Tag Archives: Comedy Network

Corner Gas, Corner Gas Animated, Corner Gas: Animated

The Comedy Network’s #1 Original Series, Corner Gas Animated, Returns Canada Day

From a media release:

As Brent Leroy announced today on CTV’s YOUR MORNING, Season 2 of CORNER GAS ANIMATED arrives on The Comedy Network this Canada Day, with a special guest star appearance from Michael J. Fox. The most-watched original series of all time on Comedy, CORNER GAS ANIMATED returns for Season 2 on Monday, July 1 with two back-to-back episodes beginning at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The new 11-episode, half-hour season sees Brent (Brent Butt), Hank (Fred Ewanuick), and Emma (Corrine Koslo) compete to make viral videos; Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) and Davis (Lorne Cardinal) trying to scam the town at the annual Turkey Shoot; Wanda (Nancy Robertson) going power mad during Darts Night; Oscar (Eric Peterson) launching an eyebrow-raising website for the local paper; and Lacey (Gabrielle Miller) organizing a Bachelor auction and attracting high bids for Brent.

In the season premiere, “Dream Waiver,” (Monday, July 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT) Brent recruits Wanda to help him figure out recurring nightmares about being attacked by Michael J. Fox. Then, in an all-new episode at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT entitled “Drone and Dumber,” Brent gets a new drone that he uses to terrorize Oscar. Meanwhile, Wanda and Emma set out to test a turkey’s intelligence.

As previously announced, Season 2 of CORNER GAS ANIMATED features an all-star lineup of cameos from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Chris Hadfield, Russell Peters, Jann Arden, and EPIC MEALTIME’s Harley Morenstein.

Leading up to the two-episode premiere, viewers can spend their Canada Day in Dog River as Comedy delivers a catch-up marathon featuring every episode of Season 1, beginning at 8 a.m. ET and repeating at 1:30 p.m. ET on Monday, July 1.

The first season of CORNER GAS ANIMATED became a ratings hit after debuting in Spring 2018 with the most-watched series premiere in Comedy’s history and concluding the season as the most-watched series of the broadcast year on Comedy among total viewers and all key demos (A18-34, A18-49, and A25-54). CORNER GAS ANIMATED won the 2019 Canadian Screen Award for Best Writing, Animation for the episode “Squatch Your Language,” written by series creator and star Brent Butt.

For updates on all things CORNER GAS, including CORNER GAS ANIMATED merchandise as well as Limited Collectors’ Editions, events, and news, visit cornergas.com.

CORNER GAS ANIMATED is an inter-provincial co-production produced by Prairie Pantoons (BC), comprised of Brent Butt and David Storey from 335 Productions; and Moving Mountoons (ON), comprised of Virginia Thompson and Robert de Lint from Vérité Films, in association with Bell Media, Canada Media Fund, Bell Fund, Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit, Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects Tax Credit, Film Incentive BC Tax Credit, Digital Animation, Visual Effects and Post Production Tax Credit, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. Animation is produced by Prairie Pantoons, Moving Mountoons, and Smiley Guy Studios.

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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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Dramas and Comedies

Link: ‘Beaverton’ producers: Good Trump jokes are hard to write

From Bill Brioux of the Associated Press:

Link: ‘Beaverton’ producers: Good Trump jokes are hard to write
The new Canadian comedy series “The Beaverton” had two episodes ready to air for its premiere on Wednesday, one night after the U.S. presidential election.

One five-minute opening segment was prepared in case Hillary Clinton won and another was prepped in case—as the warm-up comedian expressed it—”it’s the apocalypse.”

Donald Trump’s surprise victory meant the audience for The Comedy Network’s new satire missed seeing a routine that described Clinton as “America’s first openly-female president.” Continue reading.

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Dramas and Comedies

Link: How political satire series The Beaverton cracks the pillars of the smirking self-satisfied Canadian

From David Berry of the National Post:

Link: How political satire series The Beaverton cracks the pillars of the smirking self-satisfied Canadian
How much laughter this actually produces is of course up to the individual viewer, but at the least, The Beaverton seems patently uninterested in sneaking in self-justifications for existing, and at its best it has successfully diagnosed the smugness and laziness that makes up that older Canadian character, that idea that we gotta be okay because we’re all Canadians. Continue reading.

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Dramas and Comedies

Link: Beaverton provides much needed laughs

From Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star:

Link: Beaverton provides much-needed laughs
The Beaverton announces Canada’s latest Heritage Minute, a Kitchener food research scientist eating his lunch at work. He has chips. He has ketchup. “The Invention of the Ketchup Chip, a part of our heritage since 1974. Making Heritage Minutes about our mundane history, a part of our heritage since 1991.” And so on.

What I have been hungry for is news about Canada, drama about Canada and comedy about Canada. Canadian TV has not been obliging me until now, so thank you, Comedy Network. Continue reading. 

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