PREACH IT! Canada’s ‘Lake Shore’ don’t need no stinkin’ Jersey — every other stereotype will do just fine

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Poor, poor Canada. Being Canada, it has no New Jersey. And without a New Jersey, it cannot participate in groundbreaking sociological juggernauts like ‘Jersey Shore.’

Canada does have coasts, however, and it has ethnic stereotypes, which when combined account for two-thirds of the formula that has made the MTV reality series such a success. So you can’t blame the Canadians for announcing a brand-new show called ‘Lake Shore,’ in which an Albanian (who goes by the name Downtown D), an Italian, a Lebanese and a Czech walk into a bar, er, house. We’ll let you decide whether that’s a punchline. But it’s certainly not a joke.

There’s also a zaftig woman from Poland, a Vietnamese lady who appears to own no clothing other than bikinis, and people of Turkish and Jewish ancestry, if we’re reading our disgusted dispatch from Gawker correctly. (There is also an official site, though it’s occasionally crashing, possibly under the weight of all that class.)

Know who you won’t see on the Toronto-based show? Stereotypical beer-drinking, hockey-playing, toque-wearing Canadians.

One more data nugget of note: The Italian is a construction worker. At least he’s not a plumber.

— Leslie Gornstein

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