Air Farce Live (TV Series) - Show History

Show History

Royal Canadian Air Farce began in 1973 as a radio show on CBC Radio. It became one of the radio network's most popular programs. Based in Toronto, most of their shows were recorded in CBC's Cabbagetown studios; however, as the troupe became more popular, they frequently travelled throughout the country to record their weekly radio broadcasts, which featured a mixture of political and cultural satire.

The Farce troupe recorded a one-hour television special in 1980, which evolved into a ten-week series and two sequel specials. They continued to perform their radio series as the TV series and specials moved forward.

Many of the TV show's sketches were actually performed as "radio sketches" -- during filming, Air Farce cast members stood on stage in front of microphones reading from scripts, whilst sound effects technician Alex Sinclair could be seen on stage adding sound effects as needed. Other sketches, some quite elaborate, were acted out in full costume as more traditional television sketches. Despite the decent ratings for the initial special, the TV series was received with somewhat lukewarm reviews and ratings. The Air Farce left television after a special in 1984.

In the early 1980s, Air Farce's summer radio hiatus periods were filled by another comedy troupe, The Frantics, who later moved on to their own TV series, Four on the Floor. Later summer hiatus periods, however, were filled by Ferguson and Abbott playing classic comedy recordings. In the late 1980s, CBC Radio launched another 30-minutes weekly political satire, Double Exposure. Though the programmes were never in direct competition, some found the latter show fresher and edgier.

In 1992, Air Farce took a second plunge into television with 1992: Year of the Farce, a satirical New Year's Eve special. For this and all subsequent TV appearances, the troupe abandoned the idea of performing TV sketches as "radio sketches", and presented their TV work in a traditional TV sketch show format. A ratings smash, the special led the troupe to produce another weekly television series, which debuted in 1993. However, this time the move to television was permanent. The radio series continued alongside the TV show for four seasons until May 1997, when it was discontinued.

The practice of having a New Year's Eve special continued through the show's entire run, and such episodes were typically titled Year of the Farce. Air Farce also frequently had the honour of counting down the seconds before the New Year on CBC, and the show's final episode was itself a New Year's Eve special.

Recurring characters on the TV series included the slow Albertan Mike from Canmore (Morgan) and angry Scot Jock McBile (Morgan), self-righteous movie critic Gilbert Smythe Bite-Me (Abbott), and chain-smoking bingo player Brenda (Goy). Though these characters would occasionally feature in skits of their own, usually they were used at the beginning of the show to deliver a stream of one liner jokes commentating on the news of that week.

The show also featured frequent skits with politicians, who were portrayed as various extreme caricatures of their most infamous personality quirks. Notable re-occurring figures included Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (Abbott), who could barely speak a single sentence of English without committing at least a dozen outlandish pronunciation and grammatical errors, the nasally-voiced Preston Manning (Ferguson) who loved to shout "REFOOOOOOORM!", a screaming, bitchy Sheila Copps (Goy), the tyrannical Lucien Bouchard, the dopey and overly-image conscious Stockwell Day, the strutting, clucking, pompous Joe Clark, and the power-hungry Paul Martin (all Ferguson). Many of the real politicians also made guest appearances on the show, often interacting directly with their parodic counterparts.

However, Colonel "Teresa" Stacy (Ferguson) quickly emerged as the show's most popular character — each time he appeared, Stacy would load up the Chicken Cannon and fire rubber chickens and other assorted projectiles at whomever he deemed the most annoying public figure of the week (or year).

Morgan retired from Air Farce in 2001, and the remaining three members carried on with a rotating stable of guest stars (usually no more than one per episode). Seen frequently as "special guests" from 2001-2003 were Rochelle Wilson, Jessica Holmes, Sean Cullen, Peter Keleghan, Janet van de Graaff, James Roussel, Craig Lauzon and Elvira Kurt. Holmes' appearances became more frequent as time went by, especially by the beginning of the 2003-04 season. In December 2003, she officially joined the show, adding celebrity figures such as Paris Hilton and Liza Minnelli, and Canadian politicians such as Belinda Stronach, to the troupe's roster of characters.

Later, in 2005, after a lockout at CBC, Air Farce gained two new cast members, who had previously appeared on the show as recurring guest stars: Alan Park and Craig Lauzon. The addition of these two newcomers brought the total number of performers in the troupe to six.

While the show was widely regarded as a Canadian institution, some critics have felt that the television show's quality has diminished over the past few seasons, especially since the breakdown of the original four-actor quartet. However, it still continued to draw solid ratings each week. On March 30, 2007, the Air Farce celebrated their 300th episode by doing the show on live television (except in Western Canada) for one hour. Roger Abbott and Luba Goy began the show with a brief history of the show, closing with "the scariest three words on television: AIR FARCE LIVE!".

After this experimental episode, CBC announced that the 15th season of the series would be aired live for the entire season, with a name change to Air Farce Live.

The final season retained its live format, but was renamed as Air Farce: Final Flight.