Sunnyside (Canadian TV series)

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.

Sunnyside
Genre	Sketch comedy
Created by	Dan Redican Gary Pearson
Written by	Gary Pearson, Dan Redican, Kathleen Phillips, Jan Caruana, Alastair Forbes
Directed by	Shawn Alex Thomson, Jeff Beesley, Dawn Wilkinson, Steve Wright
Starring	Pat Thornton Patrice Goodman Alice Moran Kevin Vidal Kathleen Phillips Rob Norman Norm Macdonald
Composer	James Jandrisch
Country of origin	Canada
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13
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 (2015-01-08) – November 8, 2015 (2015-11-08)

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]

Episodes

Season		Episodes	First aired	Last aired
	1	13	January 8, 2015 (2015-01-08)	November 8, 2015 (2015-11-08)

Season 1 (2015)

No. in series	No. in season	Title	Original air date
1	1	"The Top Hat"	January 8, 2015 (2015-01-08)
2	2	"Ponies"	January 15, 2015 (2015-01-15)
3	3	"Baxter"	January 22, 2015 (2015-01-22)
4	4	"Australia"	January 29, 2015 (2015-01-29)
5	5	"The Chain Gang"	February 5, 2015 (2015-02-05)
6	6	"Clowns"	February 12, 2015 (2015-02-12)
7	7	"War is Hell"	September 27, 2015 (2015-09-27)
8	8	"Volcano"	October 4, 2015 (2015-10-04)
9	9	"Hole Day"	October 11, 2015 (2015-10-11)
10	10	"Bobo"	October 18, 2015 (2015-10-18)
11	11	"Shaytan's Nemesis"	October 25, 2015 (2015-10-25)
12	12	"Sunnyside Tours"	November 1, 2015 (2015-11-01)
13	13	"The Rapture"	November 8, 2015 (2015-11-08)

Reception

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.^[6]