This Hour Has 22 Minutes
This Hour Has 22 Minutes (or simply 22 Minutes) is a Canadian television comedy. Begun in 1993, the show focuses on Canadian politics, combining news parody, sketch comedy and satirical editorials.The show was created by and originally featured four Newfoundlanders on the desk (Cathy Jones, Rick Mercer, Greg Thomey and Mary Walsh) satirizing the weekly news and Canadian political events. Gerald Lunz was the original creative producer. Geoff Deon was the original editorial producer.
Rick Mercer left the show in 2001 and was replaced by Colin Mochrie for two seasons. Mochrie then left in 2003, replaced by Shaun Majumder.
Mark Critch was introduced on 22 Minutes in the tenth season as a substitute for Mary Walsh; he continues as a writer for the show and as a recurring guest star after two appearances in the 10th Season. His segments on This Hour have included going to the Nokia Brier (the Canadian curling championship) and arguing with Stephen Harper about who should win the match between Alberta or Newfoundland, and going trick-or-treating on Parliament Hill, ending up dressed up as Jean Chrétien. As a writer his best known contributions have been Rick Mercer's rants.
Other comedians will also substitute for Mary Walsh this season, as she has film commitments and will only have six appearances this season. Walsh also manages be the star of "Mary Walsh: Open Book". Open book is a weekly book club, based on the Oprah book club, where friends and employees of Walsh can gather and discuss books Mary would like people to read. Michael Donovan is the creator of Open Book.
22 Minutes is taped before a studio audience in Halifax, Nova Scotia This Hour Has 22 Minutes is in its eleventh season. It is produced by Salter Street Films, an Alliance Atlantis Company, and is broadcast on the CBC television network and Showcase for repeats.
The show's format is a mock news program, intercut with comic sketches and humorous interviews with public figures. These have included such well-known segments as Rick Mercer going out to eat at Harveys with Jean Chrétien; Colin Mochrie disguising himself as journalist Peter Mansbridge for insightful interviews with none other than Peter Mansbridge; Shaun Majumder whishing to be the Prime Minister of Canada and letting the students have three days a week of school and getting rid of the GST for a Christmas gift; such luminaries as Paul Martin Jr and Walter Cronkite putting Greg Thomey in a headlock; Cathy Jones giving marital advice to Canadian politicians; and a variety of segments with Mary Walsh's character Marg Delahunty crashing press conferences, hosting a "sleepover" for the nation's leading female politicians, and threatening to "smite" the likes of Mike Harris, John Manley, Lucien Bouchard and Sheila Copps as Marg, Princess Warrior.
Another of its regular segments with Rick Mercer was turned into an enormously popular one-hour feature show titled "Rick MercersTalking to Americans". The hour long special is the highest rated comedy special in the history of Canadian Television. Talking To Americans was produced and Directed by Geoff D'eon. The special was a co-production between Salter Street Films and Mercer's own Island Edge Productions. Island Edge is jointly owned by Mercer and Talking To Americans Executive Producer Gerald Lunz. Island Edge Inc. are also the producers of Mercer's Made In Canada, which ran for 6 seasons on CBC TV. Made In Canada is known as The Industry internationally and airs in the United States, France, Australia and Lating America
The troupe's most famous joke was during the federal election campaign in 2000 which was created and ranted by Rick Mercer. The Canadian Alliance proposed a mechanism to call for a national referendum when roughly 100,000 voters signed a petition calling for it concerning any subject. The show called on viewers to sign an on-line petition for a referendum to change Alliance leader Stockwell Day's first name to Doris. The show claimed to have obtained well in excess of 1,200,000 on-line signatures. Although this was cheerfully admitted to be a stunt unhampered by the rigours of an Elections Canada-controlled petition, and although it had no effect on Alliance policy, it did obtain international publicity for the show and contributed to the general air of farce surrounding Day's election campaign.
In 1998, they had a New Years Special called This Hour Has 22 Minutes: News Year'98 and in 2000, they also had a Christmas special called This Hour Has 22 Minutes: Holiday Special 2000. They made over 8 specials to date.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes is on CBC at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on Friday nights.
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