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There have been some fantastic satirical Canadian comedy shows.
SCTV.
Kids in the Hall.
The Baroness von Sketch Show.
All of those shows are great.
But…
Only one did the following:
got a Liberal MP kicked out of the party.
planted a Canadian flag in the middle of Russia’s Red Square.
made a future President of the United States the butt of a joke…. involving poutine.
When it came on the air it shed a whole new light on the headlines and news never looked the same.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and This Hour Has 22 Minutes!
Launched in 1993 the weekly TV comedy focuses on Canadian politics and events through a mock news program, with sketches, parody commercials, and hilarious interviews of public figures.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes almost immediately became a Canadian staple and it was hatched by comedic geniuses from Newfoundland whose lineage traces back through the decades….
Like a family tree of funny This Hour Has 22 Minutes is the hilarious offspring of CODCO and Wonderful Grand Band.
CODCO was bornin 1973 when Tommy Sexton an actor, writer, dancer, musician and comedian Diane Olsen wrote a series of short sketches of satirizing and lampooning contemporary Newfoundland called Cod on a Stick.
The first production was done in Toronto when Paul Thompson, a director/producer, gave them $300 as seed money and offered them the stage at Theatre Passe Muraille.
After the Ontario performance, the show was mounted in St John’s that same year and then toured Newfoundland.
The group’s name CODCO came from an abbreviation of Cod Company and was composed of Newfoundlanders who had developed material based on their experiences at home while being away.
Original members include Sexton and Olsen, Greg Malone, Paul Sametz and two individuals who will feature prominently in this episode, Mary Walsh, and Cathy Jones.
Walsh was studying at Ryerson University when she dropped out to join the group.
Jones was touring with the Newfoundland Traveling Theatre Company and while in Toronto looking for more work she saw an opportunity and joined them as well. e.
By 1974 CODCO was touring Newfoundland and filming a show for the National Film Board and that’s when Cathy’s brother, Andy joined the cast.
For the distinctively Newfoundland collective of creative geniuses nothing was sacred; the more untouchable the target, the more savage and swift the attack.
After 1976, members weren’t working together as much, instead they supported each other’s individual projects.. by now Olsen had left the group and a couple of new faces had joined the collective… including Greg Thomey.
Born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Thomey has been part of the comedy scene for many years who often collaborated with the group.
He’s an important character in today’s story.
Meanwhile from this branch of the comedic tree came Wonderful Grand Band.
The musical comedy group was formed in St. John’s in 1978 and released an album a year later.
That led them to tape a variety show for CBC inn 1980 which combined original and traditional music, with satiric comedy sketches.
Wonderful Grand Band aired from 1980 – 1983 and amongst the cast were CODCO members Cathy Jones and Mary Walsh who were part of the show during its final season.The show was massive in Newfoundland whichhad a population of 550,000, and Wonderful Grand Band regularly drew 250,000 viewers each week.
Among the faithful viewers was a teenage boy named Rick Mercer… another important character as you’ll soon see.
He said of the show,
“Wonderful Grand Band had the biggest influence on me, more than any television production in my lifetime.”
Gerald Lunz, his future husband and creative producer for 22 Minutes , said,
“It was the biggest show in Newfoundland. It would clear the streets. A whole province was sitting in front of their televisions because it was theirs. It was about them.”
Three years after Wonderful Grand Band went off air members of CODCO reunited for a benefit show in St. John’s.
Tom Sexton and Greg Malone, who had also been part of the show with CBC, were in talks with the broadcaster about developing a new project.
With the success of the reunion show, CBC asked them to make a CODCO TV series.
CODCO began production in 1986 and debuted on the CBC in 1988 and many compared it to The Kids in the Hall due to the absurdist satirical humour, openly gay cast members, and their use of drag.
The show was a hit… and not just with viewers.
It won the Gemini Award, essentially a Canadian Emmy, for Best Comedy Series in 1989 and 1992, and Best Variety Series in 1990.
And earned a nomination for Best Writing in a Comedy in 1989 but lost to The Kids In The Hall. It eventually won in 1992 and 1993..
But the win was a little bittersweet because that year the show was cancelled.
Throughout the show’s five seasons and 63 episodes Greg Thomey appeared as a regular guest performer and he would become part of the next big thing for CBC.
They were s looking to work with CODCO again and as it turned out, Mary Walsh had an idea.
Mary Walsh had decades of comedic performances under her belt. She was a critically acclaimed entertainer and had a vision for a new project.
A satirical news show.
Walsh took the idea to Michael Donovan, the co-founder of Salter Street Films who loved it and they took it to Jack Kellum, the producer of Wonderful Grand Band and CODCO who loved it as well.
Donovan then went to Andy Jones, Cathy’s brother and former CODCO member to see if he wanted to be part of the new show.
Worn out, he turned them down. In 1996, when interviewed by Maclean’s, he said,
“I was into my personal freedom at the time. Do I regret it? Sometimes.”
They turned to his sister Cathy Jones.
She had worked with Mary Walsh for two decades but was shocked to be included because she had no interest in politics, and wondered what she could bring to the show.
She found the news upsetting and didn’t like to watch it plus she preferred creating lighthearted fun sketches. Despite her worries, she signed on.
Meanwhile Rick Mercer, that young fan inspired by CODCO was making a name for himself He landed in Cathy and Mary’s radar when he attended one of Mary’s shows at the St. John’s Community Centre a few years earlier.
He put a cigarette down a pipe in one of the bleachers, quote “That is how I met Mary. She tore my head off for almost burning the building down.”
Cathy had worked with Mercer in 1988 when she hired him to be a technician on her one-woman show Wedding in Texas.
That’s also when he met Gerald Lunz, who was the show’s producer and stage manager.
In 1990, Mercer created a one-man stage show titled Show Me the Button, I’ll Push It, or Charles Lynch Must Die and gained attention when he performed it at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
By this point, Mercer and Lunz were a couple, and Lunz directed the show.
In 1992, Mercer created his second stage show, I’ve Killed Before, I’ll Kill Again.
That same year, he acted in Secret Nation, alongside Cathy Jones and Mary Walsh.
After circling each other’s orbits for years Cathy and Mary approached Rick about joining them on their newest adventure.
Hewas surprised and nervous about working with two individuals he considered comedic icons and said,
“I was terrified because I just did not believe that I had the talent to be in a room with Cathy and Mary.”
Mary then turned to the very funny Greg Thomey, who they knew very well..
For a showrunner they turned to Gerald Lunz, who called Thomey a comic genius and considered Cathy Jones to be the most versatile comic actress since Carol Burnett.
The show that Mary Walsh had in mind however was very different from what we have come to know and love
At the time there was talk of a musical about the news each week, and an ongoing sketch about a family called the Rosedales satirizing residents of the wealthy Toronto neighborhood.
It was more of a variety news show, than straight up satirical.
Mercer said,
“Those meetings in St. John’s were a real eye opener. What was evident was no one knew what this show was going to be.”
Mercer called it Canadian Saturday Night Live.
Other ideas included a guest host who didn’t give a monologue, instead that task would be split between Mercer and Walsh.
Then there were the puppets… akin to the ones in Spitting Image a British show that ran from 1984 to 1996 and satirized the Royal Family and politicians using puppets.
I remember watching Spitting Image when I was a kid. Those puppets terrified me when I was a child, and they terrify me now… and for good reason
If you’ve been following the Jeffrey Epstein case you might be aware that in newly unsealed documents, Prince Andrew is accused of using his puppet from Spitting Image to grope Virginia Giuffre, who was underage at the time.
Not having those puppets was a good call in my opinion.For Mercer, this was not the show he signed up for
He said,
“Puppets were mentioned. I remember this making me dizzy.”
He was worried no one would watch.
Thankfully the show began to develop into something new.
Editorial producer Geoff D’Eon said,
“Gerald was the showrunner. The creative producer. They had a pretty clear idea as to what this show should be, and it didn’t include some of the elements that Mary had in mind.”
According to Mercer, Gerald Lunz’s greatest contribution to the show was the 90-second rule, which was that no matter what, nothing could be more than 90 seconds and that 60 seconds was the sweet spot.
That rule would keep the show moving, and for the first few years it was followed to the letter.
To train the cast in how news is presented, they turned to Geoff D’Eon who was a CBC News producer and was to become the show’s editorial producer.
His job was to keep the show on track journalistically and ensure that its content was topical.
Gerald Lunz said,
“Geoff came out of news, and we were circus people. He must have felt like ‘Oh my God, I’ve dropped out of news and joined the circus.’”
Geoff D’Eon arrival helped anchor the show in reality and shaped it into what we know today.
Mercer said,
“I can’t understate how important Geoff was to the show, because he was a real newsman, and he knew how it worked.”
Geoff D’Eon’s role wasn’t to turn Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh into journalists… instead his job was to teach themthe tics and mannerisms of newscasters and reporters in the field.
It was also decided early on that the show would be filmed in Halifax, not Toronto.
It seemed like all the pieces were coming together but the show still didn’t have a name.
That came from Michael Donovan who inspired by an iconic Canadian TV show..
This Hour Has Seven Days was a news magazine show that ran on CBC from 1964 to 1966 offering in-depth analysis of social and political stories from the previous week.
Despite huge ratings, it was cancelled suddenly in 1966 allegedly on orders of the Prime Minister’s Office which led to huge protests on Parliament Hill.
Mercer said,
“God, how I wanted to be on a show that the Prime Minister’s Office would want cancelled. I wanted to be on a show that would make politicians in Ottawa kick their TVs in.”
From that iconic show came the title This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which referenced the fact that a half hour of terrestrial television had eight minutes of commercials leaving only 22 minutes of content.
Mercer felt that the title was smart and with the cast assembled, the show was beginning to take its final shape… All that was left was to figure out characters and signature sketches.
Mercer said of sassy reporter, Babe Bennett, one of Cathy’s most famous characters “It was a character filled with joy and featured no malice. A sunny respite in a sea of anger. Cathy’s characters were always happy. Every one of them also laughed.”
Cathy Jones and Mary Walsh also created Misses Enid and Eulalia, two elderly women who talked about daily events..
Greg Thomey created foreign correspondent Tim MacMillan, my favourite character from the show.
He always got on the wrong plane in the airport and was never where he should be when anchors went live to him for an update on a news story.
One of the funniest examples was when he was supposed to be covering the OJ Simpson trial in Los Angeles but wound up in Grande Prairie, Alberta.
Then there were the famous Rick Mercer rants, which were very affordable to shoot and easy for CBC to agree to.
And then…. there was Marg Delahunty.
By far the most famous character.
Created by Mary Walsh, Marg was known for wearing a warrior outfit, like Xena: Warrior Princess as she cornered politicians to give them advice, which was usually in the form of an insult.
Mary Walsh insisted on doing her own makeup, always using cheap drug store products.
Marg Delahunty became a cultural icon.
And aside from these segments and characters, cast members also had to come up with names for when they would be anchors on the show
Rick Mercer became J.B. Dickson, which was loosely based on J.B. Roberts. a Canadian-American television journalist currently working for the Fox News Channel, as the co-anchor of America Reports.
Greg Thomey became Frank MacMillan, the brother of the often lost, foreign correspondent Tim MacMillan.
Mary Walsh became Molly McGuire, a reference to an Irish 19th-century secret society by the same name Cathy Jones chose the name Sydney Dubizzenchyk, which was based on the name of CBC Midday anchor Tina Srebotnjak andshe felt it had a musical sound to it.
To direct this hilarious cast of characters they tapped Harvey Sarwer-Foner who had two years of experience directing the youth consumer show Street Cents and at the beginning both shows shared a studio.
Sarwer-Foner had the difficult task of tying the news, sketches, rants and more together into a cohesive show.
He said,
“I think that is what is special about the show…that you never really know what is going to come down the pike.”
With all these creative pieces in place CBC hoped they had a hit on their hands, but they still played it safe and ordered six episodes to start with a budget of $100,000 per episode.
Gerald Lunz said that they were so poorly funded they had only three wigs when the show started.
And that wasn’t the only thing causing tension..
Originally, Mary Walsh was credited as the head writer but cast members questioned this decision. They were all responsible for writing their own material and they were the ONLY writers on the show.
. Eventually, Walsh lost the title but retained the creator credit.Then, as the first taping got closer, Mary’s back threw a wrench in the proceedings. .
Throughout most of her adult life, Mary Walsh dealt with back problems.
Unable to cope with the discomfort any longer, a few weeks before the show’s launch, she went in for back surgery.
The cast and crew would walk down to the nearby Cambridge Suites where she was bedridden to hold meetings.
Needing to have Mary in the first episode, a plan was hatched to film her as Marg Delahunty, who was so overcome with emotion at the state of the world that she was confined to her bed.
George Anthony, the Creative Head of CBC Television Arts, Music, Science and Variety, said,
“It was just amazing to see it happen that way. It just established Marg Delahunty as one of the best characters on the show.”
And that first episode set the precedent and format for all future episodes.
First cast members would deliver jokes at the news desk in front of a live audience, then they threw to pre-filmed segments shown on monitors as the audience reactions were recorded.
A few sketches were filmed in studio in front of the audience, and all those elements were assembled for broadcast.
When the cast sat down to watch the first episode, Rick Mercer was blown away and called it the greatest moment of his life.
It aired on Oct. 8, 1993, bringing in 468,000 viewers. A respectable debut of a Canadian show.
A young man making his way in the entertainment industry a was one of those viewers.
Mark Critch, had been staying in Mercer’s spare room while acting with a comedy group.
He said,
“I stood up in a pub watching the debut of 22 Minutes, trying to shush the crowd around me. There was Rick, on national television, doing sketch comedy. I couldn’t believe it. He had made it.”
As it turned out, Critch would have his own long history with the show, but we will get to that later.
Following the debut the audience grew to 535,000 viewers for the second episode.
And it was building momentum as Canada headed to one of its most important federal elections.
For the previous nine years, the country had been governed by Progressive Conservatives Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
By the early-1990s, his party was unpopular with many Canadians because of the failures of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, or GST.
Kim Campbell,, succeeded him as leader and became the first and so far only female Prime Minister in mid-1993.
She almost immediately called for an election which was expected to reshape Canadian politics.
CBC put This Hour Has 22 Minutes front and centre and gave it access to live election coverage.
The cast wrote news copy and sketches that were performed each time the feed went to them.
On Oct. 25, 1993, the Liberals won the election and gained 96 seats to form a new government under Jean Chretien with 177 seats.
The Progressive Conservatives suffered a terrible defeat, losing 154 seats and finished with only two.
As news of the defeat trickled in, the 22 Minutes cast formed into a conga line and danced on camera while singing,
“Mulroney is no more, Hey!”
Peter Mansbridge, who was on the anchor news desk that night, said,
“These guys captured the mood. There was a conga line going on in the country that night. They just put a face to it.”
Despite the high ratings the network had trouble deciding on an airtime because of its edgy humour.
The network did not want it in primetime near the more mainstream Royal Canadian Air Farce.
The first two episodes aired at 10:30 p.m. on Monday.
After the election special, it bounced around between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The CBC seemed to consider it a late-night show.
But when it aired at 11 p.m. ratings fell to 300,000.
After the Christmas break, the show aired at 8 p.m. for the first three episodes in 1994 and the difference was unbelievable.
It reached 900,000 viewers and outdrew both the Primetime News and Royal Canadian Air Farce.
And with that cemented a second season.
With the first season over only the four main cast members of Mercer, Jones, Walsh, and Thomey served as writers.
The second season brought along Paul Bellini[1] [2] .
If you love Kids and the Hall as much as I do, that name is instantly recognizable as the silent character who appeared in various sketches wearing nothing but a bath towel.
Along with being an iconic part of that show, he was also a gifted comedy writer.
He was joined by Ed Macdonald in the new writers’ room.
As the cast prepared for the second season, there was nothing but praise for them.
Bellini called Cathy Jones the best sketch comedian he had ever worked with.
Considering he worked with The Kids in the Hall, that was very high praise.
Fellow new writer Ed Macdonald said of Mercer,
“I went to a taping the week before I started on the show, and you could tell right away that he was a star.”
Meanwhile Mercer was amazed by his castmate Greg Thomey, and said,
“I don’t think there is anyone who’s worked on the show who is not entirely in awe of Greg Thomey.”
Director Henry Sarwer-Foner stated that Mary Walsh completely embodied the characters that she portrayed.
Audiences and the industry agreed. The the talent on 22 Minutes was unbelievable
But those who were often the butt of the jokes… had concerns…
The politicians.
At first, many politicians thought This Hour Has 22 Minutes was simply a local news show and allowed them to let down their guard without realizing they were appearing on one of the best satirical shows in Canadian history.
Preston Manning, leader of The Reform Party of Canada,a right-wing populist federal party, was one of the first politicians to appear on the show.
He happened to be in Halifax and came face-to-face with Rick Mercer and a CBC camera,
Rick Mercer said,
“The first time with Preston Manning, I can remember, when it starts to dawn on him that this is not a real newsperson.”
Later that season, Mary Walsh said on the show,
“Preston Manning’s speeches are wonderful, but I hear they are even more edifying in the original German.”
In response, the Reform Party threatened to sue 22 Minutes.
Two weeks later, as word of mouth spread, the Reform Party realized the benefit of being on the show and saw it as an opportunity to humanize their leader.
This time Preston Manning asked to come on.Mercer called the relationship mutually parasitic, because it benefited both the politicians and the show.
Eventually, being on 22 Minutes became a rite of passage for provincial or federal politicians in Canada.
And it didn’t take long for Prime Minister Jean Chretien to make an appearance… and for that he would be up against one of his most challenging adversaries…
Marg Delahunty.
She often ambushed the Prime Minister and Mary Walsh remembers those one take and stressful segments fondly.
“I always walked away thinking of some way the interaction could have been better, funnier, but of course you couldn’t get a do-over. I especially enjoyed doing the set-ups with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in his office. He was just so naturally funny.”
This Hours Has 22 Minutes was a bona fide hit.
After its first full season in 1994, the show picked up three Gemini Awards, winning Best Comedy Program or Series, Best Performance in a Comedy Program for the cast and Best Writing in a Comedy.
New segments were added and Greg Thomey created a bit where whatever celebrity he was talking to attempted to get him in a headlock Sometimes that took as little as 15 seconds.
One of the most famous instances was when former American Secretary of State Colin Powell put him in a headlock.
Then there was the Marg Delahunty Sleepover, where politicians got in bed for discussions.
This resulted in some very interesting situations.
Myron Thompson, a Reform Party MP from Alberta who said he didn’t hate homosexuals, but hated homosexuality, had a Marg Delahunty Sleepover with Svend Robinson, the first openly gay Member of Parliament in Canadian history.
They weren’t alone in the bed.
There was Elsie Wayne, a Progressive Conservative from New Brunswick who opposed same-sex marriage and Viagra for war veterans and NDP Leader Alexa McDonough.
Geoff D’Eon said.
“Interestingly, Myron Thompson didn’t take his cowboy boots off. Alexa McDonough had on pink slippers. People’s feet were sticking out the end of the bed and then we saw these cowboy boots.”
Bits like that helped the show grow to over one million viewers a week.
With that came more accolades..
By 1996, many critics considered itt the best show on Canadian television and earned a front-page profile in Maclean’s Magazine whichwrote ,
“Together, the 22 Minutes cast achieves four-part harmony.”
Although happy with the success of the show and the many opportunities it afforded, Mary Walshsaid in that 1996 cover story,
“The basic problem is that my original conception didn’t have five hairy-assed producers making all the decisions. I’m happy with the show but it is a boy’s club.”
Regardless, the show was a Gemini darling and had a tough time losing the Best Comedy category. It won five years straight 199495, 96, 97 and 98.
It also took home Best Writing in 1995, 1996 and 1998.
Around this time, Greg Thomey said “These are the sweet times, even though you know that someday it has to go poof.”
And the accolades didn’t come easily.
Working on the show was grueling and it was common for new writers to leave after a week or two.
It was nonstop Gerald Lunz said the show was fast, six days a week, with one day to do your laundry.
But with that came comedic gold, like the segment Talking to Americans.
The idea for the segment came when they had time to kill while Mercer was in Washington D.C. with Geoff D’Eon and cameraman Peter Sutherland
Before Jimmy Kimmel did this on Hollywood Boulevard
Mercer came up with the idea of filming himself talking to Americans but using false facts. The goal was to satirize Americans’ poor understanding ofCanada.
In the first segment, Mercer talked with a Capitol Hill staffer and asked him about a fictional presidential summit between Bill Clinton and Ralph Benmergui, who was the host of Night Lines on CBC.
Mercer also convinced the staffer that Canadians were not familiar with the concept of alphabetical order.
The segment debuted in 1998 and became incredibly popular among Canadians, and one of the most famous.
Over time more segments were filmed and they included some very prominent Americans were put on the spot by Mercer.
Governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack was fooled into believing that Canada was finally adopting a 24-hour day and legalizing VCRs.
David Hasselhoff and Jerry Springer believed that Jean Chretien was a small-town mayor in Canada.
Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee congratulated Canada for building a dome over its national igloo to save it from global warming. HVice President Al Gore didn’t correct Mercer when he said Canada was moving its capital from Kingston to Toronto.
But the most famous segment aired in 2000 when Mercer asked then-presidential candidate George W. Bush for his reaction to an endorsement from Canadian Prime Minister Jean Poutine, which Bush did not correct.
This became nationwide news in Canada and the United States and the show 90 to 95 calls coming in over the course of a few days.
Mercer said,
“I was suddenly an American news story, and I realized how much bigger the United States is than Canada.”
Years later, President George W. Bush was on a state visit to Canada and said ,
“Mr. Prime Minister, I have one regret about my visit. I was really hoping to meet Jean Poutine.”
The comment was met with thunderous response.
Talking to Americans became so popular that on April 1, 2001, it became a special.
It used previously broadcast and new exclusive material and became the most viewed special on Canadian TV that year.
It drew in 2.7 million viewers and remains the most viewed comedy special in CBC’s history and received two Gemini nominations which Mercer declined following the September 11 attacks.
Meanwhile the show that birthed Talking to Americans was struggling.[PAUSE]
The same year Talking to Americans hit the airwaves, showrunner Gerald Lunz left the show to begin work on Made in Canada, a new series he co-created with Mercer.
Set to debut in the autumn of 1998, it was a dark satire about the Canadian television industry featuring Rick Mercer as Richard Strong. . When it aired it became critically acclaimed and remained on the air for five years.
With the original showrunner gone, This Hour Has 22 Minutes was without a leader and it looked to someone from its past, Paul Bellini.
Bellini had served as a writer on the show from 1994 to 1997 before he left to write a novel with Kids in the Hall cast member Scott Thompson.based on the Buddy Cole character. Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole was released in 1998.
That year, Bellini was asked to return to 22 Minutes as showrunner because he was a talented writer, and because everyone really liked him.
Bellini’s sweet nature would nearly be the show’s undoing.
By now he had to deal with a cast that could at times be difficult Rick Mercer said,
“Paul Bellini is a guy who has show business in his blood. He’s great but I don’t think he was the guy for the job.”
Mercer added that it wasn’t Bellin’s fault and Gerald Lunz commented,
“He got eaten alive. He’s too sweet. He’s too nice.”
On top of this Bellini had to contend with a strike by 1,800 technicians, which began Feb. 17 and crippled the CBC.
The labor dispute occurred in the 13th week of the season, and hurt the flow of the show while forcing the national broadcaster to run shortened nightly newscasts, cancel much of its local programming, and stop production on many shows.
22 Minutes came back in April 1999 with a two-hour show.
Jack Kellum, a senior producer said,
“I think that was probably the closest the show ever came to sinking.”
That season finally wrapped soon after and Bellini was not asked to return as showrunner.
He was replaced by Mark Farrell, who had been hired earlier as a writer on the show.
Adding salt to the wound , for the first time in its history, the show was not nominated for Best Comedy Program or Series at the Geminis.
That honour went to another series…
Made in Canada.
Although disappointing It wasn’t all bad. 22 Minutes still picked up quite a few other awards that night.
The show’s New Year’s Eve Special won Best Music, Variety Program or Series, Best Direction in a Variety or Performing Arts Program or Series, Best Writing in a Comedy and wonfor Best Performance in a Comedy Series.
As the 90s came to an end the show hit a new high thanks to a petition, and dealt with the departure of a key cast member.
The fate of 22 Minutes seemed to be intertwined with politics
In the winter of 2000, Canada went through another federal election as Prime Minister Jean Chretien hoped for a third majority government. The new Canadian Alliance was looking to make gains after electing a new leader, Stockwell Day.
To appeal to Canadians, Day put forward a proposal during the campaign to hold binding referendums on issues that had three per cent of support.
At the time, Canada had a population of 31 million, which meant a petition needed about 900,000 signatures.
Rick Mercer said he saw an opportunity. “We all saw this as a backdoor way to get abortion, capital punishment, gay rights, those types of hot button issues on the ballot.”
He put forward the idea to have 22 Minute viewers sign a petition that would have Stockwell Day change his name to Doris Day. The same name as the famous American actress and singer,.
The segment featured Mercer, standing next to a television, speaking directly to viewers about the proposed policy.
Producers of 22 Minutes didn’t want to air it, worrying that it was not that funny. Mercer agreed there weren’t many jokes but he stuck to hisguns and it aired.
CBC producers made bets about how many signatures the petition would receive and expected 15,000 at most.
Producers were very wrong in their estimates.
Within 48 hours the petition had hundreds of thousands of signatures.
At one point, 42 people a second were signing the petition.
By the time it was done, over one million people had signed the petition to change Stockwell Day’s name to Doris Day.
Due to the news coverage gains made by the Canadian Alliance in places like Ontario suddenly evaporated and the policy idea was taken off the table.
Mercer said,
“We were there to make fun of the news but suddenly we were making the news.”
On Nov. 27, 2000 Chretien won majority government with 172 seats, while Stockwell Day and the Canadian Alliance had to settle with 66 seats.
And if you’re wondering… The Doris Day petition is cited by many on the show as the funniest thing 22 Minutes ever did.
On the heels of that incredible high, the show was dealt a blow when Rick Mercer announced he would not be back for the show’s ninth season in July 2001.
Something had to give, at the time, Mercer was filming 22 Minutes from fall to spring and Made in Canada in the summer.
He was exhausted and confident the show would be fine without him. He stated that if he thought otherwise he would never have left.
Senior Producer Jack Kellum said,
“It definitely threw us out of kilter when Rick left.”
Mercer filmed Made In Canada until 2003, then launched Rick Mercer’s Monday Report, later called Rick Mercer Report which ran for 15 seasons.
Meanwhile 22 Minutes looked for a replacement and various individuals were interviewed but, in the end, Colin Mochrie was chosen.
Mochrie was well-known for his role on the improvisational show Whose Line Is It Anyways, hosted by Drew Carey and various guest spots on American and Canadian television shows.
He said,
“They asked if I was interested, and I said sure because at that point I was younger and I was always into things that really scared me.”
He felt a lot of pressure replacing Mercer.
Around the same time Mark Critch became a new writer and by now all writers were given a two-week trial to see if they could cut it
Critch described the experience,
“The 22 Minutes offices were not what you would call flashy…The whole place seemed like a camp set up by carnies while the fair was in town for the weekend.”
For Mochrie, the schedule of doing Whose Line Is It Anyways, other guest spots in Los Angeles, while filming 22 Minutes was grueling.
He filmed on Whose Line and other shows from Sunday to Tuesday, then spent his time on 22 Minutes from Wednesday to Saturday.
At one point in 2002, he was suffering from exhaustion and had to miss a taping of the show.
As a fill- in they turned to a writer and sometimes roving reporter.Mark Critch.
He said of the experience,
“The audience came in and was informed that I would be filling in for Colin Mochrie. I heard a sigh of disappointment.”
The audience may have had a sigh of disappointment, but Critch was soon to become a fan favourite on the show.
Mercer’s departure wouldn’t be the last
By 2002, Mary Walsh was spending more time on other shows Open Book and Hatching, Matching and Dispatching.
To fill in for her for two weeks, comedian Gavin Crawford was called in who had won won a Canadian Comedy Award for his performance on The Gavin Crawford Show in 2003.
He was asked to replace Mercer before Mochrie was hired, but declined to focus on his own show but went on to fill in for Walsh eight times.
Stephen Reynolds was the showrunner by now and was very impressed calling him a chameleon.
Shaun Majumder joined the show in 2003 as a roving reporter named Raj Binder an awkward, nervous, and sweaty man with a strong Indian accent.
The character caused some controversy at the Heritage Classic outdoor hockey game in Edmonton on Nov. 22, 2003, when he got onto the ice during the alumni team photo and was included in the shot. Only the players and staff of the two teams were allowed in the photo, and organizers were unhappy he had snuck onto the ice to get in the photo.
Eventually, partly due to scheduling, Mochrie left the show in 2003 andMark Critch slid in as his replacement.
According to Geoff D’Eon, he fit like a glove and Mochrie agreed “I like to think I was part of launching his career.”
And more changes were on the horizon…
Mary Walsh left the show in 2004 to pursue a film career and host Mary Walsh: Open Book, a celebrity panel show where she discussed books and literature.
She said,
“After I got to year nine or ten, I realized I wasn’t coming up with new characters. I didn’t know how long I could effectively go on doing what I was doing.”
When she left, Gavin Crawford replaced her.
Jennifer Whalen, a writer who went on to create the fantastic Baroness von Sketch show, said
“Gavin coming into the show was a big change because of his incredible gifts.”
Aside from all the cast changes, 22 Minutes continued to make news
On Nov. 17, 2004, Mark Critch was set to film a segment with Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish.
Before he left, Jennifer Whalen gave him a doll of George W. Bush.
While filming the segment Parrish and Critch are seen stopping on the doll while damaging the head as they joked that’s where the least damage would occur.
The tape was taken to the nearest CBC outlet to feed the footage to Halifax for editing.
As it was going into the system, journalists saw the footage and snagged it for themselves
Critch said,
“CBC Newsworld was going to show the tape before I even had even seen it.”
That night, pundits debated the consequences of the segment and the next day it was front page news across Canada.
The Conservative Party in Parliament stated that it could damage diplomatic relations with the United States.
As a result, Prime Minister Paul Martin removed Parrish from the Liberal Party and she spent the rest of her time in Parliament as an independent.
Critch called her to apologize,
“I stressed it was never my attempt to detonate her career. She bore me no malice.”
Parrish served in Parliament for another year until 2004. In 2014, she was elected as a city councilor for Mississauga. She remains in that role to this day.
Despite the controversy, the show continued to pick up hardware.
After being shut out in 2002, it won Best Comedy Series, Best Direction and Best Ensemble Performance in 2003.
Gavin Crawford picked up a Gemini for best performance in 2004.
In 2006 and 2010, the show won the Best Ensemble Cast Gemini and in 2008 it picked up another Best Comedy Series.
By 2005, Greg Thomey left the show and was replaced by comedian Geri Hall cast for a two-week trial and became a permanent cast member.
In 2007, a young man named Nathan Fielder was hired as a special correspondent on the show.
Nathan On Your Side where he gave terrible business advice to unsuspecting business owners became his most popular segment because of the deadpan delivery but he wasn’t a fit for the show, and only appeared in nine episodes.
22 Minutes helped launch his career because he turned Nathan On Your Side into Comedy Central’s Nathan for You and has since created The Rehearsal and The Curse.
Just a side tangent here, but I cannot express enough how fantastic The Rehearsal and Nathan For You are. If you haven’t seen them, do so.
By 2008, Cathy Jones was the only original cast member as Gavin Crawford, Mark Critch and Geri Hall joined her at the anchor desk.
Even 15 years into its run, the show continued to make news.
On Sept. 12, 2008, during the federal election campaign, Geri Hall appeared as her character Single Female Voter at a press conference for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
As she sat down, she was told by a Harper staff member that she did not belong there.
Hall ignored this and then stood up to ask her question, “What do you have to offer me?”
Almost as soon as she got the words out, police descended on her and took her out of the room in handcuffs.
During all of this she remained in character and yelled,
“Mr. Harper, I just want to fall in love with you! I just need to know you are the right one for me.”
Outside the room she identified herself as a cast member on 22 Minutes.
She said,
“They were really going to take me to the station because they didn’t know who I was, or maybe did know who I was, depends on how you want to believe it.”
Soon after Prime Minister Harper requested she be released and was given an exclusive interview r who told her he had never watched 22 Minutes.
Despite the notoriety the show’s ratings slipped a bit to 500,000 per episode in 2009, but rebounded the following year to 800,000 viewers thanks to bits like Gordon Pinsent reading Justin Bieber’s biography at The Keg restaurant.
That video generated 300,000 views on YouTube.
And then the show embarked on one of its most ambitious projects to date.
Danny Williams had been the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador since 2003.
He was also frequently used for comedic fodder by fellow Newfoundlander Mark Critch on 22 Minutes
When he announced his retirement in 2010, a premise was born.
Williams needed to get permission to retire from The Codfather, Gordon Pinsent.
Showrunner Stephen Reynolds said,
“It was a brilliant sketch and unlike most field pieces, there was a narrative. It was a scripted piece. We were going to shoot it like a drama.”
When The Codfather granted his approval for Williams’ retirement, Mark Critch showed up and took them both hostage in case it caused the demise of his own career on 22 Minutes.
Allan Hawco, another Newfoundlander, known for being private investigator Jake Doyle on Republic of Doyle, had to rescue The Codfather and Williams from Critch’s clutches.
It turned into one of the longest skits to air on 22 Minutes and it was incredibly well received.
Danny Williams loved it as well, saying afterwards,
“It was a lot of fun. It really was. You adapt things on the fly, and for whatever reason, they just seemed to work.”
One year later in 2011, Marg Delahunty surpassed them all with one of her most famous appearances.
Even though Mary Walsh had left the show, she still made appearances as Marg Delahunty.
On Oct. 24, 2011, she conducted an ambush interview as Marg of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford at his home.
Since they were going to his home, Walsh and crew agreed that if he had his kids with him, they would abort the ambush.
When Ford emerged from his home alone and closed the door behind him, Walsh walked up to Ford in costume with a 22 Minutes microphone and said,
“Mayor Ford, it’s me, Marg Delahunty! I gave up the Princess Warrior stuff, but when I saw what was happening to you…I came all the way from Newfoundland to talk to you.”
Ford didn’t greet her with open arms instead he threatened to call the police and stated she was terrifying his kids, who were inside the house.
When news broke about the incident, Ford said that it was dark, and he didn’t know who she was.
He also stated his daughter had been frightened and ran back into the house.
Director Mark Mullane stated,
“How can you miss a media icon with a 22 Minutes microphone? It was pretty obvious.”
While the story dominated the news for a few days, as with many things with 22 Minutes, it eventually blew over.
Walsh has continued to make appearances as Marg Delahunty in the subsequent years on 22 Minutes.
Despite the gaffe, and the many changes over the three decades it has been on air 22 Minutes has proved to be a successful format and ratings remained consistently at 800,000 to one million viewers per week
More changes came when Crawford and Hall left in 2011 and Majumder landed at the news desk alongside Cathy Jones and Mark Critch.
In 2012, Susan Kent, s a writer on the show, became an anchor.
With all those changes accolades poured in for three years, from 2013 to 2015, the show won Best TV Show at the Canadian Comedy Awards, while also picking up Best Writing in 2014 and 2015.
Trent McClellan became a main cast member in 2017 and remains one to this day.
Majumder eventually left in 2019, followed by Kent in 2020.
In 2021,, Cathy Jones, the last of the original cast members left the show.. By then she had spent nearly 30 years behind the news desk.
Aba Amuquandoh and Stacey McGunnigle both joined in 2021.
Mark Critch…continues to hold down the show and has been doing it for the past two decades.
When the Geminis held their 25th anniversary, they had the public vote for their favourite 25 shows. The was filled with 22 Minutes alumni.
CODCO came in at 21st.
Made In Canada came in at 18th.
Rick Mercer Report was 14th.
22 Minutes finished as a respectable 16th.
and that’s not the end of the story…
As I wrap up this episode I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about Mark Critch’s experience in Russia.
In 2007, Russians used a submarine to plant a flag under the ice in the North Pole.
As can be expected, this was not greeted warmly by Canada.
Critch thoughtif Russia could plant a flag in Canada, he should be able to do the same in Russia.
With a small crew, he flew to Russia and made his way to Red Square.
With the camera rolling, he pulled out the Canadian flag on a tripod and said,
“Okay Russia, you dropped a flag at the North Pole, and you’ve claimed it as yours. So, I dropped a Canadian flag in Red Square. We own Russia now. Your rules.”
Within 60 seconds, two police cars showed up and Critch was taking in to be questioned by police.
He explained he just wanted to show love for Russia from Canada,
Thankfully they told him to leave Red Square and never come back.
There aren’t many Canadian shows that could cause an international incident but…22 Minutes absolutely can
