Today I’m doing something different. Today I am reviewing a Heritage Moment that I don’t remember from my youth. I have to assume that this thing was created after I stopped being indoctrinated by television. How will it hold up without the nostalgia factor?

Okay, so we’re over in World War Two. We get all kinds of fast exposition showing that the Canadian Boys are in trouble. They’re surrounded, they don’t have the equipment they need, and they’re also in a war. Basically, it isn’t a fun time. This one guy who is in charge leaves and tells John Osborn he’s in charge. Osborn issues a few orders, then a grenade is thrown into the building. Osborn sacrifices himself by jumping on the grenade to protect the others. That was nice of him.

So, how does it hold up? Without having seen it repeatedly in my formative years, I don’t see anything greatly quotable in here. Would I be saying “They never sent us any bloody jeeps, nevermind artillery” every time I hear artillery mentioned? It’s a possibility, but I can’t be sure. Maybe I’d yell “Grenade! Grenaaaaaaaaaaaaaade!” now and then, but all in all I can’t give this one much of a recommendation based on quotability.

But what about the rest of the piece? We’ve got Osborn’s sacrifice. That’s pretty noble. The sort of thing you want in these. And there’s the fact I learned that “our troops in Hong Kong were the first Canadians to see combat in the Second World War” so it has a little educational value. But the slow motion, man. Like twenty seconds of this minute-long spot are slowmo. That slow motion ruins it for me. I think I could have bought a moment of it, if it cut out after the explosion, but instead it goes on and on to show us the rain of Os-bits in front of his confused men who are still waiting for that order to go. Had it been just that little bit shorter, I still would have found it cheesy and stupid, but a burst of cheesy and stupid is great. 33% of the Moment being that way, is less great.

Up against my reviewing this thing holds up better than Lawson and Hennessy, but I can’t give this thing more than Three out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. I can never say for certain objectively, but I suspect that even if I had grown up with it, this one would be in the middle-ground at best.

Okay, today we’ve got the construction of a railroad across Canada. They need to blow up some stuff with nitro, a highly volatile explosive, and nobody white wants that kind of risk. WHAT IS A CANADA TO DO? Wait, I know! Chinese! An immigrant worker steps up to take the risk for some danger pay and, even when the nitro blows up on him and the insensitive guy with the awesome beard says “Well, get another one”, the Chinese worker stumbles back out to happily try again! The piece ends with the man telling the story to his (I assume) grandchildren, mentioning the sheer volume of Chinese workers who died making the railroad, because they were less than he.

It’s like, sure, a lot of Chinese workers died to make the railroad, but hey, our friend here, who we’ve come to know and like, is fine, so it is all good! It turns out that this guy is like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable and he used his super durability to make the money needed to pay boat, got his wife to Canada, and started making progeny so he could tell his story. The tragic numbers of people who died doesn’t seem so bad when we look back with a survivor. In a way, this is a true fact of history. All tragedy is less terrible as time goes on, a lesson Canada needed to know. That is what we’re supposed to take from this one, right?

Anyway, to the review. Let us see now. This spot has a message of respect for a minority group and it includes an explosion and one of Canada’s apparent first superhuman citizens. All told I think I can give this one Four and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. Is it racist that I really like the style protagonist’s hairstyle in the his youth? I’ll get out here just in case.

What’s in a name? That’s the sort of question that arises when you watch the Canadian Propaganda Piece I am reviewing this time around.

So this one starts out with some people (Europeans) walking until they are next to some other people (North American Natives, I would assume in Canada what with that being the point). So the Natives speak in some weird gibberish code* and the Head European asks his friendly neighborhood priest to translate. The priest informs the Head European that the Natives have invited them to the nation and it is called “Canada” and, yes, that’s right, this commercial is about the secret origin of Canada’s name. Anyway, everyone is happy to know the name of the nation except one guy: He’s not the priest and he’s not the Head European, so basically we don’t know who he is. We just have to imagine. Probably he’s the ship’s carpeter.

* I am 1/256 Wampanoag, so I am allowed to make this joke. (It’s my only race card, let me play it!)

Anyway this guy is so sick of putting down carpet on the ship that when a chance to show off comes up he is All Over It. Basically he’s like “I know that word! That’s not the name of the nation! The old man is just talking about the village down there!” but the priest stands by his translation and Canada is called Canada forever after.

Once again I’m sure that what we are seeing here is not an actual event that played out. Yes the name Canada likely comes from the word for village in some language (and I feel somewhat ashamed that I don’t know which), but it is a safe bet that the Pedant vs. Priest argument we see unfold here was made up solely for our benefit. And I am totally okay with that! This one has several lines I like to quote and would be easily recognized by others who grew up in the right era. Job well done!

I also like the music throughout this piece. It ramps up the drama of the whole affair, which is good considering this is a commercial where one group of people invite some other people in to talk and the closest thing we have to a conflict is a disagreement over what a word means. Not exactly a drama-explosion no matter how many . So the music plays throughout to keep emotions from dying. In a way it reminds me of the Irish Kids moment and my mind will try to tack on the upbeat jig from that one. Really, if they ended all of these with a jig there’d be a lot more happy endings.

Anyway, as I said, I do like this one. I’m going to give it Four and a Half out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

In other news, the comments section of YouTube is, as always, filled with idiotic arguments, in this case about how evil Whitey is for conquering the natives. Now I didn’t stray too far into the comments (I am a human being and we can only take so many YouTube comments), but I didn’t see any discussion of the real scandal in here: Note that the religious man is proven wrong and just flat out denies it. This commercial is CLEARLY trying A) to depict religious persons as stubborn and foolish, or B) Show that God intervened to make sure that Canada got the right name. That is obviously what people on the Internet need to be arguing about. (Edit: I’ve linked to an official video since the original post, so I don’t know/care if that argument is still in the comments)

Today we’re back in the days of the Second World War in Britain. The fog is so thick that it’s ridiculous to think of flying in it, but then someone does fly a delivery in and it turns out she’s a lady. She expresses a desire to one day get back to Canada and teach flying, then the narrator tells us that she did. Happy ending. This one seems pretty short, comparatively, but that’s probably because it essentially does the “Someone is coming in? In this fog?” setup twice. Not a great use of time, but I’ll never be upset with hearing shocked British officers saying “Hullo?”

Marion Orr comes across as really nice in this one. She’s doing her duty with a smile on her face and all she wants is get back to a simple life. The world would be a good place if it was stacked full of people like Marion Orr. Even ignoring for a moment the landmark of her being the first woman to do what she did, just seeing any person with this attitude achieve their dreams would be enough for me. If she happened to break any barriers while doing so, good on her.

I don’t feel anything in here is great to quote, but I still like it. I easily lump it into the “backbone” category I also put last month’s Heritage Moment into. Four out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

Unfortunately, though, somewhere in my youth I lost most of my memories of this Heritage Moment. Well, I didn’t “lose” them, really, they just managed to meld with another commercial I would have seen on television in my youth, also involving a meetup between people on an airfield:

This Oil of Olay commercial stuck in my head better, but I’m still more in favor of the Heritage Piece. For the record. Maybe if the guy Marion Orr had been talking to had been named “Bugsy Brown” I’d know more about Canada. Better luck next time, Canada!

Here we have another case where I know nothing about the Heritage Moment honoree excepting what the Heritage Moment tells me. I guess he is supposed to be someone I should know since his vision has circled the world and the company “still bears his name”, but I don’t know the guy or the company. Schoolin’ failed me again where television did the real work.

That said, I like Joseph-Armand Bombardier. Based on this propaganda piece at least. We have a bunch of kids thrilled that the store has got a new shipment of some sort of sporting equipment (those big hand paddles must be for… swimming? I guess? They’re like big webbed finger gloves?), but one kid is not interested. He’s got bigger plans in mind. He uses his money to learn about building stuff and inventing and he goes on to be Wicked Successful! Outtasight! I guess he invented the modern-style snowmobile and such, which is a good Canadian invention, so I approve. But I also like his attitude. He’s shown to be focused and driven, which is the kind of person I wish I was, so I want to be like him. Also, I like the way he pulls that one kid’s hat down over his eyes as he leaves the store.

This piece doesn’t rank high in the quotability department, though. That’s where it hurts. I guess “Hey, I can pay” is something, but it also represents where Joseph-Armand’s attitude can have downsides. The guy never said you couldn’t pay, Joseph-Armand. He said the tools weren’t for sale. This is probably because he was using them even as you were asking, you lunkhead! For my money, the real quote-line here is the nearly hidden “That is propequipment!” which is delivered just right to make me love it.

I can’t rank this one too highly. Four out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It doesn’t amaze or amuse as greatly as some, but it does its job and that is important. It is one of the Heritage Moments that builds the backbone of Heritage Moments. Solid showing.

I must add this though: Joseph-Armand made “a lot of money serving mass” apparently? What the chunks? Was I supposed to make money doing that? The Catholic Church owes me big time. Just sayin’. Just sayin’ make me Pope is all. Just sayin’.