No Rest For The Wickedly Funny
Maclean's, September 8, 1997
By Barbara Wickens
Since 7 am, he has been on his feet at the downtown Toronto set of It Seems Like Yesterday, a historical retrospective show debuting this fall on the new specialty History Channel. As the show’s host, Rick Mercer - best known for his work on the hit CBC TV news satire This Hour Has 22 Minutes - has been trying to be his usual funny, informed self. But by mid-afternoon on a Friday in late August, the St. John’s, Nfld., native is getting a little puchy. While taping a bit about Wallis Simpson and the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII, the floor director tells Mercer to shift his weight onto his other foot. “My back foot?” he asks, squinting into the glare of the stage lights. “My back foot? Jesus, they’re mistaking me for a goat!”
Considering his schedule, 27-year old Mercer can be forgiven for feeling a wee bit tired. “This summer, I was just going to take some time off,” he says. But in June, he was busy covering the federal election for the Microsoft Network, and then landed a part in Toronto to guest star in the hit kids’ show Dudley The Dragon. Last week, taping started in Halifax for the fifth season of 22 Minutes, which resumes on Sept. 22. In between, he was in Toronto to host the first 12 episodes of It Seems Like Yesterday, and he will be back again in October to tape a further 40 episodes.
Flip, funny and already one of the most recognizable young faces on Canadian television, Mercer is also rapidly becoming a sought-after voice on political affairs, having written pieces for both Maclean’s and Time magazine. Still, he adamantly refuses to be labeled a journalist – although he does confess to being a “news junkie”. As a child, Mercer recalls, “my grades were so bad I wasn’t allowed to watch much television. But my parents always watched the news, so that was my TV entertainment.” Now, Mercer is clearly looking forward to satirizing the new Parliament, with its five party leaders. “I think this Parliament will be bad for Canada,” he says, “and good for 22 Minutes.”