The Road Years: a memoir continued…
Rick Mercer co-created and performed on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created and starred in Made in Canada, and created and starred in Talking to Americans, the most-watched comedy special in Canadian television history. He went on to host the hugely successful Rick Mercer Report for 15 seasons, 2004-2018.
This book covers the road trip side of that show, focusing on the travel aspect and some of the possibly dangerous stunts that he allowed himself to be talked into doing in various places across the nation. Its 19 chapters follow Mercer and his partner-producer Gerald Lunz as they dreamed up the idea for the show, and then kept coming up with ways to keep it interesting.
So we get to read about his adventures: dog sledding, chainsaw carving, and bear tagging, hanging from a harness (numerous times); riding the Train of Death; and countless other joyous and/or reckless assignments.
He is particularly happy about having filmed quite different segments with all three members of Rush, including tobogganing, with Geddy Lee , motorcycle riding and indoor skydiving with Alex Lifeson, and drum lessons with Neil Peart.
He spent so many episodes with Jann Arden as a guest, starting out in Calgary and later several more places by popular demand that she has her own chapter.
Other Canadian music royalty featured on the show included Sarah McLaughlin, Randy Bachman, the Barenaked Ladies, and Bruce Cockburn.
There were many politicians and public figures. He toured 24 Sussex Drive with Paul Martin, met the Trudeaus while they were still a couple, was choked by Jean Chrétien, was read a bedtime story by Stephen Harper, and went fishing and skinny dipping with Bob Rae. He even got to change the flag on the Peace Tower.
After a regular program visit with Belinda Stronach, he found himself invited to accompany her on an unauthorized fact finding mission to Africa, where he learned of the importance of mosquito netting, and was inspired to launch the Spread the Net program, which became a serious feature of the otherwise mostly funny Report for years afterwards. It has gone on to protect the lives of millions.
His rants, patented from 22 Minutes, were always going to be a key feature of the show, as were the little 22 Minute-style sketches, but it was also important to the team to showcase different parts of Canada.
A modified version of this idea, partly inspired by a Danish program, is Jonny Harris’s Still Standing, which visited Dawson City last year and is still going strong in its ninth season, having been launched in 2015, just three years before the Mercer Report came to an end.
Rick was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 for his work with charitable causes and “his ability to inspire and challenge Canadians through humour.” In 2019, he received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award. His 2021 memoir, Talking to Canadians, won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. He is from Middle Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador.
We get to thank Covid for giving him the time to work on this book. He ended the show in 2018 and pondered what might come next for a while.
“And then the pandemic happened. And for all of us, the ability to travel to anywhere, under any circumstance, came to an end.
“I was one of the lucky ones. Very lucky. I had a place to hide. That being a small house in the East End of town, on the Atlantic Ocean. Otherwise known as my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The house located in Chapel’s Cove had a shed and two wood stoves. It was basically designed for the apocalypse. It was perfect. I was very grateful, and I thank God every day I wasn’t in a small box in the sky in Toronto.”
Out of that experience came two books, Talking to Canadians (2021) and this book (2023). Both of them are amusing and thoughtful, and worth some of your time.
