Five Episodes from The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour

Abstract

Production History Thomas King’s The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour is an enormously popular feature on CBC Radio One that has brought, with satiric wit, the concerns of Indians to a broad-based audience across Canada. The series is part of a long-standing Canadian tradition in Canada of CBC-produced radio drama which has provided playwrights with larger audiences for their work than if it were staged in the theatre. As satire, the series has a playful irreverence that has come to be the hallmark of much Canadian humour. Satire, however playful, has a serious side, drawing the audiences to social issues. In The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, the recurring readings from The Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples, a massive document detailing the conditions under which Aaboriginal peoples live, is a reminder that the concerns raised in The Report seem to have fallen from public consciousness and from the political agenda, save for this series. In the context of the series, which presents “Conversational Cree” and “Tom King’s Aboriginal Decorating Tips,” the incongruity of reading the dry prose of the Commission’s Report is funny; however, the laughter it generates has a serious bite.