This Hour Has 22 Minutes - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This Hour Has 22 Minutes (renamed 22 Minutes in 2009) is a weekly Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

comedy that airs on CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

. Launched in 1993 during Canada's 35th general election

Canadian federal election, 1993

The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time...

, the show focuses on Canadian politics, combining news parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

, sketch comedy

Sketch comedy

A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...

and satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

editorials. Originally featuring Cathy Jones, Rick Mercer

Rick Mercer

Richard Vincent "Rick" Mercer is a Canadian comedian, television personality, political satirist, and blogger.Mercer first came to national attention in 1990, when he premiered his one man show Show Me the Button, I'll Push It, or Charles Lynch Must Die at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in...

, Greg Thomey

Greg Thomey

Greg Thomey was born May 8, 1961 in St. John's, Newfoundland.Hailing from Newfoundland, Greg has been a part of the comedy scene there for years as a writer and performer with the comedy troupe CODCO and in his own right as an actor and playwright...

and Mary Walsh, the series featured satirical sketches of the weekly news and Canadian political events.