News Junkie Smartass
Made In Canada star Rick Mercer will be famous for longer than 22 minutes
Spank!Mag, December 1998By Neasa Coll
Rick Mercer came from a school year of very fortunate people. Canada’s sketch comedy guru can rattle off the names of at least half a dozen classmates currently making a living in Canada’s entertainment scene. So if you went to school with Rick Mercer, don’t give up yet – your 15 minutes could be just around the corner.
Best known for his work with This Hour Has 22 Minutes, an incredibly successful weekly news magazine satire, the man who has made a Newfoundland accent sexy now has a new credit for his bio, namely Made In Canada, Mercer’s newest venture. A departure from satire genre, Made In Canada is a six-part funny yet dark comedy series centering around a fictional entertainment company that, in Mercer’s own words, “makes very successful but not very good television.”
As co-creator and co-star of the show, Mercer describes Made In Canada as “really funny, and really nasty. It’s about office politics essentially.” Those who managed to catch its premier episodes were pleasantly surprised. We’ll have to wait and see whether the clever satire was appreciated enough to return to Canadian television.
Mercer’s comedy experience goes back to his St. John’s, Newfoundland high school days. Although he doesn’t consider drama to have been a major part of his high school life, the theater kids were a “cool kind of bunch to hang out with.”
Mercer goes on to explain the beginnings of it all. “We had written and performed a show with a punk band for the high school drama festival. We won our region and got to go on the road. It was an original play, but there were lots of bad words. The punk band was called ‘What A F***in’ Ugly Truck’ and we got in a bit of trouble. The drama teacher suggested we continue doing our good work in theater and comedy, but we do it outside of school... it was causing some problems.”
The cast of that oh-so-controversial play that just happens to contain a number of Canadian entertainers. “Everyone is still working. Andrew Younghusband is working with (CBC’s) Undercurrents. Christine Taylor is still performing, and our brass player is now in The Watchmen. We were a very fortunate group of people, in terms of just finding one another in that grade in school. And everyone continued from there.”
Shortly after disrupting the Newfoundland school system, the group created their own theater company, taking the original sketches and the band to various bars and venues to perform. It was there Rick Mercer found an interest in political satire. Out of that grew his one-man show tours, the first of which premiered in 1991 in Ottawa. By the time his second show, I’ve Killed Before, I’ll Kill Again, hit the stages in Canada, Mercer was gaining national attention for his sharp wit and political insight.
After work with a few CBC TV and radio commentaries, Mercer was recruited to work with Cathy Jones, Greg Thomey and Mary Walsh on the development of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a satire of the historic Canadian news program This Hour Has 60 Minutes. Mercer’s biting humor has become a valuable part of the television show Canadians love today.
”Out of the one-man shows came the streeters,” explains Mercer, about his notorious 22 Minutes monologues. Streeters are sarcastic, hard-biting commentaries with Mercer walking through gritty urban settings, filmed in just one black and white shot. “When 22 Minutes started, the four of us were put in this room with the creative producer, Gerald Lunz, and basically had to create the show. No one knew what it was going to be at all.”
However, after the premier episode, Mercer and his co-stars realized 22 Minutes had something that was missing from television at the time. “I had a pretty good idea (22 Minutes) was gonna work after we saw our very first show. I didn’t know whether we’d get a million viewers a week or a million-five, whatever we get now, but I knew if I wasn’t on the show I’d be really jealous of it.” Mercer chuckles, taking a break from his breathless string of sentences.
22 Minutes currently holds numerous Gemini Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy) for best overall comedy, best writing and best performance in a comedy. Internationally 22 Minutes received the 1994 San Francisco International Film Festival Best Comedy title. Who would have thought that a show with four ‘newscasters’ at the microphone each episode would be enjoyed by so many. “(22 Minutes) is the perfect show for me,” says Mercer, his broad Newfoundland accent shaping his words. “I’m a news junkie and I like political satire and I like sketch comedy. All the things I like to do, I can do on 22 Minutes. It’s the perfect show for me.”
Throughout the years, cast and crew have managed to create a tight team. The grueling work schedule starts basically at everyone’s homes on Sunday so they must greatly enjoy the work and their colleagues to still be there. Each week involves the read-through of scripts “two telephone books thick,” several days of rehearsals and pre-recording of Mercer’s Streeters segment – the only part of the show not taped in front of a live audience.
Anyone who’s seen 22 Minutes knows the entertainment is in laughing at various international affairs and controversies. But where is the line drawn? How does one go about creating that kind of show without alienating various groups of people? “We piss people off all the time,” laughs Mercer. “No, we don’t go that far. And there are a number of lawyers that do nothing but read our scripts on a regular basis. Essentially, the best rule of thumb is if it’s true, then you can say it all you want. If you’re making it up, you’re getting in trouble.”
So what pisses the Canadian public off? Are we more outraged when four comedians on national television find amusement in the life of our prime minister, or when they laugh at our sports heroes? As it turns out, Canadians seem to care more about figure skaters than leaders. “It’s not usually the political stuff that causes outrage, it’s usually other things we do, for some reason. To me, the most vitriolic response was when I did a kind of parody of (skater) Elvis Stojko’s McCain’s (juice) ad. That was the record – we’ve never got more letters in the mail and phone calls, ever, in the history of 22 Minutes than when I did that sketch.” It seems that Elvis has more fans than first thought. “Oh my god, yeah,” concurs Mercer.
”And when I was doing it there was a little nagging voice in the back of my head saying ‘y’know Rick, you rally shouldn’t be doing this sketch, ‘cause people are going to be really pissed off.’ I probably should have paid attention to it, because you always get a certain amount of mail, but when you get that many letters...”
”We pride ourselves on playing on the edge and when you do that, occasionally you slip off – into the abyss.”
Mercer has had a number of side-projects in the past few years, including work in the CBC film Secret Nation, and the June publication of a collection of his favorite streeters from the past four years. “It was interesting,” explains Mercer or his work on the book. “Y’know, if you play a guitar, your big goal in life is to hold your record in your hand at some point. Whether it sells or whether it’s successful is almost secondary to just getting that in your hands. As a writer it was pretty exciting just to see the book roll off the press.
”It became a national bestseller, which I was very flattered about, but it was almost cheating in a way. A very good friend of mine wrote a novel - Rare Birds, a very funny, funny novel. But he had to work two years writing this bloody novel to get his book in his hands, whereas I almost felt like I didn’t have to do anything to get mine. Of course, I’d written it all, but I’d written it over four and a half years, so all I really had to do was go into the computer and pull all the streeters, do a couple of quick edits and send them off.”
Mercer doesn’t have to worry about having too little on his plate. After completing a cross-Canada book tour this summer, Mercer sat down with 22 Minutes writer Mark Farrell to create six episodes of Made In Canada, which debuted October 5. Many people thought the show would be doomed, letting everyone know just from its title that it was completely Canadian – even the credits roll to music from The Tragically Hip. As for how successful it was, we’ll have to wait and see.
In Canada, Mercer has become a household name. Of all Canadian comedians, he is one of the most renowned and respected. The question is, would he ever consider taking his work and talent south of the border? “In terms of going to America, it’s not something I really though about, but it’s not something I really say I wouldn’t do. Y’know, you go where the work is. Once I left St. John’s, sure I might as well end up in China. Once you leave your home town you go ‘well, I’ve left my hometown now, wherever I go past that is irrelevant.’
”I believe a show like 22 Minutes would never work in America. I think Canadians are more tuned in to what’s going on around them. The basic premise when you’re doing satire is that the people watching your show have some idea what’s going on, so they know what you’re talking about. In America, what passes as satire is kind of ‘the president is fat and eats burgers’ and now people know about this Monica Lewinsky thing. Other than that, it’s difficult to perform satire in the United States because they really don’t pay much attention to it. In Canada, people seem to have more of an interest and are more willing to go there.”
Mercer is grateful for the success and opportunities he has been presented. From his beginnings in high school drama to his solo work across Canada, it seems Mercer’s always been aiming higher. A workaholic? He doesn’t think so. “I’m having a lot of fun, so I wouldn’t consider myself a workaholic. I think the definition of a workaholic is someone who, y’know I don’t know what the definition of a workaholic is, to tell you the truth!
”I’m just having fun. It’s always my own choice. But, coming from Newfoundland you never say ‘no’ to work, for God’s sake! It’s just king of beat into you from an early age: ‘you do not say no to work’ (Mercer mocks in monotone mechanical voice). When opportunities come along, you go for them.”
We’re with ya, Rick, but just remember: Elvis his plenty of unrelenting fans.
Neasa Coll has been with Spank! since forever. Right now she’s grouchy because it hasn’t snowed yet and no one has noticed her shiny orange boots.