Editing Talking to Americans (section)

{{Use Canadian English|date=April 2022}}
[[Image:Talkingtoamericans.jpg|right|thumb|550px|''Talking to Americans'' logo, based on the opening of ''This Hour Has 22 Minutes''. This is the five images shown in this order, which represents the feature.]]

'''''Talking to Americans''''' was a regular feature presented by [[Rick Mercer]] on the Canadian political [[satire]] show ''[[This Hour Has 22 Minutes]]'', which was later spun off into a one-hour special that aired on April 1, 2001 on [[CBC Television]].<ref name=danagee>Dana Gee, "Still talking to Americans: Rick Mercer turns Canadian pastime of making fun of U.S. into hour-long special". ''[[Vancouver Sun]]'', April 1, 2001.</ref>

The purpose of the skit was to satirize American lack of awareness about Canada, by interviewing Americans on the street and convincing them to agree with ridiculous statements about their northern neighbour. Mercer freely acknowledged that he did not think Americans were collectively stupid; in an interview on ''[[Nightline]]'', Mercer explained that "I'm just looking for the short answer. Some people hem and haw and they seem to be on to me, and of course we don't include them... About 80 per cent of the people give me the right answer, by which of course, I mean the wrong answer."<ref>"Rick Mercer talks to Americans on Nightline". ''[[Welland Tribune]]'', August 2, 2001.</ref> He also acknowledged that it would be entirely possible to put together a similar feature getting Canadians to agree on camera to strange statements on topics they knew little about, with the primary difference being that Mercer couldn't do it himself as Canadians would recognize him.<ref name=danagee/>

In his 2021 memoir ''Talking to Canadians'', Mercer described the segment as having had its genesis in 1998, when he was in [[Washington, DC]] to film an unrelated segment for ''22 Minutes''. While waiting to begin filming, he met a [[Capitol Hill]] staffer whose apparent willingness to talk freely about subjects he didn't actually know anything about led to an impromptu filmed interview in which the staffer was asked questions about a fictional presidential summit between [[Bill Clinton]] and [[Ralph Benmergui]], and was successfully convinced by Mercer that Canadians were unfamiliar with the concept of [[alphabetical order]].<ref>Rick Mercer, [https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2021/11/05/rick-mercer-recalls-the-day-an-american-introduced-canadians-to-alphabetical-order-and-spawned-a-show-thats-now-a-classic.html "Rick Mercer recalls the day an American introduced Canadians to ‘alphabetical order’ — and spawned a show that’s now a classic"]. ''[[Toronto Star]]'', November 5, 2021.</ref>

On shooting the segment, Mercer wrote in his memoir, “I suppose I had a nagging feeling that 'Talking to Americans' was a tad unsportsmanlike. They didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t just shooting fish in a barrel; it was more like throwing dynamite into a shallow pool. All I had to do was stand there with a net and scoop them up as they floated to the surface, completely oblivious to what was happening to them. And they just kept coming. It really was a great gig.”<ref>Rick Mercer, ''Talking to Canadians'', Penguin Random House Canada, 2021, page 194.</ref>