A Skin That’s Thin: This Hour’s Rick Mercer Gets His
Comedian Rick Mercer can dish it out, but can he take it?
Ottawa Citizen, April 22, 1998
by Paul Gessell
It would appear that the brash Newfoundlander who stars in CBC-TV’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes is just a bit thin-skinned. Mercer, like the rest of This Hour’s foursome, loves to ambush politicians and embarrass them by handing them trick lighters, restyling their hair or asking highly personal questions. The resulting film clips make for great TV.
Well, Mercer claimed he got ambushed this week by NDP leader Alexa McDonough at a downtown Ottawa bookstore as he was signing copies of his newly released book, Streeters: Rants And Raves. Later, reflecting on the encounter, he was not laughing. In fact, he sounded peeved that a politician tried to horn in on his act.
“Politicians will do whatever it takes to get on television,” Mercer said in a not terribly kind way. “Like Alexa showed up today at my book signing and kind of ambushed me, which is odd, seeing as she doesn’t have a television show. She did it to try and get on the news. They’ll do anything.”
As Mercer recounts the tale, McDonough showed up at the book signing Tuesday with a couple of TV cameras in tow. Clearly, it was a setup, he says. “She stood there telling everyone my book is no good. She said the book costs too much (it’s $19.95) and then she dug out a piece of paper that she claimed was my application to join the NDP and it was rejected.”
It just so happens that Mercer slags McDonough and the NDP in his book, which is a collection of the scripts of rants already aired on This Hour. One of the rants is entitled Alexa On Top. It aired Nov. 20, 1997. In it, Mercer complains about the NDP’s lack of activity in Parliament. He also confesses to having been a member of the NDP when he was 16, owned a motorcycle and drove recklessly. “Luckily, I never had an accident and hit my head. If I had, who knows, I could still be a member of the NDP today.”
Can you blame McDonough for trying to get even, just a little bit?