Hey, Trump: Eugene Levy wants his punchline back
Schitt’s Creek star not happy U.S. president used the ‘s’ word
PASADENA, CALIF.— Schitt’s Creek, you have been Trumped.
CBC’s fish-out-of-water comedy — nominated Tuesday for 11 Canadian Screen Awards — was the subject of some controversy over a long-running punchline in the series where a rich family loses everything except the town they own of the same name and end up living there.
Broadcasters and print media had a difficult time with the title. And many censored themselves on air. But that was before U.S. President Donald Trump came along and declared that the U.S. was taking in too many immigrants from “sh--hole” nations.
In the wake of Trump’s controversial comment, broadcasters have been drop- ping the s-bomb so often on television that it sometimes seems like a bad Second City parody, as cultural standards on language race to catch up with reality.
As in other areas of scripted television such as Madam Secretary, Veep and House of Cards, the U.S. president has upended the most outrageous of conceits that writers may have dreamed up.
And when Trump appropriates your once-outrageous title, there is no turning back. That doesn’t sit well with Canadian star Eugene Levy, who plays family patriarch Johnny Rose in the show.
“It is really unfortunate for the entire nation this man is holding office in the White House,” Levy tells the Star.
“When we started we couldn’t even say the name of the show in an interview, which is ironic. We were certainly not happy (that) this came out. It brings focus to a word that may affect people when they see the name of our show.”
Its fourth season is now airing on CBC but, it 2015, when Schitt’s Creek debuted on POP TV in the United States, the word was too delicate for listeners of broadcaster NPR.
David Bianculli, the TV critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, got around it this way: “The name of the town is also is the name of this TV series and there’s a reason the town was bought as a joke. It’s a joke I can’t say on the radio, but the second word is creek. The first is spelled S-C-H-I-TT-apostrophe-S and rhymes with spits. From now on, I’ll just call it Creek.”
“When we started we knew there would be buzz around the water cooler because of the name,” Levy says, adding that producers knew the title would ruffle the CBC’s feathers, so they went through phone books to prove Schitt was a legitimate name.
“That’s how we got the CBC to
“(Trump’s comment) brings focus to a word that may affect people when they see the name of our show and then turn the channel thinking, ‘Well, it’s more of that.’ ” EUGENE LEVY
accept the fact that this will be the name of the show, and they couldn’t argue the point and they said ‘Fine.’ But who knows what’s going to happen with Trump and this horrible comment he came out with? I hope it doesn’t have any adverse affect.”
Levy stresses that even though it’s the title of the show, the actual “s” word is never used on the series.
“You will never hear that word on our show. We can use other words, we can drop the f-bomb, but that’s one word we’ve avoided. The Schitt on our show is the Schitt family. And we’re certainly not happy this came out the way it has, because it brings focus to a word that may affect people when they see the name of our show and then turn the channel thinking, ‘Well, it’s more of that.’
“We worked so hard for four years to keep that as a name of the family and the town. And it’s unfortunate that the comment came out in such a major way that even news broadcasters are using the words on camera.”