Pajiba

Ah, Canadian crime. Reminds me of a scene from Corner Gas. In regards to a newspaper headline, "Cops Nab Barely Thieves":

"Oh, that was a typo. It was supposed to be *barley* thieves."

Haha! Yeah Canada is so lame and what not...why we always gotta be a joke???

Actually there is a lot of police work to be done in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Lots of gang and gun violence.

Also, I'm Canadian, so feel free to re-read my comment with as much sarcasm as you can muster.
Thanks.

Hmmm, the murder rate comment got me thinking about all the crime shows set in New York City, so I did some research just because you're allowed to be that big of a nerd on the internet.

Over the last few years, NYC averages right around 500 homicides per year. Just off the top of my head, we've got these crime shows all running concurrently set in NYC: Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Law & Order Criminal Intent, CSI: NY. On average, each of these shows has about a murder per episode (sure SVU isn't always about a murder, but they inevitably have episodes where some guy has killed a half dozen people, so we'll use it as an average). At about 22 episodes per year, that's 88 NYC homicides give or take from just those four shows, or about 1 in 4.

I'm sure others could think of a few more shows that have run concurrently with those, and the average is probably higher than one homicide per episode aggregated out anyway, so I bet we could account for just about every New York City homicide each year from various movies and television series.

Isn't fiction supposed to be a microcosm, not a macrocosm? If the map is bigger than the territory, does the map become the territory?

"with 25 or so cop shows currently airing on American television,"

Wow I didn't realize it until just now how many cop shows there are. It's no wonder that shows like Buffy and Gilmore Girls can't even get a sniff at an Emmy. I wonder how Lost made it in to the party.
I wonder what the breakdown of television programing is:
80% reality tv crap
15% cop/doctor/lawyer shows
5% all other

Oh yeah eh, one of those darned polar bears came right at me and my good friend Man-Tuk. We were just Ice Fishing, eh, in the frozen-tundra-hostile-wasteland of Toronto in our igloo (you know, eh, trying to save up food for our ten months of winter, eh). Then this giant polar bear with a big ol' hockey mask comes up to us and nearly kills us with his good buddy, eh, the wendigo. Then we drank a lot of beer, eh, and watched Barry, the guy who owns the most successful touque store in town get chased down by a mountie on horseback, eh, who was just gonna give the guy a hug, eh. Good bunch of guys.

...eh

I have a Canada joke! I have a Canada joke!

*ahem*

There were three explorers, hiking through what is now known as Canada.
"You know," said one of the explorers, "we should name this place we're hiking through."
"I know," said the second explorer. "We'll each pick a letter and then make a name out of that."
"Okay," said the third, "I'll go first. C, eh."
"N, eh."
"D, eh."

And that's how they named Canada...

*badum-tsssssssh*

Thank you! I'll be here all night.

Ugh - last summer they were shooting The Listner in the abandoned apartment above the store I worked in... and every day I was reminded how sad and sorry the Canadian tv industry is.
Interestingly enough, though, ABC co-pro'd a pilot with CBC called "18 to Life" which actually had an original premise: two 18-year-old best friends decide on a dare to marry each other, and hijinks ensue (I said original, not good, remember). But now ABC has passed on picking it up.... I guess there wasn't enough death and/or cop work involved.

figs, That's actually pretty good.

It's aboot the ONLY Canada joke that's pretty good.

Canada may not have much crime, but what little there is is freaking bizarre:

http://wjz.com/national/greyhound.bus.murder.2.784761.html

Hee-hee, figgy! Got my morning chuckle out of the way :)

Pfft. It's no Due South.

A Mounty in Chicago? Hellllllll yeah.

Oh my god, you guys, how many notorious serial killers do we need to grow up here before you finally accept that Canada has come into its messed-up own?

Clifford Olson, Willie Pickton, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka...

I swear to god, all this Canada-bashing almost makes me want to serial kill.

They called her... The Rectifier!

JakesAlterEgo, I was waiting for someone to mention Due South. I just started watching that show again. It's a lot better than I remembered.

As for crime, I suggest that any one of you smug American fuckers with your twee notions of crime-free Canada take a wander through Vancouver's downtown eastside and see if anything changes. Part of why I like Due South so much is that it manages to walk the fine line between a Canadian utopia - a Canuckatopia, if you will - and gangsters with "My Canada Includes Quebec" bumper stickers. We have Mounties for a reason, you know.

Why thank you Paul D for thinking of DaVinci's....(I created an interactive element the Coroner's Office for their website, pre-gestating, some of my best work). That show/crew was good folk.

I also lived for six years in the DTES, at the corner of Oppenheimer Park, and also above the Blarney Stone Pub in Gastown, across from Blood Alley. You think you know fear? We coulda filmed the Zombie Apocalypse just using the locals. I can't wait until they finish Google Street Level for Vancouver. I wonder if they dare attempt the DTES. It's the damn saddest thing ever.

I've often considered posting a video of our trips to Chinatown to get Cha-shew-bau (the Chinese hamburger), but I won't unless I can post it in a useful place, like slammin' the gov. Otherwise it's too voyeuristic and cruel.