History Series / MadeInCanada

** In "People of the Fish" from Series 5, the main characters trot out various negative Canadian stereotypes to drive away an annoying American producer who wants to move to Canada, including extremely high taxes (which Richard claims have resulted in the government seizing his car), long wait times for even the most basic medical procedures (Veronica claims to have waited all night in the hospital to be treated for a paper cut), and draconian rules governing Canadian content in media produced in Canada (which prompts Richard to suggest [[Series/TheRedGreenShow Steve Smith]] as the lead for their project, as he'll work for money, meaning Canadian dollars).

* LameExcuse: In "Beaver Creek - The Movie", Richard returns from the set of ''Beaver Creek'' having failed to speak to Mandy Forward about signing on for two more ''Beaver Creek'' movies but having a meeting with Network Brian on set in an hour. Alan proceeds to pitch what he believes is his best idea yet: a series about - in fact, ''starring'' - water. Richard immediately changes his mind and says the meeting with Brian is not in an hour, but right now, and hurries out. Alan tries to get Veronica and Victor to help him put ideas for the series on paper, but Veronica simply declares that she does budgets, not ideas, while Victor claims that with the network on set and Mandy yet to sign on for two more movies, he and Richard should both be on set at all times.

* MyBelovedSmother: Veronica's increasingly anguished conversations with her mother in "Alan's Diet" from Series 2 reveal that she is an unpleasable control freak with whom Veronica ordinarily tries to avoid all contact.

* TemptingFate: In the Series 2 episode "Alan's Diet", Alan takes a high-protein, low-carb diet a step too far and ends up with such low blood sugar that he gives a rambling, incoherent interview for ''Marketwatch'' in which he rails against the evils of fruits, vegetables, and dairy. As Richard and Victor watch the interview in their office, Richard says, "Well, let's just hope nobody saw it." Their phones immediately ring with dozens of calls from offended farmers and concerned shareholders.

** "Babes with Blades" in Series 5 centres around Alan, intensely jealous of the success of Paul Gross' ''Men with Brooms'', turning Veronica's feminist women's hockey documentary ''She Aims, She Achieves'' into the sexually exploitative ''Babes with Blades''. It doesn't help at all that Alan wins an award for advancing feminism after Victor and Richard turn it from soft-core porn into a generic sports film.

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The series finale ends with Richard reciting the medium-term futures of all of the main characters: [[spoiler:Victor leads Pyramid for five years before marrying and taking early retirement, Wanda succeeds Victor as Pyramid CEO, Alan returns to directing and wins a Gemini for the ''Prom Night at Horny High'' sequel, and Richard and Veronica get married, have a son, and make millions from a terrible but popular ''Robot Wars''-alike.]]

* NeverMyFault: In "Beaver Creek: Live" from Series 3. Network Brian puts the kibosh on Pyramid's plans to air a ClipShow for the 150th episode of ''Beaver Creek'', forcing the cast and crew to throw together a LiveEpisode from a (rightly, as it turns out) discarded script by Siobhan. When the broadcast goes awry, Brian is seen on the phone to the network claiming that he had suggested they simply do a clip show instead of the live episode.

* ReTool: Mentioned by name prior to its use in "Dock Cops" from Series 5, in which the title series suffers an ill-considered (yet ultimately popular) retool at Alan's hands. In Richard's introduction, he says the four words every producer dreads most from anyone in a position of power are "I love it, but...", as they generally herald an impending re-tool, in which "one tool is changing the work of another."

* CannotTellFictionFromReality: Michael Rushton reveals in the first episode, "Pawn to King Four", that he is struggling to reconcile his identities as actor Michael Rushton and the character of Damacles. The line between fiction and reality becomes progressively fuzzier for him in later episodes, particularly Series 4's "Book of Damacles" when Richard and Veronica tell him that "his" warrior philosophy book (which they ghostwrote on a tequila binge) was written while he was channelling an ancient warrior god (as detailed under AGodAmI).

* CasanovaWannabe: When she and Alan try to piece together why a deal with Ann-Marie [=MacDonald=] fell through (it was due to Alan being an idiot) in the Series 5 episode "Best Seller", Wanda says that Victor thinks that he's either Film/JamesBond or [[Series/TheSaint Simon Templar]]...well, someone played by RogerMoore at any rate.

* DrivenByEnvy: Some of Alan's more ridiculous decisions are motivated by his envy of other television production companies or executives. His envy of the success of Paul Gross' ''Men with Brooms'' prompts him to turn Veronica's documentary ''She Aims, She Achieves'' into a gender-flipped version of ''Men with Brooms'' in "Babes with Blades", while his envy of the classy decoration of Rhombus' offices in "Alan's New Studio" leads him to have the Pyramid offices re-decorated.

* AllGermansAreNazis: While Pyramid depends on sales in Germany to keep afloat, the main characters really don't like the idea. For example, in the Series 4 episode "Book of Damacles", Victor explains to Alan that the reason the Germans love Damacles is that he's a big bully who wins all the time. In the same episode, Richard makes an aside about how the Germans [[TodayXTomorrowTheWorld have taught us to think globally]] as well as replying to Alan's comment about how angry the Germans are by saying "That's bad news for Poland."

* [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Everyone Calls Her Nurse Melissa]]: The main characters seem to not remember the real names of most of the cast on ''Beaver Creek''. (As an example, it took the show getting cancelled for Veronica to learn that Blind Jimmy's real name was Dino.) This comes into play in Series 5's "Requiem for Beaver Creek" when they have to race around frantically trying to find out Nurse Melissa's real name. (It's Lillian Vale, by the way.) Needless to say, she isn't thrilled to realize that though she has worked for Pyramid for what seemed like a thousand years, the idiots at the front office didn't care enough to inquire as to her real name.

* IAmNotSpock: In-universe, Michael Rushton, the star of ''The Sword of Damacles'', tends to flip back and forth between this trope (it doesn't help that Alan and the other Pyramid executives consistently address him as "Damacles") and embracing his role to the point of being in-character on and off set.

* NeverMyFault: In "Beaver Creek: Live" from Series 3. Network Brian puts the kibosh on Pyramid's plans to air a ClipShow for the 150th episode, forcing the cast and crew to throw together a LiveEpisode from a (rightly, as it turns out) discarded script by Siobhan. When the broadcast goes awry, Brian is seen on the phone to the network claiming that he had suggested they simply do a clip show instead of the live episode.

* OncePerEpisode: See BreakingTheFourthWall above.

** Subverted in Series 5's "The Last Show", with the characters gazing toward the ceiling and the music suggesting that they are about to reminisce over good times at Pyramid depicted in the series... until Richard and Veronica declare that they can't think of any good times to remember. (Victor, by contrast, is completely lost in memories which apparently cast him in a better light than reality.)

-->'''Alan:''' Look, how much would it cost to get a crew in for a few extra days provided we can find a location that looks like ancient Greece? ''(Veronica hands him an invoice)'' HOLY SH-\\

-->'''Victor:''' NOW TAKE YOUR ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS, AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR-\\

-->'''Alan:''' I'm sorry, what??\\

''Made In Canada'' (generally known as ''The Industry'' outside of Canada) was a 5-season Canadian sit-com that ran on Creator/{{CBC}} Television from 1998 to 2003. As a satire of the film and television industry, it featured the inner workings of a fictional Canadian production company, Pyramid Productions.

-->EveryEpisodeEnding, usually by Richard

-->EveryEpisodeEnding, usually by Victor

->''I think that went well.''

->''This is not good.''

!!This show provides examples of:

** Inverted whenever dealing with characters who are American. Often Americans are portrayed as dumb, culture-unaware, and occasionally gun-loving. The Vice President of NBC whom Richard visits in Los Angeles in "Second in Command" from Series 1 is a good example of a FakeAmerican; he thinks he was in Canada when he visited Bangor, Maine (which is two hours' drive from the border) and believes Richard when he tells him that July is Canada's coldest month and the year has six continuous months of daylight and six continuous months of darkness.[[note]] Rick Mercer had many similar conversations with Americans about Canada in his ''Series/ThisHourHas22Minutes'' segment "Talking to Americans".[[/note]]

* TrustBuildingBlunder: In "Corporate Retreat" from Series 4, Alan takes Richard, Veronica, Victor, and Wanda to spend the day at Y.E.S., the world's most irritating and least effective corporate training programme. Veronica gets covered in insect bites, Victor gets severe burns on his forearms after nodding off and falling into a campfire, and Alan gets so fed up he punches the programme director to the ground - only to watch him to jump back to his feet, none the worse for wear. As for the exercises, most are simply dressed up versions of such school athletic mainstays as egg-and-spoon races, but the "fall/catch" trust exercise does put in an appearance; Victor is understandably reluctant to fall backwards to be caught by Richard, but to his surprise, Richard does catch him... and, after chiding Victor for not trusting him, immediately drops him.

* OutGambitted: This happens to Richard on a regular basis because he's not nearly as smart as he'd like to believe.

** In "Acquisitions" from Series 5, Alan, obsessed with the idea of buying a cable station, purchases the Subtitled Movie Channel; the use of the singular "movie" turns out to be significant, as SMC only broadcasts a critically-panned Croatian film entitled ''[[TrueArtIsAngsty Sad Affliction]]'' on a continuous loop.

* CampStraight: Network Brian, full stop.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the first episode, Richard described Alan as being someone who started out building low-income housing and ended up making movies and television for people who lived in low-incoming housing. The first mention that he'd started out as a sleazy pornographer gone legit was pretty much the latter part of Series 2.

* LeFilmArtistique: In "Acquisitions" from Series 5, Alan, obsessed with the idea of buying a cable station, purchases the Subtitled Movie Channel; the use of the singular "movie" turns out to be significant, as SMC only broadcasts a critically-panned Croatian film entitled ''[[TrueArtIsAngsty Sad Affliction]]'' on a continuous loop.
** Earlier on, Alan decided to get back at his ex-wife by producing an art film that not only had the grade school soccer team survivors of a plane crash eat the pilot but a group of nuns who slowly lost their faith in God. When Richard talked some sense into him, they killed it with ProductPlacement.

* [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Everyone Calls Her Nurse Melissa]]: The main characters seem to not remember the real names of most of the cast on ''Beaver Creek''. (As an example, it took for the show to get cancelled for Veronica to learn that Blind Jimmy's real name was Dino.) This comes into play in Series 5's "Requiem for Beaver Creek" when they have to race around frantically trying to find out Nurse Melissa's real name. (It's Lillian Vale, by the way.) Needless to say, she isn't thrilled to realize that though she has worked for Pyramid for what seemed like a thousand years, the idiots at the front office didn't care enough to inquire as to her real name.

** Though they are usually {{Cloudcuckoolander}}s whose attempts at manipulation backfire, Victor and Alan have their genuine chessmaster moments as well. In "It's a Science" from Series 2, Richard and Veronica are competing for a position at a rival production company, and make a point of sabotaging each other; Richard claims that Veronica is adopting a large family from the developing world despite being unmarried, while Veronica claims that Richard is on strong anti-psychotic medication. However, at the end of the episode, the interviewer is revealed to have been employed by Alan to test their loyalty to Pyramid, and he declares Victor the most loyal of all - not knowing that Victor has been pulling a scam of his own (see ChurchOfHappyology).

** In the Series 5 episode "The Skateboard Show", when Alan gives Wanda and her teenage son Billy tickets to an award show in Acapulco for the title series, Richard tells the camera, "This is not good." However, when Alan and Veronica leave to present a floral tribute and read a eulogy for a recently-deceased ''Beaver Creek'' crew member[[note]]Rolly Pen, the pig[[/note]], Richard adds, "But I think that went well."