30 Rock comes to Toronto: what they got right, what they got wrong
Last night’s jaunt to Toronto by 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and Avery Jessop (Elizabeth Banks) continued the long-standing tradition of American sitcoms making jokes about Canada, ranging from the obvious to the factually incorrect to the just plain weird. In the episode, a pregnant Avery goes into labour while the couple is visiting Toronto, raising the spectre that the child will be born Canadian.
We like to laugh at ourselves, so here are our favourite jokes at Canada’s expense. We like to laugh at Americans, too, though, so we’re throwing in a list of all the things 30 Rock got wrong.
30 Rock Needs More Emmys
• As we predicted yesterday, the first “about” pronunciation joke comes just minutes into the show, when the bellhop at Jack and Avery’s hotel asks “what’s so bad aboot being Canadian?” The well-thought-out response from Jack and Avery: “Your milk comes in bags, your pavilion at Epcot doesn’t have a ride and if Canada is so nice and friendly, why does most of our meth come from your Asian drug gangs?” Zing!
• When Jack and Avery contemplate running to Buffalo in order to avoid their baby being born in Canada, they can’t figure out how far it is because the check-in woman at Pearson tells them the distance in kilometres. Now they know the same conversion hell we face when we hear temperatures in Fahrenheit.
• Jack and Avery hitch a ride with a mobile meth lab (manned by John Cho from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle), with one member assuming Avery is hiding goods in a fake pregnancy belly. He asks if it’s “unpasteurized cheese, prescription pills or maple syrup from Winnipeg.” What, no poutine jokes? Maybe we’ll have to wait for Liz Lemon to go to Montreal for that joke—seems more apt.
• The meth maker informs Jack that there are only 700 words in the Canadian dictionary.
• When Jack and Avery finally do have their baby on Canadian soil, they fight with the hospital administrator over payment, with Jack saying “we will not be party to this socialist perversion.” It’s almost like Canada was the original Obamacare only, you know, better.
30 Rock Needs a Fact Checker
• Jack swoons over his hotel room’s view of the Metro Convention Centre, which he cites as “the site of the G8 conference” that they’re meant to attend. As we all know, the G8 was held in Huntsville. Memorably, it was the G20 was held in Toronto.
• Jack, presumably staying in the Prime Minister’s Suite at the InterContinental, can see the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, but since they’re almost attached and he’s looking out a window facing the wrong direction, he wouldn’t really be able to see it.
• It’s clearly winter, but the G8 and G20 summits were held in the summer.
• When Jack is pumping gas, the prices are at Canadian levels—about $1.20 per litre—but the way the price is written ($1.18 and 9/10 of a cent) is the American way.
• Jack says his G8 trip “is going to be very erotic.” This is Toronto, right?
Ummm … and the fact that a child born to American citizens on foreign soil DOES count as a “natural-born American” and is therefore eligible to be president.
I was very disappointed in this episode. Americans making fun of Canada can be hilarious but this was a miss. Except for the “socialist perversion” part! That was a classic Jack bon mot.
If we’re going for accuracy (and not laughs), it should be noted that Winnipeg doesn’t really produce maple syrup. Tthe sugar maples used in Ontario don’t grow there — the winters are too cold — and although Manitoba maple sap *can* be made into a syrup, it’s not very good. Also, western Canadians buy their milk in cartons and jugs (except maybe BC).
This is a television comedy that you discussing right?
While you do that, I am going to sit around my igloo and drink beer.
the reference to G8 at the Metro Convention Centre is to the G7 conference in 1988…
If they were trying to reference a G whatever nobody remembers when we had a very very “eye catching” G20 not even a year ago… way to keep things topical 30 Rock.
Don’t we list the 9/10 of a cent too?
We use 911, not 272 as noted. Surprised you missed that one.
Diana is incorrect. To be eligible to become the US president a child needs to be born in the US. Parents’ citizenship does not matter. This is why there are wako birthers in the States who falsely claim Obama was not born there snd therefore cannot be the president.
best line from the episode: “I never sleep on planes.. I don’t wanna get Incepted.”
I’m freaked out by how mundane and ridiculous your article is.
You’re pointing out that the hotel is connected to the convention centre and therefore they could not actually see the view from there???? G20, G8. Huntsville, Toronto. Summer, winter. WTF???? Who cares? This isn’t a NY Times profile piece on our city. It’s a sitcom. And a damn good one. Probably with a huge Canadian contingent on the writing and production staff. The episode was funny, Toronto got a friendly nudge nudge, wink wink, and you guys manage to shit all over it. Now that’s typically Toronto. And most definitely, typically Toronto Life. What a snore.
I am fine so long as they don’t show a Mountie in full uniform lol
on every street corner
and I am always confused about aboot
maybe in the maritimes you might hear it pronounced that way
As to “aboot”. Personally it grates on me. It’s an Ontario and Scots immigrant thing. You don’t hear it out West or in the Maritimes, where there are variations of Appalachian accents. Americans come in contact with far more Ontarians than other Canadians and simply paint us with the same phonetic brush. Most Canadians can’t distinguish American regional accents either.