Royal Canadian Air Farce (TV series)

Royal Canadian Air Farce (broadcast as Air Farce Live during 2007, and Air Farce—Final Flight! in 2008), and often credited simply as Air Farce, was a Canadian sketch comedy series starring the comedy troupe Royal Canadian Air Farce, that previously starred in an eponymous show on CBC Radio, from 1973 to 1997. The top-rated television show was broadcast on CBC Television, beginning in 1993 and ending in December 2008. The "Air Farce Live" name was adopted in October 2007. For the show's final season which began October 3, 2008, the series was renamed "Air Farce—Final Flight!".
The show was a weekly topical sketch comedy series focusing on political and cultural satire and was one of the most popular Canadian television shows. It was initially aired as a radio series beginning in 1973, and on radio, "Air Farce" continued for 24 seasons through 1997. In terms of the troupe's TV career, the first Air Farce TV special aired in 1980. A short-lived "Air Farce" TV series was broadcast in 1981, and further TV specials aired in 1982, 1983, and 1984. After a long hiatus from TV, a 1992 New Year's Eve special for CBC-TV was well received, and a new Air Farce TV series began in October 1993. The TV series was retitled "Air Farce Live" beginning with the October 6, 2007 broadcast and was the first Canadian sketch comedy series to be broadcast in HD. Despite the name change, the show was broadcast live only in the Atlantic time zone. The other time zones aired the show via tape delay.
In November 1998, original cast members Roger Abbott, Don Ferguson, Luba Goy, and John Morgan received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts.
Cast history.
The show began as a radio show in 1973, continuing until 1997 when the troupe decided to concentrate on the TV series which began in 1993. "Madly Off in All Directions", starring Lorne Elliott, replaced the Air Farce radio show on the CBC schedule. Over that time the Air Farce cast has remained relatively stable, with three of the troupe's five founders remaining with the program for its entire run.
Show history.
"Royal Canadian Air Farce" began in 1973 as a radio show on CBC Radio. It became one of the radio network's most popular programs. Based in Toronto, most of their shows were recorded in CBC's Cabbagetown studios; however, as the troupe became more popular, they frequently travelled throughout the country to record their weekly radio broadcasts, which featured a mixture of political and cultural satire.
The Farce troupe recorded a one-hour television special in 1980, which evolved into a ten-week series and two sequel specials. They continued to perform their radio series as the TV series and specials moved forward.
Many of the TV show's sketches were actually performed as "radio sketches"—during filming, Air Farce cast members stood on stage in front of microphones reading from scripts, whilst sound effects technician Alex Sinclair could be seen on stage adding sound effects as needed. Other sketches, some quite elaborate, were acted out in full costume as more traditional television sketches. Despite the decent ratings for the initial special, the TV series was received with somewhat lukewarm reviews and ratings. The Air Farce left television after a special in 1984.
In the early 1980s, Air Farce's summer radio hiatus periods were filled by another comedy troupe, The Frantics, who later moved on to their own TV series, "Four on the Floor". Later summer hiatus periods, however, were filled by Ferguson and Abbott playing classic comedy recordings. In the late 1980s, CBC Radio launched another 30-minutes weekly political satire, "Double Exposure". Though the programmes were never in direct competition, some found the latter show fresher and edgier.
In 1992, Air Farce took a second plunge into television with "1992: Year of the Farce", a satirical New Year's Eve special. For this and all subsequent TV appearances, the troupe abandoned the idea of performing TV sketches as "radio sketches", and presented their TV work in a traditional TV sketch show format. A ratings smash, the special led the troupe to produce another weekly television series, which debuted in 1993. However, this time the move to television was permanent. The radio series continued alongside the TV show for four seasons until May 1997, when it was discontinued.
The practice of having a New Year's Eve special continued through the show's entire run, and such episodes were typically titled "Year of the Farce". Air Farce also frequently had the honour of counting down the seconds before the New Year on CBC, and the show's final episode was itself a New Year's Eve special.
Recurring characters on the TV series included the slow Albertan Mike from Canmore (Morgan) and angry Scot Jock McBile (Morgan), self-righteous movie critic Gilbert Smythe Bite-Me (Abbott), and chain-smoking bingo player Brenda (Goy). Though these characters would occasionally feature in skits of their own, usually they were used at the beginning of the show to deliver a stream of one liner jokes commentating on the news of that week.
The show also featured frequent skits with politicians, who were portrayed as various extreme caricatures of their most infamous personality quirks. Notable re-occurring figures included Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (Abbott), who could barely speak a single sentence of English without committing at least a dozen outlandish pronunciation and grammatical errors, the nasally-voiced Preston Manning (Ferguson) who loved to shout "REFOOOOOOORM!", a screaming, bitchy Sheila Copps (Goy), the tyrannical Lucien Bouchard, the dopey and overly-image conscious Stockwell Day, the strutting, clucking, pompous Joe Clark, and the power-hungry Paul Martin (all Ferguson). Many of the real politicians also made guest appearances on the show, often interacting directly with their parodic counterparts.
However, Colonel "Teresa" Stacy (Ferguson) quickly emerged as the show's most popular character — each time he appeared, Stacy would load up the Chicken Cannon and fire rubber chickens and other assorted projectiles at whomever he deemed the most annoying public figure of the week (or year).
Morgan retired from Air Farce in 2001, and the remaining three members carried on with a rotating stable of guest stars (usually no more than one per episode). Seen frequently as "special guests" from 2001-2003 were Rochelle Wilson, Jessica Holmes, Sean Cullen, Peter Keleghan, Janet van de Graaff, James Roussel, Craig Lauzon and Elvira Kurt. Holmes' appearances became more frequent as time went by, especially by the beginning of the 2003-04 season. In December 2003, she officially joined the show, adding celebrity figures such as Paris Hilton and Liza Minnelli, and Canadian politicians such as Belinda Stronach, to the troupe's roster of characters.
Later, in 2005, after a lockout at CBC, Air Farce gained two new cast members, who had previously appeared on the show as recurring guest stars: Alan Park and Craig Lauzon. The addition of these two newcomers brought the total number of performers in the troupe to six.
While the show was widely regarded as a Canadian institution, some critics have felt that the television show's quality has diminished over the past few seasons, especially since the breakdown of the original four-actor quartet. However, it still continued to draw solid ratings each week. On March 30, 2007, the Air Farce celebrated their 300th episode by doing the show on live television (except in Western Canada) for one hour. Roger Abbott and Luba Goy began the show with a brief history of the show, closing with "the scariest three words on television: AIR FARCE LIVE!".
After this experimental episode, CBC announced that the 15th season of the series would be aired live for the entire season, with a name change to "Air Farce Live".
The final season retained its live format, but was renamed as "Air Farce: Final Flight".
End of series.
"Air Farce" remained popular through its radio run and initially as a TV series, but over the years interest in the show began to drop and its ratings fell.
On April 1, 2008, the CBC and Air Farce announced that "Air Farce Live" would end in the 2008/2009 season. Nine new shows, titled Air Farce—Final Flight! aired from October 3, 2008, to December 5, 2008, with the New Year's Eve special as the tenth show and series finale.
A special feature of the final season of shows was "Air Farce Flashback", featuring a memorable segment from the previous 15 seasons of the Air Farce series. The New Year's Eve Grand Finale featured in the Air Farce Flashback segment highlights from several segments of Air Farce sketches over the years.
The final hour-long episode aired December 31, 2008, at 8:00 PM Eastern Time. It featured special guests Ron MacLean, Peter Mansbridge, and former Air Farce member Dave Broadfoot. The final episode was viewed by over 1.5 million viewers.
Specials.
In December 2009, it was announced that the Air Farce would return for a New Year's Eve 2009 special, featuring the return of most of the original staff (excluding Jessica Holmes, Gord Holtham, and Rick Olsen), guest appearances by Peter Mansbridge, "Battle of the Blades" winners Jamie Salé and Craig Simpson, and the Dragons of "Dragons' Den". The special also featured the successor to the Chicken Cannon, "F-Bombs," which were dropped onto photographs from the top of the atrium of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre.
On December 16–17, 2010, the Royal Canadian Air Farce 2010 New Year special was taped. It aired December 31, 2010. The cast included Jessica Holmes, who returned for the 60 minute show as Yogi Gurt and Celine Dion.
The 2011 year-end special, "Air Farce Not the New Year's Eve Special" aired January 1, 2012, due to several hockey games scheduled New Year's Eve. Jessica Holmes did not return for this special due to a prior commitment. This was the first Air Farce special that did not feature the late Roger Abbott in its cast, who had died earlier in 2011.
In 2017, a Canada Day special aired, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Confederation, as well as a year-end special. While ratings for the specials remained strong, drawing over a million viewers in 2017 and 2018, the CBC informed the troupe in May 2019 that due to budgetary constraints, the 2019 year-end special will be the final edition in the series. It is to be a farewell show combining new material looking at 2019 in review and archival material from the troupe's past, including clips of deceased members Roger Abbott and John Morgan.
Sketches.
Recurring sketches.
Some of the recurring sketches on Air Farce include:
Individual sketches.
Some of Air Farce's famous individual sketches include:
Politically correct version of "O Canada".
In response to criticisms from different groups about O Canada's lyrics, Air Farce had guest star Seán Cullen sing an edited, politically correct version of the anthem. The skit was performed on October 5, 2001.
The following is the lyrics of the edited "O Canada".
Guests.
Air Farce has its share of guests, including those who portray themselves. The show generally features Canadian guest stars, or people whose careers are primarily Canadian, such as athletes Doug Flutie and Carlos Delgado.