(.... we are making a new kind of engaging and collaborative tv show, here in Toronto, Canada, called; "Let's Make Politics!" This is where we explore that process...)
I was raised on TV in Canada... if not, actually, raised by. (Kidding, mom. You left my math fundamentals in Cookie Monster's able and furry little hands, and who could blame you really. :)
I did though, revere television.
Worshipping at its altar as a boy.... I assumed it to be a 'god box', and accordingly, I lay offerings of ketchup chips and obscenely large bowls of cereal at the feet of its 'tv-stand throne' everyday.
But alas, I was just a boy and, knowing no better, I ate those offerings.... I slurped down the last few honey-nut cheerios with the remaining dirty, honeyed milk from the huge bowl... I shook out the remnants of crumbled chip bits and licked my fingers clean of the salt, sugar and, whatever that red shit is...
I angered the 'god box'.
It said... with the booming voice of a volume knob cranked to the hilt..; "You little dicknose. You don't know how good you've got it. 'SCTV'... 'Kids In The Hall'... 'the first few years of Degrassi, with the bad skin and the shoplifting n' such.'
You... live in Toronto.
But, maybe you'd prefer to rely on whatever 'original programs' waft up from Buffalo TV.
How 'bout 'Buffalo Junior High'...huh? Would you like that?
We follow a new kid through another bleak day at Tonnawanda Junior High. There's a brown out on his block, and he's reduced to a breakfast of uncooked toaster strudel today. And come lunch, they're out of blue cheese dipping sauce for the hot wings in the cafeteria. And his after-school job, folding golf shirts at the outlet mall across the street is making him winded.... until, like the end of every episode... the boy, or girl, come to the horrible realization that they actually do live in Buffalo... and kill themselves. Every weekday at 6."
It was... at least... true that the TV box did hold all the power then.
And I didn't heed its warnings, when it said; "I will reign fire and brimstone and 'Beachcombers' and 'Danger Bay'... on all of your houses!!"
(For those of you who don't know.... "The Beachcombers" was a show about a greek-immigrant, log salvager trolling the Vancouver coastline for... wait for it.... drifting logs. And sometimes, bad men might try to poach his logs... but, I assure you, he was having none of it. (The Beachcombers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) It ran for almost 20 years, and 387 episodes...! That, my friends, is a lotta logs.
"Danger Bay" (also a government-financed, CBC production) was a rollicking adventure show about a kick-ass veterinarian/conservationist... YouTube - DANGER BAY canadian adventure series.)
Well.... thanks to my youthful indiscretion..... what, ultimately, became of TV in Canada, you may ask...?
Okay.... you do have your "Trailer Park Boys"..... your "Kenny Vs. Spenny".... your "Slings And Arrows"..... your "Littlest Hobos" (... that dog did change the course of my life, as it for did so many other kind-hearted drifters and hitchhikers.)
There are little 'hidden gems' in the media landscape of every country.
"The Thick Of It", for example, may just be the best british television show, you've never seen. It's like seeing what Ricky Gervais did with 'The Office', before you knew what that was.
('hey tv... here's something you can't do. You've never shown me this. And as such, to 'deeperwell42' and your ilk.... I say, thank you. You are truly providing a public service.')
But.... I guess, my broader question is... why don't we do that?
We Canadians modeled our 'state-financed' CBC on their BBC....
but, it's not just that it's creating "The Thick Of It".... or, "The Office".... or, "Da Ali G Show"... or ,"Little Britain"....
... it's that they seem to create them... from their own experimental radio properties. (Sure, you knew Monty Python grew out of radio.... and, Peter Sellers from "The Goon Show".... but, did you know about "The 11 O'Clock Show", which co-starred Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen?)
The BBC churns out novel shows like the brilliant, genre-bending "Spaced"...YouTube - Spaced - 1.1.1
... or, the beyond brilliant and innovative P.O.V. series, "Peep Show"... YouTube - Peep Show S01E01 P01 (... six seasons now... and still going strong.)..
..... or, how about this collection of scenes from "Snuff Box" on BBC, with Matt Berry.....YouTube - Snuff Box - Boyfriend Scenes.... and, as you giggle uncontrollably and press repeat, remember, british tax payers helped make that.
What do you wanna help make?
In contrast (and this, in all fairness, does not all fall on CBC)..... we, in Canada, have aired such can't miss tv properties as..... "Beetlegeuse - The Series", "Funny Farm - The Series", "RoboCop - The Series", "La Femme Nikita - The Series", "F/X - The Series", "Total Recall - The Series", "Friday The 13th - The Series", "Stargate - The Series", "Stargate: Atlantis - The Series", "So You Think You Can Dance, Canada", "Canada's Next Top Model", "Canadian Idol"..... are you noticing a theme? Would you like me to stop? Do you repent?!
.... imagine, for a moment, that you had an older brother, and he was 'king shit' in high school. I mean, he absolutely 'owned' that place. We'll call him... 'United States Of America'.
And so, seeing all of this play out.... you decide to wear all his hand-me-down clothing, as you enter that very same school behind him.... thinking, well, this'll be easy... wearing big brother's Varsity jacket... his musk still lingering. There's no way this isn't just a never-ending procession of stink-fingering impressionable teen girls, and bathroom blow-jobs and hallway high-fives!
But instead.... the clothes don't fit you quite right. In fact, they hang off your slight frame in such a way as to make you look.... quite ridiculous.
Girls that you thought you'd be fingering, are instead giving you the finger from across the cafeteria.
They sit at the 'cool kids table'.... you, at the 'freak table' with the foreign tv children. The eager, smiley german talk show host that everybody assumes to be retarded.... the fat, slutty mexican 'telemundo' chick that offered to show you her already sagging boobs for two dollars, or a bus token.... and the indistinct oriental kid whose name nobody knows but, once drank a whole bottle of someone else's urine for no reason at all.
And, many, many years from then.... when you've moved out of the city and onto a house boat with a long-haired and feminine native boy.... and, you're scavenging for driftwood and logs ;)... will you ask yourself why you didn't try to carve out your own unique place and presence in the world?
Why you couldn't have made due with a smaller budget and less gloss.... to make something they could not.... would not... or did not make before?
... it's words, y'see?
That's why all that brit comedy genius... comes out of radio. It's language and words.
They don't cost you more money.... just the time and effort.
Isn't that what you were supposed to be developing as the 'skinny, younger brother', anyway?
You were never gonna look like your older brother, "U. S. of A." You could only look foolish for trying.
So now, as you drift down the pacific coast...... while 'Mincing Cloud', your native houseboat man-servant, sands the bunions off your feet against the endless, burnt orange sunset.... will you ask yourself why you couldn't just.... let floating logs lie?
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