Tag Archives: Featured

Featured, Tallboyz

Tallboyz II Men take on television with Bruce McCulloch in their corner

You couldn’t ask for a better person to mentor a group of sketch comedians than Bruce McCulloch. That’s what’s happened to Toronto’s Tallboyz II Men, who have gone from becoming a troupe to starring in their own television series in just three years.

Tallboyz—debuting Tuesday at 9 p.m. on CBC—stars Tim Blair, Vance Banzo, Franco Nguyen and Guled Abdi, who formed a sketch alliance after meeting in the city’s comedy scene. Collectively, their credits include Outstanding Comedy Short at 2018 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, appearances at JFL42, Comedy Brawl, CBC Radio, NOW Magazine and The Colin Mochrie Improvisation Award. Banzo was enrolled in Humber College‘s Comedy Writing and Performance program when he caught McCullogh’s eye.

“I thought, Wow, this guy’s amazing,’ and I actually brought him in on a writing room I was doing for a couple of days,” series executive producer and director McCulloch recalls. “Then he told me he had a troupe. I saw them and I thought, ‘Wow.’ They were super unformed, but they had what they have on the show, a kind of elegance, warmth and just a natural sense of humour. And I was like, ‘Yeah, we should do a show.'”

That warmth shines through in Episode 1’s first minutes, while the quartet is chased down a Toronto street by transit guards. I wanted to learn more about them and see the characters they’d invented. I was immediately drawn in by their twisty take on boy bands and body shaming, sex-ed classes, and a quiz show hosted by Banzo (that one had me laughing and shaking my head in shame). But as effortless as the writing and performances seem on-screen, it’s been a massive learning curve for Tallboyz II Men to write for television.

“I remember just being a deer in headlights,” Abdi says. “The first couple of weeks I was just nodding and being like, ‘I hope no one notices that I am lost.’ It went from being the four of us writing together at our own pace and being very comfortable with each other to a room where all of a sudden the numbers doubled. We had eight people in the room and people who had 15 plus years of comedy experience.”

McCulloch says that, when the writing room started, the troupe had amassed perhaps a dozen sketches written mostly by improv. Six months later, they had 100. One, about a sleepwalker, is particularly memorable for Abdi because he was injured filming it.

“I was keeping my eyes as close to shut as possible, just enough to see where my feet were,” he says. “I could just see, like, maybe a foot in front of me. The take that made it in is one where it was the eighth time doing it. I really committed and put too much energy into the flip and then landed on my side and being like, ‘Aw, that hurt.’ Then I had to play it off and get up immediately and get out of the scene.

Tallboyz airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Image courtesy of CBC.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

It’s a family affair on CTV Life Channel’s Holmes 911

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Mike Holmes has made a career out of helping others sort through their construction debacles. Now he’s bringing his son and daughter into the mix.

To be fair, Mike Jr. and Sherry have been part of their father’s renovation empire in many of his past series. But this is the first time they’ve joined their father for a program that feels like the one that put him on the map. And on a new network too. Debuting Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV Life Channel (the rebranded Gusto, if you’re wondering), Holmes 911 recalls Holmes on Homes, the show that started it all (and scored me one of my first cover stories when I worked at TV Guide Canada).

“We’re going back to our roots and I think everyone loved Holmes on Homes,” Sherry says over the phone while cradling her active and vocal baby daughter. “I loved watching Holmes on Homes, and it’s nice to go back and give help to people who really need it.”

Sherry, like her brother Mike (listen to my podcast with him), never intended to join in her father’s quest to “Make It Right,” but once she accompanied him on the job site during television production, she changed her mind.

Two men and a woman look at a hole in a wall.“I did not want to do construction at all,” Sherry admits. “But I think, looking back, I was intimidated. I would do it for fun. On weekends, we would do odd jobs and do work with him. For me, it was just a fun, bonding time with my dad.” It wasn’t until 2009 on Holmes in New Orleans—the two-part Gemini-winner where Holmes and Brad Pitt team to rebuild homes in the city’s Ninth Ward—that Sherry decided to join her father full-time.

But back to Holmes 911. In the first of 12 episodes that focus on five houses, we’re introduced to two families. A weathered roof and odd electrical is just the beginning for a firefighter and his family, which includes his 13-year-old son, Jake, who has had brain surgery. The second home, owned by Bob and Barb, is the watery tale of an insurance claim gone hilariously wrong. In both, Mike, his son (Sherry stayed off-site for the first few episodes because of her pregnancy) and his crew uncover work that is head-scratchingly bad, all-out infuriating and, as always, informative.

“The whole reason my dad wanted to do television was to educate homeowners,” Sherry says. “You can’t stop what other people are going to do and if you run across a shoddy contractor, you want to know what to look for.”

Holmes 911 airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV Life Channel.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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Featured, Still Standing

Preview: Five seasons later Still Standing is still going strong

Back when Still Standing debuted, I remarked that Jonny Harris was becoming the next Wayne Rostad. Now, five seasons in, he really has. Like Rostad—who spoke to Canadians from regions of the country from 1987 to 2007—Harris has the wit and charm to win over strangers and get them talking, and a genuine warmth. You can’t help but like him.

Returning Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CBC, Season 5 follows Harris to a little part of the country I’d never heard of: Campobello Island. The New Brunswick community’s only year-round and direct access to the mainland is a bridge to the U.S. This, of course, makes for a unique Canadian/American cultural blend and many challenges.    Including, as Harris points out in the first minute, worrying about having your passport. If the ferries are running, you catch one from mainland New Brunswick to Deer Island and another to Campobello Island. If they aren’t you have to go through Maine.

It’s a unique trait not shared with the rest of the country. And, like the places showcased in Still Standing, makes Campobello Island’s 850 citizens unique. And, like those other communites, this one has fallen on hard times. A decline in fishing has seen the population drop; children are reluctant to stay if the area isn’t prosperous.

But while times are tough on Campobello Island, there’s lots to laugh about. And that, of course, is what Harris helps them do, whether it’s over outlandish border import rules or a wayward brining shed that made international new. Over the course of their visit in each episode, Harris and his writers craft fresh material based on the community and the people in it before entertaining them with a stand-up performance. The result? A funny, folksy look at smalltown Canada.

Future episodes include stops in Schreiber, Ont., and Harrison Hot Springs, B.C.

Still Standing airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Image courtesy of CBC.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: APTN’s First Contact returns to educate and inform

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A year ago, First Contact debuted on APTN. The three-night broadcast event explored Indigenous culture through the eyes of six Canadians. Narrated by George Stroumboulopoulos, First Contact followed those six on a 28-day adventure to Winnipeg, Nunavut, Alberta, Northern Ontario and the coast of B.C. to visit Indigenous communities to challenge their preconceived notions and prejudices.

Now, First Contact returns for a second season. Hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos and broadcast over three nights—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on APTN—it once again seeks to inform and educate Canadians about First Nations people, culture and beliefs, and rid them of some preconceptions along the way. In my preview of Season 1, I wrote about growing up in Brantford, Ont. Located close to the Six Nations of the Grand River, I heard the awful, racist jokes uttered by more than one person in that city. In Season 2, a fellow Brantfordian takes part.

Sixty-two-year-old Larry Harris works in shipping and receiving and enters First Contact believing anything bad that befalls Indigenous Peoples are their own fault. So, does he change his tune over the 28-day experience? Certainly not within the first few minutes. Larry voices the opinion we are still shouldering the guilt for those who took the land away from the First Nations. Participants Brennan Kovic and Laurianne Bencharski say similar things, the latter that anytime a white person speaks about Indigenous Peoples they’re labelled a racist.

A group of people participate in a First Nations dance.Twenty-six-year-old Samantha Whitehead, meanwhile, has a different view. She has never met a member of the First Nations and is genuinely interested in being educated. As for Jackson Way, the 19-year-old from Midland, Ont.—who hopes to teach history one day—believes taking benefits away from Indigenous Peoples will force the community “to work to get certain things.” He wonders if the current system is trying to make up for what happened in the past.

The six head to Kanesatake, QC, and learn the other side of the story of the 1990 Oka Siege—a very different tale from what Larry tells Brennan and Samantha on the bus there—and then in Natuashish, Labrador, time spent with the local Innu Peoples sheds new light on its residents and history.

In Episode 2, the six participants travel to Thunder Bay, where a number of incidents have exposed racist attitudes towards Indigenous Peoples prior to a meeting with residential school survivors in southern Ontario.

In the emotionally charged final episode, the six travel to Saskatchewan. Once there, they meet with people from communities deeply affected by the death and trial of Colten Boushie. At the conclusion of Episode 3, the Indigenous hosts and producers will sit down in an interactive panel, live on Facebook

First Contact airs Tuesday-Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on APTN.

Images courtesy of APTN.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Salvage Kings reveals the treasures among trash found by Priestly Demolition Inc.

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Residents of Toronto will recognize the name Priestly Demolition Inc. The company, which has been around since 1971, specializes in—among many other things—demolition and salvage services to the commercial, industrial, and institutional sectors of the construction industry in Ontario.

I’ve always wondered what goes on the sites marked by Priestly signs. Now, thanks to Salvage Kings, I know.

Debuting Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on History, Salvage Kings—from Media Headquarters, the folks behind Canada’s Smartest Person and Tessa & Scott—gives the award-winning company and its staff a starring role. Priestly Demolition Inc. offers a one-two punch, going in and tearing down anything from a bridge, hospital, mall or industrial complex to an airport or even the CN Tower. But before the demolition can begin, salvaging anything of value happens first. That responsibility falls on Ted Finch, head of salvage, and his four-person team, who are tasked with collecting, sorting and then auctioning and selling items for a profit.

“From the time I was five or six years old, I’ve been interested in old stuff,” Finch says. “I would drag stuff home and refinish it. I’ve been going it my whole life. I’ve been an antique dealer and I’ve known Vic Priestly for 25 years. He just kept telling me to come and work for him.”

In Sunday’s first instalment, Ted and his team, including right-hand man Justin Fortin, descend on Market Village Mall in Markham, Ontario, where they are tasked with unlocking mysterious vault doors, while the demolition team begins its tear down. But while the vault and its mystery may be the big prize, there a lot of little ones collected along the way. Store signs can be sold by the letter, cooling and heating systems cut from ceilings for a profit, or medical equipment rolled away to be snapped up for cash by a feature film set decorator. As with anything in the collectable genre, I’m constantly surprised by what can be given a value … and the folks who are willing to pay for them.

“I like it when people get an appreciation for recycling and history and moving things forward and not just throwing it in the garbage,” Finch says. “There is a lot of waste in this society and it boggles my mind the stuff that people just throw out. It has a lot of life left in it.”

Salvage Kings airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on History.

Image courtesy of Corus Entertainment.

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