Our home and humourous land

This week, I'm continuing on my last blog's theme, that being funny things that aren't funny. My last entry was inspired by jokes that died before their time and some things that were inexplicably branded as funny and beaten to death. There's plenty more material in that vein, and I'll return to it another time.

If you read it, you know I tackled things like Chuck Norris jokes and ironic t-shirts, humor concepts that have been forged into a hard club and used to beat us all over the head. I omitted one really big one that deserves its own entry.

How big, you ask? Almost ten million square kilometers and 33 million people. It's ten provinces and three territories of hilarity! It's Canada!!!!

Canada has long been the fool's gold of the weak comedian: they see some glimmering potential of hilarity there, but they all dig in the same place, a place that was long ago stripped bare of its value.

In case you've never heard or read any Canada jokes, here's a brief recap of what you've missed:

Canada's cold.
Canada's small.
Canada is similar to the United States, but smaller.
Canadians play hockey.
Canadians drink beer.
Canadians say "eh."
Canadians say "aboot."
Celine Dion is from Canada.

Did any of those make you laugh out loud? They shouldn't, because those things are not inherently funny. But that doesn't stop countless idiots from using them!

Granted , comedians can usually find more amusing ways to phrase those, but at the bare-bones level these things aren't funny for a whole pile of reasons. Your standard Canada jokes are a healthy mix of comedy-killers.

First, the true. I can write things like, "Stephen Harper is boring and evil," or "The Sahara desert is really hot," and they're not funny because they're just facts. If stating the true and the obvious was funny, encyclopedias would be hilarious.

Second, the broad. Yes, Canadians play hockey and drink beer and we do it in a country that's sometimes cold. Boy, who else does that? LOL! Oh wait, I can think of at least 20 countries off the top of my head and there are dozens more that fit that description. The great irony is that most lame Canada jokes come from Americans, who do the exact same thing.

Third, the pointlessly dumb. This pertains mostly to the cold jokes. Most Canadians know that Canada is sometimes very cold, and sometimes really damn hot. Even if you live in Nunavut, you're probably aware that parts of the country get very hot at times. A surprising number of Americans and others think Canada is all cold, all the time. So, "Canada is cold" jokes sound stupid to those in the know, and for the ignorant, you're just telling them what they think they know. So it's the truth (just for stupid people). And the truth, as we know, is not funny.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the dead. Jokes about "eh," "aboot," and Canada's size are done to death. The immensely quotable Al Capone once said, "I don't even know what street Canada is on." I don't know when he said it, but he died in 1947, so he said it at least 60 years ago, probably more. So, it's an old, old joke. And even then, it's just bland. Canada's small…aaaaand? So what? How come nobody laughs when I crack jokes about Luxembourg and Togo? That's pretty small. Where are my laughs? Screw you guys!

"Eh?" is the least fertile comedic ground there is. Perhaps you're familiar with Strange Brew, the 1983 film disaster based on SCTV skits that played up Canadian stereotypes to the nth degree and acquired an insane, rabid following to the point where the stars avoided public appearances. In those skits, Bob and Doug just spewed out the ehs, putting them at the end of almost every sentence. The movie bombed because the Canadian stereotypes became a totally played-out, one-note joke, and that was 25 years ago.

But the most scathing indictment of Canada jokes comes from who uses them and when. Several years ago, The Simpsons did a Canada episode. This was in the midst of the show's "We have no ideas so let's send the family to a different location and hope to God the culture gives us enough material to fill 22 minutes" phase, which also saw them going to Brazil, Japan and a dude ranch. This was also the time of the show's humor strike, wherein you could watch a whole episode without laughing. The aforementioned travel episodes yielded about 10 mildly funny moments, or 2.5 funny things per show. True to form, the Canada show was wildly unfunny, including totally misplaced and irrelevant references to Canada's national basketball team and Paul Shaffer. Oddly enough, that episode is actually decent until they go to Canada, where it all falls apart. I don't watch The Simpsons anymore, but I'm told it's somewhat funny again. I don't buy it, given the almost laugh-free movie that came out just this year

The Onion, the rapidly declining and money-grubbing joke newspaper recently published a joke atlas, of which the Canada page's most predominant joke was about how cold it is. It's painfully weak writing from The Onion, which is now churning out books at a record pace, regardless of the quality of the product. Both The Simpsons and The Onion have resorted to weakass Canada jokes (among other things) as their general quality declines.

I know what you're thinking (because if you're a consistent reader of this blog, you're probably a somewhat smug, young asshole): I'm just a sensitive and hyper-patriotic Canadian who can't stand to be mocked.

Nope. I don't really think anything is sacred. I sometimes feel bad about it, but I have cracked tasteless jokes about pretty much everything I can think of. I'll make fun of Canada as much as anyone. I'm just sensitive to bad comedy and stupidity. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of that.