How do you follow up the massive success of a series you created? That’s the challenge facing Brent Butt, who parlayed a quirky, small-town Saskatchewan sitcom into a Canadian, North American and international smash with Corner Gas.
But if Butt’s worried, he doesn’t sound it. The amiable comic just finished shooting the 13-episode first season of his follow-up to Corner Gas, called Hiccups, and is heading into the editing room to work on tweaking the sound and all that other fun techie stuff before it bows on CTV on March 1.
So, how does Butt come up with his ideas when he’s writing? Does he stare out the window, waiting for a “jackass!” to drop on him out of thin air? Does he set aside hours a day, scribbling notes on napkins, walls and his own arms? Nope, it’s a collaborative effort.
“There are different stages,” he says on the line from Vancouver. “The first stage is taking a chunk of time — a week or two weeks — where I sit down with the other writers and we just kick around ideas. It’s the big spitball session; we have index cards up and a whiteboard, that kind of thing. When we have a pile of ideas that we like, we start to pair them together with the characters.”
Among those characters on Hiccups are fellow Corner Gas alum Nancy Robertson, who plays Millie Upton, a children’s author with anger-management issues, as well as other emotional issues; her life coach Stan Dirko (Butt); Millie’s publisher, Joyce Haddison (Laura Soltis, The Guard); Millie’s agent, played by David Ingram (Smallville); Crystal (Emily Perkins, Ginger Snaps), the publisher’s receptionist; and Stan’s wife, played by Paula Rivera (Flashpoint).
Once the character pairings are established, says the Gemini winner, everyone heads off to do their own writing.
“We assign scripts,” he explains. “Then we each go off and write a first draft. We give each other the first drafts, and make notes, and try to punch up the jokes. Then we each take a script away and do a second draft. So we don’t sit and type with each other, but we kick around ideas and gags and collaborate that way in advance of principal photography. Then you reach the point where you’re in production, so then you have a writers’ room on-set and everything.”
It’s at that point that Butt has several balls in the air — directing, acting, consulting and making decisions — but he still continues to put pen to paper.
“I have a little travel desk so that wherever I am, I can write,” he confides. “There’s always one point in a season when it’s so busy that I wonder what the hell I’m doing.”
Hiccups debuts Monday, March 1 at 8 p.m. ET on CTV.
greg@tvguide.ca
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Greg has been a fan of TV since he was five years old, eating dry cereal in front of the TV with his sisters watching Sesame Street, and scrambling downstairs after dinner to watch Polka Dot Door. His influential teen years were taken up by equal parts of The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, The Incredible Hulk, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Magnum P.I. and Friday Night Videos as well as daily doses of Toronto Rocks and the Power Hour on MuchMusic.
He is continually fascinated with the television process from idea to pilot episode and network pickup, development and casting right through to air, and likes all genres of TV. |
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