The English-Canadian show This Hour Has 22 Minutes did she have the same flash as the team of bye… three months later? “They had a lot of the same ideas, let’s say,” remarks the director of Bye Bye 2023Simon Olivier Fecteau, about a video parodying the film barbie.
Simon Olivier Fecteau shared a sketch from the English-speaking show on Friday This Hour Has 22 Minutes on his Facebook page. In this video, broadcast on March 12 on CBC, we see a parody of the film barbiewith the song I’m Just Ken.
Instead of Ryan Gosling as Ken, comedian Chris Wilson is featured as Justin Trudeau. The song then becomes I’m Justin and we see the Prime Minister recounting all his problems of recent months.
Comedian Chris Wilson impersonates Justin Trudeau in this parody, on the show “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”.
Screenshot taken from Youtube
On December 31, in a sketch from bye titled If we would love each otherwe saw a parody of the same song from the film barbie this time with Simon Olivier Fecteau in the shoes of Justin Trudeau. The words of Just Justin were very similar to I’m Justin.
Excerpt from “Bye Bye”, with Simon Olivier Fecteau. COURTESY Facebook screenshot.
Screenshot taken from Facebook
Two solitudes
Contacted by The newspaper, Simon Olivier Fecteau admits to having been surprised to see the similarities between the two sketches. “I can’t swear that it’s plagiarism, because it’s an idea that can be found, but visually, like the pink parliament, there are some things that are similar.”
Not knowing the team personally This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Simon Olivier does not intend to contact them or take legal action. “I’m going to let social media do the job. […] I don’t think there’s any grounds for prosecution for anything like that, obviously. But I would just be curious to know if one of the authors on the team didn’t see that at some point and that it influenced his creation,” he says.
The director is especially surprised that no one at CBC told the team to This Hour Has 22 Minutes that a very similar sketch had already been done three months earlier on the same channel, on the French-speaking side. “It just shows the portrait of the relationship between English Canada on a cultural level and Quebec,” he said. They really have no idea. It’s not like the bye was just on the web. It’s like the biggest show in Canada in terms of ratings.”
Chances are possible
In comments under the Facebook publication of Simon Olivier Fecteau, the co-author of the last edition of the show Reviewed and correctedMathieu Bouillon, mentioned that they too had the idea of comparing Justin Trudeau to Ken in the film barbie for their end of year review.
“Because barbie. Because Justin is a handsome guy, he writes. I do not believe that CBC “copied” from the byebut I believe that the lack of rigor lies in the fact that no one has lifted the flag [drapeau] that the sketch had been made by the same channel. It shouldn’t have been done afterwards.”
In eight years of bye, Simon Olivier Fecteau recognizes that there have already been situations where two end-of-year reviews had a similar idea for a sketch. “Ideas are in the air. We try to find jokes on the same news, so we definitely make similar connections from time to time. […] That’s why I can’t say that it’s 100% sure that they plagiarized. But when you watch the two videos one after the other, they may not have plagiarized, but it’s not far off! [rires]»