It’s fairly obvious that the people that write for this website watch a lot of television. One of the great things about being Canadian is that we get to watch a fair amount of original Canadian content that most Americans have probably never heard about or ever saw come across their television screens before. We get to enjoy the NFL but also have the luxury of watching the CFL and being able to enjoy more than double the amount of football coverage. We can make fun of Americans by watching political programs such as ‘The Daily Show with John Stewart’, ‘The Colbert Report’, and ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ but are then able to change the channel and make fun of Canadian politicians in such programs like ‘The Rick Mercer Report’. Our friendly relationship and history with Great Britain allows us to enjoy more familiarity with British programs than Americans do.

Canadians do enjoy American television programs. We like to see big-named actors in major productions from such over-the-air broadcasters like NBC, FOX, CBS or ABC as well as all sorts of programming from specialty television channels. But, we will support a Canadian program if it’s unique and intelligent. We’re not going to instantly support the program if they wave a bunch of Canadian flags in the air but we will support the program if it has witty writing and original story-telling. Production values aren’t so much an issue as long as the show has a good plot , good cast and original ideas. A fair amount of Canadian programs have more progressive attitudes about sex, drugs, and violence compared to American programs. This is evident in the amount of censoring that has occurred when programs such as ‘Degrassi’ and ‘Ready or Not’ were broadcast to American audiences. You can also see this in the ratings set by Canadian broadcast agencies where our ratings are less strict on things such as sex and drugs compared to American rating systems. One noticeable difference between both countries is the stance on violence. Canadian news programs show less violent actions such as crime during their broadcasts and censor certain news bits such as violence against women. For example, Canadian broadcasters have censored WWE’s ‘Monday Night Raw’ and have the cameras cut away when a woman was getting thrown through a table whereas the footage wasn’t censored in the USA.

Canada has four major over-the-air television stations. Three of these stations are commercial stations and one of them is a public broadcaster (CBC). It’s funny that 80% of the content on the commercial stations is American-owned content. If you take a look at any television ratings; you’ll be quick to realize that most of the top rated shows are all American. In addition, 60% of all programming on most networks is required to be Canadian. This isn’t as evident on a major Canadian network but is easier to see on specialty cable channels such as G4-Tech TV where they re-run Canadian content that has little to do with the theme of the network just so that they can comply with government regulations.

Most Canadian content is created thanks to the generous system of grants and funds that were created by the Canadian and Provincial governments. Take a look at any Canadian programs and wait till the credits roll and you will suddenly see a ‘Produced in part thanks to the “Insert Name of Province” fund’ that has helped to subsidize the production of the show. Many of the major Canadian broadcasters will try to explain to you that there’s no money for lavishly produced content and big budgets but the truth is that the major networks are making billions of dollars in profits and are very conservative with their money and refuse to take risks. We’re seeing more mergers of networks than ever before especially with the recent Bell-Astral merger that has made headlines all across Canada. The honest truth is that it doesn’t cost a lot to buy American programming at a very cheap cost to fill dead air and then not having to spend money yourself by having to produce original content. If Canadian networks could….they wouldn’t air any original content as it saves them a ton of dough.

There have been several hit shows that have aired in the last decade. We’ll help to describe a few of them to you now for anyone that is unfamiliar with them and then leave some of our more original favorites and even more obscure shows for another article down the road.

-Trailer Park Boys is a Canadian comedy mockumentary television series that follows Ricky, Julian and Bubbles around as they constantly try to figure out new ways to get rich, get high, and stay out of jail. Their arch nemesis, Jim Lahey (Trailer Park Supervisor), is always trying to figure out a new way to get them sent back to jail or kicked out of the Trailer Park for good. The show is the highest-rated program on the Canadian cable network ‘Showcase’ and the show has went on to feature two successful theatrical films.

-A Canadian sitcom about a Muslim community in the fictional prairie town of Mercy, Saskatchewan. The show deals with the interactions between members of the Muslim community and the non-Muslims that live in the town. The show tries to help display the misconceptions that many liberal Canadians and Islamic Muslims have with one another in a traditional sitcom environment. At its core, the show is more about people in a minority group trying to fit in and interact with other people from the town. The show lasted for five seasons and will soon be available on the internet television service ‘Hulu’.

-Corner Gas is a comedic sitcom about the life of a gas station owner. The series was created by Canadian comedian Brent Butt and is loosely based on what he thought his life would be like if he never became a stand-up comedian. The show is a simple comedy about the residents of Dog River, Saskatchewan and their interactions with each other at the gas station and the nearby diner. Most of the comedy comes from the fact that there isn’t very much to do in Dog River so the residents are always finding wacky scenarios that they get themselves into. This is most noticeable with the police force as there isn’t very much crime in the town and the two officers in the town are always finding unique ways to cure their boredom. The series lasted for six seasons and could have lasted longer but series creator Brent Butt wanted to end the show while it was still successful.

-Degrassi: The Next Generation follows an ensemble cast of students at Degrassi Community School who face various challenges, such as poor self image, peer pressure, child abuse, sexual identity, gang violence, self-injury, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, death, and a number of other issues. The show is a reboot of the popular Degrassi Junior High series from the 1980s. Many of the cast members from the original series have returned in some form or another on the new show as well as popular director Kevin Smith and actor Jason Mewes as their Jay and Silent Bob characters. The show has bounced around a bit and can now be seen on MTV. Toronto rapper Drake appeared on the program and gave a shout out to the show when he recently hosted ‘Saturday Night Live’.

-Kenny vs. Spenny was a Canadian television show that starred Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice, who face each other in various competitions. The loser of each episode must perform an act of humiliation, usually selected by the winner. The show was named #8 among the top 10 Canadian television shows of the 21st century. The show would balance Spenny’s ‘by the rules’ ethics alongside Kenny’s unorthodox ‘win at all costs’ attitude in order to win the competition. Kenny and Spenny each have their own production assistant, camera operator, and sound engineer, who filmed their independent exploits for each episode. The show originally aired on CBC but was cancelled after one season. Showcase picked up the series in 2005. During season 4, ‘South Park’ creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker became executive producers and helped out with the show. After the conclusion of the series, Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice would each get their own programs on Showcase named ‘Single White Spenny’ and ‘Kenny Hotz’s Triumph of the Will’.

-The Kids in the Hall was a Canadian sketch comedy group consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. Their show ran from 1988-1994 on CBC in Canada, and 1989-1995 on CBS and HBO in the United States. The show featured quirky or surreal sketches and didn’t do very many celebrity impressions. The cast would often appear in drag to do sketches and would often do gay characters and themes since Scott Thompson was a writer on the show and was openly gay. Some of the more famous sketches included ‘The Axe Murderer’, ‘Cabbage Head’, ‘The Chicken Lady’ and ‘Headcrusher’. The show originated in Canada, and the content was at times edited slightly for U.S. broadcast tastes. SNL creator (and fellow Canadian) Lorne Michaels helped to produce the pilot for the show and acted as the show’s producer during its run.

-If you’re looking for a more adult-themed show then there’s actor Jason Priestley playing a used car-salesman in the 30 minute comedy ‘Call Me Fitz’ which airs on HBO Canada. Priestley plays ‘Richard Fitzpatrick’ who is a morally bankrupt used-car salesman whose consequence-free life takes a turn for the worse when a new salesman named Larry shows up and claims that he’s Richard’s conscience. The show is in its third season on HBO Canada and can be viewed on the ‘101 Network’ in the USA.

This concludes our sneak peek into the world of Canadian television. In our second and third articles…we will run down some more popular Canadian shows from the last little while as well as some of my personal favorite shows that aren’t as well known to most people.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 25th, 2014 at 4:34 am and is filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.