Television series
Made in Canada is a Canadian television comedy which aired on CBC Television from 1998 to 2003. Rick Mercer starred as Richard Strong, an ambitious and amoral television producer working for a company which makes bad (but profitable) television shows. A dark satire about the Canadian television industry, the programme shifted into an episodic situation comedy format after its first season.
It was created by Mercer, Gerald Lunz and Michael Donovan, produced by Salter Street Films and Island Edge, and filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The programme was broadcast with Salter Street's satirical newsmagazine, "This Hour Has 22 Minutes", and drew its creators, writing staff, and much of its production staff from that programme; "Made in Canada" was filmed during the summer, and "22 Minutes" during the fall. Mercer starred on both until he left "22 Minutes" in 2001.
The programme received critical and popular recognition. It was particularly well-received by the industry it lampooned, attracting many guest stars. The programme received 23 national awards during its five-season run, including multiple Gemini, Writers Guild of Canada, and Canadian Comedy Awards. In the United States, Australia and Latin America, the show was syndicated as The Industry. In France, it was syndicated as La loi du Show-Biz.
Plot.
A satire of film and television production, the series revolves around fictional Pyramid Productions – a company where greed and backstabbing thrive. Pyramid produces lucrative (but terrible) television and films for the domestic and international markets, with creative decisions made by non-creative people.
Company head Alan Roy is obsessed with appearances and staying ahead of trends, whether this means owning his own cable channel or having the largest yacht at Cannes. His often-idiotic decisions lead to extra work for his employees, who must fulfill his wishes or deal with the consequences. The employees – Richard, Victor, Veronica and Wanda – manipulate each other and sabotage each other's projects to earn more money, gain promotions or work on better projects. None of them appear to have issues with breaking the law, and they seem to have no sense of morality. They generally only cooperate when they have an opportunity to destroy another company or a mutual enemy. Each episode deals with one major problem (or event), which normally does not carry over to the next episode.
Pyramid projects also provide storylines for the series, as the company's staff try to manage the inevitable complications created by the casts and crews of their film and television productions. Its cash cows are two series: "The Sword of Damacles" ["sic"], a parody of mythological adventure series such as ' and ', and "Beaver Creek", a parody of Canadian period dramas such as "Anne of Green Gables" and "Road to Avonlea". The staff also face complications with their low-budget, poorly-made films, such as "Vigilante's Vengeance". Many of their movies fail; they are not produced, or go direct-to-video in foreign countries.
Characters.
Notable guest stars.
Most people employed in Canadian television enjoyed the programme, which created a stir in the industry and attracted a number of guest stars:
Several Canadian media personalities made cameos as fictionalized versions of themselves, including Nicholas Campbell, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Moses Znaimer, Keifer Sutherland, Evan Solomon, Peter Gzowski, Ann Medina and Gino Empry.
Development and writing.
The series was conceived by Mercer, executive producer Gerald Lunz and Salter Street Films co-chair Michael Donovan in 1994. Lunz had launched Mercer's career, producing his one-man shows and "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" (the latter of which was made by Salter Street). Mercer and Lunz formed Island Edge to co-produce "Made in Canada" and develop other projects for Mercer.
Donovon, Lunz and Mercer wanted to satirize office politics, starring Mercer as an ambitious man manipulating his way to the top in a parody of Shakespeare's "Richard III". Instead of killing his rivals, the programme's Richard would kill their careers by ruining their reputations and seizing their power. Richard would address the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall to share his plans and ambitions. Although they realized this was a risk, they felt that Mercer could connect with the audience as he had in his monologues. Mercer had established himself as the first mainstream Canadian satirist to make scathing criticisms directly, without a comedic mask.
They had considered setting the satire in the federal bureaucracy in line with Mercer's political criticism (known as the country's "unofficial opposition party"), but Mercer was not sufficiently knowledgeable about the government's inner workings. Believing that satire required a firm understanding of its targets, they set the programme in a television and film production office; this would be understood by the audience and provide many egos to lampoon. Mercer described the programme in a later interview as having a ""Dilbert" reality" of an office, in which some have a "suck-up kick-down philosophy". In April 1998, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) approved a six-part series without seeing a script.
The first season was cowritten by Mercer and Mark Farrell over a two-month period. They had both written for "22 Minutes" and had written sketches for several years, but neither had written episodic television before. Lunz, a self-described "Shakespeare nut", guided the theme and style. Farrell, Lunz and Mercer remained the show's creative force throughout its five seasons. Other writers for the series included Paul Bellini, Alex Ganetakos and Edward Riche.
The programme shifted from a dark satire to an episodic sitcom after its first season, and addressed the audience less frequently. This was often limited to the closing line – "I think that went well" or "This is not good" – which might be given to a character other than Richard, depending on who was behind that episode's schemes. The series' working title was "The Industry", which was changed to "The Casting Couch" and then "Made in Canada".
Production.
CBC executive George Anthony, who had convinced Lunz and Mercer to come to the network years previously, recognized their talent and was firmly supportive of the production. The programme went from network approval to broadcast in a record six months. Executives ordered a thirteen-episode second season after viewing the first episode, which was unprecedented for the public broadcaster. Casting was done while scripts were still being written, and episodes were filmed out of sequence to accommodate the actors' schedules.
Filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the programme was produced by (and a parody of) Salter Street Films. It used Salter Street's real offices as its main office set during the first season, shooting primarily on evenings and weekends from 17 July to 24 August 1998.
The first season was directed by Henry Sarwer-Foner (also of "22 Minutes"), who had his hand in the programme's editing, scripting, and overall design. He shot with a long lens to achieve a film-like quality, and sought to give it a distinctive look. Sarwer-Foner directed 22 of the series' 65 episodes. Other directors included Michael Kennedy and Stephen Reynolds.
The programme used The Tragically Hip's "Blow at High Dough", one of Mercer's favourite songs, as its theme. The iconic Canadian band's first hit single, its title was taken from a Scottish phrase about being overambitious and taking on more than one could handle. The lyrics refer to a movie production ("Speedway", starring Elvis Presley) which sweeps up a small town. Other Tragically Hip songs were featured including "Poets", "Courage", "New Orleans Is Sinking", "My Music at Work", and "Tiger the Lion".
Although Mercer took time off from "22 Minutes" in January 1999 to concentrate on the second season of "Made in Canada", he continued to appear in most episodes until he retired from "22 Minutes" in 2001.
The programme continued to film during the summer, with "22 Minutes" filming in the fall. The second season began filming in June 1999 at Electropolis Studios in Halifax. CHUM Limited vice-president Moses Znaimer allowed scenes for the second-season finale to be filmed at the CHUM-City Building in Toronto for authenticity. Season four began filming on 18 June 2001.
While the first season of the series was in production, two Canadian film and television studios (Alliance Communications and Atlantis Communications) merged to create Alliance Atlantis. This merger was parodied in "Made in Canada"'s second-season premiere, when Pyramid merges with a company called Prodigy and becomes Pyramid Prodigy. Two years later, Alliance Atlantis purchased Salter Street Films.
Broadcast and home video.
"Made in Canada" premiered on CBC Television on 5 October 1998, amidst Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearings on the country's broadcasting policy and Canadian content.
The series aired on Monday nights at 8:30 pm, after "This Hour Has 22 Minutes". Both programmes were moved to Friday in fall 2001, leading into "Royal Canadian Air Farce" and "The Red Green Show" in a CBC move to create a comedy-programming block and boost already-strong ratings.
The first two seasons were sold to PBS in 1999 for distribution in the United States as "The Industry". The series was also syndicated in France, Australia and Latin America; the French name was "La loi du Show-Biz".
In 2000, DVD and home-video rights to seasons one and two were acquired by Koch International. Entertainment One released the first season on DVD in Region 1 in 2002; it is currently out of print. The series was telecast on the Canadian cable channel BiteTV from 2010 to 2015.
The first and second seasons began streaming on the CBC Gem platform on 12 March 2020. In October 2022, it was announced that additional seasons would become available, with all five seasons streaming on Gem as of 2023.
Reception.
The series was popular and critically praised in Canada and the United States. The programme's 5 October 1998 premiere had 1,002,000 viewers, holding 75 percent of the audience from the lead-in "This Hour Has 22 Minutes".
Critical response.
Shannon Hawkins of the "Ottawa Sun" wrote during its first season that "Made in Canada" had "all the makings of a hit", with clever dialogue, plausible characters and a storyline for anyone who fantasized about ruining their boss. Antonia Zerbisias of the "Toronto Star" described the programme as "scary, cynical and biting", and felt that the production took huge risks in satirizing its producers and industry moguls and its choice of title in a country which looked down on domestic productions. According to Stephen Cole of "The National Post", the first season was well-scripted, funny and clever with solid performances but never found a target worthy of its "savage and cutting" satire. Cole was disappointed that the series remained a sitcom instead of taking on more compelling issues specific to the Canadian industry. Rating the first episode 9 out of 10, a "TV Guide" reviewer said that the programme centred on Mercer's fresh and deeply-biting "satire with a smirk" complemented with an able cast; although the audience might miss some inside jokes, it was felt that the show should hold the "22 Minutes" audience. For "Saturday Night", comedy critic Andrew Clark wrote that the programme created an eerily-believable universe with its casting, filming location and fictitious shows, and appreciated Mercer's ability to find a satirical line and hone it to a cutting edge.
At the beginning of its fourth season, John Doyle of "The Globe and Mail" called the show "addictive", switching from absurdity to brutal satire accessible to every viewer. At the end of the series, Doyle wrote that most in the industry had enjoyed its "twisted, vague versions" of real stories and scandals.
"Made in Canada" has been compared to Ken Finkleman's satire, "The Newsroom", in which Farrell, Keleghan, and Pinsent had roles. Although they share a documentary feel and were shot in real offices, Clark noted that their lead characters are distinctly different; Richard's ambition is all-consuming, and he wages "intergenerational warfare" against the likes of Finkleman's ineffective George Findlay.
Awards.
The series was nominated for more than three dozen Gemini Awards during its five-season run, winning ten. "Made in Canada" was nominated for fourteen awards at the 2002 Geminis, the first time a sitcom led dramatic programmes and miniseries in nominations. Its wins included two for Best Comedy Series and three for Best Ensemble Performance in a Comedy.
The show won nine Canadian Comedy Awards out of twenty-six nominations, leading the nominations in 2000, 2002 and 2003. It received four Writers Guild of Canada Awards and a Directors Guild of Canada Award. After the series ended, Mercer won the 2003 Sir Peter Ustinov Comedy Award at the Banff Television Festival, and a 2004 National Arts Centre Award for outstanding work of the previous year.
Reunion.
A 15th-anniversary "Made in Canada" reunion, attended by Mercer, Keleghan, Pinsent, Lett, Torrens, Lunz, Sarwer-Foner, Riche and Farrell, was held at the Canadian International Television Festival (CITF) on