Sunnyside (Canadian TV series)
Sunnyside is a Canadian sketch comedy television series, which premiered January 9, 2015 on City.[1] Created by Dan Redican and Gary Pearson, the series is set in the fictional neighbourhood of Sunnyside and features sketches depicting various eccentric recurring characters living there.[2] The show was cancelled after one season,[3] although City continues to air the episodes in repeats.
| Sunnyside | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sketch comedy |
| Created by | |
| Written by | Gary Pearson, Dan Redican, Kathleen Phillips, Jan Caruana, Alastair Forbes |
| Directed by | Shawn Alex Thomson, Jeff Beesley, Dawn Wilkinson, Steve Wright |
| Starring |
|
| Composer(s) | James Jandrisch |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 (as of November 8, 2015) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Dan Redican, Gary Pearson, Dan Bennett, Shane Corkery, Anton Leo, Phyllis Laing, Mark Gingras |
| Producer(s) | Rhonda Baker, Paula Smith |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Counterfeit Pictures, Buffalo Gal Pictures |
| Release | |
| Original network | City |
| Original release | January 8 – November 8, 2015 |
| External links | |
| CityTV/Sunnyside | |
The cast includes Pat Thornton, Patrice Goodman, Alice Moran, Kevin Vidal, Kathleen Phillips, Rob Norman and Norm Macdonald.[1] The show was made in Winnipeg, Manitoba.[4]
Redican and Pearson had each approached Rogers Communications with individual show ideas; Redican's pitch was Our Street, an ensemble series about the quirky residents of an urban neighbourhood, while Pearson's was Dark Roast, about the quirky customers of a coffee shop.[5] Neither pitch was accepted as presented, but Rogers asked them to combine their ideas into a single show.[5] They agreed and created Sunnyside, patterning their fictional neighbourhood after Toronto's Parkdale.[5]
Macdonald appears on the show only in voice form, as the neighbourhood's surreal alternate reality version of the Internet: a sentient sewer line which can answer search queries shouted into a manhole cover.[4]
Episodes
| Season | Episodes | First aired | Last aired | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13 | January 8, 2015 | November 8, 2015 | |
Season 1 (2015)
| No. in series |
No. in season |
Title | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The Top Hat" | January 8, 2015 |
| 2 | 2 | "Ponies" | January 15, 2015 |
| 3 | 3 | "Baxter" | January 22, 2015 |
| 4 | 4 | "Australia" | January 29, 2015 |
| 5 | 5 | "The Chain Gang" | February 5, 2015 |
| 6 | 6 | "Clowns" | February 12, 2015 |
| 7 | 7 | "War is Hell" | September 27, 2015 |
| 8 | 8 | "Volcano" | October 4, 2015 |
| 9 | 9 | "Hole Day" | October 11, 2015 |
| 10 | 10 | "Bobo" | October 18, 2015 |
| 11 | 11 | "Shaytan's Nemesis" | October 25, 2015 |
| 12 | 12 | "Sunnyside Tours" | November 1, 2015 |
| 13 | 13 | "The Rapture" | November 8, 2015 |
Reception
Television critics reviewed the show favourably, with Brad Oswald of the Winnipeg Free Press calling it "Canada's best sketch-comedy TV effort since Codco and The Kids in the Hall arrived in rapid succession in the late '80s",[2] and John Doyle of The Globe and Mail calling the show "daft but deftly skewering the ripe pickings of contemporary ludicrousness".[4] Doyle also criticized the network for scheduling the show to air directly opposite The Big Bang Theory, stating that the show "deserves a much bigger potential audience than that offered in this suicide-slot."[4]
References
- "Sunnyside a surreal new Canadian sketch-com awash in ponies". canada.com, January 7, 2015.
- "Wolseley-shot sketch show a bright spot on the TV schedule". Winnipeg Free Press, January 8, 2015.
- Doyle, John (20 March 2016). "John Doyle: Canadian TV is a place of squalor and neglect". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- Doyle, John (January 7, 2015). "John Doyle: I prefer my urban satire Sunnyside up". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
- Brioux, Bill (January 3, 2015). "TV vets Dan Redican and Gary Pearson team on Sunnyside". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on March 2, 2015.