Mike MacDonald: A Comic Stripped will be released by VSC on October 5, 2010.  The single-disc compendium of his CBC/Showtime specials will MSRP for $19.98 CDN.  The listed running time is 130 minutes.

Mike MacDonald: A Comic Stripped covers MacDonald’s three CBC/Showtime standup comedy specials, On Target, My House! My Rules!, and Happy As I Can Be.  Extras include a commentary track and Mike MacDonald performing air guitar.

Mike MacDonald is the star of the 1989-91 CBC series Mosquito Lake, though he can hardly be blamed for that show being an epic comedy abortion.  More importantly, he’s the voice of Rip Friend in the Teletoon/Fox Kids cartoon Ripping Friends (2001-02.)

MacDonald is one of Canada’s great standup comics, and it’s too bad he hasn’t become bigger than he is.  How CBC goes from Mike MacDonald and The Kids in the Hall to Ron James and The Ron James Show, I’ll never know.  At least one of Mike MacDonald’s old films is out on DVD, even if it is Loose Screws.

Here’s Mike MacDonald from the 1987 Just For Laughs Festival.  You may remember 1987 as the year Eddie Windsor spent a few minutes desperately trying to wring laughs from a dog and a hoop.

Ten years later, Eddie Windsor was featured on The Worst of Just For Laughs.  WoJFL aired just after The Just For Laughs 15th Anniversary Special.  Guess who hosted The Just For Laughs 15th Anniversary Special?

Yeah, Kevin Bacon!  You sons of bitches.

APTN has recently released its September 2010 schedule, as it debuts its 2010-11 season.  Of note is its Tuesday night schedule, which begins on September 7:

9:00 PM ET: The Candy Show
9:30 PM ET: Bionic Bannock Boys
10:00 PM ET: CAUTION: May Contain Nuts
10:30 PM ET: Arbor Live

CAUTION: May Contain Nuts and Arbor Live are in their second seasons.  Bionic Bannock Boys and The Candy Show will make their debuts.  Arbor Live is the only non-comedy, though The Candy Show and Arbor Live are both variety shows.

CMCN‘s second season has already debuted, albeit in the form of two episodes aired during the Olympics.  In the meantime, CMCN has posted material to Funny or Die.

I have reviewed Bionic Bannock Boys‘ pilot.  I’ll probably give the show another look, just to see if BBB has improved since then.  There are a couple of trailers for the show, found here and here.

As for The Candy Show, I was actually surprised to see CBC News mention it back in April 2010.  Host Candy Palmater has done some pieces for CBC Radio One’s Definitely Not the Opera, which I don’t hold against her.

Arbor Live features mainstream acts like Joe Satriani and Velvet Revolver alongside aboriginal artists, though the musical guest lineup is rather disjointed.  Eric Schweig is on the show for some odd reason.

At the same time, CBC doesn’t mount shows like Arbor Live.  Joe Satriani and Velvet Revolver aren’t the freshest of acts to feature on a music variety show, but at least APTN tries.  When was the last time CBC mounted an actual variety show?  ZeD?  Rita and Friends?  Devin Townsend would be perfect for a variety show.  I’m just saying.

Let’s keep this short and sweet.  Michael Seater/Stacey Farber sitcom 18 to Life will air on American networklet The CW.  A two-episode block will air from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT every Tuesday for six weeks, starting August 3, 2010.

18 to Life was originally set for both ABC and CBC.  ABC bowed out after the pilot, leaving CBC to go it alone.  An average of 553,000 viewers watched 18 to Life in first run on CBC earlier this year.

I’m a bit surprised The CW will air 18 to Life, even if it is filler for a relatively minor program service.  18 to Life hasn’t drawn great ratings for CBC Television.  Then again, The CW’s normal summer ratings suck, and The CW needs a low-cost summer strategy beyond reruns of The Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl.

I like how American sites and magazines note how four Canadian shows will grace American network prime-time schedules this summer.  It’s cheaper for an American network to buy a Canadian program than to launch an American one.  American cable’s learned to live with this reality for years, and it still puts out series like White Collar and True Blood.  What’s the big deal?

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.

This Is That (CBC Radio One: premiered Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 7:30 PM ET/PT; also Saturdays at 10:30 AM ET/PT) is CBC Radio’s attempt to build comedy from made-up news stories.  It’s already the most honest news show on CBC Radio One right now, in that TIT admits that it makes shit up.  You won’t find that candidness on Q or The Current.

Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring are This Is That‘s creators.  Their previous attempt at media humour, Good Morning World, aired in 2007 on The Comedy Network.  GMW was a web series given a berth on TCN in one of the channel’s “is this CanCon enough?” periods.  Like most shows on TCN, it hasn’t fared well.

This Is That has its share of problems.  Kelly and Oldring too often fumble for words, which isn’t surprising for an improv show.  I don’t find This Is That that funny after one episode, though the podcasts prior to TIT‘s debut are worse.  I wonder if TIT will be able to sustain itself for two months without growing stale, since TIT is the very definition of “skeleton crew.”

At the same time, TIT is a fairly accurate parody of the typical CBC human-interest news show.  It has the vacuous host chatter, documentary segment and interview banter down cold.  Oldring in particular could host a serious CBC Radio show, and not sound out of place.

Sadly, I grade shows like This Is That on a curve.  CBC Radio has let loose some real dogs over the years.  I remember the skein of attempts to rip off Double Exposure – The Muckraker, What a Week, National Pastime.  Al Rae/Content Factory’s comedy bits on The House are consistently piss-poor.

At the same time, CBC Radio has mounted The Great Eastern and given a radio sitcom to John Wing, Jr.  The Debaters isn’t too bad, pitting standup comics against each other.  Even Laugh Out Loud has given birth to Cynically Tested’s Truth From Here, which really needs to be a series.

TIT lies somewhere in the middle of CBC Radio’s comedy output.  It’s better than it should be, given Kelly and Oldring’s previous contribution to the Canadian cultural chum mill.  It’s managed to fool the National Post, which already makes TIT more notable than Good Morning World.

I hope This Is That improves in the coming weeks.  Even if the show isn’t that funny, it should at least confuse listeners.  That was a quality The Great Eastern had, enough that I hated the show years before I finally “got it.”  This Is That won’t be CBC Radio’s equivalent of The Onion or Weekly World News, but it should be.  This Is That doesn’t obsess over fake tan jokes, so that’s half the battle won right there.

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.

I mentioned the Canadian version of TV Land in my piece about travel + escape earlier this month.  Well, CTVglobemedia has done something about TV Land.  Starting August 2, 2010, TV Land will be rebranded Comedy Gold.

Comedy Gold will focus on sitcoms from the 1970s to the 1990s…which somehow includes SCTV.  Don’t ask me to figure that one out.  Comedy Gold’s inaugural lineup also includes The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, Murphy Brown and Night Court.

I can understand TV Land Canada’s rebranding to Comedy Gold.  Originally a Craig Media entity, TV Land Canada was absorbed by both CHUM Limited and CTVglobemedia.  It serves little purpose as part of the CTVgm stable, considering it’s a digital cable channel set up to air reruns.  Why license the TV Land name from MTV Networks?  It’s easier and cheaper to refit the channel as a Comedy Network spinoff.

Fitting Canadian content onto this channel is going to be tough.  Canada has shit all in the way of “classic sitcoms.”  There’s King of Kensington, The Newsroom and…what, exactly?  Hangin’ In?  Twitch City?  Maniac Mansion?  Flappers?!

I hope Comedy Gold includes a few Canadian sketch comedy shows.  You Can’t Do That on Television and Whatever Turns You On deserve a reairing.  Kids in the Hall and CODCO haven’t been on The Comedy Network in a while.  I also hope Comedy Gold airs the 30/90/45-minute SCTVs in full, instead of the thirty-minute cutdowns TCN strip-aired to death back in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

Comedy Gold could be good if CTVglobemedia gives the channel some attention.  The channel could be The Comedy Network’s non-trashy little brother.  Having said that, I expect Royal Canadian Air Farce reruns within a year.

As mentioned on APTN’s Twitter account, Blackstone will receive an eight-episode season.

Neither APTN nor Prairie Dog Film & Television have officially announced the series order, aside from APTN’s Twitter post.  No time or date has been set for Blackstone‘s series premiere.

Blackstone was one of the potential series in APTN’s Pick a Pilot project.  In my opinion, it is the best pilot to come out of that project.

Blackstone‘s pilot has good dramatic tension and incites controversy.  I’ve wanted for this show to become a series since it first aired.  Blackstone focuses on political corruption at a First Nations reserve, which is a tough subject to handle without being alarmist or heavy-handed.

I hope Blackstone isn’t watered-down from its pilot.  I’m honestly looking forward to it more than any other Canadian drama of 2010-11.  Blackstone has the potential to really mean something.

Addendum (July 12, 2010) | The media release for Blackstone, which has just been released, states that the show will air on both APTN and Showcase come “early 2011.”  No word on whether Blackstone will be simulcast.

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Wolf Canyon‘s fate is less clear than Blackstone‘s.  According to Wolf Canyon co-creator and writer Tim Stubinski, APTN has passed on Wolf Canyon as the sole first broadcaster of the series.

This doesn’t mean Wolf Canyon is dead.  Tricon Films and Television currently distributes the property, and is trying to sell other broadcasters on its merits.

APTN might air Wolf Canyon in a shared-first-window or second-window capacity.  In layman’s terms, APTN will team up with another network/cable channel or air Wolf Canyon secondhand.  Stubinski chalks this decision to “economics.”

Wolf Canyon made a killing at the 2010 Leo Awards.  The show won five of seven Leos, winning in every category it was nominated in.  The Leos apply to shows and films shot in British Columbia.

I’m sure Wolf Canyon will find another broadcaster.  Kevin Sorbo has his fans, while the Leos help the show’s cause.  WC even has a respectable rating on IMDb.  This show will find a home.

Keep in mind, Blackstone hit big at the 2010 Rosie Awards, winning in five categories.  The Rosies are to Alberta what the Leos are to British Columbia.  Whatever APTN’s doing, it’s working.