Made in Canada

I think that went well. "Every Episode Ending, usually by Richard"

This is not good. "Every Episode Ending, usually by Victor"

Made In Canada (generally known as The Industry outside of Canada) was a 5-season Canadian sit-com that ran from 1998 to 2003. As a satire of the film and television industry, it featured the inner-workings of a fictional Canadian production company, Pyramid Productions. Rick Mercer starred as a Machiavellian producer trying to worm his way to the top.


 * Alternate Company Equivalent - Every show within the show is a ripoff of something IRL, most notably The Sword of Damacles, a takoff of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, and Beaver Creek, an equivalent of the various Anne of Green Gables series. There's even a copy of The Office where Alan Roy convinces the show's lead to write the show in a new mocking manner just by Alan trying to not look stupid but inevitably doing so.
 * Sometimes it doesn't really matter, like when Moses Znaimer of Toronto's CityTV shows up as the head of "ShunCity".
 * Babies Ever After -
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall
 * Almost every episode begins with Richard speaking to the camera in the cold opener giving some insight into the lives of producers and executive, corporate life.
 * While those initially seem out of the blue, they inevitably gain context as they relate directly to the episode's plot.
 * Mid-episode, Richard takes a moment to explain to the viewers where he's standing vis-a-vis the various schemes going on, and the direction he's planning to take his own.
 * Almost every episode features one of the story's primary characters (occasionally a guest star) saying to the camera either "I think that went well," or "This is not good."
 * In one episode where each of three characters is telling their story à la Whole-Episode Flashback, Richard walks into the office of Veronica and is seen speaking to an unseen entity "I think that went well" where Veronica responds confusedly "Get out of my office!"
 * Butt Monkey - Victor, and before him, Raymond.
 * Canada, Eh? - Inverted whenever dealing with characters who are American. Often Americans are portrayed as dumb, culture-unaware, and occasionally gun-loving. The Vice President of NBC is a good example of being a Fake American when Richard visits Los Angeles.
 * Celebrity Paradox - AnnMarie MacDonald is in the first episode as a scriptwriter pitching her show to Pyramid... and shows up in a later episode as herself.
 * Character As Himself - Frequently combined with Celebrity Star, like the episode with Kiefer Sutherland.
 * Christmas Episode - Entitled, appropriately enough, "The Christmas Show".
 * Drinking Game - In one episode, it emerges that university students have devised a Beaver Creek drinking game, with such rules as taking a drink whenever a character says "The beaver are in the creek", or whenever the parson tips his hat.
 * Horrible Hollywood -
 * I Want You to Meet An Old Friend of Mine - One episode had a television interview with Steve Smith, better known most people as Red Green. Peter Keleghan, who plays Alan, is of course also known as the Cloudcuckoolander Ranger Gord.
 * And the Ted Baxter on The Newsroom.
 * A photo of Steve Smith in Red Green costume is used to scare off an American producer who drives the office crazy. Richard explains that the actor is perfect for their project because "He'll work for money, and by that I mean, Canadian dollars."
 * Patrick McKenna, who played Harold on The Red Green Show, has two appearances as an incompetent stock broker and then again as a newly hired CFO who later is fired for his incompetence and executive backstabbing.
 * McKenna's appearance on the series may refer to his work on Traders, a series not exported to the U.S.
 * Recurring guest star Gordon Pinsent who plays aging actor Walter Franklin Sr. is also a regular on The Red Green Show as Hap Shaughnessy.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes / No Export for You - Only the six-episode first season has been released on DVD and has since fallen out of print. Some US PBS stations still run the series.
 * Also now on Canadian channel "Bite." Some wonderful individual has been capping them and putting them out there.
 * Lady Drunk - Veronica.
 * Once Per Episode - See Breaking the Fourth Wall above.
 * Political Correctness Gone Mad - "The Christmas Show" is all about this, due to a complaint by Wiccans about the use of "Merry Christmas" on Christmas.
 * Raised By Wolves: In one episode, the actor who plays Damacles comes up with a backstory for his character which includes being born of a wolf and raised by bears.
 * Real Song Theme Tune - "Blow At High Dough" by The Tragically Hip.
 * Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - In the first episode, the executives are tasked with having to keep the starring actor Sword of Damacles from leaving the show before they have 65 episodes, which is the minimum needed in order to syndicate. Made In Canada only has 65 episodes itself, thus being a meta Brick Joke.
 * Show Within a Show - Two Long Runners within the series: The Sword of Damacles and Beaver Creek.
 * Alan also frequently mentions Prom Night at Horny High, the hit film that made him a producing success.
 * Stupid Boss - This is generally the Pyramid gang's outlook on Alan.
 * The Chessmaster - Dear lord, if they aren't a Cloudcuckoolander, they are this. Everyone manipulates everyone.
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish - Wanda's password is "Wanda".
 * The Problem With Licensed Games - Implied in-universe with the Beaver Creek video game.
 * You Look Familiar
 * A Film/Theater professor in an earlier episode later is seen as reoccurring character as the gay actor who plays the parson from Beaver Creek.
 * Gordon Pinsent appears as Walter Franklin, the lead actor of Beaver Creek who dies in season 1, and in the very last episode.