Tag Archives: Tess Degenstein

Creative comedy Earthling House Huntress lands real estate on CBC Comedy

Last year around this same time, I spoke to the creators of three potential series—Earthling House Huntress, Hit on Me and Free Space—looking for help from the Independent Production Fund. And though the folks behind Earthling House Huntress didn’t get the funding they’d hoped for, that didn’t stop them from going ahead with a first season of the series anyway, available on CBC.

Created by Ivy Johnson and Jordan Himelfarb, Earthling House Huntress takes place in a world where space travel is simple and aliens are coming to the Greater Toronto Area in search of real estate with curb appeal and a great price. Enter Liz Klein (Tess Degenstein), who specializes in helping ETs find a forever home.

Inspired both by Johnson’s real-life experience as a real estate agent’s assistant and the pair’s observations while buying their own home in Toronto—a good real estate agent spends a lot of time with people and has to be able to make friends with anybody—Johnson and Himelfarb thought Liz Klein would be the perfect ambassador to Earth, able to really be super-charming with the most bizarrely imaginable creatures. The bubbly introduction by Liz sets EHH‘s wacky tone.

“Do you fear an encroaching black hole?” Liz asks. “Want to take a dip in an ocean that isn’t boiling? If you’re an alien with access to high-speed intergalactic space transit and are looking to relocate, I can find your terrestrial forever home.” Nothing stops the ever-positive, endlessly energetic Liz from finding an alien a home. That’s evidenced in Episode 1 when she shows three properties to a bearded, wrinkle-faced laser gun-toting alien named Gorm (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll) who hates bright, open spaces (his enemies could attack him at any moment) and accuses a collection of twigs in a vase of mocking him.

Part of the fun of EHH are the reactions the aliens have to things we’re used to. A platter of cookies is a potential threat, using remote car door locks are a challenge and a bathtub could be a bed. I may be looking too deeply into it, but I felt like EHH is, through the eyes of these otherworldly beings, shining a light on what new Canadians feel when they come to this country. They feel out of place and out of sorts, needing a Liz Klein to help them feel at home.

Future “Aliens of the Week” on EHH include Anders Yates and Nelu Handa (pictured above alongside Degenstein), as well as puppetry from Brad Cook and voice work from Tyler Murree. The series is directed by Simone Stock.

All four Season 1 episodes of Earthling House Huntress can be streamed on CBC now.

Image courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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