Finding Canadians in Tinseltown is easy, jokes Chuck Tatham, the Ontario-born executive producer of TV's How I Met Your Mother.

"Basically, you just throw some Swiss Chalet coupons in the street [and] just listen for the screeching tires," Tatham says by phone from the set of the L.A.-based sitcom, slipping into his impression of a homesick Canuck with a high-pitched screech.

"'What the ... ? Half-chicken dinner?!'"

Such self-deprecating humour has served Tatham well in the notoriously fickle world of Hollywood, where he admits to being part of a "Canadian Mafia" of writers that includes Simpsons scribes Tim Long, Joel Cohen and Jeff Westbrook, The Big Bang Theory co-executive producer Rob Cohen and former Kitchen Confidential and Spin City writer Stacy Traub.

'The Canadian psychology is to spread yourself out — rewrite that, punch that up, go to that meeting, do all the different things you can do to keep your finger in all these different pies.'—Producer Chuck Tatham

Tatham's 20-year career includes stints on the critical darling Arrested Development, the long-running Bob Saget hit Full House and last year's short-lived Kelsey Grammer sitcom, Back To You.

Over that time he has developed a few theories on why Canadians have done well in such a tough business.

"The Canadian psychology is to spread yourself out — rewrite that, punch that up, go to that meeting, do all the different things you can do to keep your finger in all these different pies," says Tatham, a Listowel, Ont., native who honed his comedy chops at a Toronto advertising firm before driving to L.A. in 1991 with his brother.

"For some of our American friends, it's a little narrower.... The business model is go to an Ivy League school, come out to L.A., get on a show, hang out with some of your old buddies from college and just keep cranking. Anyone that has gravitated to L.A. from Calgary or Exeter, Ont., or Guelph, Ont., came down here, I think, with a survival instinct.

"It sounds odd, but we just know it's easier to go back to Philadelphia than it is to go back to Petawawa and I'm not going to even suggest we work harder than the Americans. I see, far and wide, a resourcefulness that my Canadian pals have down here to just keep working."

Tatham's insights on the business will be one of the marquee workshops at the inaugural Toronto Screenwriting Conference taking place this weekend. Other participants include Long, Zombieland writer Rhett Reese and Everybody Loves Raymond co-executive producer Ellen Sandler.

Long admits inserting his share of Canuck references into The Simpsons, where he has been a writer for 11 years and executive producer since 2004, but insists that the Maple Leaf laughs comes just as frequently from his U.S. colleagues.

"I'm very wary of being the guy who pitches the Canadian jokes," says Long, who was born in Brandon, Man., and grew up in Exeter, Ont.

"But what often happens is that we'll be talking about Canada and then the other guys will get all excited about it just because it seems so exotic, and then they'll start pitching the jokes because they think it's so funny. Like the city of Winnipeg gets mentioned way more on our show than any other show but that's not because the Canadians are pitching it — it's just because everyone is amazed that there's a city called Winnipeg."

Tatham, 46, says he'd love to have a show on a Canadian network one day, and says he's tweaking a script he sold to the CBC late last year. Called Staffers, the proposed sitcom is about the staff of a Michigan governor.

It was originally penned for Fox TV two years ago, when it was about an Iowa governor.

'It may look like it's more accessible from the outside, but I think there's just different barriers and different problems.'—Producer Ellen Sandler, on the U.S. industry

"The lead in the show has gone from an American to a Canadian, he's the policy adviser for the governor and we've added his Canadian brother who played Junior B hockey, and it's more sort of cross-border stuff," says Tatham.

"Ideally, we'd shoot it sometime later this year."

Sandler says she's often approached by Canadian writers desperate to break into the U.S. market but cautions that the grass may only seem to be greener south of the border.

"It may look like it's more accessible from the outside, but I think there's just different barriers and different problems," Sandler says from L.A., adding that building a career in Hollywood is a long process.

"I don't think you actually break down a door. I think you build a career and build a reservoir of work that gradually gets noticed and gradually you make contact with people who are moving in the industry with you, and they get a show and bring you in."

The Toronto Screenwriting Conference runs Saturday and Sunday.