RMR Refreshed

Last year, the Rick Mercer Report lost its appeal for me. I felt that Mercer had become stale and not very funny, mostly because there seemed to be no-one challenging him. He'd sunk into a rut. On 22 Minutes, he had the constant competition from his fellow comedians, male and female. In constrast, RMR, his own show, featured a so-so interview segment by a person who in no way was Mercer's equal, and it had a distinct lack of women. I felt that the Mercer Report required the edginess of a good female comic in order to push him and keep him on his toes, especially as even the people behind the show were almost all male.

I have no idea what happened between last year and this, except that the interview segment is gone -- thank God! -- and someone seems to have kicked Mercer out of his comfortable rut, for it's like the first year again: fresh, smart, and at times sharp as a dagger. He has the familiar and popular "The Rant"; he uses his excellent comedic sensibilities to point up weaknesses in our politicians but not in a mean, vindictive way; and he introduces us to aspects of Canadian life most of us would never get to see, using himself as the fall guy. In fact what he's doing in those latter segments is what Maclean's used to do in their Q&A section. But under their new leadership, we're back to learning more about Americans than about our fellow Canadians who aren't regularly in the news yet still contribute to our society. But I digress.

Back to RMR. It muse be somebody behind the scenes challenging him, pushing him to be his best, because he's now alone on air. I'm in stitches from beginning to end. And it's about damn time.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I've been watching it again myself. Of course, nothing will ever beat him Skinny Dipping with Bob Rae. I love the stupid crap he does the best. :)
That was a good one! I still can't figure out how he convinced Rae to do that!!
zydeco fish said…
I find it amazing that he convinced the leader of the Green Party to cut down a tree. I only recently strated watching RMR, having felt that it was silly for him to leave 22. I quite like it. I actually laugh out loud, which only ever happened with Seinfeld.
I like RMR this year for that -- making me laugh out loud. So few shows can do that for the whole half hour...even Just for Laughs.

The one that I couldn't figure out if she was serious or not was Rona Ambrose worrying about killing the maple tree by tapping it for maple syrup. I liked how Rick handled that -- didn't kill himself laughing or make fun of her, just let it lie for us all to laugh over.