Air Farce was fantastic. John Morgan (RIP) was born in Scotland (like Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian Medicare) and he did a recurring bit called Jacques McBile's Get Stuffed, where he played a kilt-clad Scottish stereotype who roasted politicians, both Canadian and American. He was great. The theme song of the TV show was written and performed by The Barenaked Ladies, a Canadian rock band that goes back to the early 90s.
This sketch was a one-off but the older fellow, John Morgan, had a recurring sketch called 'Get Stuffed' where he played a grumpy Scotsman who commented on current events. He is originally from Wales and he could nail most accents from the British Isles. The other man in this sketch is Roger Abbott and he was born in England but moved to Canada when he was very young. The woman is Luba Goy and her family is Ukrainian and she has acted in many Ukrainian-language films over the years in addition to her comedy work in English. The other main member of the troupe at this time was Don Ferguson, a Montrealer of Scottish extraction.
Oh, oh. This was a good sketch. Air Farce had inconsistent quality. I never found RCAF as good as Monty Python. RCAF was typically oriented toward Canadian politics and current affairs.
I once saw them record their radio show live for an hour in a school auditorium in Montreal( they toured). It was a hilarious history of the RCMP, which turned into two 1/2 hour radio shows. They had a live sound effects guy on stage, and used a few costumes and props on a bare stage. rofl stuff. I listened from the beginning.
RIP "Royal Canadian Air Farce"-- it lasted decades, but CBC could've given us a few more decades. Pure FANTASTIC iconic Canadian comedy!! So glad you are enjoying watching this with us, lol!🤗♥️☘️🐾🌈☮️🇨🇦
Love your reaction about this amazing country. 🇨🇦 I moved here over 40 years ago from England Come and visit and enjoy the Scottish Highland Games in Fergus, Ontario
Canada has had some of the best sketch comedy shows: CODCO, SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Red Green, This Hour has 22 Minutes, Bizarre, Baroness Von Sketch, Super Dave, Smith & Smith, Wayne & Shuster.
It all began with Wayne and Schuster;). A bit hokey by modern standards (laugh track and all) but Blood on the Toga, Shakespearean Baseball and Frontier Psychologist are all classic sketches.
@@silverjohn6037 One of my favourite Wayne & Shuster skits was "Star Schtick", a parody of Star Trek. My girlfriend back in the day, Arlene Duncan, played communications officer O'Hara ("This is my communications officer lieutenant O'Hara." "O'Hara?" "Sure, I was born in Dublin."). Arlene went on to play Fatima in "Little Mosque on the Prairie". From Smith & Smith, Steve's wife Morag was my public school art teacher in Oakville. She also sang in a local band which used to play at our school dances.
@@christophermerlot3366 I know, right? My mom was on the women's auxiliary guild at our church. If you told her a joke poking fun at religion she'd say "Oh, that's awful!" while giggle-snorting the whole time.
I cried when that show ended, they were like part of the family! There's only 2 left Luba & Don Ferguson the rest are gone. See John Morgan do "Mike frm Canmore", that's in Alberta just east of Banff, I use to live there in the '80's, Manitoba too in the '90's now back home in Ontario! John Morgan was one of the best & we loved him! He's 'Mike from Canmore'! Check all their old clips out! They even had a chicken canon at New Years which was meant to whip out the stupid fads over the previous yr! Miss them!
We've just come back from a holiday in Spain. My wife didn't really enjoy it, because everyone could speak English and all the food was like the stuff we eat back at home. She said, "next time I want to go somewhere where they eat weird shit and you can't understand a word they say." So I've just booked us a fortnight in Scotland.
@@SilverityYes this skit was created when the market leading IBM PC was being challenged by the early Apple Mackintosh. Very different worlds, and very much still are.
I did as well... at two different Air Force bases back in the 90s. I loved how they would roll into town a day or so early, spend time among the populace, getting the dirt and all the local gossip and rumours, and then turn around and incorporate it into the show for some wonderful local colour. I definitely miss that show.
The lady in that piece is Luba Goy; she was born in 1945 in Germany to Ukrainian parents, and was raised in Ottawa Ontario from 1951. One of the cast members who wasn't in that piece was David Broadfoot. He did a long-running segment about Corporal Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who, along with his incredible dog Cuddles, solved all sorts of ridiculously funny cases. The Airr Farce started on CBC Radio, and I will argue that moving to television caused them to lose some of their lustre. But they were still amazing. Thanks for that sketch. I had nae seen it before. Around 1978 or so, the Air Farce taped a couple of episodes for radio at the University of Regina. I was lucky enough to be there, and when Dave Broadfoot came onstage in his RCMP uniform, he was showing off his shoulder; he had been promoted by the head of the RCMP Academy in Regina, and when he got to the microphone, he announced for the radio audience, "This is SERGEANT Renfrew!" He got a standing ovation for his promotion. As time went on during the series, his sidekick Cuddles was also promoted to at least Corporal.
Oh, they were SO good on radio! I watched a couple of their tapings at the Cabbagetown Studio....in Cabbagetown! It was a theatre on Parliament St. in Toronto. They didn't have to create visual characters for radio, of course, which I think hampered them a bit on TV. On radio, just let your imagination go!
Ah, yes! Sergeant Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his common starter line "I was sitting in my lonely log cabin on the fourteenth floor of Mountie headquarters."
Within my father's family, he had both Scottish highland roots and Scottish lowland roots. There was a family joke about one group being the sheep thieves and the other the sheep shaggers.
Dave Broadfoot is from Royal Canadian Air Farce and he is satirically gifted in a very special Canadian way. Someone asked him what he would do if he won the lottery, to which he dead-panned; ‘I would farm until it was gone.’
@@silverjohn6037 ‘And then the suspect I was trying to arrest at the airport, jumped on the luggage conveyor belt and disappeared forever, just like my luggage’.
Actually, the job reference at the end, was because that; at the time, Apple computers were rarely, if ever, seen as a work computer. Windows based systems dominated the market at around 80%+.
This is one I hadn't seen, so thank you for posting it. Pretty much everything John Morgan did was hilarious, and when he died, so did much of the humor of the TV show.
These guys tackled anything. In fact after an appropriate amount of time they tackled Lady Diana's death. I was one of her biggest fans and sobbed through her whole funeral BUT these guys found a way to honour it with humour. It was great!
John Morgan plays the father, Roger Abbott plays the son, Luba Goy is the mother. Not sure where Morgan and Abbott come from but Luba's of Ukranian descent I think. Great stuff. ❤❤
IBM vs. Macintosh! 🤣 As a vintage computer collector, I can attest that there ARE pieces of hardware and software that were designed to bridge the gulf between those two clans. What brought them together in the end was the world wide web.
'Jock Mcbile' was a great character with a skit called Get Stuffed on Royal Canadian Air Farce. Search for either 'Jock Mcbile' or 'Jock Mcbile Get Stuffed' and you should find his skits, they were great. Cheers from across the pond brother. :)
On the show SCTV, Dave Thomas played a recurring character named Angus Crock, the greatest Blues singer in Scotland. Dave was also one of the two McKenzie brothers.
SNL (Saturday Night Live) used to have a skit called "All Things Scottish", about a shop that sold only Scottish goods. It features a character that Mike Myers played, so it counts as Canadian. I would suggest the skit with Kyle McLachlan in it.
I like the Scottish accent, I moved to Canada in the late 80's and Royal Canadian Air Farce was very popular back then, I also worked with Scottish Canadians, and they used to teach me Scottish English, as a Spanish speaking person I could hear many similarities specially the rolling "RRRR".
As others have said - the father in this sketch also had a regular personality on the show called Jacques McBile who talked of current events at the time & had a special phrase he used all the time - "Get Stuffed." I don't know if there are any specific clips available of him in this persona on RU-vid - probably under Royal Canadian Air Farce - but not sure. (Sorry. ☺)
I loved Air Farce and was probably one of the ones suggesting this skit to you at some point. As a computer geek, when I saw this skit the first time on TV, I was roaring. (Apparently it's a remake from their radio days when they did their skits on CBC Radio)
The Scottishness of Scots Canadians is more exaggerated for sure. Almost as if they were trying to prove something, either to themselves or to other people. Scots in Scotland, on the other hand, have nothing to prove to anyone. Ever.
So interesting you said Macintosh could be a Canadian name too, because I'm born in Canada (65 now), and I'd call it a Scottish name, cause I connect the name with the colonial roots here, rather than it being a "Canadian name", lol.
F.Y.I. Macintosh. Is actually a type of apple in Canada. Like , Ida Red, Delicious, Gala, Honeycrisp, Spartan, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Ambrosia, Granny Smith.
As a real Macintosh and a fan of the Air Farce I'm surprised I'd never seen this one! When my ancestors came to Canada in the 1830's they found their true loves by marrying other Scottish. Hence my name, several generations later, is likely as Scottish as anyone's in Scotland.
Birkenhead, England (moved to Canada aged 7); Haltern, Germany (moved to Canada aged 6), and Aberdare, Wales (moved to Canada aged 27) are the birth locations of these three. It is the Welshman of the group, John Morgan, that is know for his great Scottish accent. His best know Scottish character is Jock McBile. This one, a piss take on my mother's side of the family, is a one off.
Back in Canada's olden times when we still had telephone directories, the Mc's and Mac's filled far more pages than the Smiths and Jones'... I once met a Quebecer named Jean-Claude McPherson, he spoke nary a word of English. Likely a descendant of one of General Wolfe's soldiers who settled in Quebec.
Mike Myers does plenty of Scottish comedy. Not Canadian per se but check out Sir Patrick Stewart Scottish shop on SNL. "If it's nae Scottish, it's crap!!"
John Morgan is much better at the accent than the others because he's originally from Wales. This was a one-off sketch playing off computer puns, but Morgan had a recurring Scottish character called Jock McBile. I think you should explore more about the connections between Scottish and Canadian culture. Especially Canadian Celtic music and the Canadian Gaelic language.
I got a preferred episode... but it was the one I saw live. The Titanic skit was great but I can tell they didn't use our recording of it. The "Get Stuffed" skit was great and the director made a joke about McBile having the minister of finance on speed dial and he came right back in character with a great reply.... I can't remember what it was though, this was back on '97
Read the Founders auto-biography, it's pretty touching. Roger Abbot and Don Ferguson knew each other from grade school in Montreal. It all started there.
The royal Canadian Air farce started out back in the 1970's and had their beginnings on radio before moving to Television, or that is where I use to hear them before they were on any TV shows.
The cleverness of the writing...and then to put a Scottish twist into it too. I only heard The Royal Canadian Air Farce on the radio. They transitioned to tv. A loooong time ago. 🇨🇦 So I've never seen or heard this one before.
I, too, grew up listening to them on the radio, and it is still my preferred medium. However, I was also a fan of the TV series, and they did a lot of great sketches.
Of the main male performers on the show when this skit was filmed (1996 I believe), one was born in Scotland, one in Wales, one in England and the last was named Ferguson. Getting the accents correct probably wasn't too much a stretch for them.
One of Air Farce's longest running bits, was "The Chicken Cannon". Eventually it became a regular bit where they ended every show taking literal shots at political targets with ironic ammunition, even taking viewer suggestions. It got pretty... perfunctory however. What *I* want to see, and have not yet been able to find on RU-vid, is the FIRST chicken cannon sketch. The one that started it all... when it was so absurd even those seasoned comedy actors couldn't keep a straight face, near tears in almost-suppressed laughter. I haven't seen it since the day I watched it live on TV.
Air Farce had a series of sketches called Get Stuffed. I also loved their chicken cannon and Mike from Kenmore, and the politically correct fairytale sketches too. Honestly you can't go wrong watching any of their episodes. Canada has had and still has some of the best comedians and comedy shows. We love to laugh and most often poke fun at our own culture and stereotypes. I recommend some of Wayne and Schuster especially their Caesar sketch as well although it's not the Scottish element. I also recommend the Frantics, another Canadian comedy group that had some great sketches. You might recognize a few of the cast since you watched the Red Green Show a bit. I recommend the "Last will and Testament" (otherwise known as a boot to the head).
Hi there... love your videos. You should check out some of the NFB (National Film Board) short videos about Scottish stories in Canada. "The Grand Republic of Manitoba" is my particular favourite... and the settlement of Upper and Lower Fort Gary.
The air farce was hilarious. Check out their chicken cannon. I think their first one is where the actors were struggling (and failing) to keep a straight face.
I think the most over the top Royal Canadian Air Farce skit was "Leonard Cohen's Suicide Christmas Song" which I think only played once during the holidays before it was deemed a bit too too much. The group started on the radio and in many ways were even better as a radio show.
Wasn't it promoting an entire ALBUM of songs to commit suicide by?? All Cohens' songs. Most Americans would't click that Leonard was a Canadian based in Montreal. They might not get the point!!
Growing up in BC back in the day it was hard to go a day without a Scottish accent around. Teachers, storekeepers, every third person it seemed in some places.
If Luba Goy is in this, she is of Ukranian descent. BUT, she is a master of accents! I had a friend who's dad was Scottish...I showed up at her house with a flat tire. Her dad took the manual inside, came out & set his scotch on the hood of the car. "Right. Here's what we do"
