A lament for the bad old days of Canadian TV
Today’s dollars and cents climate could never support our hilariously awful shows
All I hear about these days is the Golden Age of Television.
Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad — shows that set a new standard for quality on the small screen the same way auteuristic films by Coppola and Scorsese did on the big one four decades ago.
But there’s another golden age, long lamented, fondly remembered, sporadically revisited, that also deserves attention: the Golden Age of Bad Canadian Television.
When I was a kid it was everywhere: The Trouble With Tracy, Party Game, Elwood Glover’s Luncheon Date, The René Simard Show, Rocket Robin Hood, Check It Out! A cornucopia of Canadian crap. Even so-called “classics” like The Beachcombers and King of Kensington — about a sardonic log scavenger on the B.C. coast and a loudmouth schmoozer in an ethnic Toronto corridor — seemed plodding, simpleminded and tedious by zip-a-dee-doo-dah American standards.
“I’ll tell ya one thing,” Bruno Gerussi groused in a typically uninvolving Beachcombers grump session. “I want a word with Relic when he shows up!”
But suddenly, beginning in the ’90s, these hilariously parochial, defiantly unhip shows — call it the Canadiana Effect — improved enough to create a roster of semiclassics: The Newsroom, Kids in the Hall, Traders, Degrassi, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Being Erica, Slings & Arrows.
Few would place these in the same rarefied strata as the novelistic masterpieces leading the small screen revolution across the border.
But by exceeding a minimum level of competence — and not sucking — they broke the mould that defined Canuck product for the first three decades of its existence and set a new benchmark for quality.
Which is pretty damn disappointing.
Come on, if you’re from the generation that grew up in the early days of Cancon, you likely have fond memories of Diane Nyland’s blundering housewife on Tracy trilling “Just fine, thanks!” as an unfunny, nonsequitur response to every question.
You likely cringe with horror (and affection) at the thought of Don Ad- ams’ warmed over Get Smart shtick on the supermarket sitcom Check It Out!
TV stinkage was our trademark, a badge of honour in a market saturated with superior American product.
If we couldn’t compete on a world class level, we could take pleasure, as perennial underdogs, in laughing at our own incompetence.
But then people got ambitious and wrecked everything. Don Messer’s Jubilee? Gone. The Littlest Hobo? Gone. Danger Bay? Gone. How did this happen? The rise of the Internet, which expanded everyone’s horizons and punctured the tragically unhip Canadian bubble.
A more porous cross-border exchange of Canadian TV product. “May we use your crappy generic crime thriller to plug late night holes in our summer schedule?’’
A renewed obsession with American acceptance.
“Hooray. They picked up our crappy generic crime thriller to plug late night holes in their summer schedule!’’
The end result: shows like the generically titled Private Eyes (9 p.m. Thursdays on Global), starring the guy who played Brandon Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210 (Canada’s Jason Priestley) as a quip-spewing hockey jock who teams up with a gruff su- permodel investigator (Cindy Sampson) to crack a big case every week.
It’s the TV equivalent of Loverboy and Glass Tiger in the ’80s: Canadian rock acts that aped the style and mannerisms of American headliners like Foreigner and REO Speedwagon without any semblance of cultural identity. “Breaking into hotel rooms! Looking through hockey bags for illegal steroids! We could be arrested at any moment!” notes the high fashion PI to the former Brandon Walsh. Ironic pause: “I love it!” There’s nothing actually wrong with this show: it’s charming in spots, humourous in others; the chemistry may not sizzle, but it percolates; and I always find Priestley’s wholesome, boy-next-door shtick soothingly pleasant. Like hearing Michael Bublé in a dentist’s office.
But there’s nothing distinctive — Canadian or otherwise — about it.
“This isn’t The Sopranos,” co-creator Shelley Eriksen conceded to Global News. “We’re making a fun private detective show. I loved Moonlighting and I love Castle. The fun aspect is paramount.’’ I respect her honesty. But as one of many Canadian viewers tired of a culture that’s slavishly solicitous to its U.S. masters, I want to stand up and shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.” It does happen, periodically. Teen series Degrassi has been celebrated around the world for its unflinching, distinctly Canadian view of adolescence.
Mock doc Trailer Park Boys, with its depraved celebration of low-life drug dealers, has inspired the same worldwide cult that embraced prog-rock legends Rush.
Orphan Black, a clone thriller, has been acknowledged as a cutting edge masterpiece.
But what happened to shows that just plain stink?
Critics were giddy at the prospect of trashing Schitt’s Creek, a comic fable about bankrupt bluebloods, given its CBC origins and coy, asking-for-it name.
But the damn thing got unexpectedly decent reviews: 62 per cent on Metacritic placed it squarely in the “do not trash” safety zone.
I figured Corner Gas— with its rural setting and Green Acres humour (minus porcine Arnold Ziffel) — was a sure bet for corn-pone infamy, but the critics raved, it became a massive hit and stayed on the air for 67 years, or at least six.
Little Mosque on the Prairie was closer to the old “so bad it’s good” paradigm with its pokey, vaudevillian humour, earnest misunderstandings and clunky execution.
But it gained a political headwind at a time when Muslims were heavily demonized and, despite the fact it was gratingly unfunny, was hailed as a welcome slice of tolerance and understanding.
And then there was Flashpoint, a brash re-creation of a U.S. styled hit with a B-level American star (Amy Jo Johnson) and a cast of Canadians.
It was lame, but not that lame; tedious, but with flashes of adrenalin; generic, but likeably so. The classic Canadian wannabe.
“It comes down to dollars and cents,” Orphan Black producer David Fortier told McGill News.
“More people watch crime procedurals than niche cable programming, notwithstanding the fact that niche cable programming might be fantastic storytelling.
“And the people paying for that programming always have an eye to making money.’’
It’s a pointed summation and the reason hilariously awful shows like The Trouble With Tracy could never exist today.
Without our hokey outback charm as a buffer — the global marketplace killed that — we’re just one more American satellite angling for affirmation. Corey Hart trying to be Sting.
Do we deserve better? You bet. And a heck of a lot worse. Joel Rubinoff writes for the Waterloo Region Record. Email him at jrubinoff@therecord.com