  Steve Carell and Ed Helms in The Office.
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For once, the joke wasn't on us.
Surprisingly, last night's much-hyped episode of the NBC/Global sitcom The Office -- which saw three characters supposedly taking a business trip to Winnipeg -- did not just use our city as TV shorthand for Hillbilly-Populated Arctic Backwater.
In fact, it really didn't have much to do with Winnipeg at all. If anything, the show was more of a dig at untravelled Americans who don't know Canada from Cambodia.
Case in point: Eternally oblivious Dunder-Mifflin dunderhead Michael Scott (Steve Carell), who is thrilled to learn he'll be "jetting off on an international business trip ... to Ca-NA-da" to pitch a client.
"I've never been overseas, so I'm very excited about going to Winnipeg," he says. "I am intrigued by all things international -- the women, the pancakes, the man of mystery." His travelling companions: Gay accountant and "money man" Oscar (Oscar Nunez), and salesman Andy (Ed Helms), sporting a red beret and spewing pidgen French ("Beer me dos Long Island Iced Teas, s'il vous plait."
Michael's excitement at coming to Canada -- which he seemed to find as exotic as Japan and Morocco -- could easily have been a cheap setup designed to generate laughs when he finds our town isn't as exciting as he'd hoped.
But aside from one offhand reference from his boss David Wallace, who admitted, "It's pretty tough to find somebody who wants to fly up to Winnipeg in mid-November," we got off pretty light. The hotel and pub they patronized were suitably fancy, none of the supposed locals adopted a fake Canadian accent or said a-boot, and there were no gratuitous mentions of Mounties or hockey. OK, Andy made a Canadian bacon joke, but still, not bad.
But not necessarily that authentic, either. The writers apparently tried to incorporate a few local facts, figures and phrases into the script -- there was mention of a No. 17 bus (which ran "until 9 p.m.") and St. James Place. And Destination Winnipeg shipped some Fort Garry beer and Old Dutch chips to Hollywood for the shoot (they ended up making a cameo in that bar scene). But other details were clearly fictional -- like the fact that their direct flight from Scranton to Winnipeg took less than two hours. Oh yeah, and considering it was Winnipeg in November, there was a distinct lack of snow and parkas.
So, in the end, the hoopla was all much ado about nothing. Winnipeg could just has easily have been Des Moines, Butte, Cheyenne or any generic small city. The only difference was that The Office and the networks ended up getting mountains of free national publicity (and, we suspect, a decent Canadian ratings boost) by using Winnipeg.
Hey, maybe the joke was on us after all.
