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.
Featured, Letterkenny

Letterkenny’s K. Trevor Wilson teases Season 2

It sounds like the type of thing that would happen in a Letterkenny storyline at Modean’s, but K. Trevor Wilson’s experience in a Montreal bathroom is fact. He scored a Jan. 4 booking on Jimmy Kimmel Live! moments after relieving himself.

“I was invited to be the Canadian participant in the Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle tournaments at Just for Laughs and went up against Tony Hinchcliffe and the judges were Seth Rogen and Jimmy Kimmel,” Wilson recalls. “After, I had a very good chat with Jimmy in the men’s room. I was leaving and he was coming in. I found myself locked in a conversation with a man who was peeing. Great chat, but always awkward when one of you has their penis in their hand.” The next day, he was contacted by the show and the ball started rolling on his late-night TV gig.

And while we’ll be tuning in on Jan. 4, it’s what’s happening on Dec. 25 that has us really pumped. That’s when the six Season 2 episodes of Letterkenny drop on CraveTV, spotlighting the hicks, skids and hockey players living in a small town where drinks are consumed, smokes are tossed, fights are brewing and chirping is an art form. In fact, the first two minutes of Episode 1, “A Fuss at the AG Hall,” are spent following Wayne (Jared Keeso) as he spouts insults into the camera while Daryl (Nathan Dales) rates them. (Check out the footage below.) Wilson reprises his role as “Squirrelly” Dan, an overall-wearing hick who has an interesting way of speaking. Adding an “s” to most of Dan’s dialogue was something Wilson came up with on his own, and series creator and co-writer Keeso insisted he keep doing.

“It was in there, in the writing, that Dan was in there with the other hicks,” Wilson says. “I wanted to do something that Jared and Nate weren’t already doing with their characters and something I noticed while touring small towns doing standup was there was always a guy who turned things into a plural and doesn’t quite know all of the pronunciation. Jared came up to me afterwards and said, ‘That’s what I want you to do. Keep messing up the words.'”

Season 2 of Letterkenny witnesses several characters at a crossroads in their lives. Wayne is looking for romance, head skid Stewart (Tyler Johnson) is dating Wayne’s sister, Katy (Michelle Mylett), putting him at odds with fellow skids Devon (Alexander De Jordy) and Roald (Evan Stern). Wilson says Wayne’s journey means the Dan and Daryl dynamic is explored and the pair get into some ridiculous situations. Meanwhile, hockey players Jonesy (Dylan Playfair) and Reilly (Andrew Herr) joined the senior hockey team and find themselves targetted for the sort of abuse they’re used to doling out.

McMurray (Dan Petronijevic) returns in a more expanded role in Season 2, accompanied by his wife, Mrs. McMurray (Melanie Scrofano); the pair go head-to-head with Wayne in Episode 1 over who should be in charge of Letterkenny’s agricultural society.

With Season 3 set to begin production in February, Wilson’s standup career means he’s been on the front line and experienced immediate feedback when he’s been approached by Letterkenny fans after standup gigs.

“Now people are trekking long distances to see the show because they’ve discovered me from Letterkenny,” he says. “I did a show in Ottawa and a family drove in from New Brunswick. They were going to drive in to see the capital and the guy from Letterkenny do standup.”

Season 2 of Letterkenny debuts Sunday, Dec. 25, on CraveTV.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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Hard Rock Medical

Link: Hard Rock Medical returns with North Bay-shot season on TVO

From Ryen Veldhuis of Bay Today:

Link: Hard Rock Medical returns with North Bay-shot season on TVO
“I’ve shot a lot in the winter up north and you always have trailers that break down among other things, and it costs a fortune and the schedule is always late. But Canadore is blessed with a lot of things, rooms, programs, and a lake and a river and huge amounts of forestry behind it. We staged at Canadore and could do pretty much everything from there.” Continue reading.

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Corner Gas

Link: Corner Gas creator lives his cartoon dream

From Lauren La Rose of the Toronto Star:

Link: Corner Gas creator lives his cartoon dream
Before pursuing a successful career in comedy, Corner Gas creator and star Brent Butt had designs on a career in animation.

But after Butt was accepted into the animation program at Ontario’s Sheridan College, he opted instead to forge forward with his dream of standup stardom. Continue reading.

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Corner Gas, Featured

Corner Gas expands its world with animated series

One can’t help but think of the irony that Corner Gas is returning to television on The Comedy Network as an all-new 13-part animated series. That’s because reruns of the live-action sitcom air on CTV on Saturday mornings where traditional cartoons are shown.

“We’ve become the live-action cartoon,” Virginia Thompson says with a laugh. “Only to become a real cartoon.” Thompson, the show’s executive producer, alongside fellow executive producers Brent Butt and David Storey, says the idea for an animated take on the lives of the folks living in small-town Saskatchewan has been in the works for years, but really gained momentum after the success of 2014’s Corner Gas: The Movie.

After six seasons of the live action series on CTV and a final goodbye to fans with the feature film, Thompson figured that was it for the franchise. But the outpouring of support—and demand for more stories from Dog River—caused the three to recall something they’d kicked around as a joke years ago: an animated series.

“Brent, David and I got together and had lunch and said, ‘What do we want to do?'” Thompson recalls. “The animated concept kept popping up. We’re really excited about this because it really does come from Brent’s imagination and brand of comedy. It’s a different angle to Corner Gas.” Butt’s love of comic books—he and a friend started a publishing company and his first comic, Existing Earth, was nominated for a Golden Eagle Award before he left that for a standup career—and skills as an illustrator (he designed Corner Gas’ gas station logo) means that the world can expand beyond the limitations of physical television production.

The upcoming series has been in the works for two years and begins production in Vancouver and Toronto next month. All of the original cast have signed on—Butt as Brent, Gabrielle Miller as Lacey, Eric Peterson as Oscar, Fred Ewanuick as Hank, Lorne Cardinal as Davis, Tara Spencer-Nairn as Karen and Nancy Robertson as Wanda—and casting is underway for the voice of Emma after the untimely death of Janet Wright.

Unlike the live-action series, the animated Corner Gas has fewer constraints. That means the quick-cut fantasy sequences from the original can be expanded and explored more fully and don’t need to be tied to the real world.

“Fans of Corner Gas are going to see a similarity to the series and movie that they love,” Thompson says. “But we can expand the fantasy sequences and get into the characters’ heads and see what’s going on in there.” (Or, perhaps in the case of Hank, what isn’t going on in there.)

“I remember, in the old days, coming out of the writing room and saying, ‘Geez, it would be great if we could do that,’ and in some ways, Brent was restrained by live action,” Thompson says. “He’s not restrained in any way in animation and that’s great. It’s given him more freedom to have fun.”

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