The young and the Weirdness
The weird part is that they’re so good so young.
Not young young, like their precocious YTV predecessors on You Can’t Do That on Television. More like a college sophomore SCTV.
Here’s the thing: None of the Weird kids, now in their 20s, was even alive when SCTV and YCDTOT first aired here in the early 1980s.
Writer/producer Gary Pearson remembers those shows, and more besides: he’s a veteran of MADTV and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. And he’s the adult who has shepherded this group through three seasons of That’s So Weird, the current one ending Thursday night (6:30 on YTV) with a mostly musical episode.
“People ask what my contribution was and I tell them it was the casting — finding brilliant young people to do the show,” Pearson says,
“I mean, I’m very proud of the writing and all, but these kids really are amazing. They’re funny beyond their years.”
The format is familiar enough: the wraparound premise of a strange, struggling little TV station and the characters who run it, with the same group playing multiple roles in the short sketches that constitute the station’s programming.
“They constantly blow my socks off,” he enthuses of his Canadian Comedy Award-winning ensemble. “They’re all incredibly versatile. You look at that last show, for example, and Kayla (Lorette) is playing seven different parts, and two or three of those are male.
“It goes in both directions — everybody at one point or another has played the opposite sex. James (Hartnett) does an amazing Susan Boyle. And I think the women on our show play males as convincingly as the Kids in the Hall played women.”
That’s So Weird is shot in Halifax, though the cast comes from across the country.
“We did a national search,” Pear- son says. “We looked everywhere: Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, of course, and out east to Halifax and St. John’s.” “The trick for us was to find people with tremendous potential. Because the ones that had already realized that potential were like 29 years old, and the network wanted us to go as young as possible.” Which is not to say the humour is prohibitively youth-skewed. “The idea was if parents were in the room, they could sit down and find it funny, too,” Pearson says. “That being said, we try to keep it in their world. So we’re more likely to send up Justin Bieber than we are Mick Jagger. “They have such access to pop culture through various venues, Youtube and whatever,” he marvels. “Their reference level is re- markable.” If you’re only now catching up to the show, you’re by no means too late. YTV runs reruns, two and three per night, all through the week. And though nothing is confirmed, the end of this season doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the show. “I’m really hoping for a fourth,” Pearson says. “But we don’t know yet.”
GOING, GOING, GONE
There are several American shows that do know whether or not they’ve been picked up for another season. The latest to find out it isn’t is Fox’s Terra Nova, the expensive Steven Spielberg-produced dino drama that had decent enough ratings, despite floundering creatively. It will, however, be shopped to other networks.
Alcatraz is said to be likely to follow, along with the Bones spinoff The Finder. Fringe may win itself another season if it cuts back its budget. And House has already announced its official discharge.
Even with the addition of Kiefer Sutherland’s terrific Touch later this month, this leaves a dinosaur-sized gap in the network’s drama lineup.
Also in danger on other U.S. networks: A Gifted Man; Are You There, Chelsea?; Cougar Town; The Firm; Harry’s Law; I Hate My Teenage Daughter; 90210; Pan Am; Ringer; Rob and Whitney.
The underrated Smash may yet survive to see Marilyn: The Musical’s opening night, its downward slide now edging back up thanks to its increasingly popular lead-in, The Voice. Rob Salem usually writes Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays. Email: rsalem@thestar.ca; Twitter: @robsalem