This is the first of what I hope will be a few reviews concerning the Teletoon Pilot Project.  The Pilot Project, which has currently aired three of its nine pilots, airs every Sunday at 11:30 PM on…well, you can just guess.

Since URBMN is pilot-friendly, I’m attracted to the Teletoon Pilot Project.  I’ve skipped Fugget About It for now, as the review for it was originally bundled with unpublished reviews for The Dating Guy and Archer.  Also, Fugget About It‘s title describes the show perfectly.  I might not get to Fugget About It for a while.

Ed the Sock’s This Movie Sucks! (CHCH/CHEK/CJNT: second season premiered Saturday, September 25, 2010, midnight ET/PT) is one of those “if they find it, they find it” shows common to Canadian television.  Viewers and fans have most likely found new information about TMS! from this CHCH press release and, well, me.  Ed the Sock’s website is still “under construction,” while CHCH’s website is occupied with news and the odd full episode of Sportsline.

That’s a shame, since the second-season premiere of This Movie Sucks! is the best of the series.  There are still production problems – Ed the Sock points out that TMS!’ set is disintegrating in the season premiere.  The TMS! set looks slapped-together to begin with, so curtains don’t make a difference.

This Movie Sucks! has by now become a triad of Liana K, Ed the Sock and Ron Sparks.  Andrew Young’s on-screen role has been diminished by now, and he doesn’t even appear on TMS!‘ second-season premiere.  ”Naked Dave” Ross, so named since he shows his bare torso off in many different costumes, does.

By now, This Movie Sucks! is comfortable in its riffing.  TMS! does an excellent takedown of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.  Fart jokes still exist on this show, but TMS! by and large points out plot holes in Jesse James… Quick Draw McGraw can see.

Naked Dave even dresses up as Jesse James…‘s featured monster.  The monster has a bare torso, so that’s his excuse.

Longtime sweetposer.com readers might remember my review of The Master six years ago.  TMS!‘ print of The Master looks exactly like Platinum Disc Corporation’s.  I’m not saying TMS! cribbed the print from a DVD, but it looks washed-out and soft.  CBS Corporation now owns the series, so I have no idea how The Master is public domain.

The Master is awesomely slapdash.  It plays fast and loose with ninja lore, which isn’t surprising for a show starring Lee Van Cleef.  1980s ninja archetype Shô Kosugi is wasted as chief antagonist Okasa.

Hell, in some scenes Kosugi is Van Cleef’s stunt double.  Don’t ask me how that works.  Ask Michael Sloan.  He created the show.  The man had a fetish for ass-kicking older men back then.

Timothy Van Patten, now an accomplished television director, mushmouths his way through lame dialogue as Max Keller.  Van Cleef’s doubles look visibly thinner than the actor himself.  It’s Kung Fu meets The A-Team, right down to the custom-painted van and miscasting of a western star.  NBC would air anything in the early 1980s.

The riffing of The Master is as good as Jesse James…‘ riffing.  Granted, it’s The Master.  Mystery Science Theater 3000 based two episodes around the Master Ninja pseudofeatures this show became.  The Master is a no-brainer to riff.

Also, This Movie Sucks! has Roninja.  Allegedly, this is a ronin whose parents have been killed by the Yakuza Gang.  To that end, the ronin becomes a ninja, fighting crime at night.  Ron Sparks may or may not be Roninja.  Look it up on Wikipedia.

I hope This Movie Sucks! comes into its own this “season.”  The series has pretty much been bashed into shape, much like MST3K was in the pre-Comedy Central days.  I can’t see TMS! “graduate” to a higher budget or Showcase any time soon, but I’ll be happy if the show doesn’t cycle the first six episodes like it has this summer.  There’s only so much one can take of Wild Women of Wongo.

Puppets Who Kill: The Best of Season 3 and 4
The Comedy Network/Radical Sheep/PWK Productions, 2004/2005: Video Service Corp., 2010
16:9, approx. 290 minutes, English

Seeing a new Puppets Who Kill DVD set in 2010 is almost like stepping into the past, as far as I’m concerned.  Puppets Who Kill hasn’t aired new episodes on The Comedy Network since 2006.  The last DVD set was in 2005.

I’m not sure who will actually buy Puppets Who Kill: The Best of Season 3 and 4.  This PWK set would have sold better in the period when the show was still on the air.  Given how fractured the Canadian TV-on-DVD market is, one can’t afford to be picky.

Each episode of Puppets Who Kill focuses on Dan Barlow (Dan Redican), a social worker who takes care of the four residents of a halfway house.  Cuddles the comfort doll (Bob Martin) will do anything to help others, even if it means gunning at people from a high perch.

Buttons (James Rankin) is a teddy bear with an insatiable sexual appetite.  Rocko (Bruce Hunter) is a misanthropic dog puppet/ex-children’s entertainer.  Bill (Gord Robertson) is the psychotic ventriloquist’s dummy/serial killer, who has lost fifty-six of his partners in “accidents.”

Watching Puppets Who Kill‘s third and fourth seasons, I get the sense that PWK was actively improving itself with each season.  Not every show on The Comedy Network makes references to Shakespeare, The Manchurian Candidate, The Maltese Falcon and the Lee Harvey Oswald assassination.  Hell, most TCN shows don’t even try.

Puppets Who Kill contains surprisingly understated writing, even for a show where Buttons dry-humps any broad he can.  Given the show’s subject matter and overall premise, PWK is much more interested in film and style parodies, as well as jabs at Canadian sacred cows.

“The CBC is Killing Again,” for instance, is the episode with the Oswald assassination reference.  Don’t ask me how said reference works in the context of a CBC-centric episode.  It shouldn’t, but it does.

The guest casting is decent, especially for Canadian television.  Familiar Canadian actors – Colin Fox, Gordon Pinsent, Fabrizio Filippo, Tom McCamus, Stephen McHattie and Peter Outerbridge, to name a few – appear on the show from time to time.  More obscure names are the norm for PWK, including an excellent turn in “Joyride” by football-player-turned-actor Gene Mack.

There are six commentary tracks total, one on the Season 3 disc and five on the Season 4 disc.  On the Season 4 disc, “Dan and the Garden Shears” has two commentaries, while “Joyride” has three.  All feature show creator/puppeteer John Pattison with a PWK employee, most often director/producer Shawn Alex Thompson.

Judging from the commentaries, Puppets Who Kill employees were serious about making the show a success.  They describe in detail how the shows were made, which is exactly what I want from a commentary track.

Picture quality is a bit soft and grainy, but nothing out of the ordinary for Canadian television.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is legible and well-mixed.  All episodes are shown in anamorphic 16:9 ratio.  Puppets Who Kill: The Best of Season 3 and 4 lacks closed captioning and subtitles, which will piss off the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Puppets Who Kill is underrated, and my opinion hasn’t changed with this set.  While I would have liked to see more extras, I’m surprised PWK is still on VSC’s radar after a five-year absence.  The alternative business plans would be to abandon the set, or have PWK Productions license future sets to a “budget” outfit like Mill Creek Entertainment.

Even now, Puppets Who Kill: The Best of Season 3 and 4 is less than $20 at amazon.ca.  The set isn’t perfect, but it’s a good deal for the moderate price.  I hope there are still fans of the show, considering how long PWK has been out of public consciousness.  In Canada, that’s almost tantamount to being dead.

According to Jayme Pfahl of Vancouver production company Gang of 2, CBC Television has passed on Fancy as a possible series.  Pfahl gives a March 2011 prospective airdate for the pilot itself.  The exact airdate is subject to change by CBC.

Fancy is about children’s show host Maureen Fancy (Kate Hewlett.)  Fancy is cheery on-set, and miserable away from the camera.  Playback and Hollywood Reporter scribe Etan Vlessing also mentions Patrick McKenna and Jana Peck as part of the cast.

Pfahl co-founded Gang of 2 with Angus Fraser.  Pfahl and Fraser recently produced The Cult, a pilot which aired on CBC earlier in 2010.

While Fancy‘s premise isn’t original, I think the idea could sustain a series.  CBC Television has shied away from dark comedies as of late, given CBC’s shift to lighter dramas and reality shows.

100 Things Every Man Should Know and Floorwalker are still in development with CBC.  A third CBC/Gang of 2 project, After, is no longer being developed.

I’d like to see at least one Gang of 2 product get past CBC Television’s pilot stage.  I’m not one to complain about CBC’s existence, but why does CBC keep rejecting shows I might be interested in?  There’s something scary about HBO Canada, APTN and Showcase being the vanguards of edgier comedy in this country.

When I published an article about Tangled (CBC: CBC/Shaftesbury Films/Colossal Entertainment/Salient Point Productions Ltd., 2010) last week, I figured it would get a slightly above-average number of readers for a day, then flatline.  Pilot news and reviews generally don’t do well on URBMN, with the exception of B Team.

Tangled is by far the most-searched-for program this month on URBMN.  The article promoting Tangled has 13 comments (not including mine) so far.  Think about it – thirteen comments for a pilot aired in the dead of summer.  I’m usually lucky if one person gives a tinker’s piss about an unsold pilot on CBC, never mind thirteen.

Tangled is the sort of show that fits with CBC’s desired female demographic, yet can also attract a decent male audience.  Aside from the budgetary restrictions that can hobble a show like Tangled, I have no idea why CBC would reject this.  Foreign references are copious, but The Tudors gets away with worse.

Sarah Wayne Callies is Sally or Chloe – it depends on which part of her life one follows.  A sham marriage is planned around Sally/Chloe and Nick Hobbes (Bill Ward.)  Hobbes is seen as a rogue freelancer/former CIA golden boy stealing intel from Sally/Chloe’s employer, the North Atlantic Intelligence Agency (NAIA.)  NAIA is also trying to nail down main antagonist Oleg Gasparian.

Needless to say, there are the twists and turns common to an espionage show.  It’s all familiar stuff, but Tangled at least couches the espionage in proper human drama.  As a pilot, Tangled gives viewers a reason to care about Sally/Chloe’s life, convoluted as it is.

Callies is a bit stiff and monotonous as Sally/Chloe, but serviceable enough as a lead.  Ward plays Hobbes almost effortlessly.  Leslie Hope plays Sally/Chloe’s sister Marlene rather well, understandably miffed that Sally/Chloe has been playing dead for twelve years.  Hope doesn’t have a big part in the pilot, but she makes the most of her role.

I’m not exactly fond of the acting in Tangled.  The acting is a bit underplayed in general, aside from Ward’s character and a few minor characters I can’t name.  At the same time, the balance of action and drama sells Tangled.  Had Tangled made series, I’m sure it would have found its own level.

This isn’t the best pilot I’ve seen on CBC in 2010.  The Cult ranks highest on my list, for its excellent acting and choice of subject matter.  Tangled is still very good, better than the bet-hedging of the concept would suggest.  I sincerely hope Shaftesbury Films sells the series to another network or cable channel.

Canadian Comedy Shorts (The Comedy Network: twelfth season premiered Sunday, July 11, 2010, 10:30 PM ET/PT) is another of those series that I think CTVglobemedia is burning off, not that CTVgm will admit to this.

The copyright date for the new shorts compilation says 2009.  It’s summer, you know?  Unsold pilots bloom.  Reality television is in season.  Programs are dumped onto schedules seemingly at random.  At least CCS isn’t as bad as Upload Yours, which is like saying rectal itch is better than a coma.

Cogswell (Diane) | Cogswell (Diane) is a filmed version of a one-person monologue by Stephanie Domet.  I have no idea what it’s doing on a show called Canadian Comedy Shorts.  Cogswell (Diane) is a decent monologue, but there’s nothing but dry humour in a piece where a woman talks about living in a low-rent neighbourhood.  This piece belongs on Bravo! or CBC.

Cogswell (Diane) kicks off an odd trend for Canadian Comedy Shorts this year.  I’m not sure if CCS has aired reruns its past few years, but Cogswell (Diane) is from 2006.  Wouldn’t a better idea be to debut clips for a season premiere?  Maybe it’s me.

The Woodsmen: “Potato Cult” | CTV publicist Sara McLaren tells me this season of Canadian Comedy Shorts features a mix of acquired shorts, all-new items and reruns.  ”Potato Cult” is a rerun from 2006.

The Woodsmen is a very [adult swim] sketch.  Random things happen.  The production values are almost nil.  Hell, The Woodsmen uses Syncro-Vox-esque moving mouths over largely static “animation.”

Frankly, this series tries too hard for an Aqua Teen Hunger Force/Sealab 2021 vibe.  I’m turned off by it.  Even [adult swim] deviates from the absurdist formula with The Venture Bros., The Boondocks and Squidbillies.

I know I’m referencing Squidbillies, by the way.  That show’s about southern American rednecks.  What is The Woodsmen about?  Wasting money?  Potatoes?  Help me out here.

Holy War Dance Party | This is a two-and-a-half-minute song about…well, the title gives it away.  Here’s the Youtube link and the link to the Holy War Dance Party site.

The HWDP Youtube link has earned around 45,000 views over three years.  It’s caught on somewhat, though HWDP is nowhere near the level of Powerthirst.  Dancing for peace is nowhere near as fun as having gratuitous amounts of energy.  Holy War Dance Party should have been made with real lightening.

From the Desk of Ron Sparks: “CN Tower” | From 2004.  Why does The Comedy Network need to air something from more than half a decade ago?  I like Ron Sparks, but I hate rehashes of material this old.  At least Video on Trial, Ed the Sock and Life’s a Zoo.tv have kept Sparks in blow.

From the Desk of Ron Sparks‘ concept is simple.  Sparks writes fake letters to real addresses.  Here, Sparks wants to jump off the CN Tower in a superhero costume.  The piece is slight but entertaining.  I’ve seen better and worse from Ron Sparks.

Check Up | Nathan Fielder saves this CCS episode with his awkward comedy.  Fielder goes to the doctor for a checkup.  Everything is fine until the doctor wants to check his prostate.

The sketch idea isn’t new, but Fielder sells fear very well.  No sane man wants a male doctor to touch his meat and two veg.  It’s one of the few evergreen societal taboos.  In lesser hands, Check Up would be cheap comedy.  In Fielder’s hands, mundane awkwardness is made an art form.

Nathan Fielder now writes for Important Things with Demetri Martin.  I wish Canada would find a use for Fielder beyond nailing him to the side of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.  The Comedy Network has given him an hour-long special, which isn’t enough.

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Yikes.  Four segments from 2007 or earlier?  Seriously, how does The Comedy Network swing that?  ZeD showed its share of older clips, but at least it had the good sense to air quality shorts like Flying Saucer Rock’n'Roll.  That was ZeD‘s thing.  It was free-form television.  Canadian Comedy Shorts isn’t.

Maybe I don’t understand CCS‘ format, having watched it for the first time in 2010.  It’s just lazy to build a program over one newish clip and four older ones.  Two or three new clips an episode, fine.  A clip from 2004?  That’s like Teletoon airing Quads! in 2009.

I hope CCS’ next episode improves from the season premiere.  I’d like to see more than one new short per episode.  I don’t even care if one-or-two-year-old shorts are shown.  I just don’t like when CCS shorts are used as blatant filler.  I don’t know who would.

Warren the Ape (MTV2: premiered Saturday, June 19, 2010, 9:00 PM ET) has the misfortune to be on MTV2 in Canada.  You either have to be on MuchMusic or MTV to catch this country’s basic-cable audience.  The Hard Times of RJ Berger is the priority import, so Warren the Ape is shunted to a digital cable channel.

Warren the Ape deserves better.  This is one of the few intelligent shows MTV has greenlit in years.  MTV used to pull this stuff out of its collective butt in the 1990s and early 2000s – Beavis and Butt-head, Liquid Television, The Maxx, Daria, The Sifl and Olly Show, Clone High, even The Head and Undergrads.  I don’t want to know how MTV got from this to Jersey Shore.

Yeah, fuck you, I sound old.  If you haven’t seen The Maxx, you wouldn’t understand.

Greg the Bunny (voice of Dan Milano) appears in the screener I received from CTVglobemedia.  Without revealing too much about “Abstinence,” which aired in America on Monday, June 21, Warren Demontague (Milano) tries to get eternal naïf Greg laid.  Warren is not to have sex for a month as per Dr. Drew Pinsky’s recommendation.  This proves to be the eternal struggle for Warren, so he tries to imprint Greg with a Warren-esque libido.

Greg acts like a typical comic book nerd, which isn’t quite the characterization I remember from the Fox and IFC shows.  Warren is still Warren on this show, all abruptness and lechery.  Greg the Bunny fans should feel right at home with Warren the Ape.

Warren the Ape isn’t as funny as the Fox version of Greg the Bunny, but that’s due more to MTV than anything else.  Greg the Bunny accommodated Eugene Levy and Seth Green.  Warren the Ape has to work in Dr. Drew.  I don’t care who hates Levy and/or Green.  From them to Dr. Drew is a quality drop.

Luckily, Drew is a peripheral figure.  Warren can obviously carry the show, as his personality traits are recognizably human.  Warren has problems, and he deals with them in the worst ways possible.  He’s still an ape puppet wearing a football helmet, so he gets away with his crapulence.

Warren the Ape parodies celebrity rehab shows, yet doesn’t feel like a rehash of past mockumentaries.  This is a good thing.  WtA feels like a rehash of Fox’s Greg the Bunny, which is a better thing.  Somehow, Warren the Ape maintains Greg the Bunny‘s ability to derive great comedy from social mores, which I don’t expect from any post-Clone High MTV show.

I’ll be honest.  I was expecting the worst from Warren the Ape.  Greg the Bunny is so good that a berth on MTV smacks of illogic, especially given that network’s love for cloning jackass and The Real World.  I wasn’t expecting the best possible outcome for WtA.  If MTV can’t kill Greg the Bunny, nothing can.

American ratings for Warren the Ape are anemic so far.  Great.  It’s 2002 all over again.  WtA‘s too well-written for it to go down this way, but MTV is usually where intelligent humour goes to die – Human Giant notwithstanding.

Here’s a clip from “Abstinence” where Warren attempts to play Dungeons and Dragons.  Not surprisingly, he’s not very good at it.  Watch out for the fat kid summoning the ghouls of…whatever the hell he yells.  He’s summoning ghouls.  That’s all you need to know.

In 2005, I called Comedy Inc. (CTV: fifth season premiered Saturday, June 12, 10:30 PM ET/PT) “relatively decent.”  In 2010, I recant that statement entirely.  I should have actually watched more than an episode or two of the show back in 2005, but URBMN wasn’t a television site back then.  That Comedy Inc. is still an ongoing concern amazes me.

Why does Comedy Inc. continue to be renewed when there is such passionate hatred for it?  Its cheapness doesn’t explain a five-season run.  History Bites is similarly cheap, and attracts its fair share of hate.  History Bites also has fans, since that show doesn’t talk down to its audience.

Comedy Inc. can make decent comedians like Winston Spear and Gavin Stephens look like they’re shit.  This isn’t very hard to do, as the show is made up of stand-up comedians performing sketch comedy.  Why is the show formatted this way when the format has never worked?  Even after five seasons, Comedy Inc. suffers from terrible timing.

The fifth-season premiere of Comedy Inc. is more of the same from this show.  The sketches are all obvious and/or rely on shock humour.  The comics overplay their roles.  Three sketches are the exact same “psychiatrist talks to animals” gag, with no variation.

The laugh track is pasted on, making the sketches seem even worse than they already are.  If you’ve seen Comedy Inc., you know how this show plays on television, and I feel for you.

Also, what is with that overbearing laugh track?!  It’s used on both Comedy Inc. and Comedy Now!  A 2010 show shouldn’t look and sound like a second-generation dupe of Royal Canadian Air Farce circa 1995.

I blame Sandra Faire for this show.  She’s the executive producer of both this and Comedy Now!  Ivan Fecan is president and CEO of CTVglobemedia.  Faire and Fecan are married.  It doesn’t take a genius to see the conflict of interest.  Even if Fecan and Faire keep business and personal relations separate, Faire doesn’t improve the quality of her shows.

The premiere episode of Comedy Inc.‘s fifth season has a 2008 copyright.  That’s never a good sign.  I guess CTV wants shot of Comedy Inc. once and for all.  Why even air the season, in that case?  Burn it off on Star! or something.  Don’t air Comedy Inc. on CTV, where people will watch it.

Comedy Inc. is the closest thing to welfare Canadian television offers.  I honestly hope this is the show’s final season.  If Comedy Inc. makes it to a sixth season, then there is no hope for the industry.