Two pillars of Canadian comedy, Corner Gas and Royal Canadian Air Farce, have just launched their last-ever seasons. The former show is this country’s most popular home-grown
sitcom, the latter its longest-running sketch-comedy show.
So is this end of CanCom? Hells no. While I honestly respect its low-key, slightly skewed approach, Corner Gas is as dull to watch as I imagine it would be to reside in Dog River, Saskatchewan (even the press materials admit “in season 6, there’s still not a lot going on 40 miles from nowhere”). And in a country that produced The Kids in the Hall and Rick Mercer, Air Farce can’t help but pale with its staid impressions and broad topical gags.
Besides, two new comedies — Testees and Less Than Kind — are already chomping at the bit to claim those shows’ dusty crowns:
Oh My God! They Gave Kenny a Sitcom!
Created by Kenny Vs Spenny evil genius Kenny Hotz — and co-produced by Showcase and controversy-courting US cable net FX — Testees boasts no regional touchstone like Little Mosque on the Prairie or Trailer Park Boys, just a knowing outrageousness. Gross-out jokes are the series’ raison d’etre — though most people wouldn’t use French to describe a sitcom that presents the concept of “post-fartum depression.”)
Testees is about aimless thirtysomethings who work as test subjects for a company called Testico (sample product: penis enlargement spray). The show reeks of Hotz’s sophomoric humour, yet he’s cast himself as a third banana and the first episode is shouldered by schlubby roommates Ron and Peter (Jeff Kassel and Steve Markle).
While there’s potential in the premise — Hotz’s inspiration is Woody Allen’s Bananas — it all depends on whether one can enjoy gags about pregnant men attempting coat-hanger abortions and complaining about robot ass-rape. You get the drift.
I (Don’t) Hate Winnipeg
Less Than Kind is the polar opposite of Testees, despite the occasional bare ass, wildly offensive profanity or dildo sight gag — and the fact that, like Hotz’s sitcom, it’s not another funding-friendly CanCom, despite its ’Peg setting and the presence of vet Maury Chaykin.
Less Than Kind is about a perpetual-winter Winnipeg as seen from the perspective of fat-but-
brilliant 15-year-old Sheldon Blecher (the impressive-beyond-his-years Jesse Camacho), who balances self-loathing with a pride in his own intelligence. His well-meaning fuck-up father Sam (Chaykin) is an angry driving instructor, mom’s a pyro, his aunt’s a cougar and his failed-actor brother Josh (a hilarious turn by The L Word’s Benjamin Arthur) has moved back home and into Sheldon’s room.
The show’s melancholic humour and near-perfect casting for its array of sweet-natured outsiders comes from creator Marvin Kaye, who expanded the semi-autobiographical series from his one-act play, and exec producer Mark McKinney (The Kids in the Hall, Slings & Arrows). The Weakerthans supply a perfect theme song.
There are a few sitcom-y moments early on, but the show quickly nails its tone, working in edgy darkness and geek humour — D&D references, LARPing, Halo 3 — without getting self-consciously showy about. It’s also confident enough in its own comedy that a joke about Sam passing off pork loins as halal can be a quick, little aside without heading off down the egregiously hammy path of Little Mosque.
Neither Testees nor Less Than Kind may match Corner Gas and Air Farce for popularity or longevity but, clearly, reports of CanCom’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
LESS THAN KIND AIRS MONDAYS, 10:30PM ON CITYTV; TESTEES AIRS TUESDAYS,
9PM ON SHOWCASE; ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FARCE AIRS FRIDAYS, 8PM ON CBC;
CORNER GAS AIRS MONDAYS, 9:30PM ON CTV.