Here we are in smiths falls, ontario!
[cheering & applauding]
Historically a transportation hub of highways,
Railways, and river locks, chosen for its location
Here on the banks of the rideau canal.
Before I got here, I knew I was gonna find
A beautiful waterfront, historical architecture,
The old locks.
Although I was also expecting here in smiths falls...
Falls.
[laughing]
Crazy country, right? I mean, if the prairies
Can have a valley without mountains,
And newfoundland can have a dildo...
-It doesn't matter. -[laughing]
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see that people have a sense of humour
About hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career, and hit the road.
[mc] mr. Johnny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find the funny
In the places you'd least expect it-
Canada's struggling small towns.
Towns that are against the ropes but hanging in there...
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is smiths falls, ontario.
♪
[cheering & applauding]
Smiths falls was long known as the
Chocolate capital of ontario.
And this is the first place that hershey's chocolate
Ever made chocolate outside
Of hershey, pennsylvania.
[cheering & applauding]
As crazy and fortuitous as it was
To get hershey's moving in here,
In 2008, things at the chocolate factory
Got a little willy wonky.
Upper management announced that the company was
Pulling out of smiths falls, and the chocolate era
Became hershey kisstory.
[laughing]
The sugar high turned into an economic crash.
Smiths falls fell on hard times.
But, fortunately, a real growth industry...
[laughing]
...Then moved in.
An industry that would not just help the people of
Smiths falls forget economic hardship,
It would help people across the country
Forget all kinds of things.
[laughing]
♪
To get some more information about the history of hershey,
I talked to a guy who has seen deep into the
Chocolatey center of smiths falls,
Former hershey employee, prim singh.
[cheering & applauding]
Prim, you worked at the hershey factory for how long?
Well, I worked at hershey for almost 20 years.
I heard hershey was employing people to fill the
Oh henry! Line and the peanut butter cup line.
I went for the interview at 11 in the morning,
And I was working at 3:10.
[jonny] he said back at its peak,
Over 700 people
Worked at the hershey factory.
There were three shifts. Some of the lines ran 24/7.
[jonny] he said it was a big tourist draw.
[prim] there was at least 50,000 visitors for the year.
[jonny] there was a mezzanine where people could
Look out over, and the kids would see
These rivers of chocolate.
[prim] I would say maybe 30, 40% of the town
Had some affiliation to the plant.
[jonny] from truck drivers to dairy farmers
Who provided the milk for the chocolate.
So the factory really, it wasn't just a job,
It was like a...
It was a, it was a chocolate ripple effect.
[laughing]
Prim said there were certain fringe benefits.
The day that I got hired, I was working on the
Line that made chocolate chips.
Somebody said to me, I can eat as much as I want.
And I said, "are you serious?" and they said,
"yeah, just grab a handful."
And I did- a couple handfuls.
I probably had 5 pounds of chocolate chips that day.
He explained that that was beneficial for the company
Because your workers were testers.
They were sampling it.
That's your quality assurance.
However, prim, in his quest for quality control,
Ran into a problem with quantity control.
[laughing]
I got sick one time after eating two full bars.
Now, I was a kid at the time,
And I didn't know what ex-lax was, but...
[laughing]
I found it up in the medicine cabinet.
I thought my parents were hiding it from me!
[laughing]
And I thought they were gonna be so mad at me, but...
Things actually went very smoothly after that.
[laughing]
Prim was telling me how they also did
Fun stuff at the factory.
He said one time they made the world's largest lollipop.
The lollipop was so big that they used for the handle,
They actually used a 4-inch pvc pipe.
[jonny] and he said when nobody was looking...
I actually took a lick of the lollipop.
He said he couldn't resist. He said,
"when else are you gonna have a chance to take a lick
Of the biggest lollipop in the world?"
[laughing]
Another time they went for the guinness book of
World records for the biggest peanut butter cup.
[prim] I think it weighed over 800 pounds.
He said when they were done....
When no one was looking...
[laughing]
Prim took a bite of the 800 pound peanut butter cup.
So, why did you do it?
How many chances in life would I get to do that?
[jonny] then I understood prim.
He doesn't have a sweet tooth.
Primm craves danger.
[laughing]
I'm glad they didn't go for the guinness book of
World records with the peanut butter cup
On prim's first day.
Could you imagine someone from guinness is like,
"oh, I'm sorry, you don't beat the record."
And the manager was like, "what?
We designed it so that we'd beat the record by 5 pounds!"
"where's prim?" "he's in the bathroom."
[laughing]
Prim remembers the day that they were told
The plant was closing.
He said it sort of came out of the blue.
People couldn't believe what they were hearing.
Nobody knew that was coming.
He said one of the people came into the staff lunchroom,
And just announced it right there that
They were closing down.
-Didn't even sugar-coat it. -[laughing]
In fact, kind of insensitive.
I think the way he put it was, "so long, suckers."
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
-Joanne? -Dana.
Dana.
♪
Smiths falls isn't just about big business,
It's also full of small businesses.
One appliance store in particular has found a way
To get the kind of international recognition
Big companies would kill for.
I met a couple of guys who were surprisingly willing
To share their internet history with me.
I feel like I know you guys already.
Appliance dealers and international tiktok stars,
Corey and kyle mcmullan.
[cheering & applauding]
The original mcmullan appliance was opened
By our uncle, ed, in 1971.
And then in 1990, my dad opened up
This mcmullan appliance.
We've been here 34 years now.
They worked there as kids, went off into the world.
Their dad, brian,
Was thinking about closing up shop,
And both brothers came back to help out with the store here.
When covid hit, was that bad for business?
We were talking to our staff:
"hey, we might not have the hours for you."
Doors were locked.
We couldn't let customers in the store.
And, I had heard about tiktok.
I downloaded the app to make videos to
Put on our facebook page.
One day I picked up my phone and we had 8000 followers.
Then 12,000, and then 50,000.
It just exploded.
♪
Mcmullan appliance and mattress
Is now an internet sensation.
No one's more surprised than them.
[laughing]
As far as grabbing the attention of the
Tiktok universe, household appliances...
[laughing]
And their dad, brian, will say,
"I can't believe...
The stockroom needs painting,
And you guys are frigging with your phones."
[laughing]
Parents don't get the tiktok culture entirely.
One time, they were doing a video,
And corey's trying to close the door and it won't close.
So he's slamming the door, slamming the door,
Again and again.
[banging]
♪
Dad can hear this commotion, and he comes out,
And you can just see him just....
And he said after they did that video,
Brian came to them, and was like,
"did you have to use an $8,000 fridge?"
[laughing]
What's your plan if this happens to you?
Did you guys know a regular kitchen fire extinguisher
Like this only sprays for 9 to 11 seconds,
And when you're finished,
You have a gigantic mess to clean up?
[jonny] the videos are funny and they're informative.
The key to the tiktok videos, it's the very quick pace.
They got flown to vancouver...
To meet the ceo of tiktok.
He had one piece of advice for them. He said,
"you gotta nip out that millennial pause."
Where you turn your camera and have a second
Before you start talking.
They call that the 'millennial pause',
For older people. I don't say,
"hey guys, it's corey, mcmullan appliance."
I say, "look at this over here."
You got to jump right into the subject matter.
And I was like, "oh my god, that's fascinating.
But wait, I'm still confused.
You said the older generation did that,
But it's called the millennial pause."
Then it dawned on me, folks, just shoot me now.
[laughing]
In tiktok universe,
Millennials are the older generation.
[laughing]
The word 'millennials',
I feel like we came up with that like two years ago!
We were just starting to have fun with it!
Now, millennials are old like us?
[laughing]
[raspy]"did you have to use the $8,000 fridge?"
[laughing]
♪
The guys asked me if I wanted to hang around
While they made their most epic tiktok ever.
They said this idea came about when they had a
Customer who'd spent a lot of money on a fridge
That never worked right.
This guy called them up, and he was like,
"I don't just want a new fridge.
I want to get revenge on the old one."
[laughing]
Okay, johnny, thanks so much for coming.
We told you we had something big.
This is the biggest thing we've ever done.
Take a look.
♪
They had four refrigerators lined up that
Were gonna go to the dump anyway.
Then out of nowhere...
A 14-ton quarry master excavator shows up.
[thud & clanging]
Then it starts crushing, crushing these things
At a blistering pace.
♪
There's something so satisfying about destroying
Something that has hurt you emotionally,
But it doesn't feel any pain.
I'm looking forward to our war against
The ai terminator robots.
[laughing]
Then no sooner has this excavator had a go at
The four refrigerators, then, out of nowhere,
Local monster truck team, rat nasty, shows up.
[roaring engine]
♪
And they start driving over what's left of the fridges.
♪
I couldn't believe it!
I was like, the fridges might have been unplugged,
But this is so cool.
[cheering & applauding]
I'm jonny.
♪
In the years that followed hershey's closure,
The future seemed dark.
In fact, some people say it was so dark that
They estimated it to be 70% cacao.
[laughing]
Fortunately, a real growth industry then moved in,
Legal cannabis.
I met a woman who, as soon as I met her,
She wanted to introduce me to some of her best buds.
From canopy growth, emily halverson!
[cheering & applauding]
Canopy growth is one of canada's
Biggest producers of cannabis.
When they came to town, they moved into
The old chocolate factory at 1 hershey drive.
These types of businesses couldn't even exist
Until 2013 so,
Not only were we a new business,
We're in a completely new territory here.
She said, every day when she went in there,
It was craziness. They were expanding,
The whole industry was expanding.
They were constantly renovating,
There was construction.
They were opening new parts of the factory.
One day, walking down a hallway,
And stairs would be there, and then the next day
They weren't there.
The staircase kept getting moved.
It's like this moving staircase in the
Harry potter movies, except this time it's more
Like harry potter and the sorcerer's stoned.
[laughing]
"harry, how did the sorcerer get so stoned?"
"he must have been hufflepuffing
Some dumble dank."
[laughing]
"cannabis sativa!"
[laughing]
Meanwhile, she said on the old factory floor
Where they made the chocolate,
They were now making edibles.
Now, I don't know what canopy's policy
On the workers sampling...
[laughing]
But it's a good thing prim wasn't working there.
[laughing]
♪
A few years after coming to town,
Canopy moved into the tweed building.
More cannabis than anybody's ever seen in their life,
And all this really sophisticated,
State of the art machinery,
Packaging, and weighing,
And analyzing tons of cannabis.
Tell me about how you got into cannabis.
I am originally from east lansing, michigan,
And I had medical cannabis come into our state,
And I started doing activism, and just got really into it.
And, some of my friends said, "hey, you should
Apply for this thing called miss high times."
I was like, "oh, no, that's not, that's not me."
But I did because it was really geared towards
Cannabis activism.
What are you doing in the industry to kind of
Make it, you know, better?
So she entered the competition in denver.
[announcer] give it up for miss high times 2012!
[jonny] and in 2012,
She was crowned miss high times.
Denver, colorado, that's perfect.
Your plane touches down, you're already a mile high.
[laughing]
I come off of what's called the 'legacy market',
And that's a term used for the market that
Existed prior to legalization.
What you can't do in that market is, you know,
It's smaller, and, and...
To do stuff with science is a pretty heavy lift.
So what we're doing here is using new technology like ai
To better assist in grading our cannabis products.
Back in the day, there was no like, okay,
This is indica and then this is a sativa.
It was like you bought weed
And hoped it wasn't oregano.
[laughing]
A big part of emily's job is analyzing the quality of
Cannabis through a microscope camera.
[emily] what we're assessing here is the dankness.
Dank is a term that means really good.
It has the lot of, you know, trichomes.
The smell is really intense. Beautiful, vibrant colour.
It was funny to hear the word 'dank' among words
You'd only ever see in a scientific essay.
"oh, have you read this?" "yes."
"well, it says that terpenes are a synergetic, ah...
Antagonist towards the overall dankness.
That's what's suggested by the author, doctor brosky."
[laughing]
[emily] this is what I love.
We didn't really have access to this technology
Prior to legalization.
[jonny] it's always fun to talk to somebody
Who's so passionate.
Like this will give you a good example about
How passionate she is about it.
So she had some buds there on her laptop,
And what I thought was just a fancy light.
-Oh, this is this! -Yeah!
Halfway through the interview,
I realized that this was actually a microscope camera.
Yeah, so this is just plumbed in, right?
This is my little handy dandy microscope.
I thought this was your screensaver.
My speaker is also trichomes, but, ah-
-[laughing] -this is live.
"my screensaver is a zoomed in picture of cannabis bud."
[laughing & applauding]
Now, how dank is it?
-[laughing] -I can't really say.
I haven't tried it yet, I had work to do.
Also, there's rules at the broadcaster level.
I mean, I can't really be seen, ah...
Promoting cannabis...
On the cbd-
On the cbc!
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
If there's some kind of theme I can apply
To smiths falls,
It's turning fun stuff into serious business.
I went over to lombardi raceway,
And I talked to che smith and calya austin.
[cheering & applauding]
Che, tell me about your history in racing.
[british accent] my uncle used to run a race team,
And so I got to hang out at the racetrack in
My summer holidays as a kid.
Were you on the pit crew as a kid?
Yeah, they used to call me the gopher.
-The gopher? -Yeah.
"go for this, go for that, go for that."
Che worked there, he said in the paddock.
The paddock, by the way, that's what english people
Call the pit area, right?
[accent] "you bring it round the paddock,
I'll pop the bonnet and get in there with a spanner."
[laughing]
Che runs the race academy, nonstop racing.
[che] anyone can get in a go-kart.
Push the gas pedal, and it will go
As fast as that machine will go.
But it's that mental game...
Of having the confidence to go that fast into the corner,
And then also focus.
But it's about having the right mind frame.
He said it's 80% mental.
When he teaches his students, he said-
It sounds to me like- he's a bit like mr. Miyagi.
The whole thing is a bit like karate kid
Mixed with talladega nights.
[laughing]
Calya started how everybody else does,
In the rental carts that che owns.
Is it like an addiction? Is it something...
Oh, it 100% is. You arrive in summer.
Every weekend you're gone doing it,
Or you're training for it. You're getting ready for it.
Like great experience,
Great stories, great memories.
We had a big race here last summer called cup cart canada.
They're coming back this year as well in July.
[jonny] cup cart canada is a big deal.
Well, for most people it is.
I know for you guys, any cup that's less than 800 pounds
And doesn't have peanut butter in it...
[laughing]
♪
Finally, we went out for a spin,
And it was a ride.
♪
Somehow I got to the front, and I was zipping around,
Feeling like, okay, I'm doing alright.
I think I'm pretty good at this.
♪
[screeching tires]
♪
You know, I'm coming around one turn,
And there's this 9-year-old kid smiling at me.
[laughing & clapping]
And he passed me.
And then, a woman passed me.
I think she's the 9-year-old's mom.
And she caught up to him, and sure enough,
She gave him some lunch money.
-And then I was like... -[laughing]
I'm getting passed by everyone and their mom.
[laughing]
[applauding]
Hey! That was wicked!
-Awesome. -There we go, there we go.
[indistinct speaking] that was wicked, man.
You know, guys, I am going to approach life from now on
With what I'm calling the smiths fall.
It's a little bit no sunshine without the rain.
It's a little bit, "this too shall pass."
-Yeah! -Yeah!
From applied sciences to appliances,
You'll find things are all right.
Make the most of opportunities,
When no one's looking, take a bite.
[laughing]
And take the smiths fall.
At least try it before you knock it.
And may your go-kart cup forever
Runneth over with chocolate.
♪
Thanks for coming out, everybody.
You've been great!
[cheering & applauding]
♪
The history of the town, some of the stuff that
I just learned, I never even knew about.
♪
[roaring engine]
♪
It was just nice to know that all the community was here,
And that there is...
Hard times, but everyone's getting through it.
♪
This is my car! Oh, my god!