Canadian humour
While these traditions are distinct and at times very different, there are common themes that relate to Canadians' shared history and geopolitical situation in North America and the world.
Another major thread tends to be political and cultural satire: television shows such as CODCO, Royal Canadian Air Farce, La Fin du monde est à 7 heures and This Hour Has 22 Minutes, monologuists such as Yvon Deschamps and Rick Mercer and writers, including Michel Tremblay, Will Ferguson and Eric Nicol draw their material from Canadian and Québécois society and politics.
Other comedians portray absurdity; these include the television series The Kids in the Hall and The Frantics, and musician-comedians such as The Arrogant Worms, Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie and Bowser and Blue.
[5] An early work of Canadian humour, Thomas McCulloch's Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure (1821–23) appeared in the Halifax weekly Acadian Recorder.
[6] Compared to McCulloch's dry and understated style, Thomas Chandler Haliburton showed the same conservative social values in the brash, overstated character of Sam Slick, the Yankee Clockmaker.
Examples include Joseph Quesnel's L'Anglomanie, ou le dîner à l'angloise (1803), which criticized the imitation of English customs,[9] and Pierre Petitclair's Une partie de campagne (1865).
More serious dramas attacked specific targets: the anonymous Les Comédies du status quo (1834) ridiculed local politics, and Le Défricheteur de langue (1859) by Isodore Mesplats, (pseudonym of Joseph LaRue and Joseph-Charles Taché), mocked Parisian manners.
In Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), Leacock, already known for his satirical wit, used tragic irony and astute insight in examining day-to-day, small-town life.
Donald Jack, three-time winner of the Leacock Medal, wrote a number of comedies for the stage, radio, and television, but is best known for his nine-part series of novels about aviator Bartholomew Bandy.
[11] Following the Révolution tranquille in Quebec, theatrical satire reappeared in 1968 with Michel Tremblay's play Les Belles sœurs, written in Québécois joual.
However, contemporary writers such as Jacques Ferron (Contes du pays incertain, 1962) in Quebec[13] and Antonine Maillet in Acadian New Brunswick (La Sagouine, 1974, and Pélagie-la-Charrette, 1979), rely extensively on folk humour and popular culture.
Other Quebec writers noted for their humour include Roger Lemelin,[14] Gérard Bessette, Jacques Godbout, Roch Carrier and Yves Beauchemin.
The plain talking alter-ego as an instrument of satire continued with Robertson Davies' series of Samuel Marchbanks books (1947–67) and John Metcalf's James Wells in General Ludd (1980).
[15] Margaret Atwood, Farley Mowat, Paul Quarrington, Mordecai Richler, Raymond Fraser, Carol Shields, W. O. Mitchell, Ray Guy, Pierre Berton, M.A.C.
Many other writers of Canadian humour have been published as newspaper or magazine commentators, including Gary Lautens, Richard J. Needham, Eric Nicol, Joey Slinger, Will Ferguson, Marsha Boulton and Linwood Barclay.
A number of other acts, such as Corky and the Juice Pigs, Arrogant Worms, Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie and Bowser and Blue write specifically comedic songs.
Jann Arden, a singer-songwriter renowned for writing sad love songs, is also paradoxically known as one of Canada's funniest live performers, whose witty, unpretentious stage patter about herself and her family is as much a part of her relationship with her audience as her music is.
Projects such as Punky Bruster and Ziltoid the Omniscient are heavily comedy driven, and Devin's heavy metal band, Strapping Young Lad, use satire and sarcastic tongue in cheek lyrics as well.
The real beginnings of Canadian radio comedy began in the late 1930s with the debut of The Happy Gang, a long-running weekly variety show that was regularly sprinkled with corny jokes in between tunes.
Satirical and zany elements merged in two of the more notable CBC radio comedy shows of the 1990s: The Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour offered bitingly satirical pieces from a First Nations perspective mixed in with general silliness, and Great Eastern, was set in a fictitious Newfoundland "national" radio station featuring improbable news stories, fictitious archival recordings, and unlikely archeological findings played straight.
Madly Off In All Directions became a weekly national forum for regional sketch and stand-up comics, a practice that continues in the more recent series The Debaters and Laugh Out Loud.
They became one of Canada's most enduring comedy teams on Canadian television and in the United States as well: they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 67 times, a record for any performer.
Canadian born Lorne Michaels, who had moved from Toronto to Los Angeles in 1968 to work on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, launched the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live in 1975.
Other shows, such as The Kids in the Hall, 4 on the Floor, Bizarre and Puppets Who Kill, revelled in absurdist humour, making household names out of characters such as Chicken Lady, Mr. Canoehead and Super Dave Osborne.
Although several notable Canadian sitcoms have been produced, such as Excuse My French, King of Kensington, Hangin' In, Corner Gas, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Letterkenny, Mr. D, Kim's Convenience, and Schitt's Creek, many other sitcoms, including Material World, Mosquito Lake, Snow Job, Check it Out!, The Trouble with Tracy, Rideau Hall and Not My Department, have often fared poorly with critics and audiences.
[20] In the same vein as Air Farce and 22 Minutes, a number of notable web sites have emerged to publish articles that either satirize real events or wholly invent stories that lampoon aspects of Canadian culture.
Frank magazine, which originated as a printed publication, has been joined in recent years by The Beaverton, The Daily Bonnet, and Walking Eagle News each broadly modelled after The Onion.
