Take One (Dec 2003 - Mar 2004)

” Rick Mercer on the set of Made In Canada. Greg Thomey and Mercer. and it’s good because it means people know you, but it also means I’m never going to get work in a Hitler miniseries.” This segues nicely into the other half of Mercer’s success. He is a writer. One who thinks of himself first as a writer and then after that, as an actor. It also means his best shot at getting acting work is if he writes himself into his own material, which is essentially how he started with the first of his early one-man shows, Show Me the Button and I'll Push It, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Skit-based 22 Minutes allowed him to maintain his real identity and Made in Canada was a curious departure because it was the first time he had done any ensemble character acting. And, it worked. He was able to escape the gravity of his own identity and launch into a fictitious character role without being plagued by the annoying question of “Is your Made in Canada character, Richard Strong, autobiographical?” The reason television viewers were unlikely to confuse Machiavellian television executive Richard Strong with Rick Mercer is because the latter has lived his life, or at least his opinionated life, out loud on screen. The “streeters” clued the public into what is on Mercer’s mind. A fourth wall? What fourth wall? “The tone of the streeter was never angry,” Mercer explains, “but the genius of it was being ‘put out’ or thinking something is wrong.” While the opinions expressed in “streeters” were not necessarily those of the speaker, the speaker was certainly not averse to expressing a counter position to the one commonly held just for the pure, academic, devil’s advocate hell of it. * But there’s a difference between BP ecording a lecture on -foibles of Society and letting loose the dogs of opinio d rence i exhaustion. Weekly commentary requires awareness of everything going on, the 5, the implications of elements and filling a is not being said. The world is assessed ant i ential. Ideas are immediatel ey (every av le Mercer was. Me er, “H. “He is intelligent, private, generous and the next great PRIME MINISTER of Canada.” — Peter Keleghan — the possibilities are without limit. “I went through a phase after 22 Minutes where I didn’t want to give my opinion on anything. I was tired of it. But now I want to get back to it.” Travelling cross-country, Mercer anticipates two potential hazards with his theory of covering the news; the first being a slow news week, but worse is an event that is too horrific to satirize. Carol Burnett said comedy is tragedy plus time, but Mercer acknowledges that there are places he simply won't go with commentary. The redeeming aspect of the Canadian audience is that they “find the news funny. Canadians watch the news so they’ve got the set up and they’re just waiting for the punch line.” And the numbers back him up. It’s either CBC or CTV news, but the audiences are there. Add to this the encouragement from south of the border: Pew Research Center for the People and Press showed that 47 per cent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 often gleaned information about the presidential campaign from late-night comedy shows. Bottom line: Mercer could conceivably have another hit on his hands. The one thing that cannot be gleaned in an interview is a view of the subject from a distance. For that we move to Peter Keleghan, Mercer’s Made in Canada co-star (and it pleasure to be able to write “co-star” and know it’s not always positive. that it was only as strong as the weakest link and gave us all huge air time. There were characters i in it mor e, generghs amy je next ,” a ringing endorsement if Cynthia Amsden is a member of Take One's editorial board. TAKE ONE 37 wy