Ask Rick Mercer about the current state of U.S.-Canadian relations, and he won’t be optimistic.
“Between the gay marriages, pot smoking, and the war in Iraq, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a deck of cards somewhere down there with all of us on it,” joked the comic.
It was standing room only when the creator of “Talking to Americans”-he of the trademark blue eyes, black suit, and East coast twang-gave U of T a tour of his career as one of Canada’s favourite satirists at the Ontario Institute of Studies on Education on Thursday night. He was invited to talk while on his “Olympic break” by U of T’s Association of Political Science Students, but there were many non-students in attendance-a feat for a show that was only advertised on campus.
Mercer, who first became a recognizable face with his grainily shot pier-side “rants” on “This Hour has 22 Minutes,” now headlines his own weekly show, “The Rick Mercer Report.” From mocking television commercials to getting Canada’s MPs to sing Trooper’s “Raise a Little Hell” for an election ad, Mercer showed on Thursday why he is one, if not the only, reason to tune into the CBC. Nothing was off limits, with Mercer commenting on everything from the current state of Canada-U.S. relations to the CBC’s logo (“the exploding arsehole”).
Mercer referred to “Talking to Americans” as a career-saving accident, crediting its success to the mix of a bad idea with his considerable skill of bullshitting. Accident or no, the show turned out to be a huge hit. Mercer showed hilarious clips of his various “Talking to Americans” adventures, from getting clueless pedestrians to sign a petition to save the ecological reserve of Joe Clark’s hole, to getting a Princeton professor to congratulate Prime Minster Tim Horton on getting a double-double, to getting sympathy and encouragements from beach-goers in Miami about Canada’s national retardation epidemic. He even got the governor of Arkansas to sign a petition to save our “national igloo.”
Mercer cited the time he took then-prime minister Jean Chretien out to lunch at Harvey’s on Budget Day-and experienced some strangely perfect comic timing from the PM-as one of the defining moments of his career. From that day on, Mercer says he and the “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” gang got respect from the world of Canadian media. Not every politician has appreciated his sense of humour, however-he was once threatened with a lawsuit by Preston Manning for comparing him to a Nazi.
Mercer scored the “elusive water cooler moment” during the 2000 election when a fake petition to get Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day to change his first name to Doris got more than one million signatures.
His favourite of the segments, however, was getting late Canadian Order of Canada member/literary giant Pierre Berton to teach Canada how to role a proper joint on television.
“At the end,” said Mercer, “he said, ‘leave the dope.'”
