Missed the opportunity to talk about this last week, but Denis McGrath’s post about Canadians and their lack of sense of humour is dead on.
It’s not just teevee – although god knows the general priggishness of Canadians as regards mockery of public figures is what leads to bloodless, neutered crap like Air Farce polluting the airwaves for decades at a stretch – it’s everything. When I worked for Torontoist, I got complaints about making fun of Conrad Black, for Christ’s sake. Let me repeat: Conrad fucking Black. People were getting offended on his behalf. Not even people who liked him.
And that was Conrad Black – you don’t even want to imagine the shitstorm that went down on the occasion when it was revealed that Patrick Swayze had cancer. A simple, innocuous joke about Road House (since Jeff Healey had died of cancer the year before) erupted a jihad of self-righteousness like you would not believe. Cancer, apparently, is serious business and you should never make fun of cancer because people die from cancer and it is tragic. (Because I was polite, and because I did not want to give my editor a hard time, I did not suggest that they quit making blog comments and get down to finding a cure for cancer. I mean, if it’s so serious, why aren’t you going to med school, huh?)
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the Canadian literature scene, which is the biggest pile of gladhanding shitbags imaginable. You cannot say a bad thing about Margaret Atwood in this country. Not that there’s much cause, she’s generally pretty cool, but if you so much as mention that her attitude about Oryx and Crake was insufferably pretentious (it is a fucking science fiction novel, Atwood, and if you don’t like it, then don’t write science fiction and then say you “don’t like that label”) – well, be prepared to be corrected by the Canadian media, who will remind you that she is Very Important and a Proud Canadian and so on and so forth.
Honestly, the Canadian social polity in general needs a huge kick in the ass. An enormous one. By someone who’s not going to fucking apologize right afterwards. The reason we don’t have a Jon Stewart in this supposedly funny country is because all the potential Jon Stewarts either leave or turn into Rick Mercer, who I am pretty sure has sucked every dick in Parliament so politicians will give him theoretically funny interview segments.
Top comment: Americans were pretty humorless until Mark Twain came along. By contrast, the first piece of British literature is Canterbury Tales, aka Extended Fart Joke Tales. — Rebecca
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I thought most of the reason Air Farce was on the air so long was because Canadians are paranoid about being not America and give wheelbarrelfulls of money to anything Canadian-produced, no matter how stupidly shit-tastic it is, just to have some pure Canadian stuff that’s not American, but Canadian.
And yeah. Fuck Margaret Atwood.
Also, my God, but it is terrible and sad how the comments section are so quick to prove you and the other guy right. Canada sucks, man. ;-;
My science fiction class spent several weeks on Oryx and Crake. I’d better email the professor and tell him to stop teaching that book.
I miss the kids in the hall. why cant we be funny like that again?
“People were getting offended on his behalf. Not even people who liked him.”
You can actually hear these sentences if you play the Canadian anthem backwards.
Canada gave us Norm Macdonald. And I dig his sense of humor.
Canadians are extraordinarily funny. John Candy,Martin Short, Brent Butt,Derek Edwards , Ron James, Gerry Dee,Andy Jones and Rick Mercer have kept this country and the U.S.A in stiches for years . This blog is lame and incorrect ,Another blog about comedy from a self-loathing Canadian.
Don’t give Americans tooooooooooooo much credit, dude. Remember the palava over Steven Colbert at the Press Club dinner a couple of years back. Our media types can be just as joyless and self-important as anyone’s. Then as now, watch for the grave intonations that ‘it just Wasn’t Funny’ as cover for the pissy-pantsedness.
I do love a good pantsing! I came here for the Anus jokes though.
I loved that press correspondents’ dinner. “People say new appointments are like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. This administration isn’t sinking, it’s soaring! If anything, it’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg!” I’m sure I got the phrasing wrong somewhere. At least Alito was able to laugh at his own expense.
Damn youtube, not letting me see the clip McGrath posted.
Americans were pretty humorless until Mark Twain came along. By contrast, the first piece of British literature is Canterbury Tales, aka Extended Fart Joke Tales.
–“Canadians are extraordinarily funny. John Candy,Martin Short, Brent Butt,Derek Edwards , Ron James, Gerry Dee,Andy Jones and Rick Mercer have kept this country and the U.S.A in stiches for years . This blog is lame and incorrect ,Another blog about comedy from a self-loathing Canadian.”–
Martin Short and funny really do not belong on the same list.
Martin Short is funniest when he’s got someone to play off of, usually Steve Martin. But on his own? Yeah, usually not that funny.
@ John W:
Yeah, and he promptly left this country and went to be funny somewhere else.
There’s funny Canadians. They just all tend to move to the USA because that’s where the money is in being funny.
Tell you what – if you’re seriously that worried about a lack of funny Canadians, we’ll send back Mike Meyers. 🙂
I like to think of Canada as a giant Sunnyvale trailer park.
Trailerpark Boys is proof there is funny Canadians… but yeah, please take Mike Meyers back. Please. I’ll pay.
That’s the paradox, isn’t it? Canada gave us THE KIDS IN THE HALL, most of the SCTV cast, some of SNL’s greats- [i]and yet[/i].
PBS doesn’t run The New Red Green show anymore…
“Canadians are extraordinarily funny. John Candy,Martin Short, Brent Butt,Derek Edwards , Ron James, Gerry Dee,Andy Jones and Rick Mercer have kept this country and the U.S.A in stiches for years . This blog is lame and incorrect ,Another blog about comedy from a self-loathing Canadian.”
I think this post just further proves MGK’s point. You can’t even have a sense of humour about not having a sense of humour
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Canada also sent us Celine Dion. So I figure they owe us another 5-8 really good comedians before we can call it even.
10 if she air guitars while covering any hard rock band again.
Oh, and Atwood so hates her public she literally invented a machine so she could sign their books without being in the same room as them. And no one in the Canadian media, or even the blogs, said “what a stuck-up clapped-out sack of dung.”
Seriously? That’s… less surprising than it should be.
She claimed a different rationale, but yeah.
Is cancer funny? I guess I’d have to hear the joke before passing my pontificating judgement.
NCallahan: That may be because they don’t make the show anymore. Unless your looking for reruns, then call the station.
This is why I love australia. EVERYONE’s a fair target! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKboE2jrUqA Especially authority figures! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3grHjibNdA
MGK, until Quebec separates, technically you can’t say Canadians have no sense of humor. Just those West of the Outaouais river. And East of the St. Lawrence.