|
Rick Mercer doesn't mount much of a defence when I suggest his latest TV gig isn't
exactly the hardest paycheque he's ever collected.
"No-o-o-o," he says, laughing.
"Although it's hard on the feet. That's a concrete floor."
Mercer walks the floor of fledgling History Television every weeknight at 6:30 as
in-studio host/quisling of the series It Seems Like Yesterday.
The half hours consist mostly of archival newsreels, movie clips and ads with Mercer
popping up in between to gently crack wise. Fifty-two episodes have been ordered
and Mercer's narration and on-camera commentaries are taped in Toronto,
several at a time.
"Sometimes when I'm standing there doing it, I do say things on the fly and it's gotten
a little more irreverent as we go, but it's not 'Rick Mercer Satirizes History' because
you can't do that seven shows a day," says Mercer, of viewers who know him from This Hour Has 22 Minutes and expected him to make more mockery.
Sometimes, the nature of the newsreels makes them inappropriate for poking fun at -- wartime footage, for instance -- but he hasn't given up hope that his reference to Adolf Hitler having one testicle will one day make it to air.
"They say, 'You can't say that,' and I'm saying, 'Why? Is the Hitler family going to get upset?' "
Whether that half-Hitler tidbit is a fact or apocryphia half-remembered from the wartime propaganda tune isn't something that weighs heavy on this History host.
(They say to me,) 'Is that true? This is the History channel and we want to be accurate.' (I say,) 'For the point of this show, he only had one ball, okay?' Then we picture the Grade Eight student writing the paper, 'Hitler only had one ball. Footnote: History Television.' "
Side projects are something of a way of life among the This Hour quartet. In the off-season, Mercer covered the federal election for the Microsoft Network and wrote a column for Time magazine. Mary Walsh is prepping to star in a drama series for Baton Broadcasting. Greg Thomey will host a mock-etiquette series on CBC later this winter.
Despite those distractions, Mercer expects the weekly satire to continue for at least another season because all of them consider it their bread and butter job.
Its popularity has cost them some of the thrill of slipping unnoticed into press conferences and news events to ambush their targets, he admits.
"Our first year we had so much fun because the politicians didn't know who we were. Now they do. We used to always wait until all the legitimate press had asked all their questions because we didn't want to interfere in that process and then we'd kind of throw our question in."
An example of how that's changed is the last scrum into which Mercer waded, one with Industry Minister John Manley.
"He was just so giddy and stupid that I was standing there that I asked him a question. He was chomping at the bit to be on the show," he says.
"We often cut them out because it's just too embarrassing sometimes. They start dancing jigs and stuff and we're like, 'Oh for God's sake.'"
|