Sunshine Sketches: Sunday February 12th, 8PM on CBC

Deb: Many projects come and go. Some are fun, some are successful, some are a nightmare, and some are special.

Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town is special.

If you are Canadian, this is a must-see as it is a proud part of our heritage. If you are not, please consider watching as it is great family viewing.  Colin and I have seen a copy and it is delightful, funny, and surprising.

Colin and Deb on set.

Sunshine Sketches was written by Stephen Leacock in 1912. Mr. Leacock  was a humourist and writer of fiction who was born in Hampshire, England in 1869. He came to Canada with his family at the age of six and was educated among other schools at the prestigious Upper Canada College in Toronto and the University of Chicago where he received a doctorate in political science and political economy. He soon became disillusioned with politics (smart lad) and turned to writing, with fiction and humour a specialty. He started out his literary career writing short stories that were published in magazines in Canada and the U.S. and became very popular all over the world. Around 1911 it was said that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Still true today!!!  :-)

Between 1915 and 1925, he was the most popular humourist in the world.

Groucho Marx and Jack Benny were among his biggest fans. He was a huge influence on them when they were young vaudevillians and fifty years after first reading him they still considered him one of their favourite comic writers.

Sunshine Sketches was shot in the thinly-disguised town of Mariposa, a small town in Ontario that Leacock was all too familiar with. The story is based on fact and fiction or, I should say, fact and embellishment.

This production is a virtual who’s who of Canadian talent, with the great Gordon Pinsent at the helm. We are proud of it and wanted to share. Please consider spending some time with us in this charming little town. 

Barbara: I saw the trailer for this just the other night and it looks fabulous! Beautifully shot and with some great stars (including our dear Deb and Colin). I’m so glad you remembered to remind us, Deb—because TV shows, especially Canadian ones, tend to fall through the cracks. I really want to catch this one!

We couldn’t get the trailer to embed here, but if you go to this link, you can see a really cute (and not too long) making-of doc.

Making Magic And Believing In It

Barbara: So, yes, we shot our demo pilot on Wednesday and it was wonderful! Cannot even begin to describe the wondrousness of it. We promised you photos and here they are. But I also wanted to expound a bit (a very tiny bit) on the whole “making your dream come true” thing. Man, it takes a lot of work and prep and tenacity and commitment and optimism and courage to do it, but most of all, MOST of all, it takes a village to raise a dream. Without our army of likeminded, dedicated, hard-working, imaginative, and creative dreamers, Deb and I would never ever have had our dream come true. All day, I couldn’t help marveling at this barefaced fact. Deb was marveling too. We would routinely, throughout the day, look at each other in wonder and amazement. We are eternally grateful to all who came aboard our project and helped to realize it.

But there’s also the other side of the whole process: the questioning, the insecurity, the second-guessing, the fatigue. And the next day you wake up and you kinda feel like you’ve been through a tornado: exhilarated and invigorated, but also unable to stop wondering, “What the hell actually happened out there?!” The thing about dreams is that very often they feel like … well, like dreams. Did it really happen? Was it as good as I thought? Is life in any way … different because a miracle just happened?

In my experience, I have never been able to have the glory of the one hand without the anxiety of the other. Have you? Is it possible? Or are we just hardwired to be faithful skeptics?!

Deb: Well, I can only second what Barb said. It was a tiny little miracle this day. Yes, it’s true that when we did the postmortem the next day we were brimming with things we might have done or could have done or might have changed or had regrets about. But the truth, the real truth, is that THIS is the creative process. The fact that we were given this opportunity was the gift. The rest is not even worth the paper to wrap it in. We are proud. Beyond that, we will see. 

A Day In The Life Of Little Mosque On The Prairie

Deb: Here we are in the thick of shooting season six of Little Mosque on the Prairie. It is the last season that we are doing right now, and I thought it would be nice to pay a little farewell to it here at The Middle Ages.

For those of you who watch, I want to be clear that the final season will air this fall on CBC. For those of you who don’t watch it, you may enjoy it anyway. I wasn’t able to shoot any actual scenes out of respect for the dreaded “spoiler alert”, but I wanted you to meet some of the cast and get an insight into a day on a set.  Not everyone was in on the day I shot, so there are some wonderful actors missing. I hope they are represented by the spirit of the film.

Thanks to my boys, Luke for editing, and Colin for posting this for me. And a special thank you to the Little Mosque team who over these last six years have given me employment, laughs, and a pay-cheque, not in that order. I will always be proud of this little Canadian show seen around the globe, which has shone a light on understanding and tolerance. 

Barbara: I just loved this, Deb. I spend time on sets and yet still found this adorable and sweet to watch. Thanks so much for taking the time to put it together. And thanks to all your peeps for being so gracious and sweet. For our readers: the show isn't available yet to see if you don't live in Canada ... unless you buy the seasons online (it's a really cute show and Deb is so funny). 

An Arts Fart

Barbara: I know I just ranted about our recent national election, but I have one more point I want to make that’s very near and dear to my heart.

This rant started after I heard that someone yelled to our Prime Minister right after he won the election to “kill the CBC” (something he has in fact insinuated he might do). Now for those of you readers not from this country, this is an easy catch-up (for my point). The CBC is our national public broadcaster. They produce and air mostly Canadian content. Because it is government-owned, its Canadian content is largely protected. But because taxpayers pay for it to survive, its existence is often threatened.

“Kill the CBC” is a regular call to arms from certain types. And I always wonder why. I mean, first of all it’s a business like any other, filled with employees who rely on it for their paychecks (so they can, yes, pay their taxes and boost the economy with their confident spending). These people (whether writers, actors, producers or administrators) are as worthy of jobs as the next guy. Would people line up to shout at our elected officials to “Kill Schools” or “Kill the Bank of Canada” or even “Kill GE”?

So let’s ask those taxpayers who hate it––why do you gang up on the CBC? Is it because it’s an arts’ based forum and therefore not “serious”? The CBC features TV shows and radio programs and films and news and documentaries. Are TV and radio not as worthy as, say, drilling for oil? Now I’m not going to debate the merit of any specific show, but I will ask: who doesn’t friggin watch TV, listen to music, read, or watch a movie every now and then?! I mean what would we do without our arts? We’re not talking hoity, evening-gowned snobs sipping champagne and flicking channels with manicured fingernails (although let’s presume they do too). We’re talking virtually every single ordinary one of us!

All of us rely on some form of the arts to help us get by. To make us normal, functioning members of society and not just work-oriented automatons. The arts are as vital to our survival as healthcare and education. And they make us a hell of lot more fun and interesting to be around.

Deb: I have been employed by the CBC many times in my career. I have listened to CBC radio and I grew up on everything from the Friendly Giant to Rick Mercer. The CBC gives Canadians a starting point, a common ground if you will. Is it perfect? No. What is, I ask you? When I travel the country for Little Mosque and meet the fans, I see firsthand what the CBC means to Canada. Not everyone lives in the big cities, flipping through 200plus channels.

Can you imagine for one minute, Britain scrapping the BBC? It would never happen. They hold onto their precious institutions and so should we. 


PS You can also visit Friends of the CBC