Talking to Americans

Talking to Americans was a regular feature presented by Rick Mercer on the Canadian political satire show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which was later spun off into a one-hour special that aired on April 1, 2001 on CBC Television.

While waiting to begin filming, he met a Capitol Hill staffer whose apparent willingness to talk freely about subjects he didn't actually know anything about led to an impromptu filmed interview in which the staffer was asked questions about a fictional presidential summit between Bill Clinton and Ralph Benmergui, and was successfully convinced by Mercer that Canadians were unfamiliar with the concept of alphabetical order.

The only Americans who were shown outsmarting Mercer were: a university student who spent her time laughing at him (before finally answering), and a small child who pointed out to his mother, who was also tricked, that Canada had provinces, not states.

[5] The most famous segment, aired in 2000, featured Mercer asking then-presidential candidate George W. Bush – who had previously stated that "you can't stump me on world leaders" – for his reaction to an endorsement by Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine", which was a play on the name of then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (poutine is an order of French fries topped with cheese curds and gravy).

[9] However, Mercer thought it was inappropriate to make fun of American-Canadian relations so soon after the September 11 attacks, and requested that the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television pull the nominations.