The six Canadian comedies nominated in the Best Comedy Series and Best Performance categories – Royal Canadian Air Farce, This Hour has 22 Minutes, Comics! and The Kids in the Hall airing on cbc along with The New Red Green Show on CanWest Global and Atlantis Films’ Married Life that aired on TMN The Movie Network – represent the cream of Canada’s comedy crop. But they also indicate the sparse amount of homegrown comedy currently broadcast on the nation’s airwaves.

Although Air Farce, produced by the cbc, remains the country’s top-rated comedy show, drawing an average season audience of 1.34 million, Roger Abbott along with Don Ferguson and Brian Robertson needed 20 years since its inception as an improv show on CBC Radio to launch this overnight success. Not until a few tv specials, including their first New Year’s Eve year-in-review, independently produced by Abbott and company in 1992, did Air Farce earn a regular run on cbc-tv.

This Hour has 22 Minutes, made up of codco comedy veterans, is tickling 31% more funny bones this season with an average viewership of 1.15 million Canadians.

Why aren’t Canadian networks more receptive to Canuck comedy?

‘Ninety-seven percent of comedy broadcast in Canada is American when this is one of our areas of strength,’ says producer Michael Donovan of Salter Street Productions, producer of 22 Minutes.

cbc has broadcast four of the six nominated comedies. ‘cbc’s mandate is Canada,’ Comics! producer Joe Bodolai says. ‘I lay the fault at other broadcasters’ (feet) who ignore our own voice to pander’ to American programming.

An exception to the cbc rule is the theme sketch show The New Red Green Show. The show, which now airs on CanWest Global, first aired on chch-tv Hamilton as The Red Green Show in March 1991. chch didn’t need a pitch, says creator/producer/star Steve Smith, they trusted him because he’s been doing comedy since 1978, including Smith & Smith’s Comedy Mill, whereas for a new, untested act, networks might not take the risk. By the time the original Red Green was canceled in August 1993, it had had a chance to build an audience.

Smith sees lack of access to this audience as the major barrier that keeps Canadians from seeing their own on the small screen. ‘We are seen as the hull of comedy, and what do we do with it?’

Since cbc moved Comics! to Monday at 9:30 p.m., immediately following This Hour has 22 Minutes, its viewership has increased 408% from 151,000 to 767,000.

Bodolai salutes Ivan Fecan, executive vp and coo of Baton Broadcasting Systems and former vp English television networks at cbc, ‘a lover and supporter of comedy,’ for ensuring that standup comics would have an outlet for their talent after the demise of cbc’s Friday Night! With Ralph Benmergui in 1994.

‘I felt standup comedy was not taken advantage of,’ Bodolai says. ‘Standup comedy was the most misunderstood in Canada because clubs were the only venue for Canadian talent.’

Unlike American standup comedy programs like Caroline’s Corner and Live at the Improv on a&e that cram four comedians into an episode, Comics! showcases one talent each show and has already featured 54 different comics, ‘more than any other show,’ Bodolai says.

A common thread among Canadian comedies is how culturally specific they are. Air Farce, produced by cbc, is particular to English Canada just as La Petite Vie, with its three million viewers tuning in to Radio-Canada, is to French Canada, says Donovan.

‘We’re more satirical and more self-deprecating as a country,’ says Bodolai. He says Canadian comics study the Canadian psyche in their routines and tend to be better writers than Americans for that reason. ‘They’re more likely to go on stage with material rather than relying on attitude and performance.’

’22 Minutes (also produced by cbc) and Air Farce have broken down the old taboo about not doing jokes about who we are and where we live,’ adds Abbott. ‘Networks were terrified and fearful of sketch comedy because it was something that nobody really understood that well.’

According to Donovan, ‘because comedy is culturally specific, it’s not a hot seller abroad. Each country has its own unique comedic voice.’

Crossing oceans is problematic for some types of comedy, however, the North American sitcom manages to be leggy.

‘Seinfeld doesn’t have a problem selling in Europe,’ says Smith, commenting on the cultural baggage difficulties encountered when Cancomedy travels overseas. ‘I think it’s an easy excuse not to do it,’ says Smith, whose The New Red Green Show, produced by S&S Productions, has even sold in Turkey (where the fact that there are no women at Possum Lodge has curiously struck a cultural chord). Smith adds, ‘I’d rather have a huge comedy in North America.’

Although Kids in the Hall producer Jeffrey Berman wasn’t involved with the show in its infancy, he was the liaison with the cbc and continues to write shows for Kids producer Broadway Video.

‘Other larger networks seem to be interested in Canadian comedy,’ says Berman. ‘My impression is that networks are receptive to the idea of doing more comedy but are finding it complicated to set up programming.’

There is also a limited outlet for Canadian comedy writers. Not since Perry Rosemond created King of Kensington for cbc has this country seen a popular sitcom, but it isn’t for lack of talent. Canadians have written for sitcoms such as The Cosby Show and Seinfeld to name a few. And what of Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame and Susie Shuster (daughter of Frank Shuster) who writes for The Larry Sanders Show?

‘Wayne and Shuster created sketch comedy on the Ed Sullivan show,’ says Bodolai. ‘Canada is a small population compared to the u.s., and yet we’re well represented. Unfortunately, much of it is out of Canada.’

Abbott notes that sitcom producers in the u.s. tend to be writers first, whereas Canadian producers are fund-raisers and production managers first. In order to compete in sitcom, he says, Canadian producers should be writers.

‘We have the ability to pull off a sitcom if we want it,’ says Smith, who is one of three bidders, including Bodolai, for a comedy specialty channel. ‘My main hope is that we’re one of them that gets approved.’

A comedy station could change the volume of comedy Canada churns out. However, with the sheer numbers of comedies exported by the u.s. and simulcast on Canadian networks, some producers feel there is even less room for Canadian comedy.

‘That really bugs me,’ Bodolai says of simulcasting. Broadcasters, he says ‘have created a Canadian television advertising industry without creating a television industry’ by marketing American shows to generate money at the expense of Canadian programs.

‘God knows I wouldn’t want to develop a new comedy show and put it up against The Nanny or Friends,’ says Abbott.

In the meantime: ‘Anybody who wins in this (Gemini) category is up against some stiff competition,’ says Bodolai. ‘There isn’t a weak show in there.’