Made in Canada (TV series)


Made in Canada is a Canadian television comedy which aired on CBC Television from 1998 to 2003. Rick Mercer starred as Richard Strong, an ambitious and amoral television producer working for a company which makes bad television shows. A dark satire about the Canadian television industry, the programme shifted into an episodic situation comedy format after its first season.
It was created by Mercer, Gerald Lunz and Michael Donovan, produced by Salter Street Films and Island Edge, and filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The programme was broadcast with Salter Street's satirical newsmagazine, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and drew its creators, writing staff, and much of its production staff from that programme; Made in Canada was filmed during the summer, and 22 Minutes during the fall. Mercer starred on both until he left 22 Minutes in 2001.
The programme received critical and popular recognition. It was particularly well-received by the industry it lampooned, attracting many guest stars. The programme received 23 national awards during its five-season run, including multiple Gemini, Writers Guild of Canada, and Canadian Comedy Awards. In the United States, Australia and Latin America, the show was syndicated as The Industry. In France, it was syndicated as La loi du Show-Biz.

Plot

A satire of film and television production, the series revolves around fictional Pyramid Productions – a company where greed and backstabbing thrive. Pyramid produces lucrative television and films for the domestic and international markets, with creative decisions made by non-creative people.
Company head Alan Roy is obsessed with appearances and staying ahead of trends, whether this means owning his own cable channel or having the largest yacht at Cannes. His often-idiotic decisions lead to extra work for his employees, who must fulfill his wishes or deal with the consequences. The employees – Richard, Victor, Veronica and Wanda – manipulate each other and sabotage each other's projects to earn more money, gain promotions or work on better projects. None of them appear to have issues with breaking the law, and they seem to have no sense of morality. They generally only cooperate when they have an opportunity to destroy another company or a mutual enemy. Each episode deals with one major problem, which normally does not carry over to the next episode.
Pyramid projects also provide storylines for the series, as the company's staff try to manage the inevitable complications created by the casts and crews of their film and television productions. Its cash cows are two series: The Sword of Damacles, a parody of mythological adventure series such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Beaver Creek, a parody of Canadian period dramas such as Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea. The staff also face complications with their low-budget, poorly-made films, such as Vigilante's Vengeance. Many of their movies fail; they are not produced, or go direct-to-video in foreign countries.

Characters

  • Richard Strong, the central character, is an ambitious, machiavellian employee trying to navigate, scheme and backstab his way to the CEO's chair; in the first episode, he makes his way from junior script reader to television producer by having his boss Ray Drodge fired. Ruthless and amoral, he is better at his job than most of his colleagues. Richard has had relationships with Veronica Miller, Lisa Sutton and Siobhan Roy, but generally as an opportunity to manipulate rather than out of love. The character was partially inspired by Ian McKellen's performance in the 1995 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III. He personifies human vice, unfettered by ethics.
  • Alan Roy, the firm's, is a charismatic but intellectually-questionable womanizer who often succeeds more by accident than skill and, much more often, fails miserably. He is frequently mystified that his management style – a combination of bad production ideas, offbeat health fads and half-understood slogans from management books – does not rouse office morale. Alan's career was launched with his first film, Prom Night at Horny High, which was a commercial success despite being lowbrow and indecent. Keleghan described the character as a cross between Alliance Communications head Robert Lantos and The Simpsons Mr. Burns. Producer Michael Donovan joked that Alan reflected the showrunners' impression of him.
  • Veronica Miller is the firm's chief operating officer. Although she is generally overworked, doing the jobs of several other employees, she is still forced to do idiotic and degrading tasks for Alan. Veronica occasionally becomes fed up with her poor treatment and sabotages a project or event, which usually spurs Alan to improve her working conditions and meet her demands. The office problem-solver, she is generally an ally of Richard's in making the best of Alan's decisions but will double-cross him if necessary.
  • Victor Sela is head of Pyramid's film division and a general office sycophant, willing to do almost anything Alan asks of him. He is usually very positive about Alan's schemes. In a test, however, Victor is the least loyal.
  • Wanda Mattice, Alan's assistant, uses her influence in the day-to-day workings of the office to obtain power beyond her role in the corporate hierarchy and knows when it is to her advantage to act less intelligent. Although she frequently dresses strangely and appears frumpy, Alan is attracted to her and they frequently have sex in the office.
  • Lisa Sutton is a producer and Victor's girlfriend. Richard considers her a threat to his power, and Alan dislikes her for ignoring his attempts to seduce her.
  • Raymond Drodge is a producer. Formerly the head of television development, he is fired in the pilot after Richard and Siobhan frame him for sexually harassing Siobhan. He is later rehired in a much lower position after Richard gets his old job. Due to Richard's manipulation, Raymond's marriage falls apart and he begins to believe that he is an alcoholic.
  • Michael Rushton is the dimwitted, egotistical star of The Sword of Damacles.
  • Siobhan Roy, Alan's daughter, is one of the stars of Beaver Creek. Fully aware that being the boss's daughter gives her job security, she freely schemes and manipulates to get whatever she wants.
  • Brian Switzer, nicknamed "Network Brian", is an executive with the television network which airs Beaver Creek and its main liaison with Pyramid.

    Notable guest stars

Most people employed in Canadian television enjoyed the programme, which created a stir in the industry and attracted a number of guest stars:
  • Gordon Pinsent as Walter Franklyn, star of Beaver Creek and "Canada's most beloved actor". Pinsent returns in the last episode as a dairy mogul who buys the company. Mercer considered Pinsent's work to be a major influence on his career, and was extremely pleased to have him in the cast; during the series' production, Mercer narrated a biography of Pinsent.
  • Peter Blais as Geoff, an actor who comes out and subsequently wants Parson Hubbard to be gay
  • Andrew Bush as a young method actor who plays Blind Jimmy on Beaver Creek
  • Mary-Colin Chisholm as an actor who plays Nurse Melissa on Beaver Creek
  • Maury Chaykin as Captain McGee, a kiddie entertainer who is caught in a sex scandal
  • Andy Jones as Fritz Hoffman, a German TV executive who believes that Beaver Creek is a sexier version of Dawson's Creek
  • Sarah Polley as the head of the Church of cult
  • Shirley Douglas and Margot Kidder appeared as fading Hollywood actresses making guest appearances on Beaver Creek.
  • Megan Follows as Mandy Forward, the former "Adele of Beaver Creek", who returned for a reunion movie and discovered that after her previous Beaver Creek movie, Alan kept the sets up to produce a pornographic knockoff.
  • Mark McKinney as Dean Sutherland, a released convict who wants to sell his story
  • Don McKellar as Adam Kalilieh, an independent art film director
  • Joe Flaherty as a mayoral candidate who hires Pyramid to smear his opponent
  • Cynthia Dale and C. David Johnson as a husband-and-wife motivational team
  • Colin Mochrie as Frank Roy: Alan's mentally-handicapped brother who, as part of an elaborate tax dodge orchestrated by Alan, is revealed as the actual Pyramid CEO.
Several Canadian media personalities made cameos as fictionalized versions of themselves, including Nicholas Campbell, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Moses Znaimer, Keifer Sutherland, Evan Solomon, Peter Gzowski, Ann Medina and Gino Empry.

Development and writing

The series was conceived by Mercer, executive producer Gerald Lunz and Salter Street Films co-chair Michael Donovan in 1994. Lunz had launched Mercer's career, producing his one-man shows and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Mercer and Lunz formed Island Edge to co-produce Made in Canada and develop other projects for Mercer.
Donovon, Lunz and Mercer wanted to satirize office politics, starring Mercer as an ambitious man manipulating his way to the top in a parody of Shakespeare's Richard III. Instead of killing his rivals, the programme's Richard would kill their careers by ruining their reputations and seizing their power. Richard would address the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall to share his plans and ambitions. Although they realized this was a risk, they felt that Mercer could connect with the audience as he had in his monologues. Mercer had established himself as the first mainstream Canadian satirist to make scathing criticisms directly, without a comedic mask.
They had considered setting the satire in the federal bureaucracy in line with Mercer's political criticism, but Mercer was not sufficiently knowledgeable about the government's inner workings. Believing that satire required a firm understanding of its targets, they set the programme in a television and film production office; this would be understood by the audience and provide many egos to lampoon. Mercer described the programme in a later interview as having a "Dilbert reality" of an office, in which some have a "suck-up kick-down philosophy". In April 1998, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation approved a six-part series without seeing a script.
The first season was cowritten by Mercer and Mark Farrell over a two-month period. They had both written for 22 Minutes and had written sketches for several years, but neither had written episodic television before. Lunz, a self-described "Shakespeare nut", guided the theme and style. Farrell, Lunz and Mercer remained the show's creative force throughout its five seasons. Other writers for the series included Paul Bellini, Alex Ganetakos and Edward Riche.
The programme shifted from a dark satire to an episodic sitcom after its first season, and addressed the audience less frequently. This was often limited to the closing line – "I think that went well" or "This is not good" – which might be given to a character other than Richard, depending on who was behind that episode's schemes. The series' working title was The Industry, which was changed to The Casting Couch and then Made in Canada.