SIDEBURNS! The single most important aspect of this Canadian Heritage Minute is the sideburns. Ostensibly it is about Jenny Trout, who was the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada and the hassles she had to put up with in medical school from all the men who felt that women had no place there. I mean sure, it is good that women can be doctors and whatnot, but check out the sideburns! Especially on the Doctor McFarland guy. Those are things of beauty. I also love the idea of smacking desks and books as a means of showing disapproval. It’s so stupid that I could never take it seriously.

But the failing of this commercial is that it just doesn’t have any great quotable lines. There’s just nothing there that is fun to say. I do have to wonder about the one guy in the class who gets the most face time the others. Why does she throw the leaf at that one guy? Does she know that the camera has featured him more prominently? Is he like the boss of the misogynist students? Does he have some history with Mrs. Trout? There’s potential here for a deeper story. If only these commercials had sequels we could find out what happens when he tried to assassinate Trout only to get thrown out a window. And then she’d say “There’s no place for dumbasses in this school!” Now that’s quotable history.

Also, it occurs to me that there is totally a picture of a penis in this commercial. I can’t remember ever laughing about that as a child. Was I not immature enough? I wonder if they’re still allowed to air that. I’ve heard that they aren’t even allowed to show Homer Simpson’s butt in new episodes, but that’s America so who knows.

Anyway, I’m only giving this one Three out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. And most of that is for those sideburns.

“Honestly, you Canadian kids.” In my previous reviews of Canadian Heritage Moment things I have mentioned that I feel the most important aspect of them is their quotability. This one is made up of nothing but awesome quotes. “With glasses, you know, a secret identity”, “That’s it, a bullet. He’s faster, no, he’s faster than a speeding bullet” “Fly no, but he can leap over tall buildings”, “See what your cousin Frank says in Toronto” and so many more! Other countries: If you ever suspect someone of being a Canadian spy, quote this and see how they react.

Anyway, this one is about young Canadian Joe Shuster in Cleveland in 1931. He’s explaining an idea he has had for a comic strip about a powerful superhuman man who, of course, turns out to be Superman himself, father of the modern superhero! I love the way the whole thing is staged. Shuster is rambling excitedly to a woman named Lois who is trying to make sure he doesn’t miss a train, but he just won’t shut up about his idea because he is so happy with it. “This guy is faster than anything, I swear!” he says it like he’s talking about a real dude. It’s just a fun setup. Wikipedia doesn’t tell me who this woman is meant to be, saying that Lois Lane of the comics was based on a woman called Joanne Carter. In all likelihood the Lois of the commercial is a fictional friend of Shuster used to help drive home the point that Superman is being created and, indeed, this exact scene probably never played out in the real world, but as a piece of country morale boosting for Canada, it just works so well.

To top it all off, we end with a bit of the Superman movie theme as we see the original Superman sketch (ostensibly we’re not meant to know who he is talking about when we first see the commercial, but my first seeing it was too long ago for me to judge it with that bit of mystery still intact). This is some solid gold kryptonite over here (only it does not remove superpowers). I’m giving it Five and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. Quite probably this is one of the best of these commercials.

Today saw Kiiip and I joining forces for the first time in months to watch the movie True Grit. It was a solid flick. Somewhat less quirky and ambiguous than typical your Coen Brothers affair, but not without its charms. I am underselling it, I think. It’s really good. Certainly I liked last year’s A Serious Man better, but those brothers have yet to disappoint me. If anybody out there is thinking “I want to see a good Western” they have one they can go to. I’ve not seen the original attempt at making a movie of True Grit, so I can’t compare, but I’ll give this one like Four and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

Haiku!

Powerful hamster,
why do you do this to me?
Please just let me go.

And finally, the spammers are hitting my site harder than ever this week. Over 600 comments over the last two days alone and it still seems like any time I check there are more to go. Probably even as I write this very sentence the spam robots are hard at work creating bizarre compliments that they think will trick me into going to their sites. I will not be fooled! But I will have to delete a bunch of spams.

Haha! I just checked and here is the comment the robots have just added to this Monday’s comics post:

“I want to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this post. I am hoping the same top-quality article from you in the upcoming as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own blog now. Truly the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it. “

Could they lay it on thicker? Geez.

Hey, I’m reviewing another Canadian Heritage commercial! This time we’ve got a bunch of Irish kids whose parents died on the trip to North America and some Quebecois families who take them in. That’s nice. But there’s a catch! The kids are to take on the family names of their new guardians! HORROR! But when the kids tearfully point out that they’d rather keep the names that represent their real lineage, everybody is like “That’s cool”. There’s really only one line in this one that I can see being especially quotable and that is “No! We have to keep our Irish names!” though I admit that as a bearer of the name Patrick, I’ve had “Patrick, Patrick O’Neil” thrown my way more than once. I would imagine that anyone named Molly Johnson heard about this one on a regular basis. I have never been able to make out the name of the adorable little girl, though. Katrine Ryan? Kathleen O’Royem? Katya Nguyen? Yeah, that’s probably the one.

So we’ve got a story about Canadians letting orphans keep their identity and a mild quotability quotient. What else is there to say? Well, I like the soundtrack to this one. It’s starts with that ominous churchy sound and at the end when everything is happy is turns into a lively jig. Way to play, music. Plus, Molly’s new dad has a glorious moustache. All in all, I’m going to hand out Four And A Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake for this one. It entertains and educates, I guess.

But why did Molly’s mother care so much about keeping her name that it was apparently the last thing she spoke to her daughter about? I mean, when Molly grows up, she’s liable to get married and I doubt they were letting women keep their own names in those days so basically if she finds true love Molly is going to have to defy her mother’s dying wish? Great! Way to mess with your daughter’s head there, Mrs. Johnson.

This here is my least favorite of the Canadian Heritage Minute things. That last line is just so stilted and unnatural that it sucks any joy from me that might have been gained from Canada’s helping the world get its human rights on. I mean, I understand that they are trying to stress that John Humphrey is Canadian, but the way the lady said “Isn’t that the CANADIAN who actually wrote the declaration of human rights?” just makes me cringe. People don’t talk like that. Realistically she’d say “Say, isn’t that the guy who wrote the declaration of human rights?” specifying his nationality makes it sound like she’s impressed a Canadian can write anything at all. It’s like “Isn’t that the gorilla who can do sign language?” or “Isn’t that the bear that can ride a bicycle?”

And the best thing about these little pieces of propaganda is the lines that get stuck in your brain and you carry them with you throughout the rest of your life. That line is the only one in this Minute that fulfills that requirement and it sucks. Poor John P. Humphrey.

Anyway, for that reason this Canadian Heritage Minute gets only One out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. That is all.