h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, I will admit that I am goofy.

But why does everyone just assume that all Canucks are alike?

Sure we are portrayed in movies as being funny people - look at Jim Carrey, John Candy, Mike Myers to name a few. On TV we come across as lumberjacks who spend all day watching hockey & drinking beer, saying 'eh' every other word.

Sometimes I think only the creators of South Park truly understand the Canuck....

I have no idea what that's all aboot

Surely you've seen the movie Canadian Bacon?

WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU PRONOUNCE THE LETTER "O"!!!!

Other funny people from Canada: William Shatner, Peter Jennings. That is all.

Canada's worst export: the tv show "DeGrassi Junior High."

(I live close enough to Detroit to pick up CBC tv. I'll get back to you on whether that's a good thing or not. CBC radio, however, kicks a*s.)

I was never a big fan of ANY of the DeGrassi shows...they all sucked.

Another Canuck I can think of - Tom Green. When you grow up in Saskatchewan I guess there's nothing better to do.

Good CBC shows are Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Most of the other CBC shows are pretty crappy - however on CBC Newsworld 2 days ago they showed a full-out, unedited documentary on the porn industry.

Viva le Towels!

Yeah, that's true. I've seen full frontal male and female nudity on CBC movies some nights. This Hour Has 22 Minutes is pretty good. Kids in the Hall, needless to say, was classic.

Tom Green is nothing to brag about. He's mildly funny in small doses, but he's basically doing the same things Letterman used to do, only Letterman never had such an annoying accent.

"When you grow up in Saskatchewan I guess there's nothing better to do."

I imagine Canada gets some decent poets too, at least those who grow up in a city that rhymes with "vagina."

... Cool Canadian show...KIDS IN THE HALL!!!
...top notch....bloody funny....

don't know if you're all from canada or not, but over here in europe it is the general consensus that most americans are mad crazy bible-bashing gun-toting living-on-another-planet isolationist morons, while Canadians are seen as the poor sods who have to put up with being their neighbours. course, that's just an opinion

And not a very pleasing opinion, either!

I've never bashed a bible, owned a gun, lived on another planet, or been isolated! The moron moniker is debatable ...

I lived in the States for 8 months like 5 years ago (Kansas) and then for another 8 months last year in Wisconsin.

For the most part, the people from Kansas were just a bunch of religious fanatics (and for some odd reason Mel Gibson wanted his kids to go to that school.) As for the Cheeseheads - they need serious help. I met maybe 1 person during my second stay that was in the least bit normal-ish.

Tom Green is nothing to write home about, its true, however he is I believe the first Canadian to have his own show on MTV.

Kids in the Hall is truly classic....I still watch the reruns on Comedy channel.

What do you guys think of "To Serve and Protect" (Canada's version of cops)??? LOL

We are not accusing you of being bible bashing, etc.
However, the state that became infamous for the monkey trial (darwinism vs biblical hstory)(as seen in "reap the whirlwind") is currently in the process of making any genetics and heredity related qualifications invalid outside that state due to insisting that darwinism be taught as "only a theory", and "not proved".

We try and distance ourselves from William Shatner thank you very much.

Good ol' Capt Kirk.... but he's not a comedian.

On another note - has anyone eaten at Jann Arden's restaurant?

Any why are most music videos by Canadian artists really lame? Ed the Sock's Fromage 2000 showcased practically every single one of them - although all the S Club 7 & Britney videos made it big too. S Club got their own category "Worst S Club 7 Video" in which ALL the videos made it on.

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned Martin Short yet... Though when I think of Canada I straight away think of Margaret Atwood who is anything but goofy.

And what is it with South Park?
>"Canada, Australia, what's the difference?"

I sure wouldn't like to be portrayed as goofy...

ooh oooh, and Northern Exposure was a good show, and Canadian, right? Or am I imagining things?

Northern Exposure was set in Alaska (up on the tip of Canada, but technically a part of the U.S.), and the characters were mostly Yanks, but it might have been shot in Canada, or made up of Canadian actors.

Come to think of it, X-Files was mostly filmed in Canada, and you can hear the damn accents. Especially the Smoking Man. Eversomuch more menacing because he pronounces "outside" as "OATside."

And what is it with South Park?
>"Canada, Australia, what's the difference?"

Xenophobia is more fun when you hate everyone who talks funny, not just people who are more immediately troublesome, creating shows like "DeGrassi Junior High" or "Yet Another Godawful Ann Murray Special Celebrating some Weird Holiday Only Canadians Celebrate."

With special guests Jann Arden and Barenaked Ladies.

>Xenophobia is more fun when you hate everyone who talks funny,

Oi! Australians talk funny? I hadn't even thought of that as being the joke... (I wonder what else I'm missing)

Also, (and you'll probably hate this but) I can't tell the difference between canadian and US accents anyway, but I'm that americans aren't so good at telling the difference between accents either, because whenever an australian is being acted by an american, they sound extremely Pommy, and it takes some character to actually say "he's australian" for me to realise the character is supposed to be australian. *points the finger at Just Shoot Me*

Good point magrat ... I have yet to hear an american (or canadian for that matter) portray an even REMOTLY recognisable australian accent. It cant be that difficult either, for a country the size of australia - the regional differences in accent are negligable.

OI! OI! OI!

Americans think that anyone with an accent is foreign, yet the difference between people from New York and New Orleans is SO noticable!! Does that make people from New Orleans foreign??

I don't think I talk funny. I don't say "aboot" although I do say "eh" quite a bit.

Northern Exposure sucks IMO. Willam B. Davis (Smoking Man) is from the west coast of Canada and a pretty damm good actor. Canada (mainly Calgary and Toronto) are becoming a hotbed for Hollywood. As it is, here in Calgary there have been a few movies shots here within the last little while. Rat Race (a movie with Cuba Gooding Jr., for one) was shot here, and I hear there is a movie starring Luke Perry being shot nearby (it helps having a boyfriend in the movie industry!!)

RE: U.S. vs. Canadian accents.
You're right. There are probably bigger differences between accents of different regions within the U.S. (listen to JFK's boston accent, the Southern accent of any televangelist, Jesse Ventura's Minnesotan speech) than between Canadian and standard U.S. accents.

On the other hand, there are some East coast Canadians (from NEWFoundland) who sound practically Irish, one of those main readers from This Hour Has 22 Minutes sounds like that.

And doesn't it seem weird that Mel Gibson and Costas Mandylor have trained away their Australian accents? Maybe that's why we yanks can't tell what a real Australian accent sounds like, because the only one who hasn't worked at suppressing his accent is Paul Hogan. (Let's not even go there.)