2614...Tricking Americans

Going through my old emails I came across this piece from Inside The CBC:

Ever wonder how Rick Mercer’s crew puts together those ‘Talking to Americans’ videos?

If you don’t know the segment, let me fill you in. Rick Mercer travels to the States and asks Americans to comment on about absolutely absurd topics, like the fight to save Canada’s capitol building, which is supposedly an igloo, from global warming.

In one of the most famous bits, Mercer put that question to former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee. Hilarity ensues.

Today, Steve Brawner, a freelance journalist, revealed what happened behind the scenes that day and offered a glimpse into how the bits were produced.

One day, a Canadian film crew arrived at the door and made a vague request for a quote from the governor congratulating their country about some igloo that had been found there. I assumed it was an important archaeological discovery and, trying to be accommodating, notified the governor, who agreed to make a quick comment on his way out the door. And that’s what happened.

Only it’s not all that happened. It turned out that the nice reporter actually was Rick Mercer, host of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes,” which fills up part of that 22 minutes by ridiculing Americans for their lack of knowledge about Canada, much to the delight of Canadians.

During the bit, Mercer duped one Arkansan at the Capitol into believing that Canada’s capitol building is an igloo that Canadians were trying to rescue from global warming by covering it with a dome. Huckabee later briefly appears on the video to say exactly what he was asked to say: “Hi, I’m Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas wanting to say, ‘Congratulations, Canada, on preserving your national igloo.’” The video implies that Huckabee also fell for the joke even though he said nothing about Parliament or global warming. But audiences then and now believed Mercer’s version of the truth.

The video was a topic of conversation when Huckabee ran for president in 2008 and no doubt will return if he runs again. And why wouldn’t it? A leading presidential candidate looks thoroughly uniformed and gullible, when in reality he mostly has been the victim of dishonest editing.

Of course, whether it’s dishonest or comedic is in the eye of the beholder.

You say tomato I say refrigerator.

WFDS