"Why not a gyroplane above the Waterloo region?" CBC-TV's Rick Mercer replied when asked why his season-premiere episode Tuesday night features a daring flight above Southern Ontario in a tiny airborne contraption.

"Imagine," he told CBC Radio's Craig Norris in Kitchener-Waterloo, "it's your own personal helicopter!"

The highly-successful Rick Mercer Report kicks off its 14th season on the public broadcaster with Mercer aloft in a bright yellow aircraft (co-)piloted by Neil Laubach of Fergus.

"In Kitchener-Waterloo there's fields, there's runways, the world is your oyster," Mercer said about the unlimited potential of personal flying machines.

'Good hands'

Mercer is known for his humorous ambush interviews of politicians, hitting them with pointed questions. But his popular program also features derring-do stunts such as dangling from the CN Tower.

"You know what... they're things that freak people out," he said, "but they're always safe. They're always safe. I have no interest in being hurt at this age," Mercer quipped.

"So if I jump out of a plane, I do it strapped to a Canadian soldier. You find the best people."

"If you go up in a gyroplane you don't just go up with 'Bob's House of Gyroplanes' at the side of the road," he jested, "you go to Kitchener-Waterloo and you go to Gyro Ontario. [Neil Laubach's] the foremost expert in the country, and then you're in good hands."

Although, Mercer added, "when you're at two-thousand feet in a flying golf cart you don't feel that way, psychologically. But you know you're in good hands."

14 years

When asked what it is about the show that's kept it popular for so many years, Mercer was quick to say "it's not me, it's the country."

"We're very lucky that a lot of families watch the show," he revealed, "People watch with their kids, it's like imprinting the country."

The national nature of the program – shooting on location across Canada – is what keeps the program's appeal fresh, Mercer said.

"Next week maybe we'll show off seals in Newfoundland," Mercer explained, "or Haida villages in Haida Gwaii, or flying above Kitchener-Waterloo. We're constantly showing off these places ... we're showing people that aren't necessarily famous," he said, "I put them on TV and people like it."

"The more specialized we are, the more unapologetically Canadian we are, the ratings are always strong."

The Rick Mercer Report starts its programming season Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 8:00 ET. That's 8:30 in Newfoundland, Newfoundlander Mercer reminds us.