Series ‘Letterkenny’ returns with tales of small-town Canadian life
Now in its 10th season, “Letterkenny” still hasn’t found a character it can’t make fun of.
The cult favorite comedy, which recently returned on Hulu, thrived first as a YouTube series, then on video-streaming platform Crackle, as a quick-witted, quickertongued slice-of-life story of a tiny Canadian town of 5,000 people where everyone knows everything.
“It’s unapologetically itself,” said K. Trevor Wilson, the 40-year-old stand-up comedian who plays Squirrely Dan.
“It’s not trying to be any other show. It doesn’t bend or flow with the trends.
It is what it is what it is,” Wilson said.
The show is a peek at people getting by: the hicks (farmers), the hockey players, the skids (drug addicts) and the natives from the reservation up the road. At the center is Wayne (creator Jared Keeso), his sister Katy (Michelle Mylett) and two best friends, Squirrely Dan (Wilson) and Dary (Nathan Dales). For large chunks of episodes, they sit outside at their fruit stand, on wooden crates and a beach lounge chair, just talking.
“It’s small town life,” said Mylett, 32.
“People roast each other. They can’t take themselves too seriously because if they do, they’ll get roasted even more. But at the same time, there’s this unwritten code of ethics in this small community: You don’t kick someone when they’re down.”
Usually the villains come from outside Letterkenny — such as their French-speaking doppelgangers from Quebec, who ruin a fishing trip, or Katy’s slimy ex-boyfriend.
Residents of Letterkenny — which is based on Keeso’s hometown of Listowel, Ontario — have a sense of loyalty, even when they drive each other bonkers.
“Letterkenny” is good-spirited. Even the cruelest jokes are well-meaning, aimed only at subjects who can not only take it but also give it back just as good.
Each season, Mylett joked, Keeso and co-creator Jacob Tierney try to one-up the last with faster jokes, wordier tongue twisters and more obscure references to the backwoods of Canada.
Some of the most confusing language of all comes from hot — but not that smart — hockey players Reilly (Dylan Playfair) and Jonesy (Andrew Herr). More often than not, they forget which one’s which and which girl they’re supposed to be wooing, and it takes a lot of rehearsal, Herr said of their ridiculous, rapid-fire slang back and forth.
Wilson has given up on memorizing his lines, due to Keeso’s tendency to change up or even throw out his own scripts just before filming. Now, he laughed, he just learns “the gist” of the scene and waits for the final version of his speeches.
Above all, “Letterkenny” just tells simple stories about the simple residents of a simple town.
“You roast the ones that you love. … That’s part of the joy of it, and that’s something you have to do in comedy: You have to take yourself down a few pegs before you take anything else down,” Wilson said.