. Hosts Steven Sabados and Chris you know that other guy who is not a Designer Guy but used to be stepping up and doing a soft shoe for their new daytime show that premieres Jan 14. I guess this is the next generation of Gill Deacon. Only, you know...fabulouser.

Things really got hopping when Network poohbah Kirstine Layfield came out to run down the drama offerings for the winter.

Now, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I have a dog in that hunt. Besides the Monday January 7th premiere of The Border (whose fabulous cast members James McGowan, Graham Abbey, and Nazneen Contractor were in the audience,) Layfield also presented a total of twelve new shows premiering on the National Broadcaster this winter.

And I gotta say, the trailer made them look pretty spiffy. The sexiest was MVP - the long rumored show about Hockey Wives that looks like it's gonna take a bunch of sex and spunk, mix it up with a hip soundtrack and throw it on...Friday nights? Ruh row.

But seriously, the trailer made it look fun and frothy. And it could work. I mean, it's Canada. It's cold. We stay home in the winter, right? Right? I kid, but I'm actually really looking forward to this series a lot. Some great actors who deserve a breakout: Kristin Booth, Deborah Odell, Lucas Bryant...

I have an O.C. shaped trashy guilty pleasure viewing slot that's still wide open from this season. Come on, MVP, fill it with Hockey and fornication! (Premieres January 11 at 9pm)

J-Pod (shout out to my writer peeps the Double D's -- Daegan and Dennis!) bows Tuesday January 8 at 9pm. I thought it was a comedy, but the press release describes it as a "quirky drama series." Hmmm. Quoi? Allan Thicke was there. Allan Thicke, people. Don't tell me he's quirky drama. That man is pure. fucking. comedy. And I was, like, three feet away from him.

Sophie (Wed January 9 at 8:30 pm) is harder to judge, since the clips seemed to be from a premise pilot. "Sophie Parker, a beautiful, ambitious and very pregnant young woman visits a psychic on a whim. After a brief consult with the universe and some chicken bones, the psychic fearfully breaks the news...that this will be the most horrible year of her life, and just when she hits rock bottom her troubles will have only just begun." Well, she loses her boyfriend, best friend, her business is threatened and the baby comes...

...and uh, I guess, then comes episode two and the rest of what the show's about.

Some nice actors in this one, too. Nathalie Brown (Sophie) has the look and presence of a star. But this production, like the stillborn Rumours, is based on a Quebec comedy (from the same company that made Rumeurs, actually.) Let's hope Sophie clicks where the first show fell short. Mosque could use a playmate on Wednesday.

There were also two movies that really caught my eye. I wasn't the biggest fan of Paul Gross' H20 (I thought the 2nd half fell apart a bit in the logic department) but he's back with a sequel called the Trojan Horse, and DAMN if it doesn't look like some heap big intriguey fun. Killer trailer. I won't say more. When CBC gets it up, you should watch for yourself. (March/April 2008)

Then there's the adaptation of Guy Vanderhaege's Governor General Award-winning novel The Englishman's Boy. I know someone who's seen it and says it's really great. Michael Terriault -- so good in Prairie Giant -- Bob Hoskins, Nicholas Campbell, R.H. Thompson. Mmmm. It looks goooood. (March 2008)

There were some intriguing reality based shows -- The Week The Women Went, a science-based show called Project X.

The impression I walked away with? When Layfield and the new regime started at CBC they took a lot of heat for saying they wanted to redefine and remake what the broadcaster was, and the kind of programming it did. This looks like a pretty vibrant schedule -- it definitely has energy and a potential for big pop. I hope the stuff all works. It would be nice for CBC to get a win.

And if the WGA strike is still on, Canadians might actually get a chance to fairly sample their homegrown wares. It's the best slate I've seen from CBC in a while. I wish all the shows well. Knock it out of the park, man. Out of the park.

Now...

With all this talk of 2008, one must not forget what's on the air right now. This Hour Has 22 Minutes has been inexplicably bumped this week to put Mosque behind Mercer. But they've actually got an ep coming up that sounds like it's gonna be a treat. Mark Critch went to Moscow to claim Russia for Canada. And they got stuff on the Writers Strike, and Mulroney too. It's an embarrassment of riches really. And it airs tomorrow night at 8:30. Not tonight. After Mosque. Which is on tonight. And tomorrow at 8 too, but that will be a rerun. Of tonight's...

Wait...I'm...

No. No. 22 8:30 P.M. tomorrow (Wed) that's all you need to know. For now.

Congrats!

TO THE WINNERS of the writing awards at the 2007 Canadian Comedy Awards.

Best Writing — TV series: Brent Butt, Mark Farrell, Paul Mather, Kevin White, Andrew Car, Robert Sheridan for Corner Gas.

Best Writing -- Special or Episode: Kevin White, Mark Critch, Gary Pearson, Gavin Crawford, Jennifer Whalen, Carolyn Taylor, Albert Howell and Dave Nystromp for This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Best Writing - Film Leila Basen, Alex Epstein, Patrick Huard, Kevin Tierney for Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

Question: what's the difference between special or episode and tv series?

I'd love to link to a complete list of winners but there doesn't seem to be one online. Excellent.

Here's a CBC Story on the Awards.

Like every other awards show in Canada, the awards go to Regina next year, which makes me fear thery won't be that well attended -- sorry guys, but it's bad enough to have to truck out there for the Geminis. That's not a cheap flight. Canada. You're big.

Our Readers Write: CBC's Got a New Season?

THE NATIVES are restless.

One of the perennial complaints in the industry (which Chris Haddock alluded to in our conversation) is that the promotion is abysmal. And it is. But our commenters (and a few others who emailed me and didn't want to leave a comment) seem to have a big old problem with the CBC's efforts to promote its stuff, specifically.

Chet started the ball rolling:

I probably watch more CBC than anyone who isn't on their payroll. I've seen all kinds of promos for their new season, but I've never seen "Intelligence" mentioned even once. I assumed they were holding it back until January or after the playoffs. If it wasn't for Doyle, I would never have known it was on tonight.

The CBC brass desperately wants to bury this show so they can then point at the ratings and use them as an excuse to cancel it. They're not even being subtle about it.

Scott picked up the...uh...Torch:

I don't want to kick the CBC but honestly...

I write and edit for a gay magazine in Toronto and thought I'd throw a little love their way for 'Torchwood.'

I had to talk to numerous people and jump through several hoops before I was finally passed along to the outside PR company that, quite frankly, can't care less about the show.

The show debuts Friday and I haven't seen a single ad, even though CBC was a co-producer on the thing! I shouldn't be surprised but I am.

And our good friend Dixon brought it home:

I have to side with the other 'bitchers'...if it wasn't for you or Diane, I wouldn't have known 'Intelligence' 2 begins tonight (or the Torchwood debut for that matter). But it's all the same old Canadian mumblemutter about promotion, or lack thereof. I had no idea 'Whistler' 2 aired on Saturday night either...until I flipped past it by accident. And we all saw how Global buried The Best Years in the spring/summer.

But I did have lunch with the kids at Burger King recently...and couldn't miss that 'Heroes' Season 2 was premiering 'Only on Global' as the promo was plastered on every cup and wrapper. Um...it's not 'only' on Global...it's on NBC - Global just gets to simulcast and ad substitute and 'say' it's their show...but you all already know that.

Now, separate and apart from this general problem with Canadian lack-of-promo, I think the CBC stuff is a little different, for a couple reasons.

First, you and I pay for it. In taxes. You pay for a great show like Intelligence. It's a shame that they're not very good at telling you how and when to see it.

It may be that I'm cranky right now, (Scratch that, I'm definitely cranky right now. I haven't eaten and got very little sleep last night, and sat through a meeting and six hours on set today, and now I've just spent two hours formatting and writing up a feature on Little Mosque that will run tomorrow and Wednesday) but this just seems extra wrong.

I did a podcast interview with Chris Haddock, and spent an hour transcribing it for this site. That interview was set up because a helpful P.R. person from Haddock's company made it happen. I pushed to interview the two writers from Mosque. I've heard, anecdotally many times from people like Diane that the CBC is atrocious at getting back to you with promo requests. Now it's their premiere week, and where are the ads, where is the promo?

Edit: this was posted as a comment to this message, but it deserves a bump up -- because if anything, it's worse than I thought. Over to Diane:

A year and a bit of doing the TV, Eh site and I have not once received anything from CBC. The producers of Intelligence and 22 Minutes, for example, send me information directly from their own production companies (Haddock and Halifax Film). There's other stuff to complain about with the private broadcasters, but CBC is the lone network that will not send me information.

Last year, the CBC fired its publicists and hired a company called Media Profile to outsource their P.R. and Media requests. Everyone predicted this would be a disaster. It has been. Everybody knows it.

I said as much on the TV panel I was on in Banff last June. Afterwards, the head of CBC English Media Relations, Jeff Keay, came up to me and gave me his card and said if I ever had problems getting info from anybody at CBC, give him a call.

I haven't. I try to do my little part here. But if you're frustrated at not being able to find out anything about CBC programs, maybe it's time to email Jeff Keay, and tell him that Media Profile doesn't work, and that CBC needs to do a better job of promoting its shows. Hiring a publicity staff and spending some money on ads might be a start.

Corner Gas: The Writers Speak!

SEASON FIVE of Corner Gas, which begins tonight on CTV in Canada (9:30 pm -- new time, following Dancing With the Stars) brings a few important behind the scenes changes to Dog River.

But first of all, let's give credit where credit is due: a Canadian sitcom is entering its fifth season, as a broad based popular hit.

As many as two million people watch every week, out of a nation of about thirty million. Subtract the seven million people who speak French as a first language and you're talking two million from a possible audience of 23 million. That's like 26 million people tuning into a comedy show in the USA. Math may be hard, but it doesn't lie.

If you're trying to make the argument that Canadians don't want to watch Canadian TV, Corner Gas is a most inconvenient truth. (People darker than me, for instance, might wonder why, if you go to CTV's site today, you'd be hard pressed to find any banner headlines, or well-publicized links to promote the fact that their most popular homegrown show premieres tonight. Not on the Etalk daily page, not on the main CTV page. I'm sure that's just an oversight, right?)

Corner Gas also managed, earlier this year, to spark a very un-Canadian showbiz bit of news: a talent raid. Two writers from Corner Gas, Showrunner Paul Mather, and 4th Season Story Editor Rob Sheridan, were lured to rival network CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie, a show that posted an average of a million viewers a week.

This fall, Canadians will be in the strange position of being able to choose between two hit homegrown sitcoms that take place in Saskatchewan.

Corner Gas ended its fourth season with its highest seasonal ratings ever, and with an appearance by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In a whimsical episode, the writers teased the end of the series, for a moment suggesting that maybe Brent was selling the station, and Lacey was moving back to Toronto.

Luckily that turned out all to be a bad daydream of Hank's.

The following interview with two of the show's writers, new Showrunner Kevin White, and Producer and O.S. (Original Showrunner) Mark Farrell, is a combo of two conversations. You can hear the full conversation with Mark as part of the current TV, Eh? podcast. The interview with Kevin was conducted via email, from the Corner Gas set in Rouleau, Sask.

DTOS: You now have something on Corner Gas you haven’t had for awhile – turnover, with two of your writers going to Little Mosque. Are there any other changes we should expect from the show this fall?

MARK FARRELL: Well to be fair I was heavily involved in April through June, but Kevin White really was the Showrunner this year. I think it’s a good thing, actually, I know you’ve blogged about this too. We had a chance to bring in Norm Hiscock, who’s a great writer, and Gary Pearson, another really good writer, and shake things up, change some of the dynamics of the writing.

KEVIN WHITE: Obviously new writers bring different tastes and experiences to the show and that helps generate stories we haven't done before. For example, Norm knew this guy his own age who knit. And he would sit around knitting in social situations, just nodding, saying 'uh-huh' as others talked. Norm thought it'd be funny if Hank did that and it became an episode.

MF: Kevin brought a different style to the room than Paul had, to meetings and stuff.

KW: Mostly it means I get called Paul a lot. Also I have more meetings. As show runner, you run the story department, and work with all other departments to make sure what's in the script gets shot the way the writer intended - that includes checking out all the props, wardrobe, new sets being built, etc. Basically you're around to answer questions like, "Is that hat yellow enough?", "Does this rubber hammer look real?" and "When's Paul coming back?"

DTOS: Is there any opportunity to put your own stamp on the show at this point, Kevin, or is it pretty much already established?

KW: The universe of Corner Gas is well established. Which is good. It's a good universe. So as far as stamps go, I'm not out to change it. But we (the writers) did consciously try to explore sides of characters wehadn't seen as much - Emma being unsure of herself, or Oscar not hating everything, or Lacey asserting herself more as a local. And we avoided any new stories concerning hair.

MF: I’m actually looking forward to seeing Mosque, to see what Paul and Rob and Greg Eckler and the other writers bring to that.

DTOS: So we don’t have some kind of big Canadian Saskatchewan-set series smackdown coming? There’s no Biggie-Tupac rivalry coming here?

MF: We might do that more on 22 [This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Farrell's other show, which competes with fellow CBC topical comedy show The Rick Mercer Report] than on Gas.

KW: I don't think there'll be a throw down. Mostly because I don't know what that means. I'm very square. But the two shows seem very different to me. The muslim characters we've added are different. The mosque Brent joins is different. So I think audiences can enjoy both without thinking oh, one show is copying the other.

MF: It is odd how Regina has become the promised land of Canadian comedy. It’s one of those weird things. Gosh, if people are just going to watch Canadian TV and not say it’s crappy, that’s good.

DTOS: Kevin, can you tease us with any other plot elements from the new season?

The one where Brent works in the gas station is pretty funny. And there's another one where Oscar gets cranky. Other than that the season opener involves everyone trying to make a cable access show. In other episodes Oscar and Emma buy a craftmatic bed which affects Emma romantically. Hank starts using his dirty truck as a notepad. Brent dares Oscar to stop using the word jackass. And Lacey gets naked.

DTOS: The other big change this year, I guess, is that Gas goes to syndication in the U.S. this fall, on WGN. Do you approach that with any kind of trepidation? Are you excited? Do you think they're going to get it?

KW: I'm excited about it. The U.S. press has been positive and it's quite different than other shows on American TV. Just watching WGN promos for it, you see grain elevators and prairie stretching forever, and you think, that's kind of cool. In Canada it's easy to take Saskatchewan for granted but when you see it like that in the middle of all this American programming, it stands out. I hope they like it. Especially Season 5.

MF: Anecdotally, I’ve got some relatives in Wisconsin and, I think it’s going to play well, especially in the flyovers. I don’t know how it’s going to go over in NY or Los Angeles and stuff, but I don’t think Dog River is that different than places in Indiana or Wisconsin or Michigan…WGN is great.

It seems like it’s a good fit. There haven’t been a lot of [hit] half hour comedies in the States.[lately] And even though this is a single camera, it kind of has a three-camera feel in terms of tone. So I think it could do okay, actually. How’s that for a vague answer? “I think it could do okay, actually.”

DTOS: A very Canadian answer.

MF: There you go.

Podcast, Ho! Features Corner Gas' Mark Farrell

DIANE OF Unifed Theory of Nothing Much and TV, Eh? has produced her 2nd Canadian TV Podcast. This one's chock full of Fall Preview goodness, and in honour of tonight's fifth season premiere of Corner Gas, it also features my interview with Corner Gas and This Hour Has 22 Minutes Producer/Writer Mark Farrell.

Later today I hope to get a transcript up of part of that interview, along with questions I asked of new Corner Gas showrunner Kevin White.

Gas returns to CTV tonight at 9:30 pm (new time!) Earlier seasons are running in the USA on the WGN Superstation at the following times:

• Monday - Thursday 12a ET
• 2 episodes - Wednesdays 8p ET
• Friday 2:30a ET
• 2 episodes - Sundays 11:30p ET

Our Readers Write

A COUPLE of interesting posts/comments/emails received here at Dead Things HQ recently that deserve a bit o'mention. In response to the post below, "Why Canadian Satire Sucks," someguy commented:

I work on Mercer Report and I remember the debate footage.

As I recall the debate was on, like, a Monday and our show was airing the Monday afterwards. So if we were going to use the tape it would have been a week old. So we didn't use it. Nobody cared that we "weren't allowed."

I think our shows has done its share of satire. We've put the Liberal leadership up for auction on ebay. In our first season we actually (probably) cost a Winnipeg MP his job when we aired him falling asleep in the House of Commons. And there's Rick's rants.

That said the show isn't intended to be 100% satirical. It's a travel around Canada show with some satirical elements. When we send Rick to visit polar bears or go window washing we're not intending to do political satire.

I'm glad you wrote in, someguy, because it gives me a chance to say the thing that I didn't say this time when I revisited this subject -- I happen to think that Mercer and 22 are both very funny shows, with lots of great material. But they're not satire. Yes, both shows have in the past traded in satirical humor --The Rant bit Mercer does is the most satirical part of the show, but that's not their full brief.

Mark Farrell on Inside the CBC said much the same thing about 22 as you do above. There, he wrote:

I think of 22 as a news parody show. One of the tools it uses is satire.

I won’t speak for the other shows but when Mark Critch shows up at liberal debates and conventions the candidates tried to avoid us because they know or think we’re not going to be soft on them. For the most part those interviews are not set up before hand. But don’t take my word for it watch them on the website if you want and decide for yourself. As an example, according to our field producer, at the Giller awards Bob Rae was trying to get away, he was trying to avoid us, he took a wrong turn and ended up talking to Critch and Crawford.

Also, as an aside, the Prime Minister has so far refused to appear on 22 minutes (which is his right, he’s a pretty busy guy,); We (22) have not been invited into 24 Sussex.

So yep, let me say that I don't want to pillory either Mercer or 22 for not doing hard satire when it's not their intent to do hard satire.

Where the gap comes, and where I might diverge from Doyle a bit (or maybe this is what he's saying, too, I don't know, it's hard to tell) is that in the popular imagination, these shows are held up as "Canadian Satire" and are often (as in the case of the "Inside the CBC" reaction to Doyle's article) trotted out as an example of a more virtuous Canadian brand of humor that says something about our character.

In reality, it's anything but that. The combination of the "big 3" shows on CBC and the reverse onus libel laws in Canada make it very unlikely that any kind of true satire program could ever flourish in this country.

CBC can point to the "safe" poltical comedy we do and say, "see? we do that!" And they'll have plenty of people (like the apologist spinners on the CBC thread) who'll tart it up as virtue -- when really it's evidence of constriction, not expression.

Even on CTV/Comedy's doomed Popcultured, the brief was to do celebrity news "but with a smile," Ie: don't be mean. No wonder the show tanked. I mean, are we really saying that what our celebrity obsessed age needs is more softballs?

As Joanna Schneller put it in the Globe today (talking about the cessation of Premiere Magazine):

Premiere gave writers space in which to expand ideas about our cultural moment in a general-interest format. Without venues like it, entertainment writing falls into two slots: either highly specified, or distressingly shallow, a scrap heap of sound bites, tabloids, "charticles" and gossip. There may not be many of us actively mourning the loss of Premiere's type of intelligence, but we'll all feel it

I think the same is true of the lack of true satire in Canada. I think it makes us poorer, and smugger, as a people. There's a study out just now that proves that viewers of The Daily Show are better informed about issues than the rest of the U.S. populace -- including people who watch the national nightly TV news. What the study seems to indicate is not that people get their news from the show, but that to find the show funny, you have to have a base level of understanding of the issues. To me, one of the great strengths of both Colbert and Stewart is that they are actually quite hard on Democrats, too. That's the nice thing about true satire -- it means challenging ALL the received wisdom.

I like to think that Canadians are generally better informed than Americans about what's going on in the world. But I've also found in my personal experience that the best informed Americans are a lot more willing to challenge the orthodoxies at play in their mediascape, than the best informed Canadians are willing to examine similar Canadian myths.

I think that's because no one here ever says truly impertinent things. And I think a large part of the reason for that is because, well...they're afraid.

The example used in The Walrus article of a joke that almost got Mary Walsh in deep dutch was the quip about then-Reform Party Leader Preston Manning's speech being better "in the original German." Had the Reformers pressed a suit there, there probably would have been trouble -- despite the fact that the joke is funny.

I happen to think that's probably not good for either humor, satire, or political debate in this country. It's not that we're kinder, gentler. It's that we pull our punches. And in this day and age, I'm not sure we can afford to do that.

Thanks for writing, and letting me clarify my position on those shows, someguy.

***

Reader Jesse emailed me a link to this very fine story in the Chicago Reader, about how this summer, the Washington Post will close its one-man Canadian bureau, leaving absolutely zero American newspaper bureaus based in Canada.

Writer Michael Miner sounds like he had an opposite experience to me: he's an American who spent several years in Canada as a boy. Well, that's not exactly opposite. I'm an American who only lived in the U.S. a short while before I...no...wait...I'm a Canadian who was born in the...well, that's not exactly...

Oh bother -- read the article. One of my favorite points, which comes courtesy of the writer's Vancouver-based sister:

Canada is enough like the U.S. that Americans can't afford to pay attention to it. If we saw things Canadians did better, we'd have no good excuse not to copy them.

Neat observation. Miner also has a lovely turn of phrase when he observes:

Despite what Canadians think we all think, I don't consider Canada a part of the U.S. that technically isn't. For me, Canada is some sort of benign antimatter whose reason for being is to not be us. The existence of Canada is the gentlest reproach on earth.

"The gentlest reproach on Earth." I like that. I like that a lot. Thanks for passing that article along, Jesse.

***

Finally, an emailer, who I'll call, "Etobicoke," asks:

Are you going to write about the return of Billable Hours?

Well, Etobicoke, no. We don't talk about Billable Hours on this blog. We did once or twice -- tangentially -- when it first came out. Then, our delicate ears heard that someone connected with the show was going around saying that I slammed the show all the time on the blog. They were powerful upset bout it. They were upset enough to complain about me in Banff, and they were still complaining about me at industry events six months later. So, um...I punt.

However, if you'd like to read more about some of the changes made for Billable Hours' second season, Canadian Press has a great article on them, by Lee-Anne Goodman. Sounds like they really worked hard to retool to a more American-style writing room. You can see and judge the results for yourself when Showcase debuts the second season, this Sunday night, at 9:30 p.m.

They bad mouthed you, yet you plug the show? Why?

Because the Baby Jesus said, "turn the other cheek." And as I've said before, I'm a big fan of Baby Jesus, rather than scary punishy judgey Mel Gibson Jesus.

You're such a good boy.

Thanks, Mom. Er... I mean..."Etobicoke," thanks for writing.

Why Canadian Satire Sucks

A RECENT CONTRETEMPS in this blog had me take on (rather badly) the concept of satire at the CBC and in Canadian Comedy, as evidenced by three shows: Air Farce, 22, and Mercer. All this was sparked by a column John Doyle wrote about the subject in the Globe. If you click the link above, you can see the whole sorry exchange including me bloviating rather ... counterproductively ... on the Inside the CBC blog.

For the record, there is a problem in sharpness in Canadian comedy, and I knew this, and I knew it was at least partially structural, but I was exhausted at the prospect of trying to explain it.

Enter The Walrus.

One of the great things about playing poker with smart guys is that they read, and one of my friends left behind his copy of The Walrus on just this subject last weekend. I just got through the article in question, and it pretty clearly lays out (much to the consternation, I'm sure, of the ultra nationalists who wanted to make lameness a virtue) just why the situation is so.

And lo, The Walrus has that article (by Rebecca Addelman) online here.

Or at least the start of it, anyway. The article starts, cheekily, with a moment that was pretty dark for me -- during the last election, The Daily Show actually used clips of the Leaders debate to make fun of Canadian politics...which is something Canadian comedy shows were not allowed to do. (Oh my, isn't THAT something to be proud of...)

South of the border, the folks at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart thought otherwise. On January 19, broadcasting across ctv and Comedy Network airwaves into 465,000 Canadian homes, Stewart launched into six minutes on the debates. After airing some of the French-language contest, he deadpanned, “You may have noticed the quality of that footage was a bit grainier than the footage we usually steal. That’s because we had to get it from the Internet.” He then introduced more “forbidden fruit of debate footage that the cbc and the Parliament felt was too explosive for fake news”—two dreary Stephen Harper sound bites proving that Lunz was right, this stuff is boring, but that boring, in a blue-plaid tie, can be funny too. Canada is famous for birthing satirists who have gone on to take down the American establishment. How did we get to the point of needing Jon Stewart to make fun of our politicians for us?

The article goes on to explain the problems inherent in Canada's legal system -- the limits on criticism through free speech; the "reverse onus" that hamstrings comedians, and the more sinister, creeping effect where no one ever thinks of approaching the line lest they provoke a lawsuit that they're not insured for.

All in all, it's textbook libel chill. It's nothing to be proud, or smug about, and it's rampant in this otherwise great country.

Great article. Great magazine. (I would be very very happy to receive, say...you know, a free sub...hint hint)

Read it and weep.

Just don't make a joke about me that comes close to that imaginary line, because the burden's on you to prove it... and I'd love the money...

All in All, You Could Call Me Appalled

O CANADA...I was all set to do the following as a little sketch written in dialogue between Dr. House and his medical team; I decided it wasn't funny enough for me to be funny about it.

Look to this article that went out on the wire yesterday:

Is 'House' the new 'West Wing'? Writers work in references to creator Shore's hometown

TORONTO (CP) - Is "House" becoming the new "West Wing"?

The late, lamented political drama capturing the day-to-day workings of the White House was rife with references to Canada. "O Canada" was even played - twice - at a White House function in one episode.

The abundance of Canadian references on the former NBC hit only served to highlight the fact that many American shows - even those shot in Canada or with Canadian actors in their casts - rarely acknowledge the existence of America's neighbour to the north.

But the medical hit "House" may be picking up where "The West Wing" left off.

Or maybe the writers of this week's episode, "Fetal Position," were just poking fun at the show's creator and executive producer, David Shore, when lead character Dr. Gregory House barks at an airline booking agent while trying to book a flight to Cambodia.

If you didn't see that one, maybe you saw the version that appeared in the Sun papers:

It took more than three decades and a little doctoring of the script by a hometown hero — but London’s time is prime again.

In this week’s episode of the hit Fox TV medical drama House, the lead character made a rapid-fire reference to London, Ont.

This is the same gee-whiz, slightly cringey thing that happens any time Canada is mentioned in any piece of U.S. entertainment. It actually makes news here. Now, I'm not talking the local angle, like, "Did you know that last weekend's number one box office movie features a native of our own Podunk, Alta?" I'm talking just like above -- a reference, a line, any little bone rates an actual, honest-to-God news story in the papers.

It's always struck me as a bit amateur hour, kind of like a provincial affectation. I mean, this isn't a small town, it's a modern country of 30 million people, heavily industrialized, with a high standard of living and a big high tech industry. (Now I sound like that old Onion article "Adorable Canada has own currency, laws...")

One quip on a prime time U.S. show, and the country's press acts like a bunch of bobbysoxers chasing around The Beatles.

I saw that episode in question, and chuckled slightly at the David Shore in-joke. You know, the way you're supposed to do. Not turn it into a news story.

What's even more puzzling is that this kind of thing exists side-by-side with another odd Canadian trait:

Smugness -- especially when it comes to the United States.

See, on the one hand there's the quivering any time South Park or Sorkin or now House name checks Canada, and on the other, there's a desire to view everything -- whether it's positive or neutral or both -- through a lens of "that's what makes us better."

It surfaces on things like Talking to Americans, where comedian Rick Mercer stuck a mike in front of Americans who knew nothing about Canada and had them say stupid things or show their ignorance (never mind the fact that you probably could have gotten equally softheaded responses to those questions in Regina or Medicine Hat.) It's also front in centre in this discussion thread over at the Inside the CBC blog.

It all started with an article John Doyle wrote upon his return to the Globe & Mail this week. An excerpt:

What she said was, "I love the way Canadians love Canada. It's not like Americans love America, it's not that insular, knee-jerk patriotism. Canadians are in love with Canada. It's like a love affair." Now there's a thought.

And I think it's true, in some ways. Because Canadians are in love with an idea of Canada -- the landscape, the multiculturalism, the tradition of tolerance, the health-care system that makes us proud -- they tend to be naive about this country, in the way that people in love can be terribly gullible, soft-hearted and easily fooled.

Emblematic of this mindset, I think, is the state of our alleged satire on TV. We're proud of it, and think it's special to have a small army of jokers on TV making fun of politicians, their employers the CBC, and all things quintessentially Canadian.

The Rick Mercer Report (CBC, 8 p.m.) and This Hour Has 22 Minutes (CBC, 8:30 p.m.) are at the core of our TV satire. Both shows can be amusing and Mercer is undoubtedly clever, but both shows are essentially soft. When they mock our politicians and other leaders and celebrities, they do it with love. They don't mock in rage, they don't attack and put forward skepticism about the powerful on our behalf. They cozy up, crack a few jokes and make sure that nobody actually gets hurt. There's too much love and not enough loathing...

There is nothing iconoclastic about Canadian TV comedy. Received ideas and common perceptions are not eviscerated. The powerful are not cut down to size. Unpopular but necessary and contrary opinions are generated...

So much of what we think of as satire on TV is actually sedate, with a lot of safe jokes about hockey, Tim Hortons, other Canadian TV shows and politicians who are being embraced, not mocked.

We don't have a Bill Maher or a Jon Stewart. We have soft, pseudo-satirists who are in love with Canada and all things Canadian, including the powerful. Under the surface-level jokes, it's about being misty-eyed and lovey-dovey about a country that is in dire need of robustly iconoclast humour. With an election on the near-horizon, will anyone be stepping forward to do the necessary? I don't think so. There's too much love and gullibility.

Now that's a pretty cutting comment. In the thread over at Inside The CBC, I wandered in with my own brand of softheaded hardheadedness -- and immediately started deconstructing not the point Doyle was making, but the comments made about it, which touched off a lot of Canadian tropes.

I'll circle back to that in a moment, but first let me say what I think about the point Doyle's making. I think he's mostly right. That being said, there are many, many sketches on 22 that I enjoy, and predictably, they're the ones that are harder edged. (In fact, the ones I like best are probably the ones on their website that CBC wouldn't let them run.) I firmly believe that the 22 crew would probably be a little sharper if they could. But I don't think CBC wants sharp.

I also don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong with softer -- but in this case, CBC has three of these shows. And that's overkill. I tend to prefer 22 over Mercer -- the variety and the comic breadth is greater... there's no doubt that Mercer's funny and smart, but I have gotten a little cringey at his politico-coziness - the favorite part of that show for me is still the Rant. (Surprise, Surprise, I know.)

But to me the really interesting thing wasn't the article Doyle wrote. It's the reactions it immediately engendered on Inside the CBC. Let's quote a few:

It’s true that Air Farce and Mercer don’t have the bite of, say, Jon Stewart.
Could it be that there’s just more to loathe about American politics?

This is Canadian humour with Canadian sensibilities, and it’s what Canadians want to watch, and it’s what we are watching in record numbers, so why is Doyle pining for American style humour? At a time when Canadian humour and Canadian comedies are enjoying unprecedented success, and when a discernible Canadian sensibility is emerging, imo, all this guy can write about is to complain that our humour isn’t American enough!? This kind of wannabe Americanism is a very strong part of the Toronto subculture where NYC is held up by many as their cultural Mecca, but it does exist to some degree everywhere in Canada.

In that last one we actually get a twofer -- not just a celebration of Canadian sensibility -- but a this is all Toronto's fault -- another fave Canadian trope.

Thank Goodness elsewhere in the thread you find a couple people saying, "Canadian comedy needs more courage.." so the whole thing doesn't turn into a lovefest.

What gets me about this kind of reflexiveness is that it's become a go-to for a lot of Canadians, and it's used to not examine our own attitudes, at all. Canadians will be the first to point out how Americans are ignorant about the world, but a major columnist can't even make a point like, "Canadian comedy is soft" without it being turned around and used as subtle proof about how great Canada is?

Canada is great. But it's not great for either of the contradictory impulses in this post: the too-vibrant fascination with being noticed by the U.S. (and don't say it's the press, not the people; they wouldn't write these articles if they didn't get read and evince interest) and the quick jump to "any way that we are is because we're better" -- which means you never, ever, ever have to take a hard look at yourself.

I've spent six years here taking stick for the actions of an American government I voted against twice. (Along with 51 million other people in 2004 - roughly twice the population of Canada.) Yet the moment you raise any point that suggests that things in Canada aren't the jim-dandiest in the world, you get the easy bromides and self-congratulatory backslaps that say, "that's just our way..."

And then we tune in Colbert and Stewart and pray to God that they mention Canada.

It's a bizarre, strange, fucked-up mindset. And it's the kind of thing that lets people manipulate the TV industry without the slightest peep from people who are being messed over by the changes.

Really, what's the difference between smugness and American style jingoism, anyway? They're both rooted in a certain head-in-the-sand, we must be right philosophy that doesn't bear scrutiny, and doesn't reflect well on either country.

I have conversations about "what's wrong with America" all the time with Americans. But any mild criticism you make of Canada -- even to intelligent, urbane, sophisticated Canadians -- tends to get you a cold stare, or a return back to the sins of the Pax Americana.

Maybe it's the screenwriter in me. I just can't abide the passive hero.

As for the hating Toronto thing? Well, yeah. Great. Toronto's infrastructure is crumbling because every taxpayer there sends their taxes out of the city to everywhere else in Canada, and gets way less back in services from the government. It's a great big enormous money transfer, and the reward is a giant "fuck you" sundae. Because screwing Toronto gets votes. So, you know, if you're gonna complain so much, can you at least send some of that money back so that when I go home, I'm not waiting an hour for the goddamn streetcar?

Next Week: Hurley on LOST says, "Back Bacon," "Whistler," and "curling," (coming soon in a 300 word article in your local paper.)

Apologia

I've sufficiently defrosted from my trip to Calgary that I can now see humor, and not simply wonder in the fact that I'm somewhere almost forty degrees warmer than I was on Monday.

On the other hand, they did have snow, and didn't call out the army to deal with it.

That reminded me of one of my favorite bits from venerable Canadian comedy institution This Hour Has 22 Minutes. If you go to their site, you can see some of the sketches that were, for various reasons, not allowed to air.

My favorite has got to be the "Ski Doo Apology." (It's in Flash video, so I can't embed.) Americans, you'll probably recognize Colin Mochrie from Whose Line Is It Anyway? Yup. He's one of them crypto-Canadians too.

Wet snowsuits. Classic.

The Half Hour Drama: Solution or Evolutionary Dead End?

In the post about the CFC pilots, commenter Polly opined that she really enjoyed Involuntary Muscles' half hour running length. Though presumably that presentation length was driven by budget and not creative desire (unlike Polly, I feel the show clearly wants to be an hour) it does raise the old question of: What about Half Hour Dramas?

Polly writes:

Maybe the half-hour drama is something to experiment with. Viewers seem less frightened of committing to 30 minutes than 60, and it would certainly keep production costs down (the reason I've been given why Cdn broadcasters are wary of one-hours). And as you say, instead of an act outs, you've got a good string of episode cliffhangers - is that such a bad thing?

It's something I'm trying to wrap my head around as I develop what I presume are one-hour dramas - could I possibly tell the stories I want to in 22 minutes? (though I'm pretty sure that was a cable half-hour last night I'm thinking... Weeds length...)

blueglow has a slightly different take:

Maybe the tide is turning and the attention deficit generation will tune in for a half hour drama but that format has had a pretty spotty track record so far. I know I've done a few of them in my time and they've had a real hard time resonating with an audience that was hard wired to believe that comedy is half an hour long and drama is an hour. (Even when it is labelled as a dramady).

but who knows, they're cheap to make, and that makes them attactive to our poor cash starved networks.

but if they make it as a half hour they need to be aware of the track record -- Boccho failed with Hooperman (despite having John Ritter, Mr TVQ himself, as the lead) and also failed with Beverly Hills Buntz (which I believe was a half hour as well -- if not, sorry, but it still failed anyway). Denis Leary's "the Job" which was IMHO better than Rescue Me also didn't do very well.

Listing those three shows reminds me of something else -- all the half hour dramas I recall seeing in NA had a light tone to them (even leary's) that suggests a reticence to fully commit to telling a true, or heavy, dramatic story in this format.

Then Cunningham weighed in, as Cunningham tends to do:

The solution therefore is to chart a show that combines the dramatic nature of say, LOST with a half hour format - a serial. A show that can be re-edited to feature length after four episodes (if necessary).
You aren't telling a whole story in one episode, but just a chapter, leaving the audience to tune in next time.

I think half-hour serial dramas could work, especially in genre pieces.

Of these various musings, I think Bill's probably comes closest to the mark. Although Good Dog pointed out, helpfully, that the BBC had some success last year with their adaptation of Bleak House, which went 14 half hours. I still tend to think that makes it the exception to the rule.

I don't know if you could sell people on a serial, half-hour commitment each week. To me it's a heck of a gamble, and it comes down to this: is the problem with serial commitment really the time? Or the show? Have people really turned away from the serial dramas that came on this fall because they don't have any more time to add a new show, or is it the shows themselves?

Are people simply out of the half-hour habit? Has the dearth of comedy successes lately left room for a half-hour show that offers something other than comedy to sneak in there?

I tend to think not. I'm more in agreement with blueglow that comedy wants to be a half hour, and drama wants to be an hour. Part and parcel of the whole "Is Comedy Dead?" argument to me that gets missed in a lot of these articles is that a lot of hour long series have gotten funnier. Procedurals like CSI and Law & Order retain their seriousness, but shows like Boston Legal, The O.C., West Wing, Grey's Anatomy, and Rescue Me make sure to pack in dollops of humor amidst the drama -- and that, to me, is part of the reason why they have such appeal.

But when I talk to Production Managers and number crunchers, I get a different vibe off the idea of the half-hour drama:

It's money.


When you think of a half hour comedy, whether it's studio-based four camera or single camera, most of the times the rhythm of the story surrounds a home base and plays out very much within that home base. Scrubs stays in the hospital. The Office stays at Dunder Mifflin.

Dramas tend to open up and travel more. They also tend to have more extras. That means more locations, a more complicated shoot.

The name of the game in this business is amortization. If you're doing thirteen episodes, it's easy to write off the cost of sets, locales, etc, and spread them over 13 than if you're only doing eight, or six.

Similarly, a half-hour does not cost half as much as an hour. Because you still have to cast, you still have to build sets, populate those sets, pay location fees, etc. Unless you're doing a big bottle show every week, it's probably going to cost you sixty or seventy percent of what you'd spend on a hour drama to do a half hour. (Unless you're ultra-low budget.)

Breaking a half hour, writing a half hour also doesn't take half the time as a writer. It's pretty much the same job. It's the same amount of work. (I'd actually say it might be more. I think finding a compelling story to tell in 21 minutes would be tough, unless you were going to go with Bill's model of ending on a cliffhanger every week.)

Now let's look at the network. Everything's about real estate. Right now in network land you have about five viable programming options: Hour long Drama. Half Hour Comedy. Reality. News Magazine. Game Shows. All of those other shows are hour slots, except half hour comedy.

So where do you program the half hour drama? Do you pair it with a comedy? When? What does it match with?

In the end, I think there's a good reason why the half hour drama format isn't dominant. If you get people involved in a drama, and can keep them for the hour, that's way more solid than having to take a risk that they'll tune out bottom of the clock.

Of all the things that need to be fixed in TV, I don't find shrinking drama series to be a credible solution to anything.

Mercer 22 Skidoo

In my ongoing quest to prove that I really don't have it in for CBC, I'm pleased to report an area where they're doing well: the Tuesday night comedy block of the Rick Mercer Report and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Ratings for the recent edition of Mercer, when he visited the Prime Minister of Canada at home, got close to that magic million mark. 22's numbers are up this season, too, and creatively, both shows seem to be on an upswing.

I think it's great that they finally stopped running away from the obvious and put the shows together in a viewing block. There was a lof of grumbling and hard feelings when Mercer took his rants from 22 over to his own show -- but the two shows have very nicely staked out different territories. Mercer's emphasis on experiencing Canada and getting out there each week makes his show both more personality-driven, and looser than 22, which still retains its heavy-news flavored cant.

They're both enjoyable viewing, and worth your while. Mercer's website is here. 22's is here.

EDIT: if you go to the 22 site, whatever you do, make sure to watch the TOO HOT FOR TV sketch. Funnn--eeee.

Dying is Easy (Part Deux)

"Canadians love to make fun of Americans – it’s the unofficial theme of Canadian TV comedy – but turning that spite back onto them is like standing up at a political rally and yelling, “Hey, our side does some dumb things too!” They don’t want to hear it. So whose side you on anyway? You wanna be a ‘merican, go the heck down there. So while you have (some) genuine political television self-satire in the U.S., you really have none in Canada. They’ve got This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Made In Canada and Red Green, but it’s all about as pointed as a high school end-of-the-year stage show that dares to declare the math teacher is a tough marker and the cafeteria food isn’t very good. The biggest laughs will always come from insulting the other school’s basketball team."

-Andrew Nicholls, Valuable Lessons

First...um...ouch.

I remember a few years back I was working with a mentor of mine on a TV project. This guy is funny, opinionated...Jesuit educated (so you know you gotta stay on your toes...) He was the one who first took the bloom off This Hour Has 22 Minutes for me. He pointed out exactly what Nicholls says above: that it's not satire if no one gets hurt. If you get "outraged" about things that nobody could really reasonably disagree with, like, say, "racism is bad" or "intolerance is bad," then you're not really doing barbed comedy.

22 is a Canadian-topical comedy program that's run on CBC for the last decade or so. It comes out of Halifax, and is supposed to be a Daily Show-like wrapup of the week's events. A few years back, the most popular comedian on the program, Rick Mercer, bolted and now has his own show. Oh, and then there's another topical comedy show called Royal Canadian Air Farce, which has been on the air here since roughly the Mesozoic era. Yeah, there's problem number one: CBC has three flavors of exactly the same show.

Yet if I had to quantify that flavor, I'd have to admit that it was... very mild salsa. It's not that there aren't laughs to be had on each of these shows -- it's that the laughs are gentle, not barbed. Even when they're barbed, no one bleeds. There's a comedy show on one of the cable outlets here that's supposed to be a show making fun of pop culture -- and the brief is, swear to God, "make fun of them, but be nice about it."

I suggest to you that any comic treatment of popular culture that's any less barbed than, say, Defamer, is not something that's needed, anywhere.

Now, compare the Canadian flavor of comedy to the vicious and delicious tang of Brit satire, or even the howl of outrage that is the Daily Show, and the gulf seems even wider. The Canadian editions mostly go after things that everyone can agree with. And, yup, in a lot of cases, that involves trashing Americans.

It's not like that's a new thing in Canada. The main issue in our current election right now, besides wearying scandals that no one really seems surprised or put out by, is "is the Prime Minister damaging our relationship with the U.S. by criticizing them too much?"

It's an easy score right now, critiquing the other school's football team.

Here's the problem: "Canadians are funny" is one of this country's cherished myths. Seriously. Like "we field the best hockey players in the world," "we're a nation of peackeepers," and "People everywhere think Canada is pretty great!" the Canadians-as-funny meme is nearly as ubiquitous as "We're number one" or "We're spreading democracy" is in the USA.

It's enough of a myth that CBC feels that it can build a whole week around how funny Canadians are. And yeah, they'll trot out the same names. Jim Carrey. Mike Myers. SCTV. (For the most part, all of these people are now based in Los Angeles, which is kind of what that bastard Tucker Carlson was saying, but still...)

So here we go into CBC's Comedy Week. Besides the three-shows-that-are-really-one-show sketch component they have, the CBC has done one truly groundbreaking, funny comedy in the last decade or so -- The Newsroom. The Newsroom came on the heels of Larry Sanders, and did manage to satirize the news business with gusto. But -- here's the catch. The first episodes of The Newsroom appeared ten years ago. And the creator, Ken Finkleman, has followed his muse into more and more esoteric projects.

I remember when The Newsroom came out, having discussions with CBC publicists who were...mystified! They couldn't understand why this show was good -- why it was drawing such positive audience response. They were a little giddy, and a little sad. They had a critical (and at least for that first season) an audience hit -- and they didn't know what to do.

Which neatly describes the recent history of comedy on CBC. Fifteen years ago they had a whole Sitcom department. They tried three series. They tanked. The department folded.

Flash ahead to now, and there's a big problem at the CBC. There's a comedy that's wildly popular on Canadian TV. (Corner Gas) They don't have it. There's an edgy cable show with a cult following (Trailer Park Boys). They don't have it. There's this myth that we're good at comedy, but the national broadcaster can't seem to hit with a comedy show that isn't toothless topical sketches that skewer Americans. What. To. Do?

Well...they actually took a positive step forward. Yay, CBC! The problem, of course, is that it comes complete with the requisite two steps back.

A couple of years ago, CBC started doing "comedy pilots" for their new shows, instead of throwing them on the air. The process by which they get to air, and stay there, is somewhat byzantine, as befits the ever-dysfunctional public broadcaster. A few years ago there was a show called An American In Canada, about an American weatherman who found himself transferred to Calgary. They did, I believe, two half-hearted seasons. By the time CBC yanked the show off the air, they had some great scripts and were genuinely funny. (Although, yup, the laughs to be had were mostly at the expense of Americans. But at least Canadians took some hits too.) Anyway, CBC canceled it. CBC could have its own Corner Gas, but no. Anyway.

On Friday, two of the pilots from last year start full series runs. One, Getting Along Famously, stars thespian married couple Debra McGrath (no relation) and Colin Mochrie (Whose Line is it Anyway?) as a married couple doing a variety show in the 1960's. I remember watching this show last year and just scratching my head because the number one question that popped into my pea-sized noggin was, "who the heck is this show for?" I still don't know. (Friday, 9:30 pm)

The second, Hatching, Matching & Dispatching, is Mary Walsh's show set in a Newfoundland outport where one family, the Fureys, runs the local ambulance, wedding, and funeral service. Sounds promising and funny. What I saw last year didn't deliver many laughs. I hope it gets better. (Friday, 9:00 pm)

Which brings us to this year's pilots. This year, they're one for three -- but again, that's no guarantee that the one that works will get picked up, or that the ones that don't, won't. I wrote about this a bit a month or so ago.

The first one up is called Cheap Draft, Bad Language, Fast Cars, Women, and a Video Camera. (Tues Jan 3, 9pm, CBC)

That's right. That's the title. Can you fricking believe it?

You know, there's a lot that's mysterious and unknown about the human brain. And there's a lot that simply you learn through trial and error. Take phone numbers. Seven number phone numbers work, because seven is about the limit of digits that most people can memorize easily. You know what else people can remember? Short titles. You know what they can't remember? Shopping lists. That's why most people write them down. You know what really doesn't work? Making your show title a shopping list. The fact that the CBC let this title go through is just...beyond.

Aside from the bitter truth that if you read that title, you can't help but think, "wow, they're really trying too hard..." and leaving aside the fact that maybe, just maybe, they hadn't heard of the similarly titled (and targeted) British series "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" ...and...damnit...sorry, I have to go off on a rant here.

You know what's one skill that no writer ignores? How stuff sounds. You read your work out loud. Because you need to hear how it trips off the tongue. "Funny on the page" does you no good in this business, because scripts are meant to be shot. Similarly, say the title "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" and you can feel it slide off the tongue. It's got a nice aural shape to it. Now--say to yourself, out loud, the following: "Cheap Draft, Bad Language, Fast Cars, Women, and a Video Camera."

Unbelievable.

Anyway, once you dip inside the show itself, it doesn't get much better. The acting is terrible. All mugging, all the time. There's a long segment that limns an "extreme" reality-game show that could have been funny, had they played it straight. But nope, the Canadian disease rears its ugly head again...they have to put it across in a smug, over-the-top fashion, just so you absolutely, positively get the idea that they're judging this kind of television. (This, to me, is the same thing that keeps The Tournament from being actually funny. Great. Either we smugly judge and go too far -- or we put up too-gentle wiff-balls. Are we having fun yet?)

Cheap Draft has a serious case of the try-too-hards. There's a few amusing bits. There's a sketch about "Extreme Sports for Kids" that's at least as funny as what you see on SNL. But that's another part of the problem. The whole show has a sketch-y kind of feel. I have no idea what would happen every week on this show -- and what's more, I don't really care.

Comedy's all about tone, and likability. The characters in this show are not likable, and the more they try to push and stretch their farcical bonafides, the flatter it falls. Take away the video camera. This Cheap Draft is just a bunch of warm beer.

Rabbittown, (Tuesday Jan 3, 9:30, CBC) on the other hand, is a bit of a treat. Not only are the characters strangely likable (in a junior Patsy & Edina kind of way,) you can definitely see what would happen from week to week. The template is simple: two girls, best friends, who probably shouldn't be friends, because they're destined to bring the worst out in each other. Their competitiveness means poison for the relationship. And hijinks. Oh yes. Hijinks.

I've seen articles written about toxic female friendships. I've seen them in action among some female friends. But I've never seen a TV show about it, with the exception of AbFab. It's a rich, comic area.

When we meet Odelette, she's just returning to St. John's after being dumped by her husband. Her mom owns the local hair salon, and she's determined not to go back there. She instead tries to become an "Exotic Newfoundland Dancer" at a local bar. This leads to a hilarious scene of the hapless Odelette trying to stepdance in a sexy way. It's a loony idea.

The relationship between the two woman, Louanne and Odelette, is priceless. Simultaneously warm, and toxic. Louanne gives her friend a haircut that makes her friend look like a fifties housewife. Odelette leads Louanne back toward drink. "I haven't drank since the last time you came back," she protests.

"Where we wound up in jail."
"I made out with that hooker."
"She was gross"
"I had to pay her."
"Come on, just one"
"One"
"Two"
"Two"
"Three. Doubles."
"Damnit."

Rabbittown also, Jebus be praised, does go for the jugular now and then - in that peculiarly Newfoundland way... Andy Jones, playing the proprietor of the local bar, is enquiring after Odelette's mother. Odelette mentions that she's only half-Newfoundlander, because her mother's from Montreal. Jones' looks wistfully away and observed, "I knew she seemed better than the rest of us."

Now that's a line that got me to laugh out loud. If you don't get it, it would sail by. But the great thing about Newfoundlanders is that they actually do have a tradition of laughing at themselves. Would that the rest of Canada returned the favour.

Rabbittown weaves through logical, rich, consistent character development. The low- key crush Jones' character has on the mother; the mother's exasperation over the relationship between her employee and her daughter...every scene in the half hour promises more.

And it's got a killer opening scene that manages to draw you in while ladling exposition so slightly it should get a laying the pipe award.

Rabbittown was written and conceived of by its two stars, Adriana Maggs and Sherry White. James Genn directs. It's Produced by Jennice Ripley. If this sucker doesn't get at least six episodes, then there's no hope.

I wanted to like the third show, This Space for Rent. (Wed, Jan 4, 9pm) A comedy based in Vancouver could work. There's one great scene with actor Jason Bryden, where he haggles with a Chinese street vendor in perfect Cantonese over the price of fish. At least I think it was Cantonese. Might have been Mandarin. Anyway, that was a funny scene. It's an incidental scene going on while two of the female characters lay pipe for the main plot. As he drives away on his Vespa, Bryden says, "Your life makes me sad." Funny line. Good scene. Is he the main character? Er...no.

There's also some good business with actress Emily Hampshire, playing a junior lawyer forced to be one of the boys in her new firm. There's some funny slapstick to be had there as she struggles to "act like she's got a pair." Is she the main character? Er...no again.

Ulitmately, This Space For Rent is pretty impossible to love. First of all, it's an hour long. And you feel every second of that hour. Jerry Seinfeld once opined "I'm not sure comedy wants to be a movie." Well, the one thing I'm sure of is that unless you're prepared to go the comedy-drama route, comedy doesn't really want to be an hour. The hour long epsiodes of Frasier, Seinfeld, Cheers, and Friends were always deadly.

The second problem is the main character, Lucky. (Dov Tiefenbach) Tiefenbach's got a comedy face, that's for sure. He took a very small role in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and made it memorable. But, alas, his character here is a twentysomething writer trying to find himself. He gets depressed, whines, stays in his apartment for thirty days, gets static from his impossibly understanding doctor girlfriend, then writes a letter to the editor and gets a monthly column to bitch in Vancouver magazine. Yay, Lucky. Good for you! Now where's my glock? BLAM! I'm dead. Sorry, Lucky.

Twentysomething angst is something everyone goes through. It is not inherently interesting. When will writers and commissioning editors learn this? This can be your character's viewpoint, but it is not funny in and of itself. You need funny things to happen.

The kind of journey Lucky goes through in this pilot, might have been the plot of a middling Canadian film. But it does nothing to set up the central conflict or template for an ongoing series. And with an hour to establish character and tone (which is also all over the place -- from trendy film-effected montage and manipulation shots to slapstick to loopy drug humor; it's all in the pot: "let's cook it and see if anything sticks once we heat it and it explodes onto the wall,") the closest I can come to an idea of template is that from week to week we'd get to see Lucky write his column, Hate Male, (yup, I know) while his friends all try to find themselves.

Which is pretty much a one-minute pitch. I would think that after 48 minutes of TV, I'd know more. I don't. If you can't make me fall in love with your characters and your world in 48 minutes, I don't think you should get to make a series.

I think there's a persistent problem in Canadian TV -- and especially comedy -- and it's this: they keep giving TV series to people who really want to make Canadian films.

Not films.

Canadian films.

Yes, there's a difference. But that really is a different post.

As always, your mileage may vary. But the reality is that CBC needs some popular comedy hits to reverse its increasing audience irrelevance. Rabbittown is the only one of these three pilots with the potential to reverse that slide -- at least critically. I hope CBC looks at that pilot hard and tries to figure out what went right. Is it significant that it's the only one where the actors are also the writers? Maybe. Does that mean you've got a problem in your script development, or your casting, or both? I don't know. Is the Rabbittown duo really that talented, or does the fact that they wear dual hats leave them open to less meddling from the network? Again, I don't know.

What I do know is this: CBC needs to start doing better. Rabbittown's a start. But there's still too much decisionmaking by committee (which really doesn't serve comedy too well.) They take too long to develop things. (If Rabbittown gets picked up it likely won't return til 2007.) And most of all: it would have been much nicer if they could have gone two for three during Comedy Week.

ADDENDUM: Jan 3: Reading John Doyle's column in the Globe & Mail today, he pretty much agrees with my contentions on these three shows, but raises an interesting further point, which I didn't realize: Both Maggs and White are part of the creative team -- and may even be on air in Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, the Mary Walsh show. Does having two such similar styles of humor with creative crossover hurt the chances for a Rabbittown pickup? Who knows? It does make you despise lazy casting in this country, though. Similar to the situation last summer where CTV's Robson Arms premiered, and over its run, practically every cast member of Corner Gas, CTV's other show, showed up in different roles. This doubling up makes for a couple of problems: a) It makes it seem like we don't have too many talented actors (untrue) and b) it's impossible to establish a unique identity if your actors pop up on every damn show and all the commercials on the air too. I don't blame the actors here...people have got to eat. But it's yet another consequence of doing too few episodes. Typecasting? Forget about it. You're in trouble when your number one comedy features that guy from the Listerine ad.