Exclusive Interview: Corner Gas Animated Creator Brent Butt Discusses Fourth and Final Season

 

 

To say that the recent announcement of Corner Gas Animated season four was unexpected is an understatement. The homegrown Canadian animated spin-off of one of the countries most popular franchises has been entertaining us since 2018. 

The first three seasons sporadically dropped with at least a year apart on Canadian cable channels. The announcement of the fourth season came upon us just 6-months after an exciting Christmas-themed finale in December.

More shocking, was the declaration that this would be Corner Gas’s final run on the air. While many shows may be lucky to reach the high number of episodes, this series is still at the top of its game. There is not much of a debate that this is the most popular adult animated sitcom to ever come out of Canada.  Corner Gas Animated has broken viewership records and dominated the national award circuits putting it in place to match or even surpass the original hit live-action series.

After six seasons of live-action content, a full-length feature film, and a masterful animated sitcom, it is once again time to say goodbye to Dog River and its quirky residents. 

Thankfully, series creator and showrunner, Brent Butt, has once again talked to us here at Bubbleblabber on what to expect during this last hoorah. It is a much-appreciated tradition that Brent has continued to be open for an interview on the cusp of each season’s premiere. And we were more than pleased to chat with him for what may be our final time.

The following interview has been condensed for the purpose of clarity.

 

Jesse Bereta: There has been a lot going on throughout Canada, does the show address Covid-19 this next season?

Brent Butt: No, not at all. When you are in the middle of making it, you don’t know how things are going to play out. You don’t know to what degree you can make fun of something. Is it going to get more serious, is there going to be deadlier variants? It’s not the type of thing to play around with when you are making a comedy show. 

Besides that, Corner Gas, we always wanted to make it, almost, timeless. It’s very nebulas in terms of when it takes place. At the end of the day, it is escapism. There are comedies that pack all the big issues of the day and there are comedies that allow people to forget the troubles for a day. I think Corner Gas is more of the latter. We just like to tell funny stories and let people have a good time.

JB: Fair enough. Actually, at the end of last season, you ended up bringing the joy with that big Christmas special and dropping a single. Do you have a follow-up to that? Are we to expect another single? Any big special episodes?

BB: I got no music planned; I can tell you that. I think we do have some special episodes that I am not at liberty to talk about right now. But, yeah, we got some stuff up our sleeves, for sure.  

JB: Of course, a big thing is the guest stars on Corner Gas. Already in the last three seasons, you have brought in some big names. We do know in the upcoming season premiere you have Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall. Are there other big names we can expect?

BB: Yeah, we got a lot of fun cameos this year. Like you said, Mark McKinney is in the season opener. He is the first person to do a cameo, or guest star, in the live-action and animated. He holds that distinction, the only one. We got Rick Mercer doing a role. Steven Page, one of the founding members of the Barenaked Ladies. Simu Liu, we had him before Marvel came calling. I like to think his cameo on our show is what made Marvel notice him. And, Kim Coates, his cameo may be one of the funnest things I ever wrote because it is very strange. He plays a biker who has a tattoo of Oscar on his shoulder and the tattoo won’t shut up and is constantly nattering at him.

JB: And I heard there is an A-lister surprise cameo in-store as well?

BB: Yeah. When you do these things like Corner Gas – I kind of have my people that I would love to get. Like my dream list. Sometimes you are able to land them, and sometimes you can’t. For the live-action, I wanted to get Bob Newhart. 

I think we came close, but we ended up not getting Bob Newhart on the show. In the animated, I wanted Michael J. Fox, really bad. And we did make that happen. So sometimes you set the bar, get your dream candidate, and go for it. 

Sometimes you land it, sometimes you don’t. This was one of the ones that I didn’t think we would ever land, and it came together. Though I am not, at this time, at liberty to discuss. But yes, a big-time special guest coming.

JB: Yeah, you mention Michael J. Fox, and I was wondering, who they could get that was bigger than that?

BB: I mean, Michael J. Fox is pretty iconic. He is cemented into the firmaments for sure.  

JB: The big unfortunate news is that this is the last season of Corner Gas Animated. How are you feeling about that?

BB: It’s kind of bittersweet. I would have been happy to do a couple more seasons. At the same time, I never went into this thinking I would be able to sell Corner Gas stories for 107 live-action episodes, almost 50 animated episodes, and a movie. I am already so far into the gravy that I feel nothing but blessed. It has made my life better in a thousand different ways. 

Like I said, I would have loved to have done some more, but I don’t feel like anybody got short-sheeted. And I have got nothing but good things to say about CTV. They have been such an amazing partner from the get-go. Such a champion of the show and so great to work with. It has been a fantastic relationship.

JB: It does seem like you guys are bowing out in your prime. You guys have six Canadian Screen Awards – congratulations on your last two wins there. You’ve been breaking records for CTV Comedy. Season four seems like a good time to end at the hype.  

BB: Yeah, there are always a million different reasons that factor in as variables when a decision is made on whether a show gets picked up or not. Having good ratings is only one of the variables. I think at a certain point we are victims of our success. A season of television is an expensive thing to put together; it’s a costly thing. And when you look at the catalogue that already exists of Corner Gas material, at a certain point it becomes diminishing returns. You have provided so much product, so much product exists, it puts it in a situation of being worth the cost of doing another season.

JB: Yeah, Corner Gas is arguably Canada’s most popular adult animated sitcom ever. Do you think it has caused changes in the industry? Do you think CTV is going to take a chance on another animation?

BB: I don’t know, it’s a big company, a big corporation. I certainly would be talking out of my hat. I think they would be open to the idea. They all seem to like animation. The executives that we were directly working with on our show, they seemed to really be fans of adult animation. I think they like the idea, but you would have to ask them.

JB: And how about you? How was the experience for you? Would you be open to another animation?

BB: Yeah, it was great. I really enjoyed it, coming from the live-action side of it, into animation. Basically, I was able to work an 8-hour day which I couldn’t do in live-action. It was 16–17-hour days because I was on set either on-screen or overseeing everything being shot. So, I couldn’t do my editing until after the days filming was done. I would try and write in the morning or sometimes late at night. I was wearing a lot of hats and you can’t do them simultaneously, they had to be lined up. 

It made for very long days. With that out of the equation, I don’t have to be on a set for 11-hours a day when we are doing animation. I felt like I just had a job. I could start work in the morning and wrap it up at 5 o’clock. But I do know a lot of the animators were working long hours.

JB: How early did you know this was going to be the last season? Did you take any gambles with writing any of the episodes?

BB: We were pretty far down the production road when we got the call that there wasn’t going to be an order for season five. Most of the creative was in vise already.  

JB: Fair enough. The live-action went for six seasons, and you got a movie and then an animated program. Is there anything else in store for Corner Gas?

BB: Nothing in store. I have nothing planned. But I learned long ago never say die with this show. It is kind of like the zombie show. It seems to have its own kind of life, its own energy. I’m not planning anything else.

JB: Not planning but open?

BB: It’s a never-say-never situation. I really don’t expect that there is going to be anything else, but you never know what’s going to come down the pipe. Maybe somebody has a fantastic idea to do something, and a couple of years have gone by. Who knows? I just say never-say-never. But there is nothing on the radar.

JB: Season four premieres on July 5th on CTV Comedy. Anywhere else to watch it?

BB: Well, it always ends up streaming on Crave. Any of CTV’s shows or Bell Media shows, end up streaming on Crave. I don’t know at what point it starts to stream on Crave in Canada. And we are waiting to see if season four finds a home on IMDb TV where the rest of the Corner Gas material sits in the States.  

JB: Well, congratulations on a successful show. You can’t argue that Corner Gas Animated was successful in every department. Sad to see it go.

BB: The thing for me, if we do nothing else, the thing I take away is it’s the only time in Canadian history that the number one comedy in Canada was actually from Canada. If I do nothing else, I can have that with a smile on my face.