Wheels Ontario Knows How To Make Canadians More Canadian: Send Them To 'The States'

Whether you've heard of them or not, Canada has many fine educational institutions. You can find at least one university ("college" means "community college" north of the 49th parallel) in every province of our nation — even that crazy one that's in a time zone one half-hour past Eastern. And yet, when the time comes to pursue higher education, some Canadian students do explore the possibility of attending school in The States (that's what we call America), much as Mike and Tunes did last night on Wheels Ontario. Why not consider experiencing life with Saturday mail delivery and Cherry Coke Zero, after all?

Mike and Tunes, visiting a college in exotic Michigan, experience culture shock almost immediately. At the "Admissions Office," they learn that they will have to pay the school to attend. Tunes is consigned to a special "dorm" for handicapped single mothers. The cafetorium has some crazy name, and no one can fathom Canadians' unique method of packaging milk.

But while Mike's pressing desire to fit in causes him to call Tunes by the very worst name one Canadian can call another ("dodo-bird"!!1!), he's not willing to go along with everything his host, Spencer, wants to do.

Two dudes spooning for an afternoon nap? Why not? Then Spencer starts nibbling at Mike's ear and learns that he's barking up the wrong maple tree: despite the fact that Mike is polite, sporting long bangs, and rocking nine shades of purple, he's not interested in being "smooched" with an "open-face Montreal mouth-kiss": Mike's not gay, he's Canadian!

In the end, Mike and Tunes both decide that attending college in Michigan is not the right PATH for them. "It really makes you appreciate the social services that come with the robust taxation of the workforce," says Mike, and boy, when you're a Canadian resident of Los Angeles who's just seen your monthly health insurance bill go up for the third time in eighteen months, that line lands like a motherfucker. (If you're an American mother, ask a Canadian one about her maternity leave some time — or don't, unless you want to blind yourself with envious rage.)

The point is: an American sojourn makes these two Canadians realize what so many Canadians have realized before them: nothing defines your Canadian identity like spending time in America, among Americans. And if that wasn't enough to give this whole escapade its Canadianosity bona fides, the segment ends with this.

Those are real logos for Canada, Ontario, and Toronto. (There isn't an Amalgamation of Canadian Lorry Coachmen that I know of, but then again, I haven't lived there since 2007.) Once again, the attention to detail is on point. I doff my Mountie hat to the show's designers.