Six things we learned about Ken Finkleman from his interview on CBC’s Q this morning

Ken Finkleman, the creative mind behind CBC hits like The Newsroom and Paramount non-hits like Grease 2, has a new show coming out called Good Dog. So it’s not surprising that he would come to a CBC Radio show like Q to sit and chat with host Jian Ghomeshi. What is surprising, however, is that the two of them almost managed to talk about everything but Good Dog.

The interview can be heard here, but we’ve compiled six things that we learned about the storied media man.

1. He doesn’t think comedy needs laughter
We’re tempted to say, “Oh, that explains it.” We always thought of Finkleman’s humour as sort of like The Office’s, but ahead of its time in cringe-but-not-laugh-inducing hilarity. About eight minutes into their talk, Finkleman and Ghomeshi get in to a protracted discussion about comedy that ends with Finkleman cutting it off by saying, “I don’t find this interesting at all.”

2. He’s got more way to say about the media than what was covered in The Newsroom
Hence the new show, which is about the same narcissistic TV producer he played in The Newsroom. And hence the somewhat perplexing turn the interview takes at about the 10-minute mark.

3. He’s not a fan of Christie Blatchford
“She’s an obscenity,” says Finkleman of the Globe and Mail columnist. Before that there was something about throwing scalding water on a baby—frankly, he lost us a little here.

4. He’s a fan of Rick Salutin
He compares the columnist to none other than George Orwell, and the Globe gets a few lashings for letting Salutin go.

5. He’s clearly a Globe and Mail subscriber
Of the four reporters singled out for mentions by Finkleman during this interview, three are Globe columnists (Margaret Wente was the last one), and the other was sitting next to him in the studio at the time. Not that we expect the Globe to be using this interview as publicity material (see #4).

6. Finkleman has some rather pointed opinions about the Toronto Police Service
He calls them “thugs.” When prompted to soften his remarks by the ever-helpful Ghomeshi, Finkleman allows that not all cops are thugs—but that there is a real “thug culture.” Finkleman also decries the funeral for Sergeant Ryan Russell as “police propaganda.” By about the 13-minute mark, Finkleman (maybe seeing his publicist having an arrhythmia on the other side of the glass—we’re not sure) wraps things up by saying, “I went off on a tangent. I apologize.”

• Ken Finkleman’s controversial appearance on Q [CBC.ca]