Brent Butt, creator, writer and star of the hit Canadian sitcom series, Corner Gas, sat down with The Charlatan and talked comedy, animation, and fighter jets.
The Charlatan (TC): Let’s start with Corner Gas Animated, tell how that came together.
Brent Butt (BB): It basically came together because of the movie. After we did the series, six seasons, 107 episodes, we thought it would be great if we came back in a few years to do a movie, and we did that five years later. The response to the movie was just more than anybody anticipated. The response to the movie was huge—we were filling up theatres, Cineplex had to ask the network if they could have more days with the movie in theatres. It was just a much bigger success than any of us had anticipated, and so the network basically said “listen, there’s obviously still an appetite for the show, do you guys want to do more episodes?” . . . I said “if we were going to do something, what would we do?” My partners and I started talking and the notion of animation came up. I have a bit of a background in animation . . . So we kicked around that idea. We did a demo, and the demo felt right . . . and the cast was all keen, they were like this sounds like it could be fun. So, it just kind of moved ahead from there.
TC: Were there any big differences you noticed between doing a live-action series vs. an animated one?
BB: The biggest difference is you get together with the cast for four hours to record an episode as opposed to four days of acting to get a [live-action] episode down. That’s one of the big differences. I don’t have to shave, you can show up in sweatpants. But animation is a different animal, so it was fun for me because it was a steep learning curve. It actually kind of reminded me of season one of Corner Gas live-action where it was my first experience putting together a TV series. So there was lots for to learn, I really had to keep my eyes and ears open and ask a lot of questions. It kind of felt the same as we were doing animation—I was running a ship through waters I didn’t really know. You know what you want the end product to be, but it’s very much a team sport.
TC: What did the animation aspect have on your overall vision for the series?
BB: We knew that we wanted a show that could stand up in terms of quality, visually against any of the top primetime network adult animated shows. We wanted good quality animation. I kind of knew what I wanted the show to look like visually, I worked with a character designer here in Vancouver to develop the look of the show.
TC: Tell me about getting the cast together again.
BB: It’s great because we’re very close after our years working together every day for six years, day in and day out for half the year at least. So, you become like a family, then suddenly you’re not seeing each other very often. You start to miss each other a bit. So getting back together, it feels great. We have a great time doing it . . . Now, it’s just nice and it’s like you get to go back and visit family for a week, you know? With the animated show, like I said you get in the studio for four hours together, and it’s just a really fun four hours. They’re all funny, smart people. We have a lot of laughs.
TC: What’s changed among the cast since Corner Gas?
BB: Well, we party a lot less. The first couple seasons of Corner Gas, we would wrap up for the day and just head down to the bar. We were younger, more foolish. Now, some of us are parents, we’re a little older and wiser, and I think we’re mellower. My back hurts.
TC: Was it tough not having Janet Wright (who died in 2016) this time around?
BB: Yeah, I mean that’s the glaring thing. We often talk about Janet. Corrine Koslo has been such a godsend . . . Janet was such a unique creature. There was only ever one Janet. She was like nobody else you could ever imagine. So, you can never replace that, her absence is always felt by us. But Corrine stepping in as a friend of Janet, someone who knew Janet, knew her rhythms and her sense of humour, she has fit in so well. She’s such a wonderful person. She fit in with the group right away, I could see why Janet thought so highly of her.
TC: What can we expect to see with the animated series?
BB: It really feels like Corner Gas. One of the important things to me was to try and capture the things that people liked about the live-action show and bring that into the animated world. In the live-action show, we would often have these fantasy sequences where you’d see what a character was imagining, and those are always fun to do. But, in the real world, you’re kind of limited by what you can actually create and do. When you’re animating, you can do a lot more stuff in those fantasy sequences. In the very first episode that airs, Brent forgot to put in a gas order, so the gas pumps are dry for a few days. And Oscar imagines that it’s going to be a like a stark, post-apocalyptic hellscape. It’s kind of reminiscent of Mad Max in a way—you’ve got this gas station in the middle of a desert with dune-buggy war machines rolling over the horizon coming to demand gas. That’s something that in terms of comedy and humour, it fits right into what always did on Corner Gas but we never would have been able to do that .
TC: Do you have any memorable moments from your stand-up career that you’re proud of?
BB: Lots of things stand out. I’ve been able to have some very surreal moments along the way, from being threatened by a biker in a roadhouse with a Bowie knife to performing for Queen Elizabeth II. Those are two very surreal and different experiences. My first appearance at Just For Laughs was an amazing thing—that’s something that as a young Canadian performer, that’s your best bet at getting a lot of eyeballs. Being invited down to Chicago to throw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field when Corner Gas started airing in the US, there’s been lots of those kind of moments that are surreal and stand out. Most of my memories when I think of my 30 years of being a comic, my mind goes to hanging out with other comics, having some drinks and laughs with other comedians. For me, that’s always been the best thing about it, being able to hang with other comics. It’s a very lone-wolf job, but it’s great to get in with this pack of other people . . . I guess it’s like a lot of things. If you don’t do it, you can’t fully understand it. To be in a group of other people who understand it . . . the comfort that comes with that is magic.
TC: How has comedy in Canada changed over your 30 year career?
BB: It’s really gone up and down. I started in the late 80s, there was a real comedy boom at that time, so there were a lot of clubs and a lot of stage time. They didn’t pay much, but you were able to get out and scratch out a meagre existence and get a lot of stage time. As things wax and wane naturally, the more people that got into comedy, the more shows there were, the more homogenized and bland it became. Pretty soon, people stopped going out to comedy shows because all the Canadians were the same. 9 out of 10 Canadians would do roughly the same 20 minute set. That caused the bubble to burst, a lot of them dropped out… So, it kind of re-attracted all the right people, and as a result, we started getting more creative, innovative, funny voices.
TC: What do you think would be the most impressive thing to steal and get away with?
BB: A fighter jet. That would be impressive on a lot of levels.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Photo provided
