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Despite the fact that I'm a Canadian who was a young teenager when Bob and Doug MacKenzie first went on the air ...
... I did not know
a) that Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas created the "Great White North" segments specifically to parody the CBC's demand for two more minutes of "Canadian content" on SCTV, and ...
... b) they expected that the segments -- improvised with zero preparation -- would bomb
via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_and_Doug_McKenzie
![A screenshot reading:
Moranis recalled, "We went on the stage with no preparation, and did 15 [sketches]. Two of them were lousy, in three we cracked up and fell apart... maybe six were keepers."[3] Added Dave Thomas in a 2000 interview, "Rick and I used to sit in the studio, by ourselves – almost like happy hour – drink real beers, cook back bacon, literally make hot snack food for ourselves while we improvised and just talked. It was all very low key and stupid, and we thought, 'Well, they get what they deserve. This is their Canadian content. I hope they like it.'"[6]
To their shock, the comedians found that this filler material had become the most popular part of the show. Though initially intended for Canadian TV only, some of the two-minute "Great White North" segments would find their way into U.S. versions of the 30-minute shows due to a shortage of content that week. When NBC ordered the 90-minute shows for the 1981 season, they specifically cited good affiliate feedback on the "two dumb Canadian characters" and requested that the characters be included in every program.[6](https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-2393d180df251611821d77e6f02bf209/media_attachments/files/114/281/660/249/628/786/original/44e49159a0b1a4ae.png "A screenshot reading:
Moranis recalled, \"We went on the stage with no preparation, and did 15 [sketches]. Two of them were lousy, in three we cracked up and fell apart... maybe six were keepers.\"[3] Added Dave Thomas in a 2000 interview, \"Rick and I used to sit in the studio, by ourselves – almost like happy hour – drink real beers, cook back bacon, literally make hot snack food for ourselves while we improvised and just talked. It was all very low key and stupid, and we thought, 'Well, they get what they deserve. This is their Canadian content. I hope they like it.'\"[6]
To their shock, the comedians found that this filler material had become the most popular part of the show. Though initially intended for Canadian TV only, some of the two-minute \"Great White North\" segments would find their way into U.S. versions of the 30-minute shows due to a shortage of content that week. When NBC ordered the 90-minute shows for the 1981 season, they specifically cited good affiliate feedback on the \"two dumb Canadian characters\" and requested that the characters be included in every program.[6")
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