This Hour Has 22 Minutes

This used to be a good program. It used to walk the fine line between parody & bad taste. The show was always at its best when the wit and satire carried the message. It seems that in the last 2 seasons (or at least since Rick M. left) the writers have to be so much more blatant in the attacks. Yeah I know, it's still better then a lot of other crap on the tube, but really, it has fallen down several notches. I just don't laugh much anymore when I bother to watch. Not that Air Farce is much better. Now we have 2 comedy shows that are passed their prime. Monday Report may miss as many times as it hits, but at least the edge is there...the smartness is there.

Despite the fact that it's not daily, but weekly, "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" is exactly "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" for Canadians. Just take away unsuspecting citizen guest stars, except for the hilarious "Talking to Americans", where Rick Mercer would travel to America and tell them fictional trivia and ask them questions, now missing from the show due to his leaving and Colin Mochrie's coming.

In fact, "Talking to Americans" just proves: if you're American and you live in America, you probably don't know anything about our politics or politicians, so you probably won't get it. "22 Minutes" is meant for us Canadians. I can't really put it much another way. Many people regard Canada as "peaceful" or "America Jr."(despite the fact we're bigger than you). But we hate our politicians, love to make fun of them just as much, and have many of our own problems, including bad Canadian original programming(this is one of those great shows like "The Simpsons" that makes fun of the very channel it's on), and our unpredictable stock exchange, strange yet incredibly unnecessary-to-mention crimes, and over-spending by the government.

If you lived here, you'd understand.

The reason why This Hour Has 22 Minutes is not funny is because it tries to pass off its hackneyed stereotypes as legitimate satire. It's pretty hypocritical to take jabs at the ignorance of others considering that the writers and producers obviously know very little, if anything, about their own country west of Thunder Bay. Mike (from Canmore) is a good example of this: the old "Albertans are toothless hicks" gag - nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. I understand the gist of the sketch, but why is Mike from a beautiful, touristy, mountain resort village? I'm going to make my own sketch comedy show featuring crap like "Talking to Newfies" and "Pete (from Halifax)" - Pete will be a grizzled, old pirate with a corn cob pipe in his mouth, a peg leg and a bottle of rum in hand. Yeeehaaaw!!!

This show is like watching a community players theater group do sketches every week that they think are funny. The impressions are all just terrible....how many times are we supposed to watch Cathy Jones and Susan Kent dress up like men and still find it funny? The correct answer is zero because it's not funny at all. Shawn Majumder and Mark Critch are just not funny and can't do impressions either. Watching Mark Critch pretend to be Al Pacino was one of the most painful experiences of my TV watching life I felt so extremely embarrassed for him and his family it was unbelievable. Who has the idea that these people should still be on TV after all these years doing the same bad impressions and the same bad jokes?

I can't believe some of the comments mentioned here. First of all, no one should listen to a negative comment which tells you that you shouldn't watch something just because they don't happen to like it. Writing in large caps isn't part of constructive criticism either. For the commenter who said he wrote a review for it, I can guess why it 'mysteriously' disappeared. Was it for an actual magazine, or for a high school Journalism class? You should know that comparing 22 Minutes with Tom Green is like comparing apples to oranges. He went to America, anyway.

Secondly, anyone who has any knowledge of Canadian Comedy whatsoever knows that there are three main types: Sketch, Satire, and Dramatic Comedy. Since 22 minutes is Satire, it's not supposed to be hilarious or keep you on the edge of your seat, but it is supposed to make you think and open your eyes to what's around you. I'll admit that sometimes it's not very thought provoking, but watching it after Sept 11, I found it very comforting.

But just because you don't think it's any good doesn't mean that no one else does. Maybe you just don't understand it. I don't like the Royal Canadian Air Force, but I don't deny that it's a Canadian Classic.