‘Everything I learned about Canada, I learned watching Air Farce.” I hear this from a taxi driver, spoken in a joyful South Asian accent as he swerves through traffic. From the back seat, I tell him that he must have a pretty weird impression of Canada if that's the case, and he laughs.
Then he explains the loneliness and confusion of being a new immigrant to Canada, discovering Air Farce on television, and suddenly able to laugh at the foibles of his puzzling new land, giving him his first feelings of “being Canadian.” Parents tell us that Air Farce became a Friday-night tradition as their kids were growing up. Over dinner, they'd talk about the events of the week and try to guess which ones we'd satirize. Then they'd watch together as a family, hoping the kids wouldn't understand the double entendre jokes. Which of course the kids did, but they knew better than to laugh out loud and embarrass their parents.
Occasionally we're told: “You have no way of knowing this, but your show helped our family get through a terrible time.” It's pretty awesome that these bonds have been built through “a clever political comment followed by a bathroom joke.” For better or worse, this has been the Air Farce formula since we first appeared on CBC Radio in 1973.
Now this New Year's Eve, 35 years on, the same approach weaves through our final show as we send up the Ottawa coalition, the collapsing economy, Barack Obama, Guitar Hero, shoe-throwing at George W. Bush and certain CBC programming decisions.
Mud will be slung from the Chicken Cannon with Hockey Night's Ron MacLean relishing his guest role as loader of the weapon of messy destruction. Viewer voting determined the Top 5 targets, but MacLean brings in his own bonus target, and the ammo to hit it: cherries, grapes and a loud tie.
CBC's Peter Mansbridge is a great sport, stepping in to join Jimmy and Shamus O'Toole's final newscast. And there are cameos by icons Margaret Atwood, Johnny Bower and Dave Broadfoot. Both Mansbridge and Atwood finally get to play themselves, after years of being mercilessly caricatured by me and Luba Goy.
Wednesday night's farewell airs 16 years since our first New Year's Eve special, and 35 years since our first radio show was unleashed onto unsuspecting Sunday afternoon CBC Radio listeners on Dec. 9, 1973.
We began as an improvisational stage show called the Jest Society (it was the time of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau's Just Society) in Montreal in May, 1970 – a hopeful troupe testing our toes in topical comedy. Later, we ventured to Toronto's Poor Alex theatre, then Ottawa's National Arts Centre. By 1971, founders Martin Bronstein, John Morgan and myself from the original Montreal cast had been joined by Don Ferguson and Luba Goy.
At each show, we'd cook up instant improvs tied to audience suggestions from the day's news, hot political issues, current social trends or pop culture events. The more newsworthy our jokes, the bigger the laughs.
We'd found a winning formula: topical Canadian comedy.
We pestered CBC Radio, hoping to find a national audience. They offered a series of short comedy spots, which we'd record without an audience.
But this approach didn't score, and we lost the gig.
We begged for one final chance: a half-hour with a live audience, and we promised it'd be funny. We'll forever be grateful to CBC producer Ron Solloway who gave us that opportunity.
John Morgan and I thought a new name would provide a fresh start, and perhaps influenced by the four words and aerial feel of Monty Python's Flying Circus, we became Royal Canadian Air Farce.
