Wealth & Money Quote by Rowan Atkinson

Rowan Atkinson isn`t just taking a swipe at American TV; he`s doing what good comedians do: inflating an obvious truth until it becomes embarrassing. The line barrels forward in one breathless clause after another, mimicking the very production logic he`s criticizing: keep it moving, keep it replicable, don`t stop to ask if any of it means anything. That syntactic sprawl is the joke and the indictment.

The intent is pointedly comparative. By prefacing with "Not so much in Canada", Atkinson isn`t anointing Canada as culturally pure so much as creating a foil that makes the US sound like the extreme case of a familiar disease: entertainment as an assembly line optimized for profit, not growth. "As I`m sure you know" is a sly little pressure tactic, too. He invites the listener to collude, to admit this is common knowledge, which makes any defense sound naive or bought.

The subtext is less about hating popular entertainment than about what repetition does to artists and audiences. "Another 26 programs of the same thing" lands like a production order, not a creative decision. The phrase "advances the culture" is almost deliberately grandiose, then undercut by the more personal sting: it doesn`t even advance the actors careers. That`s Atkinson framing the system as so monetized it can`t be justified by high ideals or by human ambition. It just runs.

Context matters: Atkinson came up through British comedy, where institutional gatekeeping (for better and worse) often rewarded distinctiveness and authorial voice. His complaint is what happens when the market becomes the only editor: culture doesn`t get curated, it gets franchised.