Made in Canada reunion at Canadian International Television Festival

From a media release:

Made in Canada 15th Anniversary Cast Reunion at the Inaugural Canadian International Television Festival

  • Rick Mercer, Peter Keleghan, Leah Pinsent, Dan Lett, Jackie Torrens and Executive Producer Gerald Lunz all Confirmed to Attend
  • Saturday, November 16 at 6:00 p.m. at TIFF Bell Lightbox
  • Tickets Now Available, Visit www.CITF13.tv for More Information & Ticket Details
  • Follow CITF @CITF13

The hilarious and satirical Made in Canada series celebrates 15 years and have chosen CITF to celebrate its anniversary. Co-creator and star Rick Mercer, Peter Keleghan, Leah Pinsent, Dan Lett, Jackie Torrens along with Executive Producer Gerald Lunz, director Henry Sarwer-Foner, and series writers Edward Riche and Mark Farrell have all confirmed their attendance. Audiences will be treated to a screening and cast will be on-hand afterwards for a Q&A on Saturday, November 16 at 6:00 p.m.

George Anthony, CBC Television remarked: “It was a dream show for the network, not only because it was a critical success but also because it was a wildly entertaining showcase for Canadian guest stars. And the industry it lampooned was the first to praise it. The accolades from peers were overwhelming. Suddenly we were up for awards from the Writers’ Guild, the Directors’ Guild, the Canadian Comedy Awards. When the nominations for the 2002 Geminis were announced, Made In Canada led all other programs with 14 nominations, which I believe was the first and only time that a sitcom earned more nominations than any of the big dramatic series like DaVinci’s Inquest or the really big mini-series like Trudeau. Four of the nominations for Best Director in a Comedy Series or Program had gone to Made In Canada, and in an even more historic first, the series had won all five nominations for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series. Between the time we started the series and the time we finished, Made In Canada had earned more than three dozen Gemini nominations and taken home 10 Gemini statuettes.”

Made in Canada began its five season run on the CBC in 2008. A satire of film and television production, Made in Canada revolves around Pyramid Productions, a viper’s nest of creative incompetence, savage greed and hysterical backbiting. Alan Roy (Peter Keleghan), the head of the company, follows whatever is trendy in the production world, whether it be owning his own cable channel or having a designer office. His decisions are usually idiotic and occasionally impossible to fulfill and constantly lead to extra work for his staff; ‘Richard Strong’ (Rick Mercer), the ambitiously Machiavellian producer, the dim witted producer ‘Victor Sela’ (Dan Lett), cunning production accountant ‘Veronica Miller’ (Leah Pinsent) and Wanda Mattice (Jackie Torrens), the office secretary who shrewdly uses her job to attain more power than her role officially holds. Henry Sarwer-Foner directed 22 episodes over the five seasons including the pilot episode.

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9 thoughts on “Made in Canada reunion at Canadian International Television Festival”

  1. It was such a good show. I miss the way the episode usually ended with Rick Mercer’s character saying “this went well”.

  2. Echoing K. Chandler. Any way Tv, Eh? can lead a campaign to get the rest released onto DVD? Or at least get the series re-run on late night CBC?

      1. Would be interesting to know who owns the rights now. If it’s Alliance probably not much chance. Alliance was always singularly uninterested in releasing shows on DVD. Don’t understand why.

        1. I suspect/hope it will come up at the panel. It was EOne who released the first season but not sure they still hold the rights.

          1. Koch Canada released Made in Canada‘s first season. Koch folded into eOne in 2009, long after that first-season DVD came out.

            Ironically, Alliance Films merged with eOne earlier this year, but eOne focuses more on new releases. There’s not a lot of “archive” Canadian TV-on-DVD; there hasn’t been for a while. If there was renewed demand for Made in Canada, I could see a complete-series set, but the show’s reruns are CanCon filler for Bite right now.

          2. The question is ownership – I believe eOne should still own the rights but hard to say. I think DVD is probably the wrong ask anyway – it’s expensive to get a DVD set out and marketed and the first season didn’t sell well enough for them to want to do a second. Now getting a Netflix and iTunes release is likely a better/cheaper alternative.

          3. I agree, I think fans should lobby Entertainment One to release all the seasons on Netflix, iTunes, or some other video on demand type service – it would be pretty cheap and easy to do that and they would almost certainly make a profit off of it. I’m glad BiteTV airs this awesome show but I don’t have satellite or cable so I’m SOL.

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