I Spent More Time with the Beachcombers As a Kid Than

WesTern TV, eh? the best of the West By diane Wild hoosing the best TV show to of convoluted conspiracy, but the And then there’s the right choice: radio station using a tape recorder come out of Western Cana- mostly-monster-of-the-week sea- SCTV. I can hear you now – does and our best attempt to capture Cda in the last 30 years is al- sons remain a favourite today. Ex- that really qualify as a Western Ca- some of the SCTV spirit. Those most as hard as figuring out wheth- cept Home. I don’t need those kind nadian show, when most seasons tapes didn’t survive for long, but I er Nick or Relic was my favourite of nightmares again. were produced in Ontario? As a don’t think the SCTV writers would beachcomber. I loved them for such APTN’s Blackstone would be my born and bred Edmontonian, where have been quaking in their boots at different and opposing reasons. socially conscious choice. It’s The you can take an SCTV shooting loca- the competition. And that is the obvious nostal- Wire of Canada, equally relegated to tion walking tour, I can definitively It made household names out gia winner if I’m going to make a a cult audience – which in Canada say yes. Just as Gretzky will always of people who are still household choice. I spent more time with The means a cult of a cult audience -- be ours, so too will SCTV. Argue with names 30 years later. Eugene Levy Beachcombers as a kid than I did with and equally willing to delve into me and I’ll send Dave Semenko af- and Catherine O’Hara are still most of my extended family. Though complex socio-political issues sur- ter you. enough of a draw that CBC’s Schitt’s it was not the Canada I knew as a rounding a community. It’s not as The series helped define Canada’s Creek premiered to 1.4 million view- land-locked Edmontonian, I recog- ponderous as that sentence made it sketch comedy identity in ways that ers – a reflection of their star power nized how unusual it was to see my sound, but it’s not light viewing ei- are obvious even today. Kids in the that the series itself couldn’t hold own country represented onscreen on to. in something other than a Hinter- Andrea Martin came back to host land Who’s Who segment. The Beach- I spent more time with the Canadian Screen Awards broad- combers aired for about 567 years, cast ceremony, forever Canadian to give or take, but I haven’t seen it in Canadians, though she’s actually decades, meaning it might not hold The Beachcombers as a kid American by birth and citizenship. up as truly the best choice. Martin Short, John Candy, Dave There’s the “everyone else loved than I did with most of Thomas, Rick Moranis, Harold Ra- it” choice in Corner Gas. Hugely mis, Joe Flaherty – whether they popular, hugely influential, it just my extended family. were born here or not, this cast will wasn’t my cup of joe. Canadian net- always be our people. works are still trying to replicate its And so many of the cast of this success. A movie was enthusiasti- ther and I find myself needing to be Hall, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Rick low-budget Canadian show became cally crowdfunded and attracted a in the right frame of mind to settle Mercer, even this season’s Sunnyside prominent figures in US entertain- huge audience. The show is worthy in with a season. So picking it as the – does anyone working in sketch ment – always a favoured trajectory to be someone’s choice for best of best of the lot would also be the pre- comedy not owe a debt to the she- for us approval-seeking Canucks. So the west – just not mine. Call me a tentious, hypocritical choice. nanigans of the SCTV gang? How when naming a best show of Western jackass if you will, Oscar. A modern family-friendly choice can I, someone who runs a website Canada – a fool’s errand – what bet- My “think outside CanCon” would be the long-running Sunday on Canadian content called “TV, ter than a show that unites east and choice would be The X-Files, The stalwart Heartland, but while it re- eh?” not owe a debt to a series that west, north and south, and irrever- Vancouver Years. I ignored the first minds me of my younger days of gave us Bob and Doug and “eh?” and ently tells us all to take off, eh? n couple of seasons thinking it was a obsessing over Anne of Green Gables the ultimate mockery of Canadian reality show (seriously), then binge- and slightly less young days of look- content. Diane Wild is the Vancouver-based watched it before binge-watching ing in on Road to Avonlea for the Lucy It helped define a sense of hu- founder of the TV, eh? website (www. was cool - and had the nightmares Maud Montgomery completism, I’m mour for at least a generation. My tv-eh.com), covering news, reviews and to show for it. I bailed when the lat- not family-friendly enough as an brother and I – not having a video interviews about Canadian television er seasons disintegrated into a pile adult to really enjoy it. recorder – would create our own shows. Reel West Spring 2015 | 30th Anniversary issue 29.

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