Trivia / Royal Canadian Air Farce

• Ability over Appearance: Due to Luba Goy being the sole female cast member for half the show's run, impersonations of female politicans and celebrities typically fell to her, even when she didn't closely resemble the real person. Most wouldn't see this as a problem, however, seeing as the show's more absurd humor allowed for more abstract impersonations from its cast anyway. The arrivals of Jessica Holmes and Penelope Corrin would allow for younger figures to be impersonated from then on.
• Accidentally-Correct Writing: A joke in the 1980 special has Goy’s character be impressed with John Morgan’s abilities eating with chopsticks, “especially [with] the soup”, implying said soup in this aborted “Chinese Restaurant Sketch” is Westerners’ idea of most soups (purely brothy or pureed). Anyone with even scant knowledge of Southeast Asian cuisines will tell you that countless soup dishes will at least contain noodles and are traditionally eaten with chopsticks anyway, making the joke lose some of its intended humor.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Several sketches have Goy affect a Ukrainian accent, referencing her real-life heritage.
  • Similarly, Professor Aphazard is the only recurring character who is Welsh, like his actor John Morgan.
  • Having become a noted after-dinner speaker in Real Life, Don Ferguson plays one (who also once spoke "during dessert") in the "Open Book with Marg the Princess Warrior" sketch.
• Approval of God: Toronto "Cashman" Oliver Russell loved the show's parody of his commercials so much that he featured the sketch on Oliver Jewellery's YouTube channel.
  • Sharon, Lois & Bram did the same for the show's spoof of them entitled "Sharon, Lois & Bram".
• The Cast Showoff: Luba Goy showcased her Donald Duck impression in several sketches. She also often showed her fluency in Ukrainian on the radio show.
• Descended Creator: The show's stage manager Pat McDonald had silent bit parts in numerous sketches, most notably as Jerry, the Bitter Clown.
  • Writers Gord Holtam and Rick Olsen often appeared in silent background roles, most often as MPs in sketches set in the House of Commons (see the “Official Hedy Fry Apology” sketches for an example).
• He Also Did: Director Perry Rosemond, prior to being recruited for the show, was best known for creating and producing the hit CBC sitcom King of Kensington.
  • Luba Goy is still remembered today for providing the voice of Gentle Heart Lamb, Lotsa Heart Elephant, and Treat Heart Pig on the 1980s Care Bears series.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Roger Abbott and Don Ferguson met at age 13 when they attended Loyola High School in Montreal. They became best friends and later writing and producing partners for the next 50-plus years until Abbott's death on March 26, 2011.
  • Writers Gord Holtam and Rick Olsen were also high school friends before becoming a writing team, later joining the Air Farce radio show as a singular unit.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Creatively subverted in one Professor Ick sketch, as a more form-fitting suit accommodated Jessica Holmes' first pregnancy in place of the stuffed costume gut Ick usually had.
• Irony as He is Cast: The Real Life Jacques Parizeau was born in Montreal and spent part of his post-secondary education in England. Roger Abbott, on the other hand, was born in England and educated from a young age in Montreal.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: While many compilation and "Yearbook" VHS tapes and DVDs were released during the show's run, a full series release (or even reruns nowadays) is unlikely due to its Long Runner status, now-dated political references, occasional Values Dissonance, and CBC generally not focusing on its older shows. Basically, you're out of luck if you want to see anything from the first six seasons, outside of selected clips from the Air Farce Archive YouTube channel, and other YouTube channels with VHS rips of older video releases and the original airings. The former channel does have most of the sketches from season seven onwards, however.
• The Other Darrin: A given for this series, due to changes in cast, characterizations, and writing.
  • It's safe to say that Don Ferguson's more Straight Man Stephen Harper is nothing like the robotic Harper popularized by Craig Lauzon later on.
  • Eb (of farming couple Eb and Flo) was played by John Morgan on one occasion, instead of usual actor Don Ferguson.
  • The "Debate '93" sketch had presenter Ann Medina impersonated by Morgan, with Luba Goy later taking over the role by Season 8.
  • A sketch where he was to be made a Lord saw Conrad Black being impersonated by Morgan instead of usual actor Roger Abbott, as Abbott had to appear in the same sketch as Jean Chrétien.
  • Roger Abbott impersonated Brian Mulroney on the radio show, but Don Ferguson took over the role in the TV series, as he better resembled the real Mulroney, playing him with a walk that led with his chin for comic effect.
• Role Reprise: Having left the troupe long before the start of the TV series, Dave Broadfoot would return to guest star, reprising his radio show roles of Sgt. Renfrew, Big Bobby Clobber, and David J. Broadfoot, "the Member ^note of Parliament for Kicking Horse Pass".
  • The series' many crossovers allowed for this as well.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: While the show’s impersonations aimed more for Ability over Appearance and Rule of Funny, Roger Abbott’s eyes and nose gave him a starkly close resemblance to the genuine article whenever he played musician David Crosby and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.
  • Don Ferguson didn’t usually evoke this trope himself, but his Gene Siskel is a notable exception.
  • Same for Luba Goy as Suha Arafat.
• Technology Marches On:
  • It's very quaint to see Season 9's cracks about television providers resorting to thin topics and premises to fill their new digital channels, especially given how many channels in Canada today either rerun Canadian content, are licensees of American channels and trademarks, or (like their American counterparts) have a hand in producing their own content to compete with cable channels (those channels also much improving since the late 1990s). That, and the term "digital television" having long fallen out of use and novelty.
  • Being a show that started in the early 1990s, expect to see lots of CRT televisions and monitors in news and other segments.
  • This trope is basically the entire premise of the Chicken Cannon, being the newest weapon of the Canadian Armed Forces due to the country's military cutbacks in the early 1990s.
  • A cell phone commercial spoof had the user so distractedly heartened talking to her parents on her gifted phone while driving that she loses control of her car and drives off a cliff. Not only would modern viewers see this coming a mile away, but it's also the exact reason why every Canadian province had made hand-held phone use while driving illegal by 2012.
• Throw It In!:
  • The Chicken Cannon's first firing in the series was only intended to merely fire at the map of Bosnia, but the cannon being overpowered ^note having been calibrated to fire at a hanging target, not a target on an easel led to it knocking both the map and its easel over. Don Ferguson and John Morgan are both visibly Corpsing immediately afterward.
  • One "Stan" sketch had an elderly-sounding female audience member come in late when saying the audience's collective "Hi, Stan!". Ferguson just rolled with it and replied "Hi Mom!".
  • Jean Chrétien's guest appearance was pretty much entirely ad-libbed by the man himself, with Roger Abbott (also as Chrétien) ad-libbing to keep up.
• Tuckerization: Colonel Stacy is named for Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel Mike Stacey, who the troupe had met while taping a radio performance at Germany's Baden-Soellingen Air Base.
• What Could Have Been: During the run of the radio show, Roger Abbott and Don Ferguson travelled to Los Angeles to consider becoming writers on an American sitcom, but the two ultimately turned the chance down, citing the greater creative freedom of working in Canada. That sitcom? ABC's Taxi.