Son of a Critch: A cultural explainer for those born in the 21st Century

In the spirit of young Mark Critch, know-it-all about everything, scholar of nothing, here comes a bit more info about the '80s cultural references in Son of a Critch from Season 1.

Based on the popular memoir from Mark Critch (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) and created with Tim McAuliffe (The Office, Last Man on Earth), Son of a Critch tells the hilarious and very real story of a young Mark coming of age in St. John's, Newfoundland, as he uses comedy and self-deprecation to win friends.

As fans of the show are no doubt familiar, young Mark is a man out of a time from having spent more time with adults and seniors than kids his own age, making his touchstones for contemporary culture a bit out of step with the times, let alone the times nearly 40 years ago.

Recognizing that those of us born after Y2K may not appreciate the quality of references in Son of a Critch, we've prepared a short guide to help elucidate in case audiences come across a term or figure and looking to piece it into the puzzle that is Mark Critch.

Son of a Critch returns to CBC Television and CBC Gem on January 3, at 8:30pm.

Now without further ado, 1986:

Alf: (1986-90) Let's kick off our explainer by talking about a strange but emblematic sitcom of the '80s about a social outcast with an unusual appetite. ALF ran for nearly 100 episodes, the title coming from the initials in "Alien Life Form" with the star being a strange brown hairy puppet creature with a long snout and the gift of gab. Alf loved to eat cats.

Anne Murray: (1945-) Born in Nova Scotia, Canadian singer Anne Murray is best known for her signature hit "Snowbird" (not about Canadian seniors headed to Florida in winter) that was a number one hit on the U.S. charts and cemented her place among the country's most notable performers.

Bob Hope: (1903-2003) One of the 20th Century's most notable comedic performers, Hope initially worked in Vaudeville, a popular form of entertainment before the popularization of film. As a figure in pop culture, he is remembered for his many USO tours, performing for deployed military forces around the world. By the '80s, Hope was headlining his own television specials, releasing about six or so a year, and this is what young Mark would have been watching on the living room TV. When Mark is reciting a joke in 103, he imitates a golf swing, which was one of Hope's signature moves, as Hope was a well known lover of golf.

Breakfast of Champions: This phrase, which you may have heard before, relates to the General Mills breakfast cereal Wheaties, which in the early 1930s, featured Lou Gehrig on the back of the box and was linked to an advertising narrative about the purported nutritious qualities of the cereal. The term was also the name of a satirical book by Kurt Vonnegut, which likely aided in popularizing the ironic usage of "breakfast of champions" to refer to less nutritious cereal substitutes, like beer.

Cod fishing: This practice has been occuring in Newfoundland for centuries, and in 1492, the arrival of Europeans began a fishing industry that collapsed in 1992 when a moratorium on cod fishing was called. The moratorium put 40,000 people in the province's fishing industry out of work.

Columbo: (1971-78) A TV crime drama from the United States that ran for 69 episodes for 10 seasons, it was one of the shows that inspired another St. John's based series, Republic of Doyle. Doyle star Allan Hawco works on Son of a Critch as an executive producer.

Don Rickles: (1926-2017) A legendary American comedian known for "insult comedy" and starring in film and TV, including the variety shows both named The Don Rickles Show. He was also the voice of Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story. In the '80s, Rickles was in his "Las Vegas" period, following his legendary performances on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast specials in the 1970s.

Eddie Murphy's Delirious: (1983) Look kids, when I tell you that this live comedy album from a young Saturday Night Live performer Eddie Murphy in 1983 has profanity on it, we're talking about the use of the "f" word 230 times, and I ain't talking about "frig" either! And, as a content warning for anyone now piqued by the special, Murphy uses an offensive term to talk about members of the LGBTQ+ community, which he says he regretts in a statement released 13 years later.

Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary's: For those with keen eyes, you may have seen this song title written on the chalkboard in the school's music room, an old folk tune by Otto P. Kelland, about a real place in Newfoundland that is now home to Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve. I'm going to hazard a guess that besides being part of their shared heritage, Sister Rose likely first enjoyed hearing that song performed by a celebrated Canadian folk singer, Stan Rogers, who died tragically in 1983 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrBdEoq90AQ). However, because she's in music class, she's likely arranged the song a la Diane Loomer's choral arrangement, who herself was a professor in British Columbia and was a fixture on CBC Radio in the 1980s, talking about classical music.

Mr. Miyagi: Played by Pat Morita, Miyagi was the original sensei in The Karate Kid, a 1984 prequel to Cobrai Kai.

Mr. Freeze: A frozen treat pronounced "Free-zee," a long frozen tube of sweet fluid eaten cold.

Mr. T: When Fox's mom refers to all the golden first place ribbons her daughter won at Sports Day, she compares her to Mr. T, a popular cultural figure in the '80s. Discovered by Sylvester Stallone during a bodyguard competition series, Mr. T took an appearance in Stallone's Rocky III into a cottage industry of music videos, TV shows and more, all the while wearing his trademark golden necklaces, and pitying fools. By the end of the '80s, Mr. T starred in a Canadian TV series, T. and T which ran for three seasons.

Paul Anka: A Canadian singer known for his first hit Diana in 1957, one of the biggest Canadian singles of all time that went to #1 in both the United States and Canada. He also wrote the English lyrics to the Frank Sinatra signature song "My Way." He later made appearances as himself on both That '70s Show and Gilmore Girls, and when appearing on The Masked Singer in 2020, he came in seventh place.

Short Round:(1984) A child character (seen as problematic for its racist stereotyping) from the worst Indiana Jones movie (of the 1980s), and was played by a young Ke Huy Quan, who recently returned to acting as Waymond Wang in the critically acclaimed Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Spanish Flu: (1918-20) Near the end of World War I, the Spanish Flu was one of the early pandemics that began in 1918 and eventually led to one in four people getting infected, with deaths around the world in the range of 17 to 50 million people, including Pop's childhood bully.

The Jetsons: This American cartoon series was set in a fantasy "space age" that reflected modern day inventions in a futuristic world, like an inversion of The Flintstones and their prehistoric aesthetic. The show aired in primetime from fall 1962 to winter 1963, with new episodes produced from 1985-87, which is perhaps why the show would have been a cultural force in the '80s, despite having a very '60s aesthetic.

The Strand: A bar and venue inside the Avalon mall which opened in St. John's, Newfoundland in 1967 and had live music and DJs. You could also pick up a pair of dancing shoes at Ayre & Sons, a department store chain that had a location inside the Avalon mall.

Van Halen: This was a rock band whose namesake was also the band's virtuoso guitar player, Eddie. In 1986, they released their first of four awful Sammy Hagar albums after the departure of David Lee Roth. Hagar sucked!

Vatican II: Not a film sequel, but a series of councils held by the Catholic Church in the 1960s held towards an effort at updating the church's dogma for a contemporary population, more or less. Now, a quick note on the Catholic Church in Newfoundland; the church was established in 1784 and led by an apostle who could also preach in Gaelic. In 2021 that same Archdiocese began to sell off church properties in Newfoundland. This was to pay the victims of abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in the 1940s, '50s and '60s following the church's final denied appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, bringing to a close a scandal that became major Canadian national news in 1989.

Wayne & Shuster: Mark carries their lunchpail around, featuring an ad for their show on CBC. The Canadian duo was legendary in the country's comedy landscape, and had audiences laughing from the '40s right up until the late '80s.

I hope that helps provide a bit more context for Son of a Critch, and we'll be back this summer with even more references found in Season 2.