Health Nutz | This show surprises me.  The premise – alcoholic inherits juice bar, but only on condition – sounds like it shouldn’t work.  Somehow, it does.

No, I didn’t learn from my experience with Life’s a Zoo.tv.  Shut up.

Kevin Loring is Buzz Riel Jr., a former hockey player and current heavy drinker.  He inherits part-ownership of the Health Nutz juice bar after Buzz Sr. (Paul Stanley) is run over by an SUV.  Buzz Jr. can only claim full ownership of said bar if he cleans up and goes sober, a habit Buzz Jr. is not willing to give up.  Smug entrepreneur Keith Harris (David Hamilton-Lyle) waits in the wings, hoping to obtain the Health Nutz property for condo development.

Loring doesn’t overplay Buzz Jr., although the script’s choice of profanity is odd (uh, “screwy Louie” and “rat turd?”)  The man is effective in portraying a couldn’t-give-a-shit attitude towards Health Nutz.  Chief Floyd Two-Rivers (Byron Chief-Moon) is just as good as Buzz Sr.’s right-hand man, trying to keep Riel Jr. from self-destruction.

Health Nutz doesn’t deal in cheap, easy humour, which I would normally expect from a show like this.  It’s a show about a juice bar, for crying out loud.  Writer/producer/executive producer Jason Friesen makes Health Nutz‘s premise believable, going for character-based humour.

This is the first APTN comedy I’ve seen where I’m actually interested in following the show.  Health Nutz isn’t going to be Cheers, but it’s one of the better things APTN has greenlighted.  I hope the actual series can match and/or exceed the pilot’s standards. Surprises like this don’t happen on Canadian television very often.

Bionic Bannock Boys | The Bionic Bannock Boys (Sean Dean, Cory Generoux, Keon Francis) let you know how aboriginal they are.  References to bingo, fried chicken and bannocks are copious.  You know you’re watching APTN when this show’s on the air.

Bionic Bannock Boys‘ pilot is a mix of corny humour and political commentary.  It’s an aboriginal version of CODCO spliced with Air Farce, if one can imagine such a beast.  I can see the show’s potential, but I also see a sketch about sasquatch phone sex.  Gorilla suit comedy does not work unless Benny Hill is involved.

Bionic Bannock Boys‘ pilot is a rough draft which needs refining.  While the show shouldn’t be too polished, Bionic Bannock Boys‘ pilot looks like a cable access show with national funding.  Maybe I’m too white to “get” the show, but Bionic Bannock Boys isn’t nearly as funny as it should have been.

Bionic Bannock Boys is going ahead as a series, so airing the pilot is a foregone conclusion.  I hope the series is better-mounted than the pilot, but I’m not holding my breath.

The Drunk and on Drugs Happy Funtime Hour (one hell of a working title) has been commissioned by Showcase for a six-episode November 2010 run.  As reported by everyone in existence, this is the new show from Trailer Park Boys stars Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay and Mike Smith.

I’m not going to belabour the point by rewriting the press release, except that Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The League of Gentlemen are referenced.  Looks like Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town has competition.  Nice.

Hosts of The Happy Funtime Hour unknowingly take hallucinogens, acting like the characters they play.  Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson plays “a German scientist who teaches children about nutrition.”  The Drunk and on Drugs Happy Funtime Hour reads like a Sid and Marty Krofft pisstake.  I like it.

The show is ambitious, with Wells, Tremblay and Smith playing numerous characters.  I’m wary of Drunk and on Drugs… being a vanity project, but the TPB actors are capable of pulling a show like this off.  The show will either be awesome or a complete trainwreck.  I don’t see a middle ground.  There shouldn’t be.

Via Showcase’s YouTube account, here’s a video of the show announcement.  Warning: too many shots of a speakerphone.  Way to break the online budget, Showcase.

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When The Ron James Show (CBC: premiered September 25, 8:00 PM ET/PT) was announced as the replacement for Royal Canadian Air Farce, I wasn’t expecting much.  The verbose Nova Scotia comic has plied his trade in a series of decreasingly entertaining CBC comedy specials.

There’s also the matter of Blackfly, the Global series that managed two seasons – TWO SEASONS! – despite being a manky, Blackadder-baiting piece of shit.  While anything is better than more Royal Canadian Air Farce*, Ron James has that major failure under his belt.

As a bonus, The Ron James Show executive producer Garry Campbell was responsible for The Good Germany.  I’m well aware of the depths to which Campbell’s shows can plumb.

The Ron James Show doesn’t oversell itself – James does some monologues, appears in all of the sketches, nothing fancy.  There’s an animated segment called “L’il Ronnie,” which sucks, but is still better than the average Air Farce Alan Park segment.

The Ron James Show benefits from slick production values.  The opening credits alone look more expensive than an episode of Royal Canadian Air Farce.  Most of the sketches are of average quality, but none of them descend into Comedy Inc. levels of inanity.

The final sketch, where James experiences life as a slave on the Underground Railroad Weekend Experience, is a highlight.  It’s a fairly edgy sketch for an 8:00 PM show, what with blacks exploiting whites for cheap labour.  The Wendy Mesley voiceover cameo is a bonus.  I hope the writing gets stronger in future episodes, in order to counteract Rick Mercer’s gradual transformation into Shelagh Rogers.

I’m not going to recommend The Ron James Show on the basis of its one aired episode.  The real test is whether subsequent episodes improve on The Ron James Show‘s initial outing.  I’m just surprised this show is anything at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather see Rob Pue with a show, but you know, Canada.

*Except for Comedy Inc.

The Comedy Network hyped Hotbox (The Comedy Network: premieres June 2, 10:00 PM) well.  The strange intrusions into ad time helped drum interest in the show.  The promotion hasn’t been all that successful – the official website sucks.  The URL was weirdly formatted when first introduced.  Luckily, Hotbox is good enough to survive its crappy web site and references to Crotch Lake in its “commercials.”

Hotbox fulfills the Canadian cultural need to have an own-brand version of a popular show.  In this case, Hotbox emulates shows like Robot Chicken and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!  Hotbox is currently being paired with Tim and Eric, which makes perfect sense.  In my mind, it makes Tim and Eric look more like a pile of cat dung than it already is.

While Hotbox is less absurdist than its American counterparts, it’s at least comedically sound, its short-sketch edict taken from You Can’t Do That on Television.  The show could be less sophomoric in its humour, which is a problem Hotbox shares with The Jon Dore Television Show, but the writing is solid enough.  Unlike The Jon Dore Television Show, Hotbox displays better levels of consistency.

Hotbox is great in its attention to detail.  The Brad Piss segment mimics the style of an amateurishly-done commercial, the tape looking washed-out and badly edited.  The gag name is horrible, but the sketch wisely focuses on Piss’ inept hucksterism.  Another sketch, “Best Smelling Man Awards,” uses the VHS look to similar effect.  The humour comes more from the look of the commercials and cheap overlaid explosions than the extended body-odour gags.

Not everything on Hotbox works, but a surprising amount of it does.  The success of The Owl and the Man, created by Hotbox hyphenate Pat Thornton as a series of two-minute filler items, wasn’t a fluke.  Not surprisingly, The Owl and the Man has been subsumed into Hotbox.

Hotbox has a possible major weakness.  RoboCop and Lobsterman are recurring characters, and I’d like to know how “RoboCop shills products, creep” and “Lobsterman is crap at keeping a secret identity” deserve more than one sketch.  I hope Hotbox can find the variation necessary to keep the segments fresh, otherwise they will get old fast.  The first episode only scratches the surface of Hotbox, so subsequent episodes will be a complete toss-up.

If Hotbox can maintain its consistency over the course of a full season, this show should do well.  Like Jon Dore, Hotbox will attract a certain type of fan and alienate others.  It’s not a show with broad appeal.  Still, Canada needs more shows like Hotbox.  If How It’s Made can gain a worldwide following despite being a series of nicely-packaged industrial videos, I think Hotbox will find its niche.

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Addendum (June 24, 2009) | The next two episodes are much worse than the first.  In retrospect, I should have watched more than the one episode of Hotbox before reviewing it.  While I’m not going to change the review of the first episode, since I did enjoy it at the time, putting it over Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! was a bit much.  I still don’t like Tim and Eric, but I jumped the gun on Hotbox.

I honestly had no idea the “possible major weakness” I alluded to in the first-episode review was, in fact, Hotbox‘s obvious major weakness.  Most of the recurring characters simply aren’t that well-realized.  Rage Rabbit is a lapine Incredible Hulk who gets frustrated with seemingly minor things.  ”Dinosaur Man” is about a man who entertains kids by saying “dinosaur” after inane things.  Strict time limits notwithstanding, it’s hard to get behind one-note concepts like that.  I don’t know what the hell Team Course One is supposed to be.

I will note that Hotbox is either loved or hated.  Not trying to influence opinion, just saying it elicits strong reactions.  Of course, so did Girls Will Be Girls and Popcultured.

Sketch comedy in the late 2000s tends to follow an absurdist, high-concept model more often than not.  The vast majority of shows from this era will doubtless age ten years from now, as the absurdist model becomes overused and new groups rebel against it.  Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was considered edgy in 1968, while Turn-On was once the height of bad taste.  People also used to think Jerry Lester was funny.  Tastes change, and so do the comedy stylings.

I prefer the style of The Whitest Kids U’ Know (Super Channel: April 8, 11PM ET) to that of its closest modern competitors.  I appreciate the efforts put forth by Human Giant and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, yet WKUK is the show I actually laugh at.  The Whitest Kids U’ Know is crude at first glance, but there’s some intelligence behind its lowbrow façade.

The WWII sketch that starts off the first thirty-minute episode of season three is a case in point.  Four people enter Hitler’s bunker and come across Charlie Chaplin.  The Whitest Kids U’ Know players go for the predictable climax (Charlie Chaplin kills everyone) and then smack the viewer upside the head with a grossly inappropriate ending.  The Whitest Kids U’ Know has that duality with many of its sketches – predictable one point, surprising the next.

The second thirty-minute episode of WKUK‘s third season is stronger overall due to some inspired sketches.  J.J. Martin, the punkest man on the planet, can make terrible folk songs punk as fuck, while J.P. Barger and Son Trading Post sells water balloons in the American Old West.  The first thirty-minute episode has a lovely musical number about God’s connection to obsessive compulsion, so it’s not far off in quality.

Not every sketch on The Whitest Kids U’ Know works.  For instance, the Lord of the Rings sketch in episode two hinges on its greatest plot hole, Gandalf not utilizing a giant eagle to fly Frodo and his friends to Sauron’s volcano.  It’s an obvious complaint which The Whitest Kids U’ Know don’t put a fresh spin on.  The sketch is saved by an out-of-place rape reference, but more rape references kill the sketch again.

A 3:2 good sketch:bad sketch ratio is maintained overall.  It’s not the best ratio for sketch comedy, but The Whitest Kids U’ Know are also throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.  IFC airs the third season in fifteen-minute blocks, which may be the best format for The Whitest Kids U’ Know – if you hate this show, more than fifteen minutes is akin to torture.  There is very little middle ground between fans and haters of this show, so Trevor Moore and co. have to be doing something right.

WKUK isn’t as polished or as good as Mr. Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but the show can be genuinely funny at times.  WKUK will air on relatively obscure stations like IFC and Super Channel for years to come, and they’re probably the best places for the show anyway.  Assy McGee has proven there are far worse things on television than Trevor Moore’s brand of lowbrow humour.