As a showcase of 20th-century Canadiana, Mondo Canuck is an unqualified success. By Canadian publishing standards, though, it may just be too much fun for its flannel. Through all of its short chapters – four-pagers with titles like “Who asked Peter Gzowski to save this country, anyway?” and “Goin’ down the middle of the road: Canadian easy-listening” – the book is a deliciously snarky, unapologetically high-speed romp.

Mondo Canuck’s pages are laid out magazine-style, with impolite sidebars sprinkled liberally throughout. “The Worst Canadian Singles of All Time” is an especially good one. (Yes, Dan Hill’s “Sometimes When We Touch” is on the list.) It’s an attractive look, but, compared with the overcaffeinated writing, it feels downright stodgy.

With choice quotations and sly asides, Mondo Canuck captures perfectly the mix of world-class ambition and colonial shyness that defines our national character: Gzowski’s ill-fated TV talk show “was a showcase of the kind of performers and personalities that made this country as pretty-good as it is.” Not very polite, but Canadian through and through.

If I have a complaint about Mondo Canuck, it’s that Pevere and Dymond have left out a lot. The fiasco that was Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui doesn’t even rate a mention. Nor does the boneheaded fishing-program parody, The Red Green Show. The section on kiddie culture could have used at least a nod to the ubiquitous Sharon, Lois, and Bram. Also missing are CBC loudmouth Rex Murphy, the politely restrained sleaze of Traders, Michael Kesterton’s daily “Social Studies” factoid-fest in the Globe and Mail . . . The list could go on for pages, and that’s probably a good thing. I’m already looking forward to Mondo Canuck II.