Wheels Ontario Gets Its Canadian Pastry Treats BADLY WRONG

I have feted Kroll Show's recurring sketch, Wheels Ontario, since its first installment last year, and, as regular readers will know, over and over in this space as new chapters of the Wheels saga keep being written and delighting me utterly. It's the kind of affectionate ribbing that (a) Canadians love, and (b) I would never ever expect Americans to engage in for the simple reason that they don't tend to know enough about Canada to make fun of it.

What I especially love about Wheels Ontario is that now that they've been doing it for a while, the writers are mixing in real Canadian things with Wheels Ontario-specific lingo. For instance:

For example, we do say "the arts" and "pardon," and pay lip service to honouring First Nations peoples without actually doing anything specific to that end. We don't say "hen" instead of "chicken," or "rotten pears" rather than "apples." We say "here" when a teacher calls roll, not "hither," and we don't call buttholes our "exits," but in both cases, maybe we should, because it's adorable. And, yes, Grade 13 was already starting to get phased out when I was in high school, more than twenty years ago (yiiiiiiiikes), and ended for real in 2003...but I get it: the phrase alone is funny and the fact of Grade 13 was so weird that the whole rest of Canada didn't have it -- not even Newfoundland (although it's not like we ever really know exactly what those weirdos are doing).

This episode of Wheels Ontario plays out the storyline that kicks off in the clip above: Tunes, like real Degrassi star Aubrey Graham, embarks on a rap career, though unlike Graham, A.K.A. DRAKE, she falls in with a violent, gun-wielding crowd (not really sure how they even know what guns are, since it's Canada), and in a haze of strong yet affordable British Columbian marijuana, Tunes accidentally shoots her dear friend Mikey. When he ends up in the entirely free hospital, his mother, of course, appears to bring him some of the comforts of home: his lacrosse tapes (and yes, my high school did have a lacrosse team) and some butter tarts.

Oh my God, you guys, Mikey is so lucky. Butter tarts are delicious. It's like, have you ever had pecan pie? Okay, so imagine that, except none of the nuts: just the sweet goo that keeps them all stuck together. And imagine instead of a big-ass piece of pie, it's a cute little tart -- maybe one you can eat in a single bite -- with just the right ratio of crust to filling so that the sweetness of the buttery brown sugar part doesn't get too cloying. Butter tarts are among Canada's most wonderful contributions -- see also: Nanaimo bars -- to the annals of what my dear Canadian grandma would call "dainties": the delicious baked goods that make Christmas what it is (fattening). Frankly, just writing this paragraph has made me wish someone would shoot me so that my mother would come visit me in the hospital with butter tarts. (Yes, she lives in Pakistan. But I bet she'd make the trip if I got shot.) (Let's not find out.)

But my excitement about seeing Mike eat some butter tarts was punctured just as violently as Mikey's organs when the camera cut to the baggie his mother had brought.

UH, THOSE AREN'T BUTTER TARTS, DUDE. THOSE ARE CLEARLY THUMBPRINT COOKIES. HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN ANY TART BEFORE? BECAUSE A BUTTER TART LOOKS LIKE THIS. OR MAYBE LIKE THIS. YOU CAN'T GET THEM IN LOS ANGELES, WHERE YOU ACTUALLY SHOOT? FINE: FIND A RECIPE LIKE THIS AND GET A PA TO MAKE SOME. (BUT SKIP THE RAISINS, RAISINS RUIN THEM.) YOU WANT TO MAKE UP FAKE THINGS THAT AREN'T ACTUALLY CANADIAN? FINE. CALL WHATEVER THE HELL IS IN THAT ZIPLOC BAG "MAPLE HOLLOWS" OR "ROBIN HOOD* FLAKIES" OR "CANADA GOOSE FOOTPRINTS." BUT IF YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ONE OF OUR TASTIEST TREATS, KEEP THE PHRASE "BUTTER TARTS" OUT OF YOUR FILTHY AMERICAN MOUTH.

*IT'S OUR FOREMOST BRAND OF FLOUR.