U.S. tourists in 1960 liked our 'fresh air' and cigarettes
Different cigarettes, money among things U.S. tourists notice
When an Ohio tourist in Toronto was asked how he liked Canada, he replied, "we've learned more in this day and a half than we had our entire life," adding he didn't know Canada had different money or cigarette brands than the United States. The year? 1960.
In the clip above, host Gil Christy of the CBC-TV show Tabloid conducts on-the-street interviews that reveal how little the popular American perception of Canada has changed over the years.
And they show that Canadians have been obsessed by what Americans know about them since well before Rick Mercer began his popular "Talking to Americans" segments on CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Mercer has said the long-running feature came about almost by accident as he was conducting on-the-street interviews for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a show he helped create in 1993. "On the fifth or sixth try, I worded the question differently: 'Excuse me, do you have a minute for Canadian television?' "You have a TV station in Canada?" he replied.