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‘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.

Meanwhile, Ferguson took a sabbatical in Rome, so we needed another writer/performer. Luckily, Dave Broadfoot – star of the sketch comedy revue Spring Thaw and a generation older – was available. When we promised a live audience and good writing, Dave said, “Count me in.” In November, 1973, we drove up to the Curtain Club, a community theatre in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto. Producer Solloway cued our intro, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Ici Farce Canada!” We started performing, the audience started laughing, and we were off and flying – as it turned out, for a lifetime career.

The first show made its unheralded debut. No fan mail poured in, only a few complaints about our disrespectful attitude, which was enough to persuade Solloway to renew us for another three weeks. And then another three. And the laughs just kept on coming, in three-week renewals, until we'd completed a full 26-week season.

In the summer of 1974, Solloway signed us for a second season and Ferguson, who'd been sending script lines, returned from Rome. It was the best of times – late nights at John Morgan's house as John, Don and I pounded out each week's script, trying all the roles, pushing the comedic boundaries, and revelling in the magic of radio's “theatre of the mind.”

The weeks and years flew by. Bronstein left to devote himself to the original Jest Society stage show. In 1977, Solloway asked Don and me to look at material from two would-be writers, Gord Holtam and Rick Olsen. We liked their wit, tested their scripts with our audience, and they've been writing Air Farce ever since.

Great memories: breaking each other up onstage, passionate arguments over a single word in a punchline, taking the show on the road. From Windsor to Whitehorse, Corner Brook to Prince George, Sherbrooke to Iqaluit, we went everywhere, exploring Canada and meeting our listeners.

In Regina, a family drove five hours to come to the show. We were amazed, but they explained that prairie people are accustomed to distance.

Much as we loved radio, we yearned to invade television with a year-end show. Record industry executive Brian Robertson offered to help, and after two years of a show-business saga more absurd than any of our sketches, we found ourselves on CBC Television on Dec. 31, 1992, when Kim Campbell jokes were the hot story of the year. A studio audience laughed in all the right places, and director Perry Rosemond made it as visually interesting as anyone could.

Days later, then-CBC vice-president Ivan Fecan called me at home. He loved the show, and wanted to talk about a weekly series. Amazingly, the group was initially reluctant, thinking an annual outing would be fine. Fecan convinced us otherwise, and – the secret to our radio and television happiness – he promised us creative freedom to be Canadian, tackle all topics and take no prisoners.

On Oct. 8, 1993, we landed on Friday-night television and a million viewers discovered us.

Fifteen years later, our 332-episode average is more than a million viewers a week.

Television memories fly by. Prime ministers and hockey stars as surprise guests, a CBC/CTV bidding war, John Morgan's retirement after eight seasons, then his sudden death in November, 2004, at 74. We still quote him every day. Any time we'd have a long script, his words still come back to us: “Never mind the quality, feel the width.”

Don Ferguson, Luba Goy and I, the group's original baby boomers, had somehow zoomed from our 20s to our 50s – so we expanded the cast to include a new generation of talented writer/performers: Jessica Holmes, Craig Lauzon, Alan Park and Penelope Corrin.

But times and network priorities change. Earlier this year, Don and I met with CBC executives to explore the future, and a graceful exit strategy was agreed upon: A victory lap of 10 final Fridays this fall, culminating tomorrow, capping off 35 years.

Now, more and more people are stopping Luba, Don and me to tell us what Air Farce has meant to them.

“I'm 38 years old,” says a mother with kids, “and I don't ever remember a time without Air Farce. I grew up with you guys on radio, and now I have a family, and we watch together on Friday nights.”

Then another new Canadian shyly shakes my hand and says that familiar line, “Everything I know about Canada, I learned watching your show.” A different person, a different accent, the same sentiment.

And just to keep our feet on the ground, we get e-mails bidding (to quote one of many), “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” When Parliament resumes in January, when Barack Obama moves into the White House, when the next scandal breaks, we'll miss the chance to turn it into an Air Farce sketch. But more than anything, we'll miss the smartest, most loyal, supportive and forgiving audience that any show could ever hope for. They allowed us to share our view of Canada with them. And a million laughs for 35 years is a mighty fine reward.

Air Farce: Final Flight airs Wednesday at 8 on CBC. Check local listings.

Special to The Globe and Mail