SCTV (1983) :
This was a running skit of a game show where the contestants are unable to answer any questions correctly. Eugene Levy, plays Alex Trebel, based on game show host Alex Trebec (Jeopardy). Alex starts by chatting with the contestants. The first category is articles of clothing found in a bedroom. The second is European cuisine. Alex decides to have the contestants pick a number from 1 to 10. Prize: seat covers from Vinyl World.
Strange Brew (1983) :
BEER is to the Canadian hopheads Bob and Doug (”Eh?”) McKenzie as marijuana is to Cheech and Chong, though Bob and Doug are by far the more infantile duo. (One of them, whenever he’s in trouble, actually sucks his thumb.) The McKenzies are the creation of two Second City TV veterans, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, who wrote, directed and star in ”Strange Brew,” a movie that’s barely there. The McKenzies are genial enough, and once in a while they’re vaguely funny. But their film is so ephemeral that you may hardly be aware of watching it, even while it’s going on. (NY TIMES)
Kids in the Hall (1992)
The most unusual episode in the set is Chalet 2000 in which Scott Thompson plays his two most famous roles, that of Buddy Cole and Queen Elizabeth II. In the skit, which lasts the entire episode, the Queen gets tired of photographers following her around and so she heads to Northern Canada to relax with her friend and confidant Buddy for a while. While she’s there she has a torrid affair with Buddy’s adopted son, a beaver played by Bruce McCulloch, and avoids a tabloid photographer named Lanky Dean (McKinney) who is still on the chase in hopes of capturing her in some rather unorthodox situations. This is a stellar episode full of all sorts of great little jokes but there’s one big problem with it – if you’re not Canadian, this isn’t very funny. (DVD TALK)
Tom Green on The Mike Bullard Show (1998)
“I threw up for 10 minutes. They had to stop tape for the first time ever,” Bullard said yesterday of Green pulling the rotting carcasses of a raccoon and a squirrel out of a sack on Wednesday night’s show. “Oh my God, there were maggots coming out of its nose. I was fine until the squirrel went flying by my head and I looked behind me and saw the intestines hanging out of it,” Bullard said. (JAM!)
Machotaildrop (2009)
Machotaildrop is ostensibly a skateboarding movie, but only in the same way that our parents’ home movies are about band/soccer/spelling bees and not embarrassment and failure. Or maybe its directors, Corey Adams and Alex Craig (winners of Fuel TV’s million dollar short film contest) realized that we’re all jaded by the conventional skate part-tour van-party-puke-skate part plot of most videos and that what we really need is an intertwined narrative that is equally Terry Gilliam and Paul Thomas Anderson and Rick McCrank’s facial hair. Accident or cinematic revolution, we’re excited about this development and look forward to seeing each of the bizarre scenes in this trailer played out in full glory. (FADER)
DH: I’m working on an article on Canadian Surrealism – so any suggested viewings/readings or timbits of enlightenment are MORE than welcome. I haven’t seen Machotaildrop yet, but it looks like it might fit well into the canon.
One Comment
I think the tradition of this comedic surrealism in Canadian TV is at least partially a response to the incredibly mundane content stream from shows like Codco and Air Farce.. Kind of a disgusted backlash against a country and a broadcasting corporation forever frozen in a brain-candyesque state of asking ‘what does Canada mean to you?’ (that’s an italicized ‘you’) (barf).
For some of us, especially those of us growing up on the mountainside out of the range of cable television, this surrealism was the bread and butter of our media consumption. I don’t know, maybe when I was twelve I shouldn’t have been watching sketches about gay angels flying around the earth providing blow jobs to straight men for free, but fuck it, those were.. fuck, those were the nineties man.