For over twenty years he has been in our living rooms. He has a leading role on one of the most influential television programs in Canadian history.
He’s a beloved figure in comedy, known for his sharp wit and engaging storytelling, a skill he used in his memoir, which became a national bestseller.
The book offered a hilarious and heartfelt account of his journey from Newfoundland to the national stage, by sharing behind-the-scenes stories from his career.
It also spawned an award-winning coming of age TV show based on his real-life experiences growing up in Newfoundland, as a child who is much older inside than his 11 years.
He has become synonymous with Canadian comedy and knows what sets us apart in The Great White North.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx … Biography Today, I bring you a man whose comedy skews our past, present and future and without him we would be a little less funny.
This is…Mark Critch!
Before we begin… a fun fact.
Technically, speaking, Mark Critch is a first generation Canadian.
Feeling confused? Let me explain my favorite subject… and why you’re really here… history.
Mike Critch, Mark’s father, was born in Newfoundland in 1922.
At the time it was Newfoundland was a British dominion and included the island of Newfoundland, and Labrador on the continental mainland.
Newfoundland was one of the original dominions under the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and accordingly enjoyed a constitutional status equivalent to the other dominions of the time.
As Mark said they had their own prime minister, the Newfoundland Red Ensign was the de facto national flag until they adopted the Union Flag on 15 May 1931, and they had their own anthem.
“Ode to Newfoundland”, was written by British colonial governor Sir Cavendish Boyle in 1902 and was adopted as the dominion’s anthem on 20 May 1904.
This is the world Mike Critch was born to and lived in for much of his life.
Then, during the Second World War, Mike worked on American bases and at one point, even gave Frank Sinatra a tour of a base while Old Blue Eyes was there to perform.
After the war, Mike Critch became a newspaper journalist.
In 1949 when Newfoundland joined Canada as the 10th province, he was there.
Just over ten years later, Mike Critch became a reporter on VOCM, the top radio station in the new province.
Around this same time, he met a woman named Mary and the two fell in love.
The couple married and a son, Mike, soon followed.
Then, eight years later, another boy, which you know as….
Mark Critch.
Mark wrote of his entry into the world in his award-winning memoir Son of a Critch,
quote “I wouldn’t say I was planned. Very few people space their kids eight years apart. But we were Catholic.” end quote.
For many of us, we have an epiphany as children that draws us to what we want to do with our lives.
Mark’s destiny changed forever when he turned on the television and saw a show made in St. John’s — his hometown.
The Wonderful Grand Band began as a comedy group in 1978 and became a television show on CBC in 1980.
In four seasons, it aired 40 episodes featuring music and sketches developed by Tommy Sexton and Greg Malone.
Both men went on to develop the iconic CODCO.
You might remember some of this from my episode on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which I released in January 2024 that CODCO was born in 1973 when Tommy Sexton and comedian Diane Olsen wrote a series of short sketches of satirizing and lampooning contemporary Newfoundland called Cod on a Stick.
It would become one of the most influential comedy shows in Canadian history as they introduced the iconic Mary Walsh and Cathy Jones to the world.
They would go on to be part of the original cast of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and before long, The Wonderful Grand Band became the most popular program in the province with, half the population of Newfoundland and Labrador tuning in to watch.
Mark said, “I remember being a very young kid watching this show and thinking ‘This is what I want to do when I grow up’. I didn’t want to be Fonzie or Jack Tripper. I wanted to be Tommy Sexton. He played a teenage Catholic-school student named Dickie Budgell and he was hilarious. I idolized him.”
The acting bug became stronger after appearing in his first play in elementary school. He was dressed as a particular colour and performed a song and dance for parents.
The school asked one child to give a short welcome speech at the start of the assembly and Mark Critch shot his hand up immediately to volunteer.
On the night of the performance, he wore a yellow outfit made by his mother.
He stood up in front of the adults and said,
“Parents, teachers, friends and pupils…”
Except he accidentally said pupils as poo-pills.
It got a laugh… and like a drug he was hooked from his first hit. He said “poo-pills” three more times, as the room roared with laughter.
Then he joined the rest of his classmates and performed.
The sound of the applause at the end gave him a new high and in that moment he later said.
“I now knew who I was. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. In some way, I’ve been chasing that exact high ever since.”
Growing up in Newfoundland, Mark’s window to the rest of Canada was through his television thanks to CanCon, which dictates that a certain amount of broadcasting time be devoted to Canadian content.
It gave bands like April Wine, Glass Tiger and others their first major exposure on Canadian radio.
On TV, the show SCTV, the requirement to have two minutes of purely Canadian content led to the creation of the hoser brother duo of Bob and Doug McKenzie.
And now they have a statue in Edmonton.
That is the power of CanCon.
For Mark, it gave him a glimpse into the mysterious country of Canada across the water, and it gave Canadians a look on island life.
As he watched from afar, he dove head first into acting opportunities.
He was cast in the play Waiting for the Bus, where he played the lead as an elderly man who dies …. waiting… you guessed it… for a bus.
After high school graduation, he continued to pursue his dream.
He got the lead role in the play Tomorrow Will Be Sunday.
Based on the book by Harold Horwood with the same name.
Mark played the protagonist, Eli Pallisher, a fisherman’s son living in a small Newfoundland outport.
In the story a new teacher and apostle of free love, Christopher Simms, arrives and opens Eli’s mind to the world of books.
At the same time, Brother John McKim arrives, as pastor of the fundamentalist church, and he gives Eli wisdom of a sensual kind. Major entanglements—both legal and romantic—ensue.
The play was performed at the biggest theatre in the province, the Arts and Culture Centre in St. John’s.
Mark said,
“I had a job with a professional theatre company, helmed by a respected and successful director. I was a real actor.”
He also had to stand stark naked in front of the audience at the end, night after night, much to the shock of his parents.
As Mark got used to performing in his birthday suit at around the same time, This Hour Has 22 Minutes debuted.
On Oct. 8, 1993, 468,000 viewers tuned in, and Mark Critch was one of those watching.
Mark, had been staying in Rick Mercer’s spare room while acting with a comedy group, 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.”
He didn’t know it then but soon the show would have a massive impact on his life.
As Mark continued to add to his acting credits, he made his first trip to the mainland in his early-20s when he did sketch comedy at a Halifax fringe show and got a rude awakening and a taste of how Canada viewed Newfoundlanders.
He returned home and in 1995 he joined the Rising Tide Theatre.
Every summer and fall since 1978, Rising Tide Theatre presents an award-winning blend of plays that reflect the history and culture of Newfoundland performed by more than 40 of the Province’s most talented artists.
The festival continues to run to this day and in addition to plays the company performs the Trinity Pageant, which takes visitors on a tour through the history of the town as actors reenact famous moments.
In his first year with the pageant, Mark played a pirate from the early-17th century and said.
quote.
“I was, perhaps, the least intimidating pirate to ever walk the rocky coastline.”
Trinity is about three hours from St. John’s, but for Mark, it felt like the other side of the planet some days.
quote
“I felt like a fish out of water when I first arrived in Trinity. Helpless, I flipped and flopped on the wharf, gasping for air and struggling to survive.”
But he not only survived, but he also prospered.
1997 was his third summer in Trinity when news came that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, would be traveling to Newfoundland to commemorate the 500th anniversary of John Cabot’s arrival.
During the visit, Mark and the rest of the company performed for The Royals.
He said of the experience, quote,
“Before I came to Trinity, I had wanted to see the world. Now it felt like because of Trinity, the world had come to me.” end quote.
And because of it the rest of Canada would get to see Mark because the entire event was broadcast coast-to-coast on CBC’s The National. The Queen met the cast after the performance, as freezing hail pelted down on them forcing her to only have a quick meet and greet.
Mark wrote in An Embarrassment of Critches that as Her Majesty moved down the line, quick conversations became handshakes, which became nods, which became smiles.
He said when she reached him, Queen Elizabeth II had the look of someone who had asked for the dessert menu and decided they didn’t want dessert at all.
She met his gaze once more as she drove past in her car afterwards, he said,
“I was sure I could hear the door lock. I still taste the bittersweet disappointment of this day every time I like a stamp.”
That bitter taste was followed by his final goodbye to Trinity as it proved to be his last summer at Rising Tides Theater.
Because he had other lands in his horizon that he would soon conquer.
By now it was the late-1990s, and Mark began to write comedic commentaries for CBC Radio while waiting for his big break.
In 1999, he was asked to host a fundraiser for the LSPU Hall, affectionately known as The Hall, gets its name from a previous owner, the Longshoremen’s Protective Union.
It is home base for the Resource Centre for the Arts (RCA) and the heart of LIVE theatre and culture in downtown St. John’s.
Thousands of internationally acclaimed actors, musicians, and dancers first got their start in the Hall on their way to stardom, including the main cast of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
To raise money for renovations the cast of the show was going to roast then-Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin.
Rick Mercer couldn’t make it, as rumours swirled that he would be leaving the show, so Mark stepped in.
He played straight man in a sketch and got a laugh.
A year later, Mercer left the show, and Mark quickly transformed his bedroom into a TV set to record an audition.
He began it by stating,
“Hello and welcome to This Audition Tape Has 5 Minutes. I’m not Rick Mercer.”
He didn’t get a call from This Hour Has 22 Minutes…but he did get call from his friend and fellow Newfoundlander, Shaun Majumder.
Majumder started his entertainment career as an announcer for the YTV game show CLIPS, and soon was hosting the network’s popular morning kids show Brain Wash.
He asked Mark to meet him in Montreal to write some material for his Just for Laughs’ show.
While in Montreal, Mark got a call from the producers of 22 Minutes asking him to audition in person.
Among those in Toronto for the audition were Gavin Crawford, who had created the acclaimed show The Gavin Crawford Show, and future Member of Parliament Seamus O’Regan.
Mark was asked to write a sketch from the point of view of an NDP MP from British Columbia giving his thoughts on a recent strike.
Fifteen minutes later, he performed his material.
It got good laughs and things seemed to be going well until producer Michael Donovan asked him what he would do differently on the show.
Unable to think of anything, Mark said his book, An Embarrassment of Critches that he joked he would do Talking to Mexicans.
As a response Michael said
“’Thanks for coming in,’ while looking at him the way a vegan might stare at a butcher’s smock.
Sure, he had blown his one chance he returned home.
A few weeks later, it was announced that Canadian comedian Colin Mochrie was going to replace Mercer.
Mark was disappointed but soon he got a call from Mark Farrell, the showrunner of 22 Minutes at the time, who asked him to write for two weeks on the show.
This was the standard offer to new writers.
If they could withstand the fast pace of the show for two weeks, they were good enough join for good.
Mark 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.”
Things got off to a good start.
The first three sketches he wrote made the show.
quote
“That night, I lay awake in my bed. There was no time to feel smug about my success. I tossed and turned, wondering what the hell I was going to write about the next day when the whole process would begin again.”
It was a wasted sleepless night because Mark’s pen was mighty, and this success was just the beginning.
His sketches kept hitting the mark and his profile on the show was on the rise, but he was still behind the scenes.
Then the day came –he was going to be on camera, Still relatively unknown, Mark, was serving as Colin Mochrie’s understudy.
quote “The audience came in and was informed that I would be filling in for Colin Mochrie. I heard a sigh of disappointment.” end quote.
The audience may have been unhappy that day but that changed quickly as Mark became a fan favourite.
It helped that one of his first appearances was alongside the legendary Cathy Jones.
In a sketch about violence among parents attending children’s hockey games, they played husband and wife.
He said later,
“All I had to do was hold on for the ride.”
That ride would only continue because eventually, partly due to scheduling, Mochrie left the show in 2003, and Mark slid in as his replacement.
Mark wrote in 2020,
“I’ve been holding on for 18 years now. I have written more of the show than anyone else in its history and I’ve been a cast member for longer than anyone else besides Cathy Jones. I have outlasted four prime ministers. I have big shoes to fill but, unlike my first day, the shoes finally fit.”
22 Minutes has had incredible staying power and completely transformed comedy in Canada.
Many factors helped make that happen, but the biggest might be where it’s filmed.
The show blends comedy from across the country, which itself is a unique blend of cultures from around the world.
It’s a unique comedic recipe that creates some of the funniest people on the planet.
And mark has seen the impact Canada has had on comedy because of it.
Since he took over from Colin Mochrie on 22 minutes 20 years ago Mark has perfected how to tickle the funny bones of many Canadians.
But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.
On Nov. 17, 2004, Mark Critch was set to film a segment with Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish.
Before he left, writer Jennifer Whalen gave him a doll of George W. Bush.
While filming the segment Carolyn and Mark are seen stomping on the doll.
They damage the head and 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.
Mark said, CBC Newsworld showed the tape before he had even seen it and that night, pundits debated the consequences of the segment.
The next day it was front page news across Canada.
The Conservative Party in Parliament worried 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 as an independent.
Mark called her to apologize, and I stressed it was never his attempt to detonate her career. That was a domestic issue, but three years later Mark nearly caused an international incident half a world away.
In 2007, Russia decided that planting a flag meant ownership over territory.
Sounds a little like that 51st state shenanigans currently going around.
At the time, Russia used a submarine to plant a flag under the ice in the North Pole.
As you’ve seen lately, we take our sovereignty seriously and this didn’t land with Canadians Mark thought if Russia could plant a flag in Canada, he could do the same With a small 22 Minute crew, he flew to Moscow and made his way to Red Square.
As cameras rolled, 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.”
He dropped a Canadian flag in Red Square. and said We own Russia now. Your rules.”
Within 60 seconds, two police cars showed up and Mark was taking in for questioning 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.
He has kept that promise to never return.
But he stayed at 22 minutes.
Like a true anchor for an ever-changing cast, many of whom have gone on to incredible careers themselves including two I already mentioned, Gavin Crawford and Shaun Majumder.
Whenever a new cast member joins, they help to reinvigorate the show and reach new audiences.
That is one of the main reasons it has had such staying power in Canada.
22 minutes has been on the air for over 30 years and continues to be relevant.
Every week, something happens on the news that pushes the limits of satire and irony.
Recently, a sketch about Canadian snowbirds, those who leave during the winter, was broadcast.
It was done in the style of the classic Hinterland Who’s Who segments from the 1960s and 1970s.
The snowbird segment quickly went viral as it played perfectly into the current situation with the United States.
Being part of a Canadian institution like n 22 Minutes has made Mark a nationally-recognized name and has taken him from coast to coast.
In those travels he has met Canadians of every walk of life, and it has shaped his view of our country.
He has seen that Canada isn’t one nation but a collection of societies that work together to make something amazing.
From Newfoundland to British Columbia, each place is unique.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes is Mark’s home show, but he frequents others.
He was on seven episodes in Republic of Doyle where he played Ned Bishop from 2010 to 2014.
Republic of Doyle forced Mark to film in his hometown.
It’s set in St. John’s, and Allan Hawco as private investigator Jake Doyle.
Among others who appeared on the show was fellow Newfoundlander Gordon Pinsent.
In 2010, Pinsent appeared on This Hour Has 22 Minutes when then Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams announced his retirement.
Mark often impersonated the Premiere and used William’s as comedic fodder on the show.
When he announced his retirement, a surprising premise was born.
Williams needed to get permission to retire from The Codfather, played by none other than…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, Mark showed up and took them both hostages, worried that Danny Williams retirement would cause the demise of his career on 22 Minutes.
Mark’s villainous turn was foiled by Allan Hawco as Jake Doyle who rescues The Codfather and Williams from Mark’s clutches.
It turned into one of the longest sketches to air on 22 Minutes and it was incredibly well received.
Danny Williams loved it and said, quote.
“It was a lot of fun. It really was. You adapt things on the fly, and for whatever reason, they just seemed to work.” end quote.
Mark and Gordon Pinsent remained friends for many years.
Mark mentioned during our interview that the painting behind his desk was bequeathed to him by the Codfather himself following his death in February 2023.
It was given a place of honour in his office, to remember the Newfoundland icon.
In 2018, Mark released his first book, Son of A Critch, which recounted his early life living in Newfoundland and how it shaped him.
The book immediately entered the Globe and Mail’s best seller list, remaining there for weeks. It won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (non-fiction) at the Atlantic Book Awards and was shortlisted for the prestigious Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.
Two years later, he published his second book, An Embarrassment of Critches, which was also shortlisted for the Stephan Leacock Award.
Both books were invaluable in writing this episode.
In 2021, Tim McAuliffe, who was a writer on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, suggested to Mark develop his first book into a TV series.
They shopped it to various networks before CBC picked it up in June 2021.
Son of a Critch made its debut on Jan. 4, 2022, on CBC and CBC Gem.
It starred Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Mark, Mark Critch as his father Mike, Claire Rankin as his mother Mary and legendary British actor Malcolm McDowell as Pop, Mark’s grandfather.
The show just finished its fourth season to great critical acclaim including 16 Canadian Screen Award nominations, and one win.
The show has also allowed Mark to look back on his life.
Through it all Mark continues to shine on 22 Minutes where the current news cycle has made it clear that Canada isn’t afraid to get a bit rough when it needs to.
Robin Williams once said that Canada was like a nice apartment above a meth lab.
While sometimes that assessment may seem accurate, Mark says he sees a new generation of Canadians out there.
Ones that feel proud to be Canadian.
I would like to thank Mark Critch for sharing his time with me. In two weeks, we will be back with another episode of Canadian History Ehx Biography.
I will be talking to actor, writer and comedian Jessi Cruickshank.
