Canadian Humor (which I spell “Humour”)

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I decided that this month I wouldn’t mention Coronavirus (it didn’t take long for me to fail on that count, did it?) because it has dominated so much of the news that I wanted to give you a break from thinking about it. I hadn’t fully grasped how pervasive Covid has become until I tried to come up with a topic for this column that didn’t involve Coronavirus, and I failed. Every topic I thought of somehow came back to the pandemic.

As I said, I wanted to give people a break from Coronavirus because of the negative effects the virus is having on our society. I was about to list some of them, but you are probably as aware of them as I am, and if I did list them I would fail even more spectacularly in my effort to give you a break from thinking about Coronavirus.

The best I can do at this point is to offer an alternative to the bleak news, so below you will find links to videos of Canadian humor. I’m proudly Canadian, and I’m sorry that many of my incredibly talented fellow Canucks haven’t received more attention here. In doing this, I do not want to simply wish Coronavirus away or tell people to cheer up. Neither of those have any place in our current crisis. I simply hope to give people a few minutes to forget their stress and recharge, so that when they return to the stress they have a little more resilience for the challenges they have to face. I can’t solve anyone’s problems, but hopefully I can help them cope with them.

For years Rick Mercer had a comedy/political commentary show. In one segment he would visit people with interesting jobs in different parts of the country. This is my favorite episode.
Comedian Lorne Elliot’s commentary about visit Winnipeg in winter. I’m sure Minnesotans will relate.
Red Green did make it to the U.S., but if you haven’t seen him before, he’s worth checking out. This segment from his show demonstrates the power of lateral thinking.
A series of Canadian comedians discuss the Canadian armed forces. This will give you some idea of why Canada isn’t threatening to dominate the world.
Derek Edwards demonstrates that Canadians may be polite but they can also be bitter.
A darkly funny song from Lorne Elliot about playing with a killer whale. If you’re not in the mood for a morbid humor, skip this one.

Hopefully these help you find something to smile about.

This article originally appeared in “The Alley,” the newspaper for the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.