Due South would be a fun start -- a show so beloved by so many Americans that yankee websites honoring it are still active a full decade after its demise. CBS picked up this one, too, from 1994-96, and no wonder. It's a smart charmer from Paul Haggis, who only went on to create CBS' brilliant-but-cancelled Ken Olin/Joe Pantoliano corruption drama EZ Streets (seen whole on the late, lamented Trio channel, and partially on a Brilliant But Cancelled DVD). Which led to Haggis scripting some little teeny movies titled Million Dollar Baby and Crash.

As this Due South fan site puts it, the show chronicles "the adventures of a principled Mountie, his deaf, donut-snatching wolf, and a couple of sarcastic police detectives in the windy city of Chicago," though I might add "witty" to modify the adventures. It's got plenty of mystery, action and cop case-solving, but it's also a breezy buddy romp filled with cool banter, male bonding, and culture-clash comedy.

And it doesn't try to disguise or downplay its Canadian heritage, instead reveling in the supposed naivete and Dudley-Do-Right-ness of Paul Gross' mountie newly posted to Chicago from the wilds of Canada's almost-Russia far northern territories. Gross plays your basic knight in shining armor, forever trying to do the right thing, while as the Chicago cop who's hosting him, American actor David Marciano (now the amusingly annoying Billings on The Shield) provides a cynical, fast-talking foil and BFF.

Great, too, are such crazy inspirations as having the mountie's dead mountie dad persistently giving him advice as a meddlesome ghost (Gordon Pinsent, one of Canada's acting treasures, recently starred as Julie Christie's husband in Away From Her), daffily comedic yet sweetly sentimental. All three of the show's Toronto-shot seasons are out on DVD, the first being the strongest. The double episode "Victoria's Secret" with Melina Kanakaredes may be two of the most sinuous hours you'll ever see, and Haggis' 1994 TV movie pilot is one of the tube's best ever, setting up the entire wild ride.

Slings & Arrows marked a triumphant return for Paul Gross in a markedly different role. In this loopy stage-centric gem of 2003-2006, seen here on Sundance Channel (and also out on DVD), he's a literally crazy actor-director of fringe experimental theater in Toronto, who's asked to return to the scene of his on-stage breakdown and rescue an adrift Shakespeare festival. Just six hours each of its three seasons, the show is a warm-hearted love letter to the theater, its intimate impact, its transfiguring force, and all the ego-driven wackos inhabiting its insular world.

The creators should know. They've been there. Mark McKinney from The Kids in the Hall both co-wrote and stars in the series as the theater's eager but tone-deaf business manager. Playwright Susan Coyne co-wrote and plays his sweetly put-upon assistant. And third writer Bob Martin co-created Broadway's delightful The Drowsy Chaperone. Gross is busy on the Canadian stage, too.

The mix of humor and heart in these two drama gems is a particular gift. Canadians seem to have a pretty good fix on that emotional mix. They mock and mimic us, don't they?