Et Dieu créa... Laflaque

Concept

Gérard D. Laflaque first showed up on TV in the early 1980s as a latex puppet, before switching to CGI animation. His name was borrowed from Gérard D. Levesque, a former minister and acting leader of the Quebec Liberal Party. The show has two main threads. One focuses on Laflaque’s home life with his wife Georgette, his son Marcel and Marcel’s Asian girlfriend Laurence, his annoying father Pépère, his dog Tarzan, and his neighbour Edmond, a gay inventor.

A caricature of reporter Louise Cousineau later appeared as a recurring character who runs a corner store. The other thread follows Laflaque on a current-affairs show where he tears into the day’s news without restraint, joined by his cameramen Roger and Henri (later swapped for a man who belongs to several religions), his producer Paulo, Sarah-Laurie Joly, and the puppet Ti-Bas. A caricature of intellectual Denise Bombardier was added later. Laflaque often hosted caricatures of politicians like Paul Martin, Jean Charest, Stephen Harper, Gilles Duceppe, Jacques Parizeau, André Boisclair, George W. Bush, Guy Bertrand, Mario Dumont, Pauline Marois, Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, Nicolas Sarkozy, Régis Labeaume, and Denis Coderre.

Journalist Christopher Hall made regular appearances through the end of Season 3, filing reports and asking silly questions to people on the street. Occasionally, the current-affairs segment included unrelated bits like a cooking segment, the “Petit Laflaque Illustre,” which explains everyday objects in a ridiculous way, and “Stade Trek,” a Star Trek parody where former political leaders cruise around the galaxy inside Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.