Sunnyside

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.

This show was not very good but wasn't bad either. It was an average if sometimes a bit odd TV sketch comedy show. It seems like they maybe were not exactly sure what they were wanting to do with this show or how to execute their plan if they did have one. The sketches and characters were often not funny and just weird for the sake of being weird. Still this show was a lot better than say Hotbox (same people earlier show), Baroness Von Sketch, etc etc. I don't miss the show but don't get the hate for it either.

One of the basic reasons to watch comedy TV shows is to make you laugh. The many bland, formulaic American sitcoms that pollute our airwaves rarely do this. That's why Sunnyside was such a pleasant surprise – it's genuinely quirky and genuinely funny. A sketch comedy show with recurring characters set in the "Sunnyside" neighbourhood in a seedy section of the middle of Toronto, it's part of the absurdist, surreal tradition of British TV comedy (Monty Python, Big Train, The Mighty Boosh and Spaced) that's also seen in bit and bites in Canadian sketch comedy (SCTV, The Frantics, and Kids in the Hall, especially the laconic cops played by Bruce McCullough and Mark McKinney, replicated in this series). The other thing that Sunnyside borrows from this tradition is the idea of the world turned upside down – instead of celebrating the lifestyles the successful middle class, if not of the rich and famous (e.g. Charlie Sheen's sitcoms) – it's the phony aesthetes, the down and out and the working poor who make us laugh. They're all over the place in Sunnyside: the pretentious barista Shaytan, the skanky women fishing for money in a sewer, the woman who crashes an art exhibit to get free wine. There's also some social satire, as in the sketch of the man who is so reliant on Siri and his iPhone that he winds up on his back in an alley being robbed. And the surrealism is at times gut-bustingly funny, as in the episode "Australia", the title of which doesn't make sense until the last line – "It's like they've never seen an Australia moon!" If you prefer "Mom" or "Mike and Molly" or "Modern Family" to this show, we don't live in the same mental universe.

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.

In a Toronto neighbourhood nestled from the lake front next to High Park, this show presents a fresh and at times dream-state-esque comedic experience. Whether the fine folks who actually live in Sunnyside act anything like this brilliant exaggeration is best left to viewers' imaginations. No doubt, more than a fair share of people will identify with these characters (at least at some point in their lives?). It definitely feels different than the typical Canadian Content comedy of times gone by. Quick, unexpected, and often jaded sequences focus a lens of self- reflection (and just plain sarcastic fun) on otherwise typical Torontonian human interactions. The show reminds me vaguely of SCTV and also David Wain (particularly Wainy Days). The British show Snuff Box is also quite similar in terms of timing, unexpected twists and raw off-colour style. It's quite surreal to see linkage to an actual Toronto neighbourhood, complete with authentic references. Perhaps the show will catch on and will become known for helping Toronto lighten up and collectively laugh a little at ourselves.