All posts by Greg David

Prior to becoming a television critic and owner of TV, Eh?, Greg David was a critic for TV Guide Canada, the country's most trusted source for TV news. He has interviewed television actors, actresses and behind-the-scenes folks from hundreds of television series from Canada, the U.S. and internationally. He is a podcaster, public speaker, weekly radio guest and educator, and past member of the Television Critics Association.
Sunnyside

Link: Wolseley-shot sketch show a bright spot on the TV schedule

From Brad Oswald of The Winnipeg Free Press:

Many folks hereabouts regard the Wolseley neighbourhood as kind of a different place to live.

But when the Toronto-based producers of the new Citytv sketch-comedy show Sunnyside moved in for a few weeks last year, Winnipeg’s earthy granola-belt enclave was transformed into something downright weird.

And that, as it turns out, is a very good thing, because Sunnyside, which premières Thursday, Jan. 8, at 7 p.m. on Citytv, is the most brilliantly inspired and inventive sort of strange. Continue reading.

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Featured, Sunnyside

City celebrates the zany with wild, wacky Sunnyside

A man’s top hat gives him incredible luck. A coffee barista may be Satan himself. Babies duke it out in a mini-ring while adults bet on who will win. A house’s wall leaks blood. Townsfolk seek life advice from a disembodied voice echoing from a manhole. With all of those characters and story angles introduced in the show’s first few minutes, it’s hard to put a finger on just what Sunnyside is. So we asked star Pat Thornton.

“It’s like a sketch show that exists in a sitcom world,” he explains. “It’s all about the characters that live in the neighbourhood. Like The Simpsons, where you get to know everyone and you come back to see them. There’s no narrative that you have to follow. You just drop in and then move on.”

Created by Gary Pearson (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) and Dan Redican (The Kids in the Hall), Sunnyside boasts wild characters placed in even wilder situations. In Thursday’s debut episode, for instance, a young woman breaks off her relationship with a criminal who then goes on a shooting spree. The police arrive, and while in the midst of the firefight one female cop’s mom wanders over to chat. She’s hit by stray bullet, but keeps on talking to her daughter as if nothing has happened. In another, a husband tells his wife he’s taking their infant for a walk. Instead, he drops by a seedy warehouse to engage his daughter in Baby Fight Club. The scenes are so out of left field in their content that your first reaction is shock–how’d they come up with that??–before you break into laughter.

Sunnyside‘s cast is a who’s who from the Canadian comic and sketch world, including Thornton (Too Much Information and the Comedy Bar Comedy Podcast), Kathleen Phillips (Dan for Mayor), Alice Moran (Too Much Information), Kevin Vidal, Rob Norman (The Nut Job), and Patrice Goodman (Cracked), who assume the roles of such characters as Shaytan the devilish barista, Meth Kimmie, Handy Hank, hemp-wearing Ferg, Rookie Kerri the cop, and hot, hot yoga instructor Penny. Norm Macdonald checks in as The Hole, Sunnyside’s version of Google.

Turns out Pearson and Redican both had show pitches in to Rogers. Executives liked aspects of both projects and asked the pair to work together on what became Sunnyside.

“I know there’s a part of Toronto called Sunnyside, but this is a fictional neighbourhood,” Pearson says. “It’s kind of like Parkdale or Roncesvalles. It’s a neighbourhood in transition. There are rich people, yuppies and stuff, and some poor people, people of different sexual orientations and races and they’re all jammed together in this one place. We see their relationships and how they interact with each other, but at the same time there is magic in the neighbourhood and weird things happen.” (See: the bleeding wall.)

If ad time is any indication, City has high hopes for Sunnyside. The network has been splashing promos for the comedy series all over prime time, something Thornton isn’t used to, but welcomes.

“It was a huge vote of confidence,” he admits. “I like the angle that we take with this show. It’s just, ‘Let’s get weird.'”

Sunnyside is certainly that. And undeniably funny.

Sunnyside airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on City.

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Dragons' Den

Dragons’ Den announces auditions for 10th season

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From CBC:

It’s time for aspiring entrepreneurs from across the country to put their pitches to the test, as they fight to be a part of DRAGONS’ DEN’s landmark 10th season!  Next month producers will hit the road, visiting cities from coast to coast in a quest to find Canada’s next great batch of entrepreneurs.  

The audition tour is open to the public and launches in Toronto in the CBC atrium (25 John Street) on Feb. 7.  Complete audition dates and locations are listed below and audition venues will be announced in the coming weeks. Tour dates will continue to be updated on the website at www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/auditions.

The audition tour welcomes participants of all ages, with businesses at any stage of development. Aspiring entrepreneurs should be prepared to pitch their concept to the DRAGONS’ DEN producers in five minutes or less. If they show the producers they have what it takes to pitch in the Den, they could be invited to Toronto to face the Dragons. Prospective pitchers are encouraged to apply online and bring a completed application form to the audition. 

Online auditions begin this month and continue in-person throughout February and March across the country. Producers will be on the lookout for entrepreneurs in the following cities:

  • February 7 – Toronto, ON

  • February 12 – Windsor, ON

  • February 13 – Sarnia, ON

  • February 14 – London, ON

  • February  14 – Montreal, QC

  • February 14– Vancouver, BC

  • February  18– Peterborough, ON

  • February  18– Regina, SK

  • February  18– Surrey, BC

  • February  19– Calgary, AB

  • February  20– Nanaimo, BC

  • February  20– Saskatoon, SK

  • February  20– Edmonton, AB

  • February  21 – Winnipeg, MB

  • February  21 – Victoria, BC

  • February  25 – Burlington, ON

  • February  25 – Collingwood, ON

  • February  27– Kingston, ON

  • February  27– Sudbury, ON

  • February  28 – Barrie, ON

  • February  28 – Ottawa, ON

  • February  28 – Prince George, BC

  • February  28 – Thunder Bay, ON

  • March 4 – Kelowna, BC

  • March  4 – Oshawa, ON

  • March  4 – Saint John, NB

  • March  6 – Abbotsford, BC

  • March  6 – Charlottetown, PEI

  • March  6 – Quebec City, QC

  • March  6 – Waterloo, ON

  • March  7 – Halifax, NS

  • March  7 – Montreal, QC

  • March  7 – Vancouver, BC

  • March  12 – Niagara, ON

  • March  13 – Medicine Hat, AB

  • March  14 – Calgary, AB

  • March  14 – Hamilton, ON

  • March  28 – Toronto, ON

For more information and full details, please visit the website at www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/auditions.

 

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Sunnyside

Link: I prefer my urban satire Sunnyside up

From John Doyle of The Globe & Mail:

The fine new Canadian series Sunnyside (City, 8 p.m.) is just six actors doing daft comedy.

A mash-up of sketch comedy and sitcom, it is set in the sort of neighbourhood that most urbanites in Canada will recognize – the reluctantly gentrified slum, where yummy mommies with their Cadillac strollers pretend they don’t see the sex workers and drug dealers on the street and where ancient dive bars compete with high-end coffee shops. This being a sort-of sketch comedy thing, very strange things happen in the ’hood called Sunnyside. Continue reading.

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Sunnyside

Link: Sunnyside: Bringing Laughs Back To Canadian TV

From Jim Bawden:

Something strange has happened to the state of Canadian TV comedy this season.

The laughs stopped coming.

Think of it –the number of brilliant Canadian sketch TV comedy shows which dominated the medium: Wayne And Shuster, SCTV, Kids In The Hall, The Frantics, RCAF, Ron James.

All expired for different reasons leaving only the venerable This Hour Has 22 Minutes to hold down the fort. Maybe the pendulum is swinging again because a new Canadian sketch comedy series called Sunnyside premieres on City Thursday night at 8. Continue reading.

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