10 reasons why Canadian TV viewers filled up with 'Corner Gas http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5ixQzPZp4oOVZ_4Ewd4X1TgL0OCUQ
When "Corner Gas" began six seasons ago, Saskatchewan was an overlooked, have-not province. Today it is booming, one of the fastest-growing regions in Canada. Coincidence? Well, yeah, probably. But if "Corner Gas," which is based in fictional Dog River, Sask., and shot in tiny Rouleau, between Moose Jaw and Weyburn, didn't make the locals rich, it went a long way toward making them cool. How did this quiet little comedy become Canada's most successful sitcom ever? As we head into Monday's series finale, here are 10 reasons why we filled up with "Gas": 1. Great characters. Creator, writer and star Brent Butt took a simple idea - what would his life have been like if he'd never made it as a standup comedian? - and spun a series out of his own humble Prairie gas jockey beginnings. Populating it with a quirky, sardonic retail assistant, an attractive-but-insecure outsider from the big city, a slacker best friend, two wacky, bickering parents and a couple of clueless but lovable cops gave every viewer somebody to relate to and laugh at. 2. Great casting. Butt had a few other actors in mind - the late Billy Van, for example, at one point was considered for the role of Brent's crabby dad Oscar - but wound up with a dream cast. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Butt (Brent Leroy), Nancy Robertson (Wanda), Gabrielle Miller (Lacey), Fred Ewanuick (Hank), Eric Peterson (Oscar), Janet Wright (Emma), Lorne Cardinal (Davis) and Tara Spencer-Nairn (Karen) playing these roles. 3. Creative freedom. Great sitcoms spring from the mind of a creator and somehow reach an audience with a minimum of network interference. Usually that's because a broadcaster has little faith in the project. Matt Groening's "The Simpsons" was just doodles between sketches on "The Tracey Ullman Show" when it snuck on the air. It never got buried under an avalanche of network notes, and neither did "Corner Gas." At first, CTV probably saw it as something that could goose its Comedy Network lineup. They threw it into any available hole on their CTV schedule, and the show instantly pulled 1.5 million viewers a week. Over its six seasons, it outdrew all other sitcoms in Canada - Canadian or American. 4. Simple storytelling. Butt says his favourite storylines are the simple ones, what he calls the "Where's my pencil?" approach. As with great sitcoms of the past, such as "I Love Lucy," "The Andy Griffith Show," "Newhart" or even "Seinfeld" (four shows that fuelled "Gas"), you never needed to pause this show and rewind it to "get" an episode. Writers Butt, Mark Farrell, Paul Mather, Kevin White and Andrew Carr rarely strayed from that keep-it-simple formula. 5. Excellent theme song. In an era when TV themes seem to be a lost art, the rockin' opener to "Corner Gas" - "Not a Lot Goin' On," by Craig Northey and Jesse Valenzuela - perfectly captures the "look closer" essence of what the show is all about. Little details like the cast names being spelled out in flipping gas station letters are also a nice touch. 6. Great catchphrase. Oscar Leroy's all-purpose "Jackass!" has become as catchy and iconic as Fonzie's "Aaaay!" Homer Simpson's "D'oh!" Fred Flintstone's "Yabba-dabba-do!" or any other TV catchphrase with an exclamation point. 7. Cool guest stars. Two sitting prime ministers - Paul Martin and Stephen Harper - found face time on the series. OK, they're not so cool, but so did Kiefer Sutherland and his mom, Shirley Douglas, in one of the series' funniest star turns. (His "Dammit mother, I told you to knock before you came in!" was a classic.) Other cameos included Jann Arden, Colin Mochrie, Mike Holmes, Darryl Sittler, Lloyd Robertson, Colin James, Duane (Dog) Chapman and every CTV personality, past or present. 8. The "ABT" factor. As in Anywhere But Toronto. Dog River is as far removed from Ontario's hated (by the rest of the country) capital as you can get, a vantage point milked to good effect on the series. 9. Timing. It is the secret of comedy, and "Corner Gas" had its own unique rhythm. On the surface, the series seemed as laid-back as Mayberry on a lazy afternoon, but it ran at a "Seinfeld" pace, with few scenes lasting longer than the 60-second cold opener. If you didn't like what was happening in the main storyline, you never had to wait long for the "B" or "C" story to kick back in. 10. Winner by default. "The Trouble With Tracy." "Check It Out." "Hangin' In." "Learning the Ropes." "Mosquito Lake." "Not My Department." "Snow Job." "Sophie." The list of previous Canadian sitcoms would make a grown man weep. Aside from "The King of Kensington" and, arguably, "Little Mosque on the Prairie," "Corner Gas" pretty much had the field to itself as Canada's best-ever sitcom. Still, a win is a win, right Jackass? Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist in Brampton, Ont. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
