Almost Heroes and Single White Spenny will debut June 2, 2011 on Showcase, kicking off a Thursday night comedy lineup.  Almost Heroes will air at 9:00 PM ET/PT, followed by Single White Spenny at 9:30 PM ET/PT.  The two shows will be twinned with Curb Your Enthusiasm and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

I am late to this news, as I haven’t seen mention of it at TV, Eh? or other Canadian television sites, but Pure Pwnage has been officially cancelled by Showcase.  Pure Pwnage co-creator/pwnerer Jarett Cale first broke the news with this January 19, 2011 posting.  On January 25, the Showcase Facebook wall confirmed the show’s cancellation.

Reasons given by Cale for the show’s cancellation include “poorer-than-expected ratings, a new direction for [Showcase]…and poorer-than-expected web traffic.”  Pure Pwnage‘s web series is also on hold, perhaps indefinitely.

The most interesting thing about Cale’s post is the announcement of a Pure Pwnage first-TV-season DVD set, due March 2011.  Unfortunately, the set is for Australia, on the ABC DVD label.  It will contain the as-aired shows, as well as supplemental web material.

The Pure Pwnage fans are fairly active in defending the TV show.  There are pro-Pwnage, anti-everything-else ravings on the Showcase Facebook wall, which is to be expected for any cancelled show with a vocal fanbase.  More encouragingly, the fans are actively campaigning for the show to find a new network.

The most logical prospective network for Pure Pwnage is G4 Canada, which hardly produces anything aside from Reviews on the Run and EP Daily.  Pure Pwnage is most likely dead, in both television and webseries forms.  Then again, Kenny vs. Spenny moved from CBC to Showcase.  Paradise Falls managed to drag on until 2008.  Carla Collins still manages to find work.  Hardly anything works the way it should in Canadian television.

Testees, Kenny Hotz and Derek Harvie’s 2008 Showcase/FX sitcom, has earned a two-disc series set in 2011, through Entertainment One Home Video.  The show stars Jeff Kassel and Steve Markle as Ron and Peter, two human guinea pigs testing products for TESTICO.

Kenny Hotz is long-tenured guinea pig Larry, while Joe Pingue carves a niche as obnoxious schemer Nugget.  Kim Schraner appears as bar owner Kate…at least until she’s written off midseason, presumably to make room for more Nugget.

Testees fans might remember this URBMN article, which debunked rumours of a Canada-only second season.  FX Productions and Blueprint Entertainment originally produced the series, and Blueprint has since folded into Entertainment One.  I’d consider Testees‘ cancellation official now.

Both TVShowsonDVD.com and eOne Home Video’s site give the release date as April 26, 2011.  Amazon.ca has it as February 22, 2011.  I assume the amazon.ca date is wrong, but hey, the Testees DVD is out.  That’s more than I can say for Less Than Kind right now.

Yes, it’s another round of Alliance Home Entertainment’s Canadian TV-on-DVD releases.  There’s an increased reliance this year on relatively obscure shows with one-or-two-season runs.  The Adventures of Sinbad, The Outer Limits and other well-known CanCon quota quickies have been burned through, so Alliance has to reach deeper into its barrel.

With that in mind, here are Alliance’s February 2011 releases, plus a March 2011 release that hasn’t been formally announced:

Dead Man’s Gun: Season 1 (February 15, 2011) | Season 2 (March 15, 2011)
La galère: Season 3 (February 8, 2011)
Amazon: Complete Series (February 22, 2011)
The Adventures of the Black Stallion: Season 3 (February 22, 2011)
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven: Complete Series (February 15, 2011)
Total Recall 2070: Complete Series (February 22, 2011)

The packaging for Dead Man’s Gun is encouraging.  Alliance has finally realized how awful the six-disc Digipak it’s been using since 2010 is, and has opted for a multi-disc keepcase.  I hope this is a permanent change.

If you’ve been keeping score, Night Heat and Da Vinci’s Inquest haven’t been touched yet, while Total Recall 2070 and Amazon (a/k/a Peter Benchley’s Amazon) have.  Eventually, Alliance is going to have to get to Night Heat, just so I can end this running joke.  You can’t hide from the 1980s forever.

Fugget About It is the first show greenlit under the auspices of the Teletoon Pilot Project.  As per the press release, Fugget About It will be showrun by Jeff Abugov, writer and/or producer for shows like Two and a Half Men, Grace Under Fire, Roseanne, Caroline in the City and That’s So Raven.  Fugget About It is scheduled to debut for the Fall 2012-13 season.

Fugget About It is focused on teenaged nobody Petey Falcone.  His father Jimmy was once the head of a large crime syndicate, but Jimmy just couldn’t whack his Uncle Cheech.  The Falcones are now in witness protection, living in Regina, Saskatchewan as the MacDougalls.

I still don’t understand this choice, even after a few hours.  I get that 9 Story Entertainment has a prior relationship with Corus Entertainment, having made the upcoming Almost Naked Animals for YTV.  Teletoon aired another 9 Story property, Best Ed, in 2008.  Does anyone remember Best Ed?  Exactly my point.

Seriously, Teletoon, is this the best you can do?  I thought Angora Napkin, Dunce Bucket, Ninjamaica, Nerdland and Space Knights Go! would be greenlit before Fugget About It.  The show’s premise – Mafiosi in small-city Canada – isn’t unworkable, but I don’t understand what Teletoon sees in it.

I think this is a bad decision by Teletoon.  If Teletoon had greenlit Angora Napkin or Ninjamaica first, I would have been fine with the Teletoon Pilot Project, but Fugget About It?  I already have.

The Movie Network and Movie Central will debut Skins, the North American version of the E4 teen series, on January 17, 2011.  Skins will air at 9:00 PM PT on Movie Central, while The Movie Network will screen the series at 10:00 PM ET.

Stars of the show are James Newman (Tony), Eleanor Zichy (Eura), Rachel Thevenard (Michelle), Britne Oldford (Cadie), Jesse Carere (Chris), Daniel Flaherty (Stanley), Sofia Black-D’Elia (Tea), Ron Mustafaa (Abbud) and Camille Cresencia-Mills (Daisy.)  Skins co-creator Brian Elsley showruns the format portover, while Call Me Fitz‘s Scott Smith and Testees‘ Samir Rehem direct.

I realize the first two pieces are from last week, but news has been slow lately.  CTV announced two pilots and a series order on Thursday, December 9.  The two hour-long CTV pilots are Saving Hope, a medical drama set in Toronto, and Stay with Me, about a lawyer/stay-at-home mother.  Ilana Frank’s Thump Inc. is behind Saving Hope, while Sarrazin Couture Entertainment is behind Stay with Me.

In addition, CTV and MuchMusic have ordered six one-hour episodes of Epitome Pictures’ Highland Gardens, a show about young Canadians trying to make it in Hollywood.  Epitome Pictures is best known for Degrassi: the Next Generation/Degrassi and Instant Star.  The showrunner is Martin Gero, a man best known for Stargate Atlantis, Young People Fucking and HBO’s Bored to Death.

I can safely say I am not interested in the two CTV pilots.  As someone commented at TV, Eh?, they read like St. Elsewhere and The Good Wife.

Highland Gardens sounds similarly generic, but Gero could make something out of the premise.  Likewise, Malcolm MacRury’s attached to Saving Hope, which probably means Cra$h & Burn is dead in the water.

I’m not going to complain about the three new projects, given that they won’t make air until at least the 2011-12 season, but CTV isn’t much for originality.  At least CTV’s not ripping off $#*! My Dad Says yet.

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CityTV’s midseason slate includes the second season of My RONA Home (Sunday, April 3, 2011: 9:00 PM ET) and the fourth season of Murdoch Mysteries (Wednesday, March 16, 2011: 10:00 PM ET.)  Airdates and times are, of course, subject to change.

CityTV’s midseason is stuffed full of American shows and Law & Order: UK.  I don’t want to dog CityTV, but when did it become the most conservative networklet in Canadian television?  Most of the prime-time schedule consists of NBC and ABC shows not nailed down by Shaw Media or CTV.  Murdoch Mysteries is being rerun in two different timeslots.

I’m not going to blame Rogers entirely for the channel rot, as CityTV has been on a slow, steady decline since the tail end of the CHUM Television era.  At the same time…My RONA Home and Out There with Melissa DiMarco reruns?!  I honestly can’t believe we’ve come to this point.

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CTV will debut one show in the beginning of January.  The Marilyn Denis Show‘s first episode will air Monday, January 10, 2011, at 10:00 AM ET/PT.  In addition, The Listener‘s second season will premiere Friday, January 28, 2011, at 8:00 PM ET/PT.

Flashpoint has a “mid-season premiere,” which is a fancy way of saying holiday specials are over for another year.  The show returns Tuesday, January 4, 2011, at 10:00 PM ET/PT.

Not to be outdone in the CanCon department, Global has…given a second window to Haven.  The first-season premiere airs Friday, January 21, 2011, at 9:00 PM ET/PT.  Yes.  One show, and it’s imported from Showcase.

Seriously, news like this makes me wonder why the hell I do URBMN.  I understand the limitations of Canadian television, but Canadian content laws need to be tightened up when networks like Global and CityTV whittle the CanCon stick down to a shiv.  This country is just now inching to the point where our shows are becoming Americanized.

Meanwhile, Shaw Media is continuing the Canwest practice of slapping a show across five or six channels.  It boggles the mind.  Oh, well.  Enjoy Bob’s Burgers and Winter Wipeout.

I can’t say much about CityTV’s Mark Dailey (1953-2010) that hasn’t already been said: transplanted American, crime reporter, news anchor, voiceover actor, Toronto television mainstay, sometime truck driver.  Dailey died December 6, 2010 of cancer at the age of 57.

Perhaps Dailey’s greatest achievement was as CityTV’s longtime announcer.  Few announcers are as synonymous with Canadian channels as Dailey was with CityTV.  Dailey regularly took the piss out of the shows and films CityTV would screen at any given time.  ”CityTV…everywhere” is one of Canadian television’s great catchphrases.

The best way to eulogize Dailey is with a few clips, featuring him in his element.  I don’t even care that this is a Toronto-centric story.  Dailey was to CityTV what, say, Bob Boving was to CBC Television from 1985-2002.  You might not have known his name, but you knew his voice – the difference, of course, being that Bob Boving wouldn’t have panned Happy Gilmore or The Raccoons on-air.  CityTV didn’t care much for reverence back in the bad ol’ days.