Don Ferguson

Profession: Actor, comedian

Age: 65

Hometown: Montreal

Notable achievements

-Air Farce launched on CBC radio in 1973; it was one of the longest-running shows on Canadian radio – 24 years with 306 hours of original programming

-Air Farce’s first appearance on CBC TV was a one-hour special in 1980; it joined the CBC’s prime-time lineup in 1993 and ended its weekly run in 2008

-Air Farce was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2000; sketch comedy series won 15 ACTRA awards for radio & TV and a Juno for best comedy CD

-Ferguson has written and directed documentary programs for CBC, a science-fiction series for radio, a political farce called Skin Deep for the stage

Upcoming

- Air Farce Not The New Year’s Eve Special airs Sunday, Jan. 1, on CBC at 8 p.m. Eastern

-just released a new book called Air Farce – 40 Years of Flying by the Seat of our Pants.

*****

He’s best known for his political impersonations of Bill Clinton, Lucien Bouchard, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Preston Manning and Paul Martin.

As one of the original cast members of Royal Canadian Air Farce, Don Ferguson is a master of his trade. And he’s preparing more parodies for a the Air Farce Not the New Year’s Eve Special that will air on CBC on New Year’s Day.

To get to work and rehearse those sketches, Ferguson drives a 2005 Subaru Outback.

Why did you buy a Subaru?

My wife had this idea we were going to build a cottage up north and we’d need a wagon to get to it.

I wanted something more fun to drive than a wagon. So we got a wagon. But we got the XT, which has a four-cylinder engine that’s turbocharged. It’s got a lot of kick. It is actually a fun car to drive.

I was pretty much sold at the store before I even took it for a test spin. I liked the price, the all-wheel-drive.

I had driven the neighbour’s one time after a fishing trip in the pouring rain and I loved the way it drove. I had a fairly extensive taste of it.

I didn’t want to make a mistake buying the wrong car. It could be a pretty expensive mistake because the minute you drive it off the lot you’ve left a fair percentage of the value at the dealer.

What does a Subaru Outback say about you?

I'm probably a university mathematics teacher or an accountant. I wear Birkenstocks and dress unfashionably. None of which I think is true. But it's most people's opinion of people driving Outbacks.

What do you listen to on the road?

I’m pretty bad in the car. Usually, I like to listen to nothing. It’s the one time in the car you don’t have to have any noise.

My wife got an album a few years ago – it’s a 1971 Massey Hall concert with Neil Young. It’s one of our favourite CDs to play. There’s something so magical about it, too.

Do you sing behind the wheel, too?

Absolutely! If I’m alone I certainly do.

What’s your driving style like – do you like to drive fast?

I like to drive fast, but I’m of an age now where I think I shouldn’t.

Caution has overtaken the joy of youth. I do like to drive fast if I can, but I don’t like getting tickets. I don’t like being stopped by police.

Often when you drive fast you do it because you’re in a hurry and nothing slows you down more than a policeman pulling you over.

Have the cops ever let you off because they recognize you?

No. I’ve generally managed to avoid it. I generally get stopped for nothing.

Once, years ago, I got stopped by the RCMP driving to work. The same cop had been sitting outside my house for two days. At the time I was doing a lot of political impersonations on the show.

I think one of the things they do is collect intelligence as an experiment more than anything else on people who do that kind of thing. I think he stopped me to say he had a chat with me. It was a weird experience.

Did you turn it into a skit afterwards?

Ha. No. But it’s not a bad idea. Maybe we’ll do it this New Year’s.

What was your first car?

The first car I bought was a 1971 Mini. It cost me $1,790.

There weren’t many options on the Mini – it had a radio or it didn’t. There was no air conditioning, the heat was basic, no seatbelts in those days. And the colours they made that year were orange, beige and some other colour.

The dealer said, ‘What colour would you like?’ I said, ‘I like beige because I think it looks more like a Rolls-Royce.’ He looked at me like, ‘Is this man delusional?’ The only colour they had in stock was orange.

I said, ‘That’s fine – I’ll take it.’ It was a great car – the perfect car for a young man in his 20s.

I drove it off the lot and it started raining. I turned on the wipers and the entire electrical system went dead. This is a problem that kept recurring for over a year. A mechanic down the road finally realized there must have been a short in the wiper motor that only shorted out when it got wet. So he wrapped the motor in a plastic bag and I never had a problem.

On a trip with the Air Farce, we drove with Roger Abbott, who died this year, from a gig in Orillia on a Saturday night to open a show in Charlottetown on Monday. So we drove in this Mini.

I was camping with my girlfriend so we had a tent, a cooler, sleeping bags, clothes to wear on the campsite plus the clothes to wear on stage. We had Roger’s stage clothes and daytime clothes, too. The PEI trip was for two weeks. So this little Mini had as much on the roof as it did inside. And we drove it there in less than two days.

What did you drive before the Subaru?

Before the Subaru I had a BMW 3.0 S. It may have been a 1970.

I bought it when it was five years old. I had that car for 15 years. It was a beauty. It was built like a tank. It had two carburetors, a six-cylinder engine, an automatic transmission, which was unfortunate.

I broke a lot of speed limits in that car, especially driving from Toronto to Montreal, where my parents live. It was meant to drive on the autobahn where there are no speed limits. I once had it up to 120 miles an hour and I chickened out. The car felt so comfortable at that speed.

If I can bring you the keys to any car what would it be?

I would love to have, even for a few hours, a real performance car like a Ferrari and just feel what that’s like.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

pgentile@globeandmail.com