DON’T LOOK NOW, but comedy isn’t dead on TeeVee. In fact, if you’re in Canada, it’s in better shape than it’s been for some time.
Call it the
Corner Gas effect (if you must.) After six seasons, they may be
calling it quits. But the legacy is undeniable. Despite a host of new simulcast-driven timeslots over the years, a million and a half Canadians find the show each week. They buy the DVD’s and they celebrate
Brent Butt’s everyman
Brent Leroy with loyalty and affection.
Affection. For a
Canadian show.
It’s been a couple of years since you heard any
real carping about
Corner Gas. Next to the
almost unheard of feat of actually making it through
six whole seasons, the show seems also to have outlasted the curious subset of self-hating Canucks who wished to criticize it. Seems that, however grudgingly, like the lumberjack shirt, hockey hair or the toque, people are used to the idea that it’s okay to laugh at a show made by Canadians, for Canadians. Even the show’s export to the USA last year (where it airs on
Chicago superstation
WGN) caused a smaller than expected ripple. No, Canadians like
Corner Gas because they
like Corner Gas. Period. And nobody has to tell them it’s
okay to like it.
Many have speculated about why this show made it where so many other attempts failed. The usual reasons, trotted out by
we who are concerned about such things, go like this: the show’s rural setting speaks to how Canadians like to view themselves, as folksy, rural and not particularly uppity; the humor (sorry,
humour) is gentle and not dependent on people suffering or being particularly mean to each other (except for maybe
Oscar, and he usually gets his comeuppance) or maybe it’s just that Brent is so laconic and easygoing that he seems the kind of guy a good Canadian might want to have a beer with. A strong,
Canadian beer. You know what I’m talking about.
There’s a behind-the-scenes host of reasons why this show flourished where so many others failed, too, of course.
Corner Gas was blessed in its early days by a bit of benign neglect from the network, where the (now departed)
CTV exec
Louise Clark was really the only one putting her fingers in the pie. The Producers, led by
Virginia Thompson, ran a tight ship, hired the best writers, and rather than try to make them extensions of some frustrated creative will – actually
left them alone to do the writing. Finally, Butt kept the whole thing grounded to his comfort zone, his comic persona.
I dare say that if more shows ran the way
Gas did, we’d have
no end of comedy hits. Which is why it’s of some comfort to know that the lessons learned from
Gas might help birth a couple of other new shows. Not only is Butt developing a new show for CTV starring his wife and co-star
Nancy Robertson, but Former Gas Showrunners
Kevin White, Paul Mather, and
Mark Farrell have teamed with
Gas alum
Fred Ewaniuk in a pilot called
Dan for Mayor. Both pilots have a shot to become a series in 2009.
As for the current crop, the obvious inheritor of the
Gas effect was
Little Mosque on the Prairie. In its first groundbreaking season, Mosque got all the attention for its novel concept, but viewers and critics were underwhelmed when it came to the
actual comedy. The show was laboured and forced, more concerned with
“teachable moments” than making people laugh. (Exactly the opposite of the
Gas approach.) In a way it was a throwback to a bad old, melodrama-style of CBC show. Whereas
Corner Gas was light and enjoyable, Mosque seemed preachy and fitfully plotted.
An injection of two writers (
Paul Mather and
Rob Sheridan) from the
Corner Gas stable in time for the show’s second (much longer) season, brought some of
Gas’ light touch – better gags and structure, a surer focus on the ensemble, and an expansion of the world beyond its
one-idea premise. People who had written off
Mosque slowly drifted back. The show built its audience steadily over the second season, finishing at or around the million viewer mark. For the third season, some of those viewers have fallen away (TV viewership across all channels is down) but there are signs that
Mosque’s 700 000 or so viewers might have some room to grow. The show is now closer in tone to
Corner Gas – not quite the same level of goofy whimsy, and maybe
a little preachier and staler than season two, but with stories that are competently plotted and amiable in their appeal.
Another show is vying for the
Corner Gas comedy crown, though, by going for a different tone that still has a Canadian cant to it.
Less Than Kind (
Mondays, 10:30 Citytv) follows the misadventures of a Jewish family in Winnipeg, as seen primarily through the eyes of their whip-smart, socially awkward, hefty 16 year old son, Sheldon. (
Jesse Camacho).
Less than Kind eschews the quiet whimsy of
Corner Gas for more of an
urban – come – suburban take. This family
yells, and
bickers, and has
sex and
cheats on their income taxes. It’s a bit like
The Wonder Years, but with
swearing and psychological conditions like
pyromania, and
situational narcissism. You
have to give credit to a show that shoots Winnipeg for Winnipeg
in the winter. That snow aint
potato flakes, people.
As much as
Less Than Kind goes for the edge, though, there’s still something
kind of sweet about it. The relationship between
Sam Blecher (
Maury Chaykin) and his wife is affecting. There’s a scene where the wife blows up at Sam and he wanders the streets, not knowing what to do. He’s lost without her.
Aww.
Less Than Kind also benefits from some truly
lucky and
superb local casting. You know how sometimes it seems like Canadian shows use the
same ten actors? Well,
not Less Than Kind. For every
Shaun Majumder who shows up, there’s a spectacular newcomer doing a brilliant comic turn. As run by
Mark McKinney and created by
Chris Sheasgreen and
Marvin Kaye, you could call
Less Than Kind a quirky delight, except that word ‘quirky’ has been so abused in Canadian film and TV circles that it’s more like an albatross around the neck than a compliment. So let’s just call
Less Than Kind what it is: a delight.
With no new season of
Trailer Park Boys, the guns and weed and strangely sweet, profane lo-fi sensation, your other pick for Canadian comedy tonight is the premiere of Season 3 of
Rent-A-Goalie. RAG doggedly
takes on their own promo to try and spread the word on this
very Canadian show – it’s Canadian down to its DNA, so much so that format sales are probably the only way this show would export. From the cameos by NHL’ers to the multicultural, not melting pot treatment of ethnicity (the show posits a heightened vision of Toronto where
Russians, Italians, Irish, African Canadians and every other ethnicity rub shoulders and don’t subsume who they are – kind of like the
real Toronto) this take on the workplace comedy has an egalitarian streak a mile wide. Cake (
Christopher Bolton) is a reformed bad boy. Sometimes he’s a genius, sometime’s he’s a knob. But he lives by a code and tries to treat everyone fairly. Even his enemy isn’t such a bad guy – and it’s clear that they have a bond. (Try imagining a drunken convo between
Ben Kenobi and
Darth Vader where they hug it out instead of going to the sabres.)
RAG mines the territory of the gross-out boy joke, with a bit of gratuitous sex and stupid violence thrown in. It’s like the
Farrellys on
five, instead of
eleven. Someone
always gets hit in the
nuts, but never
too hard, and they always manage to
skate it off. People are accepted for who they are – be they
lesbians,
agoraphobes,
sex-crazed councillors, gassy goalies, sex addicts, or
Byelorussian goons with attachment issues. Like the best of the
Judd Apatow stuff, though, the gross out stuff is misleading. Every once in a while you’ll catch a joke or a riff that’s entirely more
literate and
elevated. Hockey, sex, and shenanigans – all performed by an exuberant and likable cast. This is a group that really has life by the pucks. (Disclosure: I helped plot season 2 of RAG and wrote early drafts of two episodes, but I look forward to season 3 merely as a fan.)
So three –
count’em -- Canadian comedy shows,
all with something to recommend them – airing on
the same night. Not
bad. There’s only three
U.S. sitcoms I watch with any regularity, and they’ve got what,
ten times the population?
But of course, we’re not even done.
Because as I’ve written before, Canada’s topical sketch tradition continues, thanks to CBC.
Both
The Rick Mercer Report and
This Hour Has 22 Minutes have come back
incredibly strong this year – thanks to an election, and perhaps, a bit more boldness and sharpness in the satire. Mercer and 22 have also continued to evolve apart, with Rick going more for his experiential bits as 22 falls back, with a rejuvenated cast – on its strengths – strong desk jokes and short sketch parodies.
Contrast that to
CTV’s attempts to float a sketch show – the horrible
Comedy Inc, the underwhelming
Popcultured,
Jessica Holmes – and you’ll see that taking care actually does make a difference. You can’t write 84 sketches and shoot them all. Something’s gotta hit the floor.
Every few months, it seems, some Canadian journo gets it in their head to do a
“why are Canadians so funny?” article, usually based around this or that Canadian who’s gone south for fame and fortune. Most comics and comedy writers you talk to will
struggle with the question publicly, and often denounce it as
bullshit privately.
Comedy is hard. There’s no question about it. And if Canada has produced a series of substandard comedies in the past (and it has,) maybe that’s because comedy is so delicate, so fragile, so hard to get right – that the catalogue of ways you can screw it up has proven to be a huge hill to climb.
There’s the writing itself. Producers or Execs that want to “fix” the writing. People in power with no sense of humor. Inexperienced cast who oversell every line, or mug, or refuse to throw away a line to make it land, because they don’t trust the material; Directors who don’t stage the scene correctly, or get the right coverage. Editors who don’t give it the right pace – and all this
before you get to the P.R. campaign that manages to sell it wrong. Ugh.
Then and only then, if you’re lucky, do you get to be judged by an audience. Who may or may not get you. Most every comic writer I know
dreams of getting to that point. They’d rather take their chances with the audience than watch their baby strangled in the crib. (Or worse, being forced to strangle it
themselves.)
Yup. It’s hard. Which is one of the reasons why I think the way the Comedy category is administered in the
Gemini Awards is a joke.
This Wednesday, the Gemini for Best Comedy writing will be handed out in Toronto. EDIT: A correction... apparently Comedy/Variety writing is on the Gala night, Nov. 28. Look. I got one of the FOUR NIGHTS OF GEMINIS confused! Bizarrely,
Corner Gas and
Mosque – inarguably the two most successful (in terms of audience) scripted comedies on Canadian TV –
received zero nominations.This could have something to do with the fact that the category is actually called
Comedy/Variety. Which means that shows like
Gas (or nominees
Billable Hours and the low budget
IFC show
Cock’d Gunns) find themselves up against
22 Minutes and
The Mercer Report.That’s just wrong. I’m sorry. I know there’s a little unintended comedy in asking for there to be actually MORE categories of
Geminis. But if you look over the list, you’ll see about four or five awards for what amounts to
‘Best Host.’ There are
several different flavours of documentary awards to choose from. Even the category I’m nominated in,
Best Writing in a Dramatic Movie or Miniseries, doesn’t have to
also absorb entries from the
Drama Series category.
A brilliant
Rick Mercer field bit, a sublime
22 Minutes desk joke, and a great episode of
Corner Gas are
all funny. But they’re funny in
different ways, for
different reasons. Comedy is
subjective and
difficult to judge anyway. Why would you make the process
harder?
There should be a
variety or sketch category, and a
comedy series category. Fullstop.
In any case, audience, there you go. There are
three great Canadian comedies to choose from tonight. With another
Reforma-Tory government in play, and an economy about to
crater, all I can say is:
lucky you. Pull up a chair and laugh til you cry.
