When we started Smells Like Yukon at the beginning of 2007, we thought it would take at least three successful seasons to build up enough credibility to achieve our ultimate goal: to get the word “wang” on local CBC radio. And yet, we have just accomplished that noble objective in less than two full seasons and 16 segments. As an added bonus, we even snuck a “dong” or two in there as well.
Dare to dream, kids.
The question is, where does Smells Like Yukon go from here? Honestly, we’re not sure.
We understand that a lot of people take what they hear and read courtesy of Smells Like Yukon with a grain of salt. But, just to be clear, you should keep your salt away from this whole wang / dong thing. Believe it or not, Mark and Jesse have actually had a long-standing agreement that “wang” is the funniest word in the English language (and a few other languages, too). As best as we can recall, it dates back to a tool-filled basement in Gold River, B.C. circa September 2005—and that’s about as much as you need to know. Except, perhaps, that the mere utterance of the word—with or without “mallet” as a modifier—had the power to send Mark and Jesse into fits of uncontrollable laughter during a long ferry trip from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert aboard the former Queen of North. (May the Pacific Buffet rest in peace.) If this raucous behaviour annoyed the German hordes who rudely ordered us to stop obstructing their views on the ferry’s observation deck, all the better. Mark and Jesse also got a lot of mileage out of the word “wang” during the long drive from Rupert to Whitehorse and, as their wives would no doubt affirm, for many months afterwards.
To make a long story short, “wang” has always held a special place in the Smells Like Yukon lexicon, and Jesse and Mark found it hard to imagine that the word could get any funnier. Of course, they were wrong: It’s even funnier when you get your CBC producer to say it on the air. (We liked it so much, we actually included it in the Outtakes.) As for the relative funniness of wang and dong—a pivotal issue in “New & Improved”—we don’t really want to touch that debate. It was just something we wrote to advance the narrative.
Before we let this wang / dong nonsense go once and for all, we should point out—for the benefit of any easily-offended CBC listeners—that there was, um, a strong precedent for what we did. If you want to hear one of the two Best Words Ever put to great use by the Mother Corp, you really should listen to China correspondent Anthony Germain’s documentary about a Beijing restaurant chain. Ding dong!
Yes, yes, we know what you’re thinking: “New & Improved” was about much more than dong and wang. It was also about finally coming to terms with the drug use that makes it possible to record and edit an entire Smells Like Yukon segment in about two hours. As the outtake "Powder Buffs" demonstrates, there's a chemical component to every segment of Smells Like Yukon. Or perhaps Mark has such a bad sniffing problem when he voices a script that it was possible to fabricate an entire outtake to suggest a drug-addled edginess that simply does not exist. You choose.
Finally, as you've no doubt guessed, "New & Improved" was about reuniting the seminal 80s band Wang Chung. When they heard we were planning to use their classic party tune “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” in the segment (how could we resist?) it was enough to inspire the band members to put aside their differences, fly to Whitehorse and shoot a new video in the Yukon Convention Centre.
If it turns out that Wang Chung never actually broke up, then that just goes to show you… we can’t be bothered with checking facts.
