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Talking to Americans - in the '60s

Broadcast Date: July 4, 1960

When an Ohio tourist in Toronto is asked how he likes Canada, he replies, "we've learned more in this day and a half than we had our entire life," adding he didn't know Canada had different money or cigarettes. In this clip, Tabloid host Gil Christy's man-on-the-street interviews reveal how little the popular American perception of Canada has changed over the years. And they show that Canadians have been obsessed by what Americans know about them since well before Rick Mercer began his popular "Talking to Americans" segments on CBC's This Hour has 22 Minutes.

Talking to Americans - in the '60s

• "On the fifth or sixth try, I worded the question differently: 'Excuse me, do you have a minute for Canadian television?' "You have a TV station in Canada?," he replied. — Rick Mercer on how he came up with the idea for the "Talking to Americans" segment on This Hour has 22 Minutes, a program he helped create for CBC Television in 1993.

• "The core problem with the U.S.-Canadian relationship, of course, is that the U.S. doesn't know there is a problem. The U.S. barely knows there's a Canada."
— Bruce McCall, humorist and New Yorker cartoonist, 2000.

Talking to Americans - in the '60s

Medium: Television

Program: Tabloid

Broadcast Date: July 4, 1960

Interviewer: Gil Christy

Duration: 7:25

Last updated:
July 14, 2009