ENZA MICHELETTI

Montreal Gazette editor by day, mother 24/7, thrilled to be laughing at jokes that don’t start with: “Knock, knock …”

From the moment Mercer took to the stage, brought in by Mounties pulling an ornate calèche, his 100 per cent Canadiana shtick took off with the audience. Those shots at our Canadian identity felt like a guilty little pleasure, eh? But the night pushed on with a strong international lineup of comics. As Mercer said: “What could be more Canadian than that?”

Mercer had perfect pitch as host with that big broadcast voice. You almost felt like he was about to lean in and stick a microphone in your face. He took shots at Canada’s 150th, Justin Trudeau’s Rolling Stone cover, our medicare system (gallbladder is free, but parking will cost you $20,000). But the best stuff was hyperlocal: “In Montreal, you know something is going well when you don’t have a provincial inquiry.”

Enough about Mercer. Watch his TV show on CBC to get the idea. And let’s set aside Jon Reep’s bad porn jokes. Everyone else rocked. Best of the bunch: Jessica Kirson with her lesbian jokes (“Who’s the man in this relationship?”), Carl Barron with his crazy body language (that tiptoe sequence needs to be seen) and Arthur Simeon riffing on Canadians who forget to put on their winter tires (“Shoot them in the face”).

When faced with having to interrupt the show to let in latecomers, Mercer grilled them, noting how Montrealers are so punctual. “I don’t know how you make it anywhere on time with the roads you have.” And then the kicker about all the road construction: “Has it ever dawned on you that your mayor hates you?”