Canadian comedy ‘Letterkenny’ kicks off on CraveTV Super Bowl Sunday

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This article was published 04/02/2016 (3911 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Letterkenny” may be the most Canadian TV comedy ever made.

Premiering Super Bowl Sunday on CraveTV and coming to The Comedy Network, the series was conceived by a bunch of guys who play hockey together.

It all began after a game, over beers.

That one of those guys happens to be Jared Keeso helped. Keeso is one of the stars of Bravo’s “19-2,” the Montreal-based cop series entering a third season. He also played a young Don Cherry in a couple of CBC TV-movies about the colourful “Coach’s Corner” star.

The Canadian Screen Award winner is originally from Listowel, a farming town of about 7,000 residents in southwestern Ontario. “Letterkenny” (a name plucked from a map of Ireland) is basically Listowel cranked up a notch.

Keeso was having beers with his buddy Nathan Dales after a game in their Vancouver recreational league. They bonded over their love of the Calgary Flames. Keeso and Dales eventually started working on several web series ideas, short comedy sketches goofing on sports fans.

“We were riffin’ on text messages based on that Flames thing,” says Dales. “Things just started snowballing.”

Videos were posted on YouTube, but it wasn’t until Keeso suggested another idea — based on the peculiar way he and his buddies would speak back in Listowel — that things really started taking off.

Their “Letterkenny Problems” YouTube videos soon had more than 10 million views.

The web videos show Keeso and Dales basically mouthing off as characters Wayne and Daryl. It’s all based on “chirping,” the deadpan put-downs dudes from small-town southwestern Ontario string together. These zingers are part of their farmland DNA.

One of the less profane examples: “Buddy, you’re softer than a Tootsie Roll fruit cup.”

Keeso says it was the language of his youth. “You’ve heard that dude who talks like that for some reason,” he says. “His sister doesn’t talk like that. His mom doesn’t talk like that. Maybe his dad does.”

When Keeso started hearing hockey buddies in Vancouver chirping the same way, he realized the language may be universal. Through Facebook and Twitter, he started receiving messages from fans in North Dakota and Minnesota saying, “This could be here.”

Keeso started keeping his iPhone handy to record kooky phrases. “I take gems from just about everywhere,” he says. “The thing about small-town charm is people don’t know how much gold they’re packing there. People just toss out things (that) take me to my knees sometimes.”

The large number of YouTube hits for “Letterkenny Problems” drew interest from TV production companies. Some big players were in the hunt, but after a conversation with co-founders Mark Montefiore and Patrick O’Sullivan, Keeso and Dales settled on newly formed New Metric Media.

“I grew up in St. Catharines (Ont.) and can name 10 of my friends Wayne and Daryl,” says Montefiore.

The producers took the idea to three broadcasters and had three offers. Having a web series that “decision-makers can look to or get inspired by” really helped, says Montefiore. “It doesn’t seal the deal, but it makes it easier for conversation purposes.”

The immediate challenge was turning four- or five-minute webisodes into half-hour TV comedies. Montreal-born writer-director Jacob Tierney — another hockey player — was brought in to flesh out scripts.

Keeso insists story arcs and character development “just gives me a headache.” The producers say he is being modest. “Jared had put together a little pitch doc that outlines what the characters and the world might be,” says O’Sullivan. “He’s such a smart guy. We knew this could be a TV show.”

Characters in the town are divided into Hicks, Skids and Hockey Players. Two other characters — young hockey dudes Wayne and Daryl are always chirping at — are played by Dylan Playfair (“Some Assembly Required”) and Andrew Herr (“Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story”). The actors also play hockey with Keeso and Dales in that Vancouver beer league.

Just to make sure it was as Canadian — and as small town (that is, not Toronto) — as possible, the series was shot in Sudbury, Ont.

So, yes, “Letterkenny” is as Canadian as beer smuggled into a skating rink.

“That’s what beer league’s all about,” says Keeso. “It’s not really about the hockey; it’s just about the beers after and the room. We’ll have some stories for the boys after, that’s for sure.”

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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.