| Sunnyside | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sketch comedy |
| Created by | |
| Written by | Gary Pearson, Dan Redican, Kathleen Phillips, Jan Caruana, Alastair Forbes |
| Directed by | Shawn Alex Thomson, Jeff Beesley, Dawn Wilkinson, Steve Wright |
| Starring | |
| Composer | James Jandrisch |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 (as of November 8, 2015) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Dan Redican, Gary Pearson, Dan Bennett, Shane Corkery, Anton Leo, Phyllis Laing, Mark Gingras |
| Producers | Rhonda Baker, Paula Smith |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies | Counterfeit Pictures, Buffalo Gal Pictures |
| Original release | |
| Network | City |
| Release | January 8 – November 8, 2015 |
Sunnyside is a Canadian sketch comedy television series, which premiered January 9, 2015 on City.[1] Created by Dan Redican and Gary Pearson, the series is set in the fictional neighbourhood of Sunnyside and features sketches depicting various eccentric recurring characters living there.[2] The show was cancelled after one season,[3] although City has sometimes reaired the episodes in repeats.
The cast includes Pat Thornton, Patrice Goodman, Alice Moran, Kevin Vidal, Kathleen Phillips, Rob Norman and Norm Macdonald.[1] The show was filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba.[4]
Redican and Pearson had each approached Rogers Communications with individual show ideas; Redican's pitch was Our Street, an ensemble series about the quirky residents of an urban neighbourhood, while Pearson's was Dark Roast, about the quirky customers of a coffee shop.[5] Neither pitch was accepted as presented, but Rogers asked them to combine their ideas into a single show.[5] They agreed and created Sunnyside, patterning their fictional neighbourhood after Toronto's Parkdale.[5]
Macdonald appears on the show only in voice form, as the neighbourhood's surreal alternate reality version of the Internet: a sentient sewer line which can answer search queries shouted into a manhole.[4]
| Season | Episodes | First aired | Last aired | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13 | January 8, 2015 | November 8, 2015 | |
| No. in series |
No. in season |
Title | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The Top Hat" | January 8, 2015 |
| 2 | 2 | "Ponies" | January 15, 2015 |
| 3 | 3 | "Baxter" | January 22, 2015 |
| 4 | 4 | "Australia" | January 29, 2015 |
| 5 | 5 | "The Chain Gang" | February 5, 2015 |
| 6 | 6 | "Clowns" | February 12, 2015 |
| 7 | 7 | "War is Hell" | September 27, 2015 |
| 8 | 8 | "Volcano" | October 4, 2015 |
| 9 | 9 | "Hole Day" | October 11, 2015 |
| 10 | 10 | "Bobo" | October 18, 2015 |
| 11 | 11 | "Shaytan's Nemesis" | October 25, 2015 |
| 12 | 12 | "Sunnyside Tours" | November 1, 2015 |
| 13 | 13 | "The Rapture" | November 8, 2015 |
Television critics reviewed the show favourably, with Brad Oswald of the Winnipeg Free Press calling it "Canada's best sketch-comedy TV effort since Codco and The Kids in the Hall arrived in rapid succession in the late '80s",[2] and John Doyle of The Globe and Mail calling the show "daft but deftly skewering the ripe pickings of contemporary ludicrousness".[4] Doyle also criticized the network for scheduling the show to air directly opposite The Big Bang Theory, stating that the show "deserves a much bigger potential audience than that offered in this suicide-slot."[4]
The cast collectively won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance in a Variety or Sketch Comedy Program or Series at the 4th Canadian Screen Awards in 2016.[7]
