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Canada Does Not Exist: Difference between revisions
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That's when things started to get weird. CBS wanted a gritty U.S. cop show set in a gritty U.S. inner city, but CTV (which was still paying most of the bills) needed more domestic drama. When the characters started flashing American eagle police badges and calling up the "district attorney," CTV went ballistic. Already under fire for producing so few domestic TV shows, the last thing the network wanted was for ''Night Heat'' to be perceived as yet another American import in its prime time line-up. Moreover, the Canadian federal tax incentives and production grants the producers were getting likely bound them to certain minimal "Canadian content" rules.
Forced to square the circle, the producers decided to set the show ''nowhere,'' albeit a very American-flavoured nowhere. The American eagle police badge became a mutant eagle/beaver hybrid that was never seen in close-up, and all sorts of innocuous words and objects suddenly became more taboo than George Carlin's infamous "seven words you can't say on TV." You couldn't show flagpoles, currency or licence plates (called "license plates" outside of Canada) or make overt references to any level of government. Instead of a "district attorney" or a "crown prosecutor" the cops would phone the generic "prosecutor." Courtroom scenes were laughably tortuous to produce, for obvious reasons.
As CBS and other U.S. networks started picking up more Canadian productions, an unspoken "scale of hidden Canadianness" started to emerge. ''Night Heat'' was a pure, level-10 Hidden Canada, bent almost comically out of shape in its attempts to be 100% Yankee Doodle American without ever actually saying so out loud.
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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Night Heat]]'': See above.
* The cult series ''[[Forever Knight]]'' (about a sensitive, guilt-ridden, immortal vampire who became a cop to atone for his past sins) was more subtle than ''Night Heat'', probably a level-7 hidden Canada. An unmistakable Toronto skyline was prominently shown at every scene transition, and if you paid close attention, you'd notice the Ontario
* ''[[Counterstrike]]''
* ''[[Psi-Factor]]'': Sometimes. The producers could never seem to decide whether Canada existed or not.
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* The [[Disney Channel]] Canadian-made [[Kid Com]] [[How to Be Indie]] never explicitly states whereabouts the action is set. It could be anywhere in North America, although natives of the USA or Canada might spot something.
* ''[[SCTV]]'', except for the Great White North and CBC related material, could definitely count, as Melonville is never explicitly stated to be in Canada and most of the television/film they parodied was familiar to both American and Canadian audiences.
* ''Kung Fu: The Legend Continues'' was shot in Canada but is supposed to be American.
* ''[[Made in Canada]]'' was not allowed to keep ''its name'' outside of Canada; the USA knows it better as ''The Industry''.
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[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:Localization Tropes]]
[[Category:Stand-In Setting]]
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