Sunnyside

Sunnyside is a fresh comedy that our family loves to watch. It is not like any other show on television.

The characters in Sunnyside are normal exaggerated. It is a sketch comedy but it flows from one week to the next. What I mean by that is that you get to know all of the characters and see them frequently. My personal favourites are the ironic hipsters, the closet lesbian and her naive husband and the not so tough female cops just to name a few. Yes, this show is ridiculous and silly but that is exactly what TV needs.

The characters are great.

The writing is great.

It is silly, fun and a good laugh and I love that it is Canadian!

Looking forward to season 2!

It's a Toronto sketchy neighbourhood by way of Winnipeg where its filmed, but the real state of Sunnyside is the kind of slightly absurdist, deft and odd comedy that we used to get from Kids in the Hall. Every episode has a loose structure on which to hang recurring characters and bits, most of which are never too long and some of which are screamingly funny. A long time ago I remember being told about Monty Python, if you don't like what's going on, wait ten seconds. Sunnyside's a bit like that. Fantastic character work, engaging premises and never less than satisfying. It warms my jaded blackened, manhole-sized heart.

Sunnyside has captured the spirit of Second City TV, but continued the progression to bring a fresh new comedy from Canada. Using the sketch comedy / improve formula, the troop has developed a quirky town where gentrification has put soccer mom's in the same coffee shop as crack whores, feral ponies are the main town nuisance and the internet has not yet breached the town-line (however there is a manhole where you can call down one question per day and get a reply from the familiar voice of Norm MacDonald).

Each of the six actors create a variety of characters (a la Second City) any of which would stand alone against the thin creations of today's Saturday Night Live. The characters continue through out the series and it's easy to grow fond of their peculiarities. Police woman Rookie Kerri (who says "this just got serious" when her mom gets shot in the first episode) and Meth Georgette who has never said a word so far in the series, are two of my favorites.

I know un-good is not a real word but it somehow seems to fit this show perfectly.

The writing is really awful, the acting is mostly awful too, and the show as a whole is bad as well. The entire concept behind this show is just flawed.

This is yet another pretty terrible sketch comedy series on Canadian television.

There are a lot of people I recognize in this show and I think it may be the same people from Hotbox which is another confusing, annoying, unfunny mess of a sketch comedy series. How do these shows keep getting made and how do these people keep getting work? I am almost ready to give up on Canadian TV.

I give it a three because other shows are actually easily worse (such as the Hotbox that I already mentioned) but it's definitely not worth watching either.

Sunnyside has a loosely-strung narrative that trades whimsy and darkness. Sometimes it's laugh out loud, sometimes scabrous, but always weird, lovingly splaying urban tropes from hipsters to cops to cat ladies. The absurdity recalls Kids in the Hall, the character work SCTV. It's a nice stretch to the form that serves up a great WTF moment in each half hour.

Some of the types you'll meet in Sunnyside are fun, some are foul. Some of the situations are situationally funny -- like the bachelorette bridezilla who everyone's afraid to confront. And some are just gems of performance, like most everything Alice Moran or Pat Thornton does.

It's nice to see a mix of humor styles and concepts wrapped up in a loose package. It reminds me of what was once said a million years ago about Monty Python -- if you don't like what you see, wait ten seconds, and it will be something totally different.

I miss some of these characters already, and look forward to seeing them again soon.