Despite widespread media and critical acclaim (not to mention strong viewership numbers), Little Mosque on the Prairie will not win a Gemini for Best Comedy this year. In fact, it’s not even in the running. (The show was, though, nominated in the comedy writing and directing categories.)
Instead, the Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes will be up against CTV’s Corner Gas, Showcase’s Rent-A-Goalie and Comedy Network’s Odd Job Jack for the Best Comedy award.
Kirstine Layfield, head of CBC TV’s network programming, told The Globe and Mail she’s not bothered by the nomination lineup. “Geminis are great to have and it’s nice to have that industry recognition, but to us, the recognition we’ve gotten from the Canadian people, that’s a real measure of success.”
Little Mosque is currently the subject of a bidding war between two American television networks.
What do you think? If you were deciding the nomination list for the Gemini’s Best Comedy award, what five Canadian shows would you list?
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Little Mosque gets a lot of attention– but it’s really not that funny. There I said it. It’s the white elephant in the room. It’s great that we got a big audience watching it, but the joke is over. It’s like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. The initial premise is recycled over and over. Season 2 better be funnier. Otherwise it will fade away into history.
I don’t understand why Little Mosque on the Prairie not getting nominated in one category is such a big story. Odd Job Jack is in it’s fifth season and keeps getting funnier and it is only mentioned as an adjunct in any article about the awards. I think that’s weird.
Kirstine Layfield rules!
And she rules correctly in her view of the Gemini’s (nice diplomacy there, KL).
I happen to love this show.
The cast is outstanding, and the scripts right on the money.
FINALLY a show to be proud of from Canada.
Better than King of Kensington ever was, and one of my best friends owned that show, but I believe even he would agree.
Too bad it won’t last.
Too nice, too decent, and too late.
But don’t be disappointed, cast members, each of you could carry your own half hour of anything you want, and you know it (even that hairy cooking guy - he’d make a great cop), and Sheila? be still my beating heart, and the young couple - beautiful, and demanding respect each time they step in front of the camera.
I admire all you’ve done thus far.
And the years ahead will only confirm the value of the work by everyone involved.
Gemini’s are never the measure of greatness, and we all know it.
The obvious omission is the Rick Mercer Report - the best comedy on tv, bar none.
At first, I was annoyed with the snub, but then I realized that it’s only been on for eight episodes. That’s a third of a season, really.
The two funniest shows on TV right now are Billable Hours and Rick Mercer.
If they’re giving an award to the consummately anti-funny,steaming pile of embarrassment that is the Airfarce ….I would be FLATTERED not be nominated.
It wasn’t nominated because it isn’t very good. I watched the first 2.5 episodes..then forgot about it.
I fear the audience numbers next year won’t be so good as they had already dropped dramatically by the end of the 8 episode run.
How sweet. Allan and Kirstine have matching FUBU sweatsuits.
RCAF isn’t funny. RMR is the funniest thing on Canadian TV. Who pics these things?
Mosque isn’t entertaining. It got its attention by focusing on politically correct subject matter - white people are stupid. Ergo the CBC loves it.
Heidi’s remark is over my head.
Jason’s question deserves an answer - from somebody!
I was referring to this article, homie:
http://www.geist.com/opinion/self-destruction-cbc
Mike, that is patent nonsense.
And you could not say any of those things if you had seen the show.
You need to do more than sound smart.
John Bowman described the reasons for the “snub” accurately, I think. We shall see greater things from Little Mosque in the years ahead.
I don’t know… “funny” depends on what kind of funny and how the funny is portrayed to different people. Might I remind you, we all can’t laugh at the same jokes.
“Little Mosque” was just slightly bland and “Air Farce” is suffering from an identity crisis (What happened to a time when we looked towards television shows to watch television rather than a skit structured like a “blog” — if I wanted to blog, I’d see this blog or I’d blog on my own).
The Geminis? I don’t believe that winning a Gemini or two means that you have a good quality programme. Many shows who might’ve “deserved” a Gemini are now long gone.
LMOTP is very funny, but just as importantly it’s fresh and interesting and relevant. This a large part of the reason why it’s getting so much attention here and around the world. Shows like Rent-a-Goalie and Billable Hours are not new, not interesting, not relevant. Both of these shows rely heavily on a dated and often recycled style of deviant humour and titillation. I find them stale, predictable, and tedious, and I would bet that their ratings are very low indeed.
Air Farce and RMR started out being very funny, interesting and relevant, but they need some freshening up now. They’ve become detached somehow from the current interesting and relevant political and cultural touchpoints that most Canadians share, and without that their humour is just not the same. I believe that both of these shows are produced out of Toronto now, and Toronto, for whatever reason, has been a very insular, stale, and relatively creatively dead region for a number of years now. I think these shows would benefit greatly from getting out of Toronto permanently and getting re-connected with what’s going on in Canada and the world.
The two best Canadian comedies are, not surprisingly, the two most watched ones, Corner Gas and LMOTP, and they serve as a good gauge of what is funny, interesting and relevant to Canadians, and even beyond Canada as both of these shows are going international now. Now that a large part of the production of LMOTP is being done in Toronto, however, I fear that the life will be slowly sucked out of that show too. Why the CBC would move the show to Toronto is a head scratcher, but this decision is consistent with the patronage and open defiance of its mandate that has come to define national CBC programming in recent years.
From my most basic understanding Jason I think that people who are involved in the production in submit the show for nomination. These could be producers, writers, managers, agents et cetera. If they do not send in the proper information in time or for some reason it doesn’t qualify then no nomination.
I think any sort of award show like this is about as reliable as a the top five singles on Video Hits. The process is way to vague.
The fact that the Mosque’s ’snub’ rates such a response after only eight episodes on Canadian TV speaks volumes about the quality of the competition.
It would have been nice if LMOTP had gotten a nomination but as someone mentioned, theres only been 8 episodes. Hopefully the show will continue with high ratings and an interesting/funny storyline. The only other show that I think should have been nominated in this category is the RMR, I think Rick’s pretty funny.
LMOTP is quite better than most of the shows on TV, and it deserve to be recognised as such!
For those who are interested, here are the 2007 Gemini Award Rules and Regulations as published on the website.
Great shows have a certain chemistry that works! LMOTP is one of them. I see it promoting acceptance and understanding of other cultures, as well as showing that regardless of race or religion, we basically all face the same kinds of problems. I love the show and hope that it has a long and prosperous future. Keep up the good work! It should have been nominated.
Proud to see my tax dollars used to fund the final
‘assault on reason’
Secularism is so over rated these days.
I’ll be glad when Sharia law is the only rule of law in Canada and the Global Muslim Caliphate can personally view the glorious new minarets installed on the parliament buildings.
If the Caliphate’s run by the likes of Amaar Rashid, I don’t think we’re going to have many problems.