Canadianity

by Jeremy Taggart

  She didn’t want a funeral of any kind. She wanted to donate her body to medical science. There was really nothing I could do except be there for my sister, so that she wasn’t forced to hold a vigil alone.

  Marj and I went to visit the Susebot on Monday after the Halifax shows. She’d been better, but she’d also been worse. Her words weren’t coming all that easily, nor was her breath, but we still had a couple of laughs.

  More important, I told her I loved her and that she was a good momma. I kissed her on the forehead when we left.

  The next day, Taggart and I flew to St. John’s and were picked up by our friends Andrew and Paddy, complete with salt-and-vinnies, beer and a sign that said BAHDS. We checked into our Airbnb, and in typical rock ’n’ roll fashion, Jer went to have a nap.

  I was debating what to do when I saw that I’d missed a call from Carole. And another from Northwood.

  My mom had just died. Peacefully, quickly, relatively painlessly.

  The first thing I thought was of what Mary had said: “Maybe she’s waiting for you to go away so you don’t have to be around for it.” I had been away for one night. What are the odds?

  I debated what to do. Should I cancel the show? Should I change my flight? Should I tell Taggart?

  The answer to all of those questions was no. Rushing home wouldn’t change anything. Telling Taggart would only give the night a morbid tone. Cancelling the show wouldn’t change the outcome.

  Carole offered to come, which was typically perfect of her. Truthfully, I was worried that if I saw her I might break down, and I wanted to get through the show first. And maybe I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Plus, I thought, what better place to spend a rainy Tuesday night with like-minded people than the Ship Pub, a classic St. John’s destination?

  In my head, I decided that the show would be my little tribute to Susan. A wake, if you will. It gave me—and I think the show—a slightly more serious tone, but I’ve since heard from lots of folks who were there that they had a great time.

  If I could go back and change the decisions I made at that time, I wouldn’t.

  As dreadful as it sounds, the combo of Alzheimer’s and lung cancer was actually great in my mom’s case. Her brain didn’t know what her body was doing. Her body sped up the natural process, so she didn’t have to live for fifteen years not knowing who or what we were.

  Best of all, I have some fond memories of the slightly kooky super-patient woman who was my mom. I called her many things over the years—Baby Susan, Clammy, Clamsterdam, Clam and Cheese, Susapotamus, Stusant . . . but none of them bugged her more than Dennis.

  In my twenties I took to calling my mother that, mostly because it was the unlikeliest nickname. It took off within the family, and soon everyone was calling her Dennis. To the point where it actually stopped being funny and just became reality.

  “What time are we going to Dennis’s for Thanksgiving?”

  “What are you getting Dennis for Christmas?”

  There was only one problem—“Dennis” hated it. Like, couldn’t stand it. Like, made the sound accchk whenever she was called it. She doesn’t even like it when people call her Sue. Dennis was like sandpaper on her ears.

  During an intense cribbage game at a rented cottage on PEI, she told me she wanted to make a bet. “If I win, you’ll never call me ‘Dennis’ again.”

  I thought about it. Those were high stakes.

  “Fine. But if I win, I never call you ‘Mom’ for the rest of your life.”

  She took the bet. And then she skunked me. Dennis was done.

  So I waited two weeks and started calling her Reggie.

  Canadianity for Dummies

  Okay, say you have a dinner party tonight with the family of your hot new Canadian girlfriend, and you want to fit in and keep up. Just read and absorb this next section and you’ll be good to go. It’s like the Coles Notes of Canadianity. Do you even know what Coles Notes are? Oh man, you’re in trouble.

  Taggart

  Here are some of my favourite Canadian TV shows, the ones that impacted me—and most people—growing up in Canada in the ’80s and early ’90s.

  The Beachcombers

  A staple on Sundays in my household. The silly dealings of Nick Adonidas and Relic. The drama of the logging industry in BC. How Canadian is that? Bahds trying to sell logs and foiling the attempts of West Coast crooks. This show was the epitome of Canadian television. A glimpse of a western small-town location, with the strong brush of whodunit. A classic stew of wholesome Canadianity.

  Degrassi Junior High

  This show had the most realistic casting. I remember watching The Kids of Degrassi Street when I was really young. Kids smoking darts in their greasy little clubhouse hangout. I always remember it feeling so local, like they’d cast kids from my school. Nobody was too pretty or too ugly. The plotlines always featured the worst possible outcomes too, which made it hard to not watch. There was always a train wreck in each episode, somebody going through some sort of hell, like pregnancy or a death in the family.

  The Littlest Hobo

  Another staple in my house. The sleuthing German shepherd that helped out a person in need, only to dump them at the end of every episode, moving along to the next town to help someone else. When I toured in the US as a kid, I used to bullshit in interviews, saying that I was in that show when I was younger. Haha! I used to say I was in the bulk of the series. Classic. It helped with my homesickness.

  Wok with Yan

  Another show I used to love watching. The puns on Stephen Yan’s aprons were the best. Looking back, I’m pretty sure he made the same dish every episode. He would fire up the wok, cut up some chicken and veggies, douse it with “sesame street” oil, then grab a bahd from the audience to crush it with him at the end. Such a great show.

  The Friendly Giant

  With his gentle demeanour, Friendly was a total beauty. Hanging out with a rock-hard-looking giraffe and a baggy rooster, telling tales and having laughs. My dad’s drum teacher, Howie Ray, was on the show’s music staff. I remember him getting pointed out in the credits. It was a big deal. That, and the time my mom had to give up her squirrel monkey as a young girl, so she gave it to The Uncle Bobby Show. It was on there for years.

  Seeing Things

  A cheesy, but serious detective show where Louis Del Grande has the ability to see glimpses of the future, helping him solve crimes. I always thought it was classic when he had visions. It was like he was getting a migraine or something—the pain of seeing into the future! Jonathan has a script from a Seeing Things episode from his days at the CBC. That’s gold. When Torrens’s J-Roc character threw out “Louis Del Grande–lookin’ mafk” to Jim Lahey in a Trailer Park Boys episode, I died laughing. That’s a quality pull right there.

  Torrens

  It’s hard to pick just a handful of shows that have defined this country (and me), but here is a litmus sampling of staples.

  Hockey Night in Canada

  The opening strains of the theme song—the old one—can give even the least sentimental Canuck full-bodied chills. Ron & Don. Bob Cole. Jim Hughson. Especially in spring, when the playoffs start, the whole country gets Saturday night fever.

  The Tommy Hunter Show/Rita & Friends

  I’m throwing these in together because Tommy Hunter and Rita MacNeil did the same thing. Both had CBC variety shows that showcased the best in Canadian music.

  Wayne & Shuster

  As a kid, the humour was a little lost on me, but even then the chemistry between Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster was undeniable. Their theme song was also unforgettable!

  Speakers’ Corner

  Maybe Canada’s first reality show. For twenty-five cents, citizens could speak their mind in a video booth outside MuchMusic headquarters at the corner of Queen and John in downtown Toronto. The clips were then edited into a half-hour weekly TV show. Not only did it cost Citytv very little to produce, but people paid to be on it. Just another example of what a television
ary Moses Znaimer was.

  The Kids in the Hall

  I watched as a teenage kid with my jaw dropped, intoxicated and invigorated by this absurd troupe of cross-dressing, catch-phrasing, mould-breaking whack jobs. Maybe the most formative inspiring experience of my entire life. Still ahead of the curve, twenty-five years later.

  Plot or Not?

  Is this a real plot to an episode of one of your favourite classic Canadian TV shows or not?

  1.Beachcombers: At the grand reopening of Molly’s Reach, Nick and Jesse have to make excuses for Relic, who’s passed out in the kitchen from drinking too much cooking sherry.

  2.Seeing Things: Louis Ciccone bears an amazing resemblance to Stefan of Drabvania, but just as he is about to assume the king’s identity, the real king is kidnapped and his bodyguard murdered.

  3.Murdoch Mysteries: Percival Jenkins is found murdered at his breakfast. While questioning the servants, Murdoch discovers that many maids have been let go over the years for their “loose morals.”

  4.Degrassi: Drake’s character, Jimmy, takes a Viagra and gets a boner that won’t go away for the entire school day.

  5.Street Legal: Olivia represents a controversial sexist author, but ends up sleeping with him in the judge’s chambers.

  6.Heartland: Ty and Amy arrive home from Calgary to discover that someone has let the horses out of their stalls and an equestrian orgy is in full swing.

  7.My Secret Identity: Andrew (Jerry O’Connell) must choose between going on a double date and spending time with a troubled boy.

  8.Beachcombers: Relic mistakes a beekeeper’s cargo of honey for gold and fights Nick for possession of it.

  Not: 1, 4 and 6. Plot: 2, “Here’s Lookin’ at You”; 3, “Downstairs, Upstairs”; 7, “Split Decision”; 8, “Cargo of Gold.” A little of each: 5 (true plot, but with a Torrens fan-fic ending).

  The Prize Is Right: Canadian Game Shows

  Definition

  Cool-as-a-cucumber host Jim Perry gave clues in this hangman-inspired game, where contestants competed to win tens of dollars’ worth of prizes. Bic pens! A week’s supply of Rice-A-Roni! Bus tickets!

  Bumper Stumpers

  Al Dubois showed contestants two vanity plates, and they had to guess which one pertained more to an owner he would describe. Wanna play right now?

  “Which plate, the left or the right, would be more apt to belong to a speed demon?”

  To this day, we can’t flip past a rerun. We have to stop and watch. It’s like A Baby Story on TLC. You know how it’s going to end, but you still have to see it through.

  I always thought getting LDUBOIS as a personalized plate would be worth it, just to completely blow the minds of both people who got it.

  Test Pattern

  Turbo-bahd Dan Gallagher co-hosted a lo-fi game show on MuchMusic with Luc Casimiri. Luc is a super-dry Italo-Canadian who has written every award show in Canadian history.

  Luc was to Test Pattern what Paul Bellini was to Kids in the Hall. In a word, essential.

  Talk About

  Hosted by charming game show staple Wayne Cox, Talk About got contestants to do just that: talk about a subject for twenty seconds to see how many relevant words they could utter from a hidden list. “For twenty seconds, talk about . . . ashtrays!”

  Kidnadianity

  Would you believe there were shows for kids other than Street Cents and Jonovision? If you grew up in Canada, odds are you watched one, some or all of these.

  The Friendly Giant

  Bob Homme wore felt and invited young viewers to curl up in a tiny chair in his castle and listen to stories. His co-stars were hand puppets Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe (allegedly played by the same puppeteer, straddling a post).

  Student Bodies

  A partly animated Saved by the Bell riff about the lives and loves of a group of kids working at the school newspaper.

  Catwalk

  Neve Campbell and some guy with a curling-rock haircut danced and brooded about teenage issues.

  The Raccoons

  A cartoon series about a group of pests led by Cyril Sneer.

  Danger Bay

  Christopher Crabbe, Ocean Hellman and other people with less seafaring names, like Donnelly Rhodes, rescued marine animals in BC.

  The Edison Twins

  They were really smart and solved mysteries. Worth a watch now for the ’80s clothes and the chance to spot cameos by then up-and-coming Canadian actors.

  Today’s Special

  Ontarians would know this TVO series.

  Switchback

  Various regions had their own version of this Sunday morning part–game show, part–variety show staple.

  Wonderstruck

  Bob McDonald broke down everyday science in terms young geeks could understand.

  Cancom

  Canada has an impressive list of comedy exports, from Michael J. Fox to Jim Carrey to Mike Myers. Here, though, is our list of comic Canucks who made headway and got traction right here at home. Which is no easy feat. TnT proudly presents the Short List (named after Martin Short, even though he had to leave Canada to make it really big).

  Rick Mercer

  Rick has been on TV in this country for twenty-five years straight. To accomplish that is one thing, but to do it at the calibre that Rick does, week after week, is simply unprecedented. As if his dozens of awards and accolades weren’t enough, maybe the most telling tale of Rick’s #Canadianity is that he’s the first to reach the million-point plateau of Air Canada’s Aeroplan, with all of his miles travelled in Canada. The prime-time minister of Canada.

  Letterkenny Problems

  Not unlike Trailer Park Boys in that it’s a mockumentary snapshot of small-town life, but it’s entirely unique in its patois and pacing. Jared Keeso, the co-founder and co-writer, plays lead character Wayne with astonishing restraint, yet somehow brings depth to a classic man-of-few-words country kid. The other Letterkenny performances are steady, reserved and nuanced too. But the writing is what sets Letterkenny apart. The JPM (jokes per minute) rating is incredibly high, and the true mark of a funny show is that it’s found a huge audience by word of mouth. I predict Letterkenny will travel as far and last as long as Trailer Park Boys for one of the same key reasons: anywhere you go, people know these guys in their own towns.

  Picnicface

  In the late oughts, a sketch troupe called Picnicface emerged from Halifax. It was eight members big: Andrew Bush, Mark Little, Evany Rosen, Kyle Dooley, Brian MacQuarrie, Cheryl Hann, Bill Wood and Scott Vrooman. Each of them is an incredibly solid performer in their own right, and every one knows their way around a joke.

  The main reason they’re on this particular list is because they were the first troupe I knew of to blow up on the internet. Their Gatorade parody “Powerthirst” has more than thirty million views and catapulted Picnicface into a new world of cyber-celebrity, earning them comparisons to the Kids in the Hall right out of the gate.

  Their TV show on the Comedy Network was funny too, as well as ambitious. I actually did a day on Roller Town, their pitch-perfect genre parody feature film.

  Codco

  Somewhere between This Hour Has Seven Days and This Hour Has 22 Minutes came Codco, the cheeky weekly saucefest from a group of genius Newfoundlanders. In fairness, I’m biased towards this group because they shot in Studio 1 at CBC Halifax, where we shot Street Cents, but their absurd observational comedy and outrageous performances made Codco must-see CBC programming. Andy Jones, Cathy Jones, Mary Walsh, Greg Malone and Tommy Sexton rewrote the book of what was acceptable by pushing the boundary every single week. I remember as a teenage boy being rapt by the bizarre characters, especially the ones Andy would play. “She had url . . . url on her breastses.”

  Gerry Dee

  When Mr. D started, Gerry said, “There are 750,000 teachers in Canada. If they watch, we’ll be a hit. Let’s make the show for them.” From the moment the show started, he’s kept that promise, and he analyzes every joke a
nd scenario through the lens of a teacher, watching to ensure that it’s plausible.

  I’ve learned a lot from Gerry Dee in the years we’ve been doing Mr. D. Like Jeremy, Gerry isn’t afraid to take the time to pursue a joke and make sure it’s working. He also deserves kudos for coming into the comedy game relatively late, having worked as a teacher for years first. No one can argue his meteoric rise in the world of standup, and he probably is the undisputed standup-to-sitcom record holder in Canadian TV history.

  Russell Peters

  We had to include Russell on this list even though, technically, he’s made it even bigger everywhere around the entire world than Canada. Not only is he a funny standup, but his true gift is that his comedy reflects an audience that, until he came along, didn’t have a voice. He can dissect and distinguish between South Asian countries in a way that leaves audiences rolling in the aisles at his hyper-accurate dialects. Canada has never seen a standup achieve the global heights he has. Nice dude too.

  Corner Gas

  Brent Butt managed to do something that no one in Canadian TV history had—made a hit Canadian sitcom. There’s quite a lesson in how he did it as well. Corner Gas didn’t try to match the flash of its American counterparts. There was no laugh track, no selling of the material. Just solid jokes, gamely delivered by a competent cast. Sounds easy when you say it like that, but Brent—already one of Canada’s foremost standup comics—cracked the TV nut in a way that no one else had. Props to the rest of the cast, led by the masterful Gabrielle Miller and including Canadian treasures Eric Peterson and Janet Wright, plus Fred Ewanuick, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Lorne Cardinal and Nancy Robertson. Deep bench on that show. And now an animated series!

  Ron James

  Here’s another guy who’s managed to make a career out of a comedy combo. From Blackfly to the long-running Ron James Show on the CBC, from coast to coast, from year to year, from town to town, Ron’s big vocabulary, staccato delivery and unique take on the Canadian experience keeps them rolling in the aisles and watching on New Year’s Eve.