Bob and Doug McKenzie are a pair of fictional Canadian brothers who hosted "Great White North", a sketch which was introduced on SCTV for the show's third season when it moved to CBC Television in 1980.
Although created originally as filler to both satisfy and mock network Canadian content demands, the duo became a pop culture phenomenon in both Canada and the United States.
Bob and Doug, two dim-witted beer-swilling brothers wearing heavy winter clothing and tuques, would comment on various elements of Canadian life and culture, frequently employing the interjection "Eh?"
Due to the difference in the amount of time allocated for commercials, each episode to be broadcast on that network was two minutes longer than those syndicated to the United States.
The CBC network heads asked the show's producers to add specifically identifiably Canadian content for those two minutes, in line with government broadcast regulations.
Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas thought that this was a ridiculous request, given that the show had been taped in Canada, with a mostly Canadian cast and crew, for two years.
"[3] Added Dave Thomas in a 2000 interview, "Rick and I used to sit in the studio, by ourselves – almost like happy hour – drink real beers, cook back bacon, literally make hot snack food for ourselves while we improvised and just talked.
Though initially intended for Canadian TV only, some of the two-minute "Great White North" segments would find their way into U.S. versions of the 30-minute shows due to a shortage of content that week.
The two are then featured in three more new segments, each back to two minutes long, before Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas left SCTV to film Strange Brew.
[13] In the 2000 video game Spyro: Year of the Dragon (and the 2018 remaster), the polar bear NPCs at the start and end of Icy Peak are named Bob and Doug.
[14] They played a variant of the act for the Walt Disney Pictures animated feature film Brother Bear and its sequel, with their characters being the voices of a pair of goofy bull moose named Rutt and Tuke.
It includes an introduction by former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and a cameo appearance by Rush lead singer Geddy Lee.
[17] Animax Entertainment, whose interactive division is currently headed by Dave Thomas, began producing a new animated series for the Global Television Network based on the characters debuting on April 19, 2009, simply entitled Bob & Doug.
They returned to the Great White North at a charity event held in Toronto in 2017 to help raise money for patients with spinal cord injuries.
Raising money for the family was reason enough to convince Moranis, known for keeping a low profile, to reprise his role as Bob for the first time in 10 years.
With celebrity friends such as Dan Aykroyd, Martin Short, Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara performing skits, the gig was sold out.
The statue was the result of a collaboration between local sculptor Ritchie Velthuis, the non-profit SCTV Monument Committee, and Calgary's Bronzart Casting.