It's taken Northwestel Community TV less than a minute to garner a following for Whitehorse city council that spans the continent.

In the four days since it was posted on You Tube, the station's dramatic commercial for its weekly broadcast of city council meetings has garnered more than 33,000 hits, attracting media attention from across the continent including in the Huffington Post Canada (which referred to it as the "most ridiculous Canadian Commercial Ever” in its headline), the Washington Post and Toronto Star among others.

"I couldn't believe it,” Mayor Dan Curtis said of finding out just how many hits were on the commercial.

When his son first told him that there were some YouTube hits on the commercial, Curtis said he thought maybe 25 or so had watched it.

Watching the 50-second commercial, Curtis said he thought it was hilarious. In slow motion, with dramatic Hades music playing in the background, the stage is set in the first few seconds as the camera pans the city crest, Curtis' name plate at the empty council table, a jug of water, the mayor's gavel and a microphone. Then the action begins with a finger tapping the microphone, then enter city officials, Curtis moves to his seat. Director of Corporate Services Rob Fendrick adjusts his glasses and then Coun. Kirk Cameron looks over documents. It goes on with councillors and officials talking, looking around and talking all in slow, dramatic motion.

Then the real excitement begins with a short quote from Curtis on grants offered to MacBride Museum.

Pan again to council members talking, looking, a pen in full writing mode, officials and council members looking, talking, pointing. The ad then goes into fast forward mode as text advertising the Monday night broadcast slides across the screen and Coun. Mike Gladish is heard stating there's four items on the Community Services committee agenda.

The mayor's favourite moments in the piece come when bylaw manager Dave Pruden looks up from his computer as well as when acting city manager Brian Crist, fire chief Clive Sparks and other officials walk single file into council chambers "like they were going to war.”

Curtis and most anyone else he spoke with at city hall think its hilarious and he suspects it may even give city council a bigger audience come next Monday night.

"I'm sure of it,” Curtis said, joking that there's many who might be wondering who will get shot based on the commercial.

The mayor went on to note his thanks to the station's manager Chris McNutt and his team for getting the city council message out.

McNutt said he's thrilled with the response the station has gotten to the ad didn't take much time at all to produce, including an email from Curtis congratulating them on the success with the short piece.

"I'm rolling with it,” McNutt said, noting he's been taking calls since the commercial went up on YouTube about it.

Having summer student Alex Chan on hand this year has freed up some time to work on projects he and technicians have had on the backburner for awhile.

Ads for their broadcasts are often among those projects that get set aside while he and technician David Hamelin work on their regular broadcasts.

He had thought about doing the commercial for awhile and so they turned up for council one night to get the shots of the council chambers for the ad.

As Curtis recalled, council was simply told one night staff with the channel would be there filming the meeting for a commercial.

None of it was staged and they got all of the shots within the first half hour of the meeting, McNutt, a film graduate himself from Queen's University, said. Editing may have taken about a day with the cost of the video essentially built into the regular costs of the station.

"This is just part of what we do,” McNutt said, noting he, Hamelin and Chan thought it would be a pretty fun commercial to do – taking what is normally a fairly dry, mundane meeting and turning it into an epic event with slow motion and music.

Questioned whether residents might be somewhat disappointed if they tune in Monday night based on the dramatic commercial, McNutt said he doesn't think so. One of the reasons he believes the commercial has such wide appeal is that most any city council meeting – whether its Whitehorse or a larger centre like Calgary – seem fairly mundane and that's shown in the clip of Curtis talking about grants.

And though it may seem mundane, McNutt stressed their work is important.

He praised city council members and officials for taking their work seriously, adding he hopes that was evident in the ad as well.