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As I write and you read, it's happening.
In every waking hour of every day, across Canada, something funny is happening.
With every pun in Petawawa and gag in Goose Bay, we continue to be one funny place to live. In L.A., just being Canadian is enough to get you invited to a party (since we're viewed as guaranteed entertainment).
But what makes this country such fertile ground, jocularly speaking? What is the force behind our disproportionate success in the yuks department?
Here's the scientific explanation. To begin with, there's the obvious: that you have to be somewhat off - kilter to inhabit this land. (Anyone still wondering why we have so few people, obviously never basked in the full glory of the one 'natural resource' we'll gladly lose to free trade: the Arctic Front).
Indeed, our geography and climate shape the way we look at things. While explorations into the origins of humour are less than conclusive (though the Great Rift Valley and Lucy probably fit into the equation), sarcasm has been directly linked to the first Canadians who, after arriving mid - February, said "You want to live here?!"
With that quirkiness factor in place, BNA humour, like our society, evolved and eventually found its niche. We became more extroverted than our Old World roots, but more introspective and reserved than the Americans. We picked on each other (i.e. the "Newfie Joke") and created our own class equality with parody (i.e. Toronto's personification as nothing more than a bunch of greedy bankers).
While it may not be a stunning example of high humour, it does reflect, to some degree, how we view and laugh about each other. We don't play favourites and we don't take prisoners.
Our humour was honed by the one - room - school - house class clown. Our jokes were initially local in content, with a smattering of pan - Dominion generalities thrown in for good measure. But where we stand today, humourously speaking, owes its genesis to the vast technological upheaval Canada' has undergone in this century.
Honey, I Shrunk The Country" is the working title of the telecommunications revolution we've experienced. As with print before it, the advent of radio and television brought closer contact between Canada's...