Thursday, June 10, 2010

Project Canadiana #3: Chilly Beach




Chilly Beach was an animated comedy series that aired on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in 2003. It originally was a flash based website, until the CBC picked it up. The t.v. show ran a total of 65 episodes before being slowly cancelled in 2008. This was my favourite Canadian animated television show of all time. It was a sharp mix of wit and satire of Canadian stereotypes.

The show focuses on Dale MacDonald and his goings on in a failed resort town known as Chilly Beach. The fictional town itself is located on a large ice floe that drifts through the arctic, setting the series up many memorable episodes.

Most notably so, the episode called "Chilly Beachcombers". Wherein, Dale hires a Newfie fisherman to drag the ice floe closer to Iceland, to catch his favourite episode of the Beachcombers in a different timezone. This is the beauty of Chilly Beach; it is a culturally aware television show. Meaning: it mentions past quintessential Canadian shows in an effort to create a cultural mash-up of Canada.

It succeeded. That's the reason I loved this show. Each episode shows what Canadians really do. Drink beer, play hockey, watch hockey fanatically, eat at greasy spoons, play curling, get eaten by bears. The whole shebang. The characters on the show are an interesting bunch as well. They include hippies, Francophones, crazy Scots, Sikh mounties, and beer guzzling hockey lovers! It really represents the diversity of Canada and all of the different people here in a satirical way.

This show definitely had it's moments. In 2008 after three seasons it just disappeared. Which is sad, because it will be greatly missed. Great thing I found most of the episodes here, free to watch.

Jarrett

No comments:

Post a Comment