by Gayle MacDonald
The Globe and Mail - August 27, 2005
Ever lie in bed at night wondering what became of Joe Canadian, the plaid-shirted guy who struck a patriotic chord in the nation's breast with his Molson Canadian rant of March, 2000? Maybe not. But if you are remotely curious to know where Joe's been the past five years, and what he's now getting up to, read on.

The actor Jeff Douglas, who once had the audacity to stick it to the Americans and stoutly defend our proud beaver in his rant, is returning to Canadian airwaves. This time, he's sporting a red toque as host of the History Television series Things That Move — a show that aims to educate audiences on the humble origins of everyday machines such as the Zamboni, the hang glider, the wheelchair, the Hovercraft, the snowmobile, the toboggan and the elevator. After auditioning hundreds of host hopefuls, Toronto producers Primitive Entertainment had a brainstorm: They would track down Joe Canadian and see if he was interested in doing a show about the genesis of going mobile. He was. And so for the past few months, Douglas has been shooting the 20-episode series, which debuts October 3 in and around Toronto, hitting skateboarding parks (he thought he broke his shoulder after one upset), and riding steam locomotives. He also got wrapped up like a pupa in a cocoon to soar 1,200 metres above ground in a hang glider outside Palmerston, Ontario.

It's not the kind of gig Douglas, 34, ever dreamed he'd do. And it's light years removed from his acting origins in regional theatre near his hometown of Truro, N.S., and more recent jobs like a bit part in John Q (starring Denzel Washington and Robert Duvall) and in TV shows such as CBC's This is Wonderland and NBC's Emmy-nominated St range Days at Blake Holsey High. But Douglas says he's getting a kick out of doing a program that explores ordinary things that we all take for granted. “Did you know, for instance, that the electric car was developed about the same time as the internal combustion engine?” he asks. “I was driving an electric car last week from 1903.”

He's enjoying the characters he's coming across, too. “There's a whole bunch of wacky, wonderful people obsessed with these things,” grins Douglas, during an interview at Le Select Bistro, where is wife is a manager, on Toronto's Queen Street West, and where he greets everyone by their first name. The Maritime boy adds that this job fits his background. “Maybe it's because I come from the East Coast, where it's a culture of stories, and this show is about constantly telling stories, whether it's the heroic story of a person in a wheelchair or the story of people who are obsessed with roller coasters.” And who better than Joe Canadian — the guy who briefly whipped our placid population, at least the beer-drinkers among us, into patriotic zealots — to talk to machine fanatics and transportation purists about bush planes, car boats, fire engines and hot-air balloons? And more important, get audiences interested. Cindy Witten, vice-president of programming for History, says Douglas was the right choice because “he's the intrinsic Canadian. He's just a really bright, nice guy. When I met him for dinner, within 10 minutes, we were eating off the same plate. That's not the usual encounter is it? He's like a shiny penny that just lights up the screen.”

The voice that elbowed its way into the Canadian consciousness during the 2000 Oscars broadcast (right after Robin Williams did his campy Blame Canada skit from South Park) went like this: “Hey, I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader. I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled. I have a prime minister, not a president. I speak English and French, not American. And I pronounce it about, not aboot.” Created by Bensimon-Byrne D'Arcy, the ad won a Bronze Lion Award at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France. Douglas was profiled by London's Guardian newspaper, the Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor. Heritage minister Sheila Copps showed the rant to American audiences to prove Canadians have a patriotic pulse and a cultural identity.

Soon, Los Angeles talent agents were swarming, and Douglas and his Columbian-born wife travelled to California for pilot season. In his characteristically direct and honest fashion, Douglas recounts his not-so-glory days in Hollywood. “They told me I'd be famous,” he says. “They said there'd be a place for me there, that I'd have good luck there. And I did have a lot of close calls and a lot of people on board.” But after six months, he says, the madcap routine of auditions was wearing him down. “By the end of pilot season, I was done. Burnt out. It was very foreign to me. Los Angeles is a long way from where I come from.

I missed my community, my friends and family. And it came to a point where I said to myself that if working out of Los Angeles meant living in Los Angeles, then I would rather change careers than change my community. “Los Angeles is an amazing spectacle. But it's smoke and mirrors. And I'm not particularly good at that. It's a place where you start to lose track of who you are, and what you've done.”

In 2001, he and his wife moved back to Toronto, where Douglas has been working pretty steadily (and quietly) since on shows such as Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye, Missing, and Big Wolf on Campus. Things That Move is another step in this journeyman actor's career. Asked if maybe the title should be jazzed up to sound, perhaps, a bit more — what's the word? — enticing, Douglas just smiles, and says he likes the “ordinariness” of it. “It's not one of these weird marketing things that is all style and no substance, like Monster Garage or Tactical to Practical.” And he hopes that this program appeals to audiences — as did Joe Canadian — because of its plain language. “That's what people responded to with the beer ad. It was not telling them something they didn't know. It was telling them something they did know: that we have a voice — and without being a prick about it, unapologetically yelling ‘I am Canadian!' and not worrying so much — as many of our leaders and politicians seem to, about what other people and nations will think of us.”

Things That Move will air weekdays on History Television at 6 p.m. ET.