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Nov 5, 2020

"Corner Gas: The Animated Series": Still Not A Lot Going On


 Corner Gas (2004-2008) is one of my all-time favorite sitcoms, about a small town in Saskatchewan where "there's not a lot going on."  Except for the tailent show, the comedy night, the curling  team, the baeseball team, and son on...  The regulars are

1. Brent, the laconic owner of Corner Gas

2. Wanda, his wise-cracking assistant.

3. Hank, his dim-witted best friend.

4-5. Oscar and Emma, his parents.

6-7. Local cops Davis and Karen.

8. Lacey, a Toronto girl who came to town to run the local cafe, and is not Brent's love interest.

No gay people appear or are mentioned, except for an occasional homophobic comment from Hank, and an episode where a visiting doctor mistakenly believes that Brent and Hank are lovers.  But no heterosexual romance either.  Only a few episodes involved one of the regulars dating.  The minor characters were never shown with husbands or wives.  A pleasant change of pace from the constant sex jokes and "will they or won't they" sexual tension of American sitcoms.

In 2018, twelve years after the show ended, CTV and IMDB started airing an animated series.

I started watching several episodes, but soon became bored.



Positive:

1. The characters look younger and cuter. .

2. There is more racial diversity in town.  In the original series, Davis was First Nation (also maybe Paul, who ran the local bar), but now there are black and Asian residents.

3. There are references to contemporary concerns, like wi-fi passwords and locally sourced food.



Negative: 

1. There's still "not a lot going on."  The point of animation is to allow scenes that would be too expensive or unfeasible to film with live actors, but here it's basically Corner Gas all over again, with an occasional fantasy sequence.

2. A lot more dating, romance, and heterosexual fantasies.

3. And still no gay people. 


See also: Corner Gas


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