Jonathan Torrens Unfiltered On His Creative Evolution and Canadian Identity

We were thrilled to finally have Jonathan Torrens sit down with us for a candid conversation about his remarkable 30-year journey through Canadian entertainment and the industry that keeps him more fulfilled than ever. From his unexpected start as a teenage host on Street Cents, to iconic roles on Trailer Park Boys, Mr. D, Letterkenny, Shoresy, the Vollies, the directors chair & more, Torrens reflects on what makes Canadian content distinctive and why our most uniquely Canadian stories often travel best internationally.

We learn of Torrens' venture into the movie trailer rental business, offering insights into the economic realities of film production in Atlantic Canada and how policy decisions affect creative industries. He also shares passionately his recent directorial work on "Pretty Blind," a sitcom featuring a woman with low vision that carefully avoids making disability the character's sole defining trait.

Torrens weaves together thoughtful observations about media evolution, representation, and the value of long-form conversation in an increasingly fragmented attention economy. His father-in-law's advice becomes the perfect summation of his current philosophy: "Instead of doing 13 things half-assed, pick two and go hard at them." For creators at any stage, it's a powerful reminder to focus on what truly matters.

Join us for a refreshingly authentic conversation with one of Canada's most versatile creative forces as he shares the unfiltered truth about finding your voice, knowing when to say no, and creating work that resonates.

Thank you to Parichat Thai for their amazing food & accommodation and to Tatamagouche Brewing for the refreshments in this episode. 

Your Dream Home Does Not Have to Be Just A Dream. Today's show is brought to you by Kimia Nejat of Exit Reality Metro. Kimia is the realtor who knows how to get things done. Buying or Selling? Go to afternoonpint.ca/kimia and we will set up an introduction

Does Your Business Need a Boost With Foot traffic? Hosts for An Event? Or Even Actors For A Production? Or the Production itself? Go to https://www.afternoonpint.ca/services and see some of the services that the Afternoon Pint team offers. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:14

Cheers, all right, cheers, cheers. Finally, I nailed you two down.

Speaker 3 0:20

You've been dodging me for two years trying to make this happen. I had to beg you. No, I haven't been constantly messaging you or anything on various platforms trying to get a hold of you. That never happened. Can I confess my?

Speaker 1 0:29

deepest, darkest fear. Sure, it's that everything I know, think and feel I've said out loud and been documented saying somewhere, and I have no new information to share. So my task is for both of you to unearth never before told anecdotes stories from the dark recesses of my mind. But I feel like so much of it has been documented, that's fair.

Speaker 1 0:57

Obviously. I know we haven't even introduced ourselves yet, but obviously, when you play other people for a living, I do think it behooves you to retain some mystery. That's fair, sure. So where are the bodies?

Speaker 3 1:05

Yeah well, here's a nice question when are the comedic bodies?

Speaker 2 1:09

That's for you to uncover.

Speaker 1 1:11

It's a crime. Podcast.

Speaker 3 1:12

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly Now that all makes sense. Now you're just talking about that home in Texas. Huh, yeah, okay, nashville, nashville, Was it Nashville? Yeah, nashville.

Speaker 2 1:21

But I mean, you know, moving out to you know you're out here in Truro, yeah, lots of place to hide bodies, just right. Yeah, that's it. Figurative lines, so yeah.

Speaker 3 1:29

So it's now a nice time to plug this restaurant. The beautiful Parrot Asia Thai food I think we're going to experience their food a little bit later on today.

Speaker 1 1:39

Yeah, this looks great. My favorite type of conversation is a parrot chat. Parrot chat. There you go. Yeah, parrot chat.

Speaker 3 1:46

So we totally messed up our intros. Let's try it again. We'll keep this in, but we'll try it again just to get it for fun. Okay, all right, for fun Cheers. Welcome to the Afternoon Pint. I'm Mike Tobin, I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have?

Speaker 1 1:57

with us today. I'm Jonathan Orman-Torrens Pat and. Susan's boy from Sherwood.

Speaker 2 2:02

There you go. That's never been said before. No, no.

Speaker 1 2:05

Hasn't it? I think I feel like Brent Butt has a bit where he refers to himself as it's not even a bit as his parent's child. I always thought that was kind of endearing. Yeah, I always thought that was kind of endearing. Small townie, yeah, I mean. Yeah, he's great too. Too bad. Nothing ever happened for him career-wise. Too bad, eh. By the way, one of the most unexpected surprises for me in the last couple of years as far as hashtag pivots Brent Butt's book Huge oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 2:31

It was an incredible crime novel and it was set in the world of stand-up comedy. But very little funny about it. It was gruesome and grimy.

Speaker 3 2:40

You come out this year.

Speaker 1 2:42

I feel like it was two years ago now. Cool yeah.

Speaker 2 2:46

I'm a big fan. I mean like I try as much as possible to support Canadian TV. Corner Guest, one of my favorite shows. Mr D, one of my favorite shows. You know things like Kim's Convenience, right, yeah? Videos, um, you know things like kim's convenience, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 2:59

So I mean, yeah, I tried as much as possible to really support canadian content like television and it honestly it's legitimately funny people, you know, people shit on it, but it's not, it's funny, it is it is also like such a weird challenge at this particular moment in our history where you're trying to be all things to all people, we have fewer networks here At this moment in our history where specificity is actually cool. The more specific your podcast is, the cooler that is. There are 400 channels, and channels for everybody. So to find a show that appeals to everybody when the viewing is so fractured more so than ever before, is increasingly impossible, especially in this moment when networks are so risk averse because they can't just roll the dice on something to see if it works. It almost has to pretty much be a guarantee.

Speaker 1 3:47

The easiest way to do that is to use a road-tested, tried and true talent. So you get less like trailer park boys, hail Marys out of nowhere. Letter Kenny is another great example, and that's that's often when the coolest stuff happens, which is oh didn't see that coming right.

Speaker 2 4:04

Do you think that letter, kenny, though uh was able to happen because of the trailer park boys?

Speaker 1 4:09

I feel like love in.

Speaker 1 4:11

In a sense they're different but they're not that different too right I would say uh, uh, trailer park boys was probably a case study, like a comp that they could use in the selling of Letterkenny. I think really what sold Letterkenny was two things. One, jared Kiso's tenaciousness, because it wasn't the first sort of web series he put out there. He had tried a few. This one really stuck. And I think the second thing is it helps when you go to bell and say we have this idea for a show. Also, here's the 21 million views we have on youtube of our two minute bit.

Speaker 3 4:46

Yeah, we've already downloaded it's doing great, yeah, so yeah, that makes it more so, that's that's what I always say to the children like make your thing the the um.

Speaker 1 4:56

Anyone can make something which is is terrible and awesome. For a whole bunch of reasons, yes, but generally speaking and I learned this with Trailer Park if it's good, it'll rise above the din. No one knew what Showcase was and people found it. It stopped people in their tracks, yeah, and the same thing happened with Letter Kenny Online. It was like I don't even understand what this is, but I can't stop watching it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 5:19

Yeah Well, Showcase was the channel for me for a long part of my life. Like I mean Kenny versus Spenny. That was a Canadian show too. Right, yeah, it was. Yeah it was. It was a great Canadian show. It was a great one.

Speaker 1 5:26

I was thinking about those guys this morning. That was, I feel like and I've said this before the Canadian shows traveled the most, ironically, are the most distinctly Canadian ones. Yeah, trailer Park Boys Letter Kenny Kenny versus Spenny was so ahead of its time. Yeah, tom Green oh, my God, yes, was so ahead of his time. He was a story producer on Street Sense oh, was he? That's where I first met him. He was the Ottawa-based story producer for Street Sense and I remember my mom lived in Ottawa at the time and producer for Street Sense, and I remember my mom lived in Ottawa at the time and I remember going to shoot a story there and he was like, do you know what would be funny? Is your mom throwing tomato slices at you and you're wearing a garbage?

Speaker 3 6:04

bag.

Speaker 1 6:05

And I can't remember what the story was about, like spearmint gum or something like had nothing to do with tomatoes, but it was like early Tom Green and then his show on cable, obviously, and then his show on comedy network and then cover rolling stone like he just and then when he left that world, he almost started the podcast medium.

Speaker 3 6:22

A lot of people have said that, like mark maron, joe rogan, a lot of the very popular podcasters have all credited tom green starting the podcast.

Speaker 2 6:29

Well, his show was so rough and his talk show was so rough. It was very much like. But then, when his show was, done.

Speaker 3 6:36

he started started in his LA basement his own talk show and I watched, a bit like he had Norm MacDonald on some of my favorite comics.

Speaker 1 6:42

I remember thinking why would you ever want to? Line your house with cameras, yeah, that was how long before Big Brother it was bonkers but brilliant.

Speaker 1 6:50

I think his history will show just how ahead of the curve he was. I remember the one thing, the one thing, the one thing I don't think they let him air he had a piece of feces in a barbie bed with googly eyes on it on his desk. Um, you might have I don't know if you would have seen the sketch uh, with his grandmother, he, they were baking something together and um, uh, she, he gave her a vibrator to use to make the whipped cream and got her to taste the whipped cream. And I think I remember asking him like have you ever done anything you regret?

Speaker 2 7:24

And he's like that's one I wish I could have back. Oh, yeah, yeah, it must have been chaotic to be in a like a work environment, like a writer's room or whatever, with him.

Speaker 1 7:36

Yeah, he, I mean haven't seen him in years, uh, but I always remember like he came on jonah vision it was. I don't know if you remember the night that he took a raccoon in a suitcase on the mike bullard show he'd been carrying it around for like several weeks and it was maggoty and it was the only time mike ever stopped the show and mike got sick in the alley.

Speaker 2 7:53

Yeah, rest in peace, mike man.

Speaker 1 7:54

It was great yeah I, I, I, as, as a performer, I always think the pressure to every time ratchet it up a little higher must be. That would turn my stomach in knots. That's the thing about operating on that plane. Yeah is if the thing that you do is less crazy than a maggoty raccoon. Like, how do you out maggoty raccoon?

Speaker 2 8:19

yourself every time Is that the question you ask yourself? Yeah, well.

Speaker 1 8:26

I was thinking about this this morning because, when asked what do you do for a living, I don't really know how to answer. And the funny thing about this moment is people will say what are you up to man? Are you still at everything? I've never been busier or more fulfilled or happier or had more work in my industry.

Speaker 2 8:48

Well, you're doing a lot of behind the scenes now, though.

Speaker 1 8:49

Yeah, I'm doing a lot of directing, a lot of writing. We have this trailer company on the side. But I guess my point is I've never been busier. But because there are 400 channels, people kind of aren't necessarily as aware as they were when there were three channels and I was on every day at five o'clock right.

Speaker 3 9:10

So I wanted I know we don't want to go over things that have already been said in media a thousand times over, but I got to do kind of just for our audience here today go back to so street sense. If you're listening, you don't know what street sense was. It was a basically almost like a news magazine for teens or young adults. To for tv yeah, for tv on cbc for almost a decade, wasn't it more?

Speaker 3 9:31

15, 15 yeah yeah, so so it was a really cool show. Um, you were a teenager when you started that show. Yeah, how did you go from being a kid growing up in PEI to a teenager? Uh, you know, on this show, what was? How did that happen? It was a whole new thing.

Speaker 1 9:46

It was a brand new thing Total fluke Right place in the right time.

Speaker 1 9:49

I think people that had known me my whole life wouldn't be surprised necessarily that I ended up doing something sort of in the creative arts. Um, I was going to st pat's high school in halifax. Um did the musical there joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat. John nowlin, who was the producer of this new show called street sense, came to see the musical. I had a big flashy role. He called the school the next day and said would that guy want to audition for this?

Speaker 2 10:16

no way wow, like, imagine like you were in pei at the time. No, no, st pat's high, st pat's high okay yeah, yeah, cool yeah because, even when you were junior high, you moved over. Is that when?

Speaker 1 10:28

you came to halifax when you're junior.

Speaker 3 10:29

Okay, wikipedia, you did your research before getting here, a little bit of research.

Speaker 2 10:34

Yeah, so, but also like the, I guess like where cbc was, almost, like you know, down the street at the time, it would have been easy for them to just go around scouting, if they were looking for something like this.

Speaker 1 10:43

Well, I think they did. They auditioned a bunch of people. I actually didn't get the job originally Ended up kind of being a correspondent or doing a couple of field pieces and then was hired pretty early on in season one. But that was the crazy thing, like leave high school, go shoot a national TV show, drop by high school again. But Street Sense. In retrospect even at the time it was very, very cool for me because got a whole bunch of surrogate parents there discovered quite quickly this is what I love to do with my time. I was really curious. It was asking questions for a living, which is still.

Speaker 3 11:21

Was there any regrets that you didn't get to do the regular teenage life in, in a sense, or were you just kind of happy to be doing something that you loved?

Speaker 1 11:28

It. It wasn't saved by the bell right.

Speaker 2 11:31

Like it was a, it was a consumer affairs show on the public broadcaster on saturday morning. So, rest assured, it was very easy to maintain a low. I was gonna ask that, though. I mean because I mean, like I mean I watched and remember street sense.

Speaker 3 11:45

I mean I remember jonah vision as well you watch that all the time it came on, then the simpsons would come on right after exactly.

Speaker 1 11:50

Yeah, something that ever happened to them oh yeah.

Speaker 2 11:52

But that being said, like you, yeah, like did you go completely under the radar in high school? Or people must have recognized you, or did anyone give you any flack about it, or anything like that. I mean, you guys know high school.

Speaker 1 12:05

The coolest people are the ones that drive themselves there, and can get into the liquor store.

Speaker 2 12:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:10

So it's not like CBC boy was the coolest handle.

Speaker 2 12:15

Fair Okay.

Speaker 1 12:16

You know, I remember there was a guy, andy, who had a liquor id. Now that was a cool status. I remember another guy had his own apartment. You know, um, people that were kind of doing grade 12 for the third time, they, they were kind of at the top, I don't, I don't think it was unique to saint pat's.

Speaker 1 12:34

I think that was just kind of that's a high school thing. So in the pecking order, host of a consumer fair show wasn't at the top. I think people will now say, yeah, it was pretty cool, you know, yeah, but I was so absorbed in soaking up every bit of the experience I could, because you get picked up for six episodes and it goes away.

Speaker 1 12:57

I worked at Christopher's Beach Club in Cavendish in the summer, hosted karaoke at the bar across the street and then would go back. We got picked up again, do another season. That would take me till Christmas. So it was never like you have a 10-year gig on Street Sense Right. So it was always just waiting to hear do a bit of work, wait to hear again. That's very like. Do you find that's very typical the industry in general or just canadian industry, of like the film industry? Um, I would say that's very typical of the industry in general. It's very, very rare you would get a pickup for two seasons. I mean it happens with some marquee shows like law and order. Toronto, for example, got a two-season pickup. That's when people are buying Range Rovers, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 13:40

That's when everyone's like, okay, I'm going to buy a set of flats in Winnipeg, let's get rocking, but that's, it's fleeting. Yeah, it's fleeting. It's very unlikely that a show goes. I mean, mr D was incredible. I think it was eight seasons. Yeah, and that's unheard of Amazing show.

Speaker 3 14:00

It was a perfect cast. I mean you and Jerry D, of course, maestro Fresh West.

Speaker 1 14:05

Yeah.

Speaker 3 14:05

So many just people appeared in that show.

Speaker 1 14:08

Yeah, super funny, bette McDonald obviously.

Speaker 2 14:12

I was going to say I met Bette in a bar one time and she was hilarious, like she had a few into her I had a few into me and and I was like I know you from mr d, I love the show she was like leaned right into it. Her, yeah, she's fantastic.

Speaker 1 14:24

She's a doll and and she is the best kind of east coast comedian because she's humble and sneaky and doesn't need to be the center of attention or wouldn't be the loudest person in the bar but, um, easily the funniest person anywhere.

Speaker 3 14:41

Yeah, were there any years that you had outside? And I mean I tried to see if I could find this. I couldn't find an answer for it, but were there years that you had outside of like the entertainment industry entirely? Did you kind of take a sabbatical and do some carpentry, anything?

Speaker 1 14:53

like that, or did you just kind of stick with?

Speaker 3 14:55

it the whole way through. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it.

Speaker 1 14:58

I kept waiting for the arse to drop out of her. Yeah, yeah, and it's been 30 some years, so it's funny when people say like, why did you choose to do this? Or then you made the choice to do that. Nothing's ever been a choice, it's. It's all been um hard work and hope and, uh, saying yes to most things that come my way. It's been a real luxury in recent years to be pretty selective about the things I say yes to. I've been doing this kind of word of the year thing, last year with Simplify, and this year it's no and Like.

Speaker 3 15:36

K-N-O-W.

Speaker 1 15:37

No, it's not that one, two letter one N and I realized that, uh, I'm just trying to be give my time the same scrutiny I give money right, because at my age you spend your time.

Speaker 2 15:50

It goes by really fast yeah, that's fair yeah well, we appreciate your time today, because then we know your business well, this was fun.

Speaker 1 15:57

Yeah, thanks, yeah. Yeah think that was a good. I think that was a good moment to say thanks, because I agree time is something you're never gonna get back right. It's true, it's it's absolute finite.

Speaker 2 16:10

Where you know money, you can always make more. Yeah, so I it's true.

Speaker 1 16:13

well, my eldest daughter is going into grade 11 crazy. So we have one more summer. So I don't want to go to do an episode of Heartland as a legal aid lawyer and be gone for 15 days in the summer. Right, and it's not about money or there's no real credit that I'm like oh man, that would be worth it. Credit that I'm like oh man, that would be worth it. The thing that I'm interested in at this stage in my career is creating new things, so new experiences, new characters, new memories, going to new places. I don't want to retread or revisit things I've done in the past or go back to playing certain characters.

Speaker 1 16:56

I'm like ah, what else is there? So I've been lucky enough to either get to create new characters or be offered new experiences that are exciting, but if it doesn't ring my bell, I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 3 17:32

Yeah, and then I got to ask about this trailer business. So this is kind of crazy. So this is a little bit of a detour for you. So how did you get into the business of having movie trailers and getting movie trailers in?

Speaker 1 17:44

my um, my friend, uh, when we were doing, mr d uh provided all the trailers for the show he wanted out of the business. Um, and it was at a moment where, uh, we are very geographically disadvantaged here, right?

Career Longevity and Industry Challenges

Speaker 1 17:58

if a production is going to come from la and they want to go to Canada. Vancouver is easy, easiest, toronto is easier, halifax is harder, newfoundland's really hard. So you need a couple of things. One is an infrastructure and two is a really good tax credit. So part of the infrastructure is having things like trailers, soundstage, which we're working on here now. So I didn't want to see these pieces sold off across the country. Uh, and I thought you know my corner of the universe is so up and down and so unpredictable. It wouldn't hurt to have something that, like, doesn't rely on my gorgiosity exclusively.

Speaker 2 18:36

So, uh, great word it's a new word, for the show might be a new word.

Speaker 1 18:40

Yeah, tim houston didn't drop that word no.

Speaker 3 18:41

No, he didn't know about himself.

Speaker 1 18:43

Yeah, as mentioned, I can tease because we were both fairview junior high alum there you go.

Speaker 3 18:49

So you went to yeah, you went to junior high sorry with tim houston. Yeah, that's cool I.

Speaker 1 18:52

I prefer to say he went to junior high with me there you go.

Speaker 3 18:54

Were you older or younger than him? I?

Speaker 1 18:56

remember I was trying to remember this I feel like I might have been a grade ahead of him okay but I'll tell you he, he is the same exact person. Um. Looks the same, talks the same, like. I think he's a smart cat. Yeah, um, articulate, well-spoken, I think he's um.

Speaker 3 19:16

It's a tough job for anybody it's a tough year for tough year, tough yeah lots of stuff going on.

Speaker 1 19:23

I appreciate his heart when things like wildfires happen or atrocities. I believe him. But, man, as you know the discourse in the world right now, you say good morning and someone's like what about the people that are having a bad morning? So, in a job like a referee where on your first day in the job 50% of the people hate you. That's a tough road to hoe.

Speaker 2 19:50

It's a tough road, I mean, and sometimes it's just simply because of the party he aligns with right. They don't stop and listen to what he's saying and go. Oh you know what.

Speaker 1 19:58

Actually, I probably would agree with this guy if I just took the other colors out of my ears a little bit so I I was, I was a largely uh, not really a political person um before 2015, yeah, so I bought this trailer trailer company okay my wife, carol, is an accountant by trade and much smarter than me. Um, she thought it seemed like relatively low risk. Um, although the film industry can be volatile, as we found out shortly after when the then liberal government cut our tax credit right so suddenly we had the infrastructure, but no incentive to come

Speaker 1 20:33

here. Yeah and uh it. It was really a lesson in um the. The sort of narrative they spun was we can't afford to spend money on the Hollywood film industry when there are more important things like education and healthcare and when the average person hears that on paper that makes total sense. It's just the people, yeah, credit spend made it sound like a handout and a giveaway versus building an industry that then those tax dollars that people are making for a living go to fund education and healthcare.

Speaker 2 21:12

Yeah, and we had Aaron Hennessey on the show and we talked a lot about, we explored the spinoffs that happen, like when a film show or movie happens in a town like Windsor, money gets spent there business is open, business is open up things like that, like windsor is huge now like windsor is growing in windsor, nova scotia, because I mean a brewery went in.

Speaker 1 21:33

Now everything else is great businesses in windsor right now dude, we, we did a show uh called pretty blind here in truro. Um, we shot for a month. We spent $128,000 at the In-On-Prince Hotel.

Speaker 2 21:46

Beautiful, there you go.

Speaker 1 21:46

Everyone got per diem that they spent every day at restaurants in town Gas lumber costumes, people going out for drinks, people getting their laundry done Like it's all the ancillary benefits of our industry, not to mention the way it worked was big Hollywood productions are courted to come here that train our people, who can then make movies about our own stories with these new skills and knowledge after Hollywood pulls out of town. Yeah, so the story that was spun was we're sort of handing out money by the bag to people from Hollywood and if I heard that I would be incensed as well.

Speaker 3 22:26

Yeah, but as a business owner who just invested in a bunch of trailers from Jerry D. Yeah, now you're seeing the other side of it and it's kind of just destroyed something that you thought was going to be have a high success rate.

Speaker 1 22:38

Yes. So I guess the reason I say that is because to bring it back to Tim Houston for a moment he has championed our business in a big, meaningful, did what he said he would, hasn't wavered on it once, hasn't gone back on it way. And then people are like what about the unhoused?

Speaker 1 22:56

hasn't gone back on its way. And then people are like what about the unhoused? And the truth is those are equally important, very different conversations and I think where it gets especially complicated and I'm sure, as he would know better than any of us when you do one thing and people are like but what about this? They don't necessarily intersect, it's every post.

Speaker 3 23:16

I see, politically it's like they do something and then underneath it just complains about something else. That's almost never.

Speaker 2 23:21

If we don't employ the film industry, they will be unhoused. So here's a prime example.

Speaker 1 23:26

This is unearthed. We're unearthing something brand new. Let's go Breaking news Friday afternoon, driving with my wife and two daughters. We are going to and this sort of speaks to, social media keyboard cowboyism. Why don't you type that to my face, which I think might be the name of my next book? That's awesome. Why don't you type that to my face? Go back to Trailer Park Boys J-Rock, like what. I wished my wife a happy birthday. Why are you shouting at me, anyway, really.

Speaker 1 23:58

Wow Well that's what people say, like it doesn't matter what I say people will say something like that.

Speaker 1 24:03

So we're driving to Dartmouth for my daughters to go to dance camp. We get off the ramp in Truro to go to Starbucks to get a drink for the drive, waiting to get into the roundabout, hear the screech of tires, get rear-ended at high speed by a half-ton Chevrolet Silverado Oof, okay, propels us into the Honda Civic in front of us. So it's Sandwich City. Pretty scary for my children, yeah, long story, slightly longer the driver. She was inebriated and arrested at the scene. And also the license plate had expired in 2017. And also it was not the license plate that belonged to the vehicle when it was stolen three days ago.

Speaker 1 24:45

So there is a post on the Facebook that says like hey, colchester Fire responded to this. Ehs people. Thanks to the first responders it becomes a conversation about Problem is people don't know how to use roundabouts. Oh geez, that's true. Yes, it's not what happened here.

Speaker 3 25:04

No.

Speaker 1 25:05

And someone else is like were there people over 70 involved?

Speaker 2 25:08

Probably, so now it's a conversation about ageism and driving Racism pops in Yep I often have that For sure Racism pops in someone hit me and took my mirror off, and first question someone asked me was what color were they? Yeah, and I was like they were a white guy about 10 years older than me. Yeah, yeah, right like, uh, ageism.

Speaker 1 25:28

On the other end, I bet it was a teenager. Yeah, uh, people don't know how to merge. Um, that's why I moved out of the city. To which someone responded this didn't happen in the city and that became a side bicker All this to say I learned this from my wife. You don't have to say anything.

Speaker 1 25:47

You don't have to comment on anything. You're going by this like first responders did this, this thing happened. If you feel compelled to say something, all you have to say is thank you. First responders. Glad no one was hurt exactly hope they're okay honestly that's it.

Speaker 2 26:02

Yeah, I guess that uh, now that uh bit that you did for alberta, uh for the intoxication thing probably means a lot more whoa matt bringing out the big guns, there you go.

Speaker 3 26:12

Good one that was crazy.

Speaker 2 26:14

Yeah, he did a 30 minute bit for intoxicated drivers for Alberta.

Speaker 1 26:19

So this was a crazy thing. It was 2000 and something and there was a teenage guy who on his 18th birthday, which is the drinking age in Alberta, went to his friend's place in the afternoon, had, I think, two beer, maybe three, was driving home into the sunset to drop his car, get changed and go to the bar. He hit a family in a crosswalk because he couldn't see because of the sun and Mad wanted to make the argument that being impaired was just as bad as being drunk and people shouldn't drive at all when they've had anything to drink. So they sort of made him the poster boy for even a couple Terrible idea you shouldn't drive. So this straight. A student, great home, bright future makes a terrible choice. There's a terrible outcome. Shortly thereafter he goes to an Oilers game. They randomly put him on the Jumbotron. Everyone boos because his face was in the paper.

Speaker 1 27:15

He drinks at the game, he gets pulled over again. So I forget if there were two or three incidents in the space of a couple months. Anyway, he was in Grand Cache High Security Penitentiary as an 18-year-old boy and he was in solitary confinement 23 hours a day because the time in the general population was so rough for him, because he was the one thing you don't want to be in jail, which is famous. Anyway, we flew in a four-passenger Piper Saratoga to Grand Cache, alberta, to interview this kid for this video. Wow, and it was. I've never smelled fear before. This kid was just a trembling leaf. Crazy, see, you're unearthing guys. Nice work.

Speaker 3 27:56

Nice unearthing guys, nice work nice unearthing. Yeah, good job, did lots of reading over the weekend, yeah see I've been consoling chad gtp too much this weekend. That's my problem yeah, exactly trying to restructure the show.

Speaker 3 28:08

I don't know, I don't know, you ever watched south park, yeah, ish, okay, well, their new season, a show just came out. I just only telling you this because it's funny, because I think everybody's looking a bit at ChatGTP these days. So, as I was looking at advice for, like, our own program, you know, what can we do to punch things up, change things up and make things different and better? They have the main character now, the old guy that's on the firm.

Speaker 2 28:31

Randy or whatever. He owns a cannabis firm.

The Movie Trailer Business

Speaker 3 28:33

Yeah, he's using ChatGTP had.

Speaker 1 28:41

he's putting all these stupid ideas into the phone, and every idea he puts in that the the chat gtp girlfriend tells him he's absolutely brilliant and then he executes. Oh, that's so dangerous hearing you're brilliant all the time?

Speaker 3 28:48

yeah, because I mean that's something that's happening with this. This type of technology now is it?

Speaker 1 28:52

it tells you great ideas, yes, are there complaints about the structure of your show?

Speaker 3 28:57

No, not really. Is there any reason in?

Speaker 1 28:59

particular, you want to change it up.

Speaker 3 29:02

Not in particular.

Speaker 2 29:03

I mean sometimes people say that's a deep question with his psyche, how much? Time. Do you got John?

Speaker 3 29:08

Well.

Speaker 1 29:10

I asked this because I saw an article this morning that had something to do with the fact that likeald's is rebranding and all these fast food restaurants are rebranding cracker, barrel, taco bell yeah, and it said they're. They're trying to change the lipstick on the pig, but the problem is the pig isn't working anymore. The problem is the pig, not the shade of the lipstick so you're calling us pigs, not suggesting.

Speaker 3 29:32

That's what's happening here.

Speaker 1 29:33

Well, man, I tell you, this is wondering are you? Addressing a problem or creating one.

Speaker 3 29:37

You know, I'm just trying to keep the engagement high on the show and keep things kind of popping and interesting, making sure people listen to the whole show, yeah, so I'm just kind of spitballing and looking at, I look at the analytics and I've had a few comments that Pat and I talk too much.

Speaker 1 29:50

Really.

Speaker 3 29:51

On our own show. So I'm like, okay, that's cool. Well, how can we make that more palatable and make sure that we're not over-talking?

Speaker 1 29:59

I'm guessing this episode won't fall victim to that.

Speaker 2 30:03

I don't know.

Speaker 1 30:03

I shot a fair bit. That's good, it might.

Speaker 2 30:05

Who knows? We're only halfway through. Yeah, exactly, and you know what it's. Adhd is strong within us. Yeah Well, we both have it.

Speaker 3 30:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, yeah. So we were ADHD squared, which is maybe what we should call the show right?

Speaker 1 30:17

One of the things I like about this medium, though, because in a hashtag emoji universe, it's one of the last places for a long-form conversation.

Speaker 2 30:25

Yes. And wait what do you mean by that, or can you expand on that a little bit? Yeah, I think that's even, and I think that's a big part of why Tim houston liked to come on the show, because everyone's waiting for him to say something wrong and you know you have to keep answers short and quick because you only have so much time, I think, and he could actually sit down and get really nuanced in some of his answers. Yeah, and that's what I think he liked about it. Uh, we were.

Speaker 2 30:49

He knew we were on out to get him yeah right and uh, it was just like just tell us what you think about these things.

Speaker 1 30:54

I remember seeing Obama at the Metro Center.

Speaker 3 30:58

Did either of you go.

Speaker 2 30:59

No, I didn't get a chance to go. I would have liked to have gone, he was saying.

Speaker 1 31:03

The thing about a job like being president of the United States is, by the time a problem gets to you, if you have the right team, a lot of real smart people have taken a whack at it. So the things that make it to your desk are the 49-51 things Right, and there are arguments for both and you just kind of use the best information you have to make the best decision you can in the moment and don't sweat it. Yeah, the challenge and I think about this a lot is, once new information becomes available, the tendency is to beat yourself up for making the wrong decision Absolutely when in fact, you didn't know.

Speaker 2 31:42

Yeah, steve, that's deep.

Speaker 3 31:45

I'm lost now, where were we? I?

Speaker 2 31:47

don't know there was something that's been stuck in my brain because he mentioned something and I want to go back to it. I wanted to ask because now you're very much in, I feel you may feel differently, but I feel now just, you're really much in the driver's seat for a lot of the things, because you're saying no to things and all that. You're in the driver's seat of what you want to do, the things you want to create, the new characters that you want to develop. Is there and you mentioned talking about local stories and trying to make sure that we people here get to tell our story um, is there a story that you and you may not even want to tell us this because it might be in your, you know, reserve for something, but is there a story that you would really want to tell and a character that you may want to really develop that you have kind of just?

Speaker 1 32:29

yeah, I really want to nail that I haven't been number one on the call sheet in a sitcom.

Speaker 1 32:38

Ah I like being the supporting character. Yeah, I like being the oh man. When's that character coming back on? Yeah, just philosophically, there's less heavy lifting. Typically the main character is sort of the most normal one and they're the audience's portal into this crazy universe. Right, jerry's normal. Yes, they can't all be Kramerramer or that would grow tiresome, right? Um, so I I have a half-baked notion that I'm developing. Um, I was looking at, uh, son of a critch, for example. Yeah, and I imagine how fun that is for mark to do something that is of his place, about his people honoring his dad. So not to say I'm doing the Wonder Years meet, son of a Critch. But I have this notion that is sort of born out of my childhood and my heritage. That is giving me oxygen.

Speaker 1 33:33

I think, it's a sort of a setting that we haven't seen much, but more so, I think, a story that is again hard to make, something that people that of all different walks of life, of all different ages and backgrounds would tap into. So you have to find it something that both has universal themes but is also specific enough like yellowstone. Yeah, taylor lived that life. You can tell by watching that show. You couldn't I couldn't write that show right so I.

Speaker 1 34:08

I think the the missing ingredient in um the difference between a good show and a great show is I am writing this because I know this world, yeah, and I think that's what you try to find that can make a huge difference.

Speaker 2 34:22

I actually just saw an interview with Elle Jones just a couple days ago and she talked about because they had Washington Black that was found here and they were talking to her specifically about you know her thoughts behind it and opinions and things like that, and she had some really good things to say about it. But then also the same thing about some of the inaccuracies and some of the inconsistencies. Like she was saying how they didn't hire, like the leads weren't from here so they didn't have here accents. Right, they had accents from America and you know they missed some of the stories and they missed some of the details that someone who's lived it knows it wouldn't get.

Speaker 1 35:04

I've learned a lot in the last couple of years. Last few of the shows that I've made have involved people from communities. We haven't seen much on TV, not to suggest we haven't seen many black people on TV, but black Nova Scotians, for example, 100%.

Speaker 3 35:20

And I thought it was great you did that show. Yeah, 360.

Speaker 1 35:23

Driving Academies yeah, it was great, it was funny, learned a lot, yeah, and one of the things that I learned is that black women have a specific type of hair that only black women should be working on Right, only black women should be working on right. And when you say it out loud it sounds so obvious.

Speaker 1 35:37

But to uh see the comfort level go up when the black performers were greeted by a black hairstylist so it's like okay, good, yes someone who speaks my language and as obvious as it sounds, uh, having black crew members on a show uh made by and for a black audience is a really critical piece of the equation as well.

Speaker 1 36:04

The challenge is something the scale of Washington Black, which was a global opus, just finding a big enough, seasoned enough, experienced enough crew to execute something like that In a place like here and I run into this all the time trying to make sure there are lots of diverse casting options. The truth is, the acting pool isn't super deep here. The experienced acting pool is even more shallow. The diverse acting pool is even more shallow. So we're doing what we can, what we can. It's getting getting better, I think.

Speaker 2 36:41

um but yeah, we've explored this a little bit with aaron too. Like I think some of the big part of it is is that you, if you don't have consistent work here, then it's hard to be a full-time actor, and if it's hard to be a full-time actor, it's hard for people to keep acting because they have to get a job. Yeah for actor. And if it's hard to be a full-time actor, it's hard for people to keep acting because they have to get a job. Yeah for sure, right? So, like you know, there's some things I'd like to do. I'm not, I don't want to be an actor necessarily, but there's some things I'd like to explore.

Speaker 1 37:13

But it's also like I have to take a day off from my to overstate it, but I think we're still feeling some of the ripples of the taxident of 2015, because some people left and never came back. That's right, yes, but also a show like Sullivan's Crossing comes along. It's the first season People cast strategically and then if you used someone as convenience store employee in season one, never expecting it would go four seasons, right. Then suddenly you've burned that character or person and you can't bring them back, right. So, uh, in a, in a place with a relatively small acting community, that's one of the challenges, yeah.

Storytelling with Authenticity

Speaker 2 37:47

Yeah, I, that's the thing, and I mean I understand like the whole unionized thing so that you're working Monday to Friday in most cases, except for some exceptions no weekends. No weekends. Weekends, I think, would probably open some things up, because I'm sure I'd come up for a Saturday kind of thing, right, yeah, yeah, I think you get a lot more people.

Speaker 3 38:04

Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 38:05

Yeah, saturday, sunday, if it was a Saturday, sunday thing, I'd come out and do something. If someone was like hey, or whatever, it was right.

Speaker 3 38:12

Yeah, me too. I'd go, no problem It'd be a fun way to spend a Saturday right Like what the heck, why not? Well, now that you guys have said it, we're shooting.

Speaker 1 38:19

Zero to Sixty, season 2 in November.

Speaker 3 38:21

Yeah, come out and be background. There you go. I'd love to. Oh, 100%, yeah, that'd be great.

Speaker 1 38:29

Yeah, yeah, and how? So Pretty Blind is our half-hour sitcom site-com starring a woman with low vision and albinism. Her name is Jenny Bovard and she lives in Halifax and she's a marathon runner, craft beer enthusiast. Oh wow, cheers to that, can you?

Speaker 3 38:49

invite her on the show. Tell her she should come on. We'd love to talk to her. Honestly. You should have her on. Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 38:54

Just forgive me seeing the world through her eyes, all these things that well-intended but misguided people do, and this seems to be a recurring theme in the disability community.

Speaker 1 39:06

Most people have the best of intentions. I've worked with you know he'll be making his way up the hill by the ale house, yes, and someone will come up behind him and grab his chair and like, oh, here you go, bud. Start running him up the hill. Like, what are you doing? Right, the chair is sort of an extension of my body and you should ask for permission to touch me 100%, yeah. Another frustration I know he encountered is in a hilly city like Halifax. You get to the top of the hill and there's a sign that says sidewalk closed. Please use other side, so you can either wheel back down or try to bunny hop across the middle of the road on a hill. Just common sense stuff that the Bryans and Jennys of the world are very patient in helping those of us that don't move through the world that way kind of understand Something interesting to me about that program in particular was on AMI.

Speaker 1 40:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3 40:04

Right, and I mean, you know, maybe some folks here listening don't know what AMI is. Do you want to kind of give them an idea what that is?

Speaker 1 40:11

Yeah, it's called Accessible Media Inc and most of the programming is either made by, certainly made for people living with disabilities. I mean that is also a very broad swath of humanity, includes mental health challenges and physical ones as well. Jenny was the perfect way to onboard into that realm because she doesn't take herself too seriously. She has a wonderful sense of humor. My friend, mark Forward, agreed to come be the showrunner and he decided very early on that. We don't want the sighted people to all be the punchlines.

Speaker 1 40:53

It's not like oh you idiot visual people just being dumb all the time, cause that could grow old Right and that's true, uh, jenny, uh, really wanted people to know that life for her is like life for most of us. She has a bad boss and uh yeah, just got out of a relationship and like it. It's kind of the same as different as it is, and that's something that we should also think about. Being visually impaired is not how she self-identifies. There are so many other ways that she identifies.

Speaker 2 41:28

It's interesting you say that because we had a past guest here and I've been kind of talking through some of he has some ideas about what he wants to kind of move forward with, and he does.

Speaker 2 41:35

He's been doing some speaking gigs since. He's been on our podcast, uh, mostly regarding the fact that he's a part of the lgbtq plus and that's not how he wants to really be identified. Not that he's not a part of it, he is, but he, that's not what he wants his like shtick to be. He wants to be a guy who's talking about starting over and he wants to use his story to talk to maybe even immigrants, people who are moving here. Right, who knows better than starting over than someone who's left their home and moved here? And he's like I'd rather talk about that, even though he was you know, he was a gay man who got divorced and had to sell their home and, like, after 25 years of relationship, had to start all over again, put everything in five bins, and that's what he bases like whole speech on and everyone keeps booking him for lgbtq stuff and he's like but I want to talk about starting over right so it.

Speaker 2 42:27

It was like that was a thing to me that kind of helped click in my brain. That was kind of like yeah, like why can't he, why does he have to be that guy?

Speaker 1 42:35

right, I worked in the writer's room on an early iteration of the show that's now North of North, which I don't know if you've seen it. It was shot in Baffin.

Speaker 2 42:42

Island Cool show, so cool.

Speaker 1 42:44

And Norm Hiscock, who worked on the Office and Parks and Rec, was the showrunner on that show and Stacey and Lethea from Iqaluit were the creators of the show and they're hilarious and razor sharp and it was an interesting discussion because I've been lucky enough to travel through the North a whole bunch and it's incredible. It's the best and worst of the South and it's its own entirely unique thing. There are people there that are on the run from things. There are people there that would never see themselves leaving. It's the coolest.

Speaker 1 43:20

And the more remote you go, the more special and unique it is. So I thought what a cool opportunity to show 24 hour daylight and how the school doesn't have windows, because in the winter it's 24 hour darkness and kids will get sleepy at sitting at their desks Like all this crazy. Never thought of that. That's so cool. They were like yeah, but we also want to show that we watch the office, right right.

Speaker 2 43:43

So I was like that's so cool, it's so different. The same media.

Speaker 1 44:05

Yeah, she's like yeah, but also, we're the exact same yes um, one of the things that is is unique uh, about a callow, for example is you get a certain amount of internet per month and if you run out on the 25th, then everyone starts staying at work later, as the last days of the month evaporate, because you want to be able to have more internet and stream shows at work.

Speaker 1 44:29

That's such a cool little, unique thing. But I guess I was like let's show how different it is, and they were like let's show how the same it is, and I think both things are right and I feel like the show does that. But I guess if the LGBTQ plus is the thing that gets him in the door, then, he can make his message whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 44:52

That's what he's trying to do.

Speaker 1 44:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:00

So that's what he's trying to do, yeah, yeah, so all that that's yeah interesting. I kind of like that. You know, we kind of really went down the whole telling of stories and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 45:03

I don't know if you want to change. I just want to ask one of those really boring. You know everybody asked her four questions.

Speaker 1 45:07

Libra ready, let's go it's libra season, that's right, right, which is yeah, yeah, is that, are you a libra?

Speaker 3 45:16

yeah okay, very cool. Yeah, I was gonna ask that, but that's great. Who are your birthday buddies?

Speaker 1 45:20

mine are sting, gandhi and kelly rippa. I have no idea. Gene rodman no, I don't know, that's yours, yeah, or you were guessing his, because I've no, no, mine, that's mine, gene rodman you don't know, no, and that's born in november.

Speaker 3 45:32

Dude and november. What 20th can we? Can we please look it up? Does anyone have the internet? Gene Rodman, you don't know, no, and that's born in November.

Speaker 1 45:36

Dude, november, what 20th? Can we please look it up? Does anyone have the internet? I have no idea it's probably somebody terrible now.

Speaker 2 45:40

Does anyone have the internet? We can do it here. Does anyone have the?

Speaker 1 45:43

internet Famous. Ask your question while he looks it up. This is the host in me wanting to be economical, so, actor or director, like if you could just pick one to do.

Speaker 3 45:51

What do you enjoy more? What fulfills you more?

Speaker 1 45:55

There are very few acting opportunities that come my way that give me oxygen. Yeah, I really like directing because I like seeing the process through the eyes of people that haven't done it much. I like I think it's words are kind of like music. I like I feel like I can hear when someone hits a clam and try to calibrate it and fix it. I like, uh, my my sort of approach to life is improv, so I like to um, fix jokes and try different things and make it up as I go. Um, but there are, like I don't know, I I genuinely think, um, I'm not the best at anything, but I'm okay at many things, so I genuinely feel like I'm not a good enough actor to be on Sullivan's Crossing. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 46:49

I probably could. I'm sure you could too, yeah.

Speaker 1 46:52

But I don't. I know I could think of. I'm actually pretty famous for doing that. When someone will call and say are you interested in this? I'd be like you know who should do that. Is this guy. Do you know this person? There's this person. I like to help cast things. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 47:09

So I found three people Birthday buddies. Who are they?

Speaker 3 47:11

people birthday buddies, birthday buddies. So first one.

Speaker 2 47:13

First one I'm throwing out is canadian, sir wilford laurier. There you go, there you go. Five dollar bill, right, you got it, you got that. Okay, number two joe biden there you go joe biden's a good guy. I like him. And the third one is one is just a guy I think is funny and I like, and that's joel mckale okay, I like him.

Speaker 3 47:28

Yeah, decent. Yeah, that's not so bad audition for that show. The soup I was afraid did you.

Speaker 1 47:30

You would have been great for that show, the Soup. I was afraid Did you. Yeah, you would have been great for that. Well, I auditioned a few times, you should have been also on. Community, I guess.

Speaker 1 47:40

I'm sort of McHale-ian in a Maybe. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole six seasons in a movie. Maybe you can be in the movie. There you go. Yeah, I did. I, joe Schmo. Five seasons of Jonovision went down to LA and Schmo was the first gig that I booked there. I was such a fan of the first season of that show Kristen Wiig was on it. If you saw Jury Duty, yeah yeah, yeah, joe Schmo was kind of the show before Jury Duty.

Speaker 3 48:09

I know I watched both. I can't remember Joe Schmo.

Speaker 1 48:18

Rhett.

Speaker 2 48:18

Reese, rhett, reese, rhett, reese from Deadpool. Okay, the guy who created whatever, yeah, deadpool, yeah.

Speaker 1 48:27

And they did a Zombieland.

Speaker 2 48:30

Yeah, zombieland, zombieland.

Speaker 1 48:31

That's fantastic, and their arguably greatest achievement, which you can probably find a Giant Tiger DVD discount $2 bin, if they have such a thing, or on the dark web. So first season of Joe Schmo. A show like this had never been done before. If you didn't see it, everybody's an actor, except one guy who doesn't know that everybody's an actor Just like Jerry Doody.

Speaker 1 48:55

Yeah, and the first season was sort of based on a Big Brother style reality show, other style reality show, and this sweetheart of a man, matt Kennedy Gould, was put through the scripted comedy ringer, unbeknownst to him, and handed a giant check and was like what Well, I'm sorry if I misled you guys in any way Like it was tuned in for this, like tomfoolery, and it ended up being this glorious moment of humanity and kindness and it was awesome. The second season, the one I was in, was more based on the Bachelor, and what no one could have anticipated is our mark actually fell for the actress playing.

Speaker 2 49:35

The.

Speaker 1 49:35

Bachelorette, which made for a really unfunny kind of sad kind of cringetastic finale.

Speaker 2 49:46

And he played the. Maybe he was gay guy or something like that. Yeah, geralt, yes.

Speaker 1 49:51

And all Canadians were like dude, that's Buddy from Street Sense.

Speaker 2 49:55

How did they not recognize?

Speaker 3 49:56

him.

Speaker 1 49:58

Which speaks volumes.

Speaker 3 49:59

There was a couple of guys in that newer one, the jury duty that I recognized right off the gate.

Speaker 2 50:04

Yeah, Lisa Gilroy. Yeah, and the guy that was in Parks and Rec all the time? Yeah, the guy with the mustache in Parks and Rec.

Speaker 1 50:10

Well, John Huertas from Joe Schmoe 2, my roommate on the show in Blood and Real Life, played Miguel on. This Is Us If you watch that show?

Speaker 2 50:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a great show.

Speaker 1 50:24

So, anyway, after two seasons of Schmo, the third show they did instead of doing Joe Schmo 3, was called Invasion Iowa. You mentioned Gene Roddenberry. Yeah, do you know this? I don't know this. So they took William Shatner and an entourage of actors playing his entourage to the town in Iowa that was purportedly the birthplace of James T Kirk, and they punked the entire town into thinking they were there to make a movie like a science fiction movie.

Speaker 1 50:56

So they enlisted the help of all the local farmers and people to be extras in the show work on the crew and they sold promotional items called shats. So everyone in the town is walking around with shats on, oh, my God, and no one ever saw it. I never saw that show.

Speaker 3 51:14

It's the unicorn of. That never came out on TV, or what I feel like it did.

Speaker 1 51:21

So here's what I think happened. The first season of Schmo was on when, like the man show like Spike TV. Machismo, turbo, alpha, male stuff. Then I think there was a new network head that came in midway through our season and he just burned the last five episodes of our season in a marathon. So I don't know if Invasion Iowa was like. They aired it on a Saturday afternoon, or it aired somewhere else, or it was straight to DVD or I can't remember what happened with it.

Speaker 3 51:50

I'm sure you should be able to find that man if you wanted to find it. That sounds like something I want to see actually.

Speaker 2 51:55

I legit tried to find his documentary about the Alberta alcohol thing.

Speaker 3 52:00

Did you?

Speaker 2 52:01

I legit tried to find it. I looked everywhere.

Speaker 3 52:03

Do you know why I? Couldn't find it. I was in a Crime Stoppers ad, not as bad as you. It was like my only acting debut. I smoked cigarettes illegal cigarettes and I got in trouble.

Speaker 2 52:10

Were you the perp? Yeah, he was trying to sell them in the hotel or the apartment. I was watching TV oh, I've been doing it on this commercial. When was that.

Behind the Scenes Experiences

Speaker 3 52:20

Oh, it was like 10 years ago, maybe more than that, probably.

Speaker 2 52:23

More years.

Speaker 3 52:23

Yeah, but then it ended up being on TV every hockey game for like four years on freaking CBC. Honestly, dude, it was probably like 15 years ago, but you got lots of royalties for it right, no, no.

Speaker 1 52:37

That's actually. People say, like, why doesn't CBC put Jonavision out? The challenge is because, one, just because the show was a hybrid, which most of the things I've done in my career have been, yeah, because there were some sketches that were ACTRA and actors. They'd have to repay everybody to put those out, right?

Speaker 3 52:49

Which I'm kind of thankful for. Yeah.

Speaker 1 52:52

Because I think something's mythology probably grows a little bit in its absence.

Speaker 3 52:57

Yeah, that's true Because you know, I mean, has there ever been anything done? There might be this out now. Has there been a documentary that kind of went through what that show was, to just kind of explain it, Because I think it's an interesting thing, Jonavision, Like I think in itself.

Speaker 1 53:11

It's funny you should say that.

Speaker 3 53:12

It was interesting. It was like we can't get teens watching the news. What are?

Speaker 1 53:17

we going to do? And then they. It's funny you should say that because obviously there's been a Mr Dress Up one, there's a Sharon Lewis and Bram one on the way, there's a Degrassi one at TIFF this year, so the idea sort of bubbled to the surface recently. My first instinct is who would watch that? And even I've toyed with the idea of doing a podcast where I'm like going to track down the guests that were on episodes and say this Trevor put 100 live crickets down his pants. Where?

Speaker 3 53:45

is he now? Was it worth the 50 bucks, I got to 1,000. Are you glad you did it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:52

But, I don't know.

Speaker 1 53:53

It'd be interesting for me and Cricket Guy. Does anyone else really care, whatever happened to Cricket Guy.

Speaker 3 53:57

I think you'd be surprised. I think you would be, surprised If you made a documentary it. I think you would be surprised If you made a documentary. It sewed some of that into it while talking about the show and that kind of. It's just a weird time in history, right, you know. You think of where we're at now. Everybody gets their information from TikTok and there's no real. Like there's no executives right now, how can we get children watching more news?

Speaker 1 54:15

Well, I know, or how can we get them more educated? Cbc took a whack at a Street Sense reboot on TikTok.

Speaker 2 54:20

Yeah, he took a whack at a Street.

Speaker 1 54:21

Sense reboot on TikTok. Yeah, I saw that it's hard to get the kids to watch the television.

Speaker 3 54:25

Are they paying any attention to it? How's it doing? I have no idea.

Speaker 2 54:28

No, Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean it was probably the right angle, like trying to get it on TikTok and stuff like that, because not many young people are sitting down and watching TV right, people doing movies like as if we were watching it on your phone, like people are filming TV shows and movies as if they know that people are going to watch it on their phone.

Speaker 1 54:51

Vertical, yeah, vertical, exactly. It's crazy, and and that's what the future is like. But the thing that that I am excited about is I can show my girls, uh, home alone. Is I can show my girls Home Alone. Ferris Bueller Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Back to the Future shows that very much look of a time and the aesthetics are obviously very different. They don't care If it's a good story, good characters, well told, they're in. I love that. They're watching season nine of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and my wife and I walked this morning. I was like do you know what though? It's group dynamics, it's drama, it's escapism.

Speaker 1 55:34

It's sort of figuring out how to navigate a complex group of people. I'll buy that. It's true 100%. It's also funny. I'll buy that. It's true 100%, it's also funny, yeah. So I am buoyed by the fact that a good story is still something that can hook people in.

Speaker 3 55:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1 55:52

Yeah, no.

Speaker 3 55:54

I think how old are your daughters? You got one that's almost in high school, 15 or 13. Sorry, almost in university.

Speaker 1 55:58

I guess the reason I say that is because part of me felt like we have become a set of hands opening a Kinder Egg for 20 seconds, society, and that's all the attention span we have.

Speaker 3 56:10

Yeah, but do you think?

Speaker 1 56:11

like. So it's encouraging to see they will sit and watch a whole movie.

Speaker 3 56:13

Yeah, so your kids will still do that. Eh, they'll still watch a whole movie, like I do find, like a lot of Gracie's friends, they're not interested in going to the movies and stuff.

Speaker 1 56:20

How old?

Speaker 3 56:21

13. Yeah, like same age but they seem to have like a disinterest in long form entertainment.

Speaker 1 56:27

Yeah.

Speaker 3 56:27

Like you know they would, or even TV shows, right.

Speaker 1 56:30

Well, I know, after the first chorus of most songs, yeah, kids are like all right, what's? Next.

Speaker 3 56:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1 56:37

Most songs are two minutes and six seconds. Now, that's crazy.

Speaker 3 56:39

Yeah, two minutes and six seconds now that's crazy. Yeah, they cut them in half.

Speaker 2 56:41

Probably for that reason. Meanwhile, I'm like still wanting to listen to In a God of the Vita Start to finish.

Speaker 1 56:50

Cheers to In a God of the Vita. So that's 17 minutes, 17.01.

Speaker 3 56:54

Yeah, we're going to have to get to our 10 questions, but you had something there, buddy.

Speaker 2 56:57

Oh no, You're taking questions, but I wasn't sure if you wanted to, because there was also-.

Speaker 1 57:01

And then I have a caller. I want to get to real quick Caller.

Speaker 2 57:04

Okay, yeah, caller.

Speaker 1 57:06

Oh no, it's Rhett Reese. It's Rhett Reese, rhett Reese.

Speaker 2 57:09

I know you want to talk about the Canadianity.

Speaker 3 57:18

Oh, just I just thought it was really cool. This book you did Canadianity,90 plus episodes or something of your own podcast. Yes, Right, so if you want to hear more John, skip over there. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them.

Speaker 1 57:30

We don't put them out as much as we did. I loved the immediacy of getting audience feedback and response. When you make a show like Mr D, it might come out six months later, especially in this. Like it used to work six months on a series, 13 episodes it would take 13 weeks for it to air. Now it comes out Christmas Day. People have been watched it by 11 in the morning. They're like when's the next season come out? Right, so it takes a long time to write something good and execute it and edit it. So I just like the immediacy. I too, early on, felt a real pull to have structure and lists and guests and games in order and then it's when the wheels came off the bus that our listeners were like I love that moment when your mic cacked when the dog barked, when the doorbell rang the Amazon guy and then, strangely, because I've worked in improv for a long time Jeremy, a musician was like it's just jam, man, it's just jam.

Speaker 2 58:34

We had a musician on who had to go to use the bathroom twice in the middle of a podcast. Oh wow, he just kept it in, kept it rolling yeah.

Speaker 1 58:40

Yeah, but the idea of like, just let it ride, man, and we'll see, because sometimes when you fly close to the sun you get burned, but sometimes you get a beautiful tan and it could go either way.

Speaker 1 58:51

And I think sometimes when it doesn't work it makes the moments that do work swing that much harder. So it's just kind of having the confidence to sit in it and let it sort of figure out what it is. So the podcast has afforded me the opportunity to tour across the country. Never thought I'd get to do that. We wrote a book. Never thought I'd get to do that. Sadly it came out in like October of Canada 150. So people were like enough with the Canada already.

Speaker 3 59:22

Oh yeah, it was beat over the head. Yeah yeah, it would have been good to put up this year, right.

Speaker 2 59:25

It would have been good to put up this year. It's gone a little resurgence this year. Yeah, a little sovereignty bump, yeah Right.

Speaker 3 59:35

I'm proud to say it's a bestseller, yeah, which in Canada, I think it's we very much would like to take this show on the road and we'd very much like to write a book.

Speaker 2 59:45

We got to put it in Manifest it.

Speaker 1 59:50

We're manifesting it. First of all, you should tour because it's such a treat and doing it in front of an audience brings such an energy and enthusiasm that you will really enjoy. And second of all, like this is the genius, one of the genius qualities of Rick Mercer he spends, however many years doing Rick's rants on the Rick Mercer report. There's a book, yeah, like you publish the rants, yeah. You guys could publish transcripts of 10 of your guests, and there's your book.

Speaker 3 1:00:22

Well, yeah, so we, I got it like the 150 points gonna be the book just, we've had a lot of points with a lot of people yeah, I'm not signing the waiver.

Speaker 1 1:00:29

You can't use this. No, no, no, you gotta do waivers, but I'll write the foreword. How's that? Oh, there you go, this is recorded.

Speaker 2 1:00:36

Yeah, binding contract.

Speaker 1 1:00:37

We got a body and we got to make an album, which was the craziest thing ever Cool, and Tim and Anthony from the Arkells played on it. Adam Baldwin played on it oh, cool, jeremy is obviously just a world-class drummer. Yeah, so I have loved it. It's been great. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 1:00:59

Yeah, and just before we move on to 10 questions, I'm going to give you a little bit of flowers here, because I am such a huge fan of like. I know that most people probably run up to you and the j-rock thing is probably the big thing, but personally, chile is my favorite character that you do, thank you because I uh, you know, obviously, jerry being the lead role and everything but chile was my second favorite character, I think.

Speaker 2 1:01:21

think you were hilarious, but you must like. My wife loves your show. She's a teacher. You must get, like, I imagine, must get a lot of love from teachers, because you guys nailed it, nailed it.

Speaker 1 1:01:33

Well, I give Jerry in turn his flowers because I remember him saying early on, and your wife would know for sure, are there 750,000 teachers in Canada.

Speaker 2 1:01:46

Something like that the number was inconceivable. There's 9,000-ish in Nova Scotia, but it's like Ontario really opens it up. It's like I don't know the number, but it's Insane. It's like 100,000 teachers or something like that. Wow, Ontario alone.

Speaker 1 1:02:00

Whatever that number is, I remember jerry saying if this show is true to teachers, it'll be a hit, because if they watch, there you go. That's.

Speaker 1 1:02:09

Those are incredible ratings yeah and so he, uh, I learned a lot from him. Um, one was sometimes there's an urgency that drives making a tv show. We to go lunch in 20 minutes. We got to move, we got to move. He had the confidence and focus to say hang on, the scene's not working, that joke's not landing, it's a comedy show, that's what we're here for. Let's reshoot it or let's take a minute or let's rewrite it. So it was really important to him. I think always that the show be very true to teachers. He and I were pretty rarely in the same story. I was often in the B story, he was often in the A story, except for when you went to Boston.

Speaker 1 1:02:50

We had some great A stories together, yeah, yeah, a couple of field trip kind of episodes and one in the woods.

Speaker 2 1:03:03

So yeah, it was important to him that it be true to teachers for sure. Yeah, I think it hit that because my wife likes to, just she's. That's like, uh, throw on mr d to go to, you know, as I fade off to sleep, type of thing, or anything. Right, that's her show like I. I'm gonna say something a little entertainment that puts people to sleep.

Speaker 1 1:03:14

That's exactly what we set out to do before we move on from that flowers to teachers because I have a family member who's a teacher, I have children who are students to sometimes a lack of parameters at home, to teaching, to eight different learning levels in the same classroom, with not the resources to have assistance in your class, like, god bless teachers. And a general lethargy on the wave of this POCO, which is a phrase I'm trying to get to take off for post-COVID universe POCO, yeah, poco. There is a general there is a collective shoulder shrug in the world.

Speaker 3 1:04:11

Get in the transcripts. Hashtag POCO yeah.

Speaker 2 1:04:15

So you were going to ask them. Oh yeah, you said you were going to go different directions.

Speaker 3 1:04:19

You used the shit on them for something. Oh yeah, yeah, totally Well. So J-Rock, mr Cheely, sucked, and here's why Not quite. J-rock was not my favorite character at first, but I appreciated his evolution as he came on, Because when he came on I grew up around a lot of guys that like hip-hop music and I'm like this is hitting a little too close to home, buddy.

Speaker 1 1:04:38

Right, what's so funny about it? That's just Kenny from my math class right.

Speaker 3 1:04:43

What's so funny about it? That's just penny from my math class. I know that guy. Right, I was like I don't think you should make a pun of him like that. But then eventually he, as he started getting in to his more entrepreneurial uh endeavors, I think uh, I'd give him his flowers towards the end there. He did a good job I.

Speaker 1 1:04:56

I think one of the things that cemented the character for me was in the prequel um jay rock and t were into grunge, so we sort of established a history of this guy paper dolling different pop culture trends onto himself. That's great on his quest to discover a personality and self. And I remember someone asking around season four do you ever feel sorry for j-rock? And I swear to. It had never occurred to me that you would.

Speaker 1 1:05:24

And it's kind of the same with with Cheely I've said before, overconfident and underqualified to me are the. That's the intersection of what I personally find really funny.

Speaker 3 1:05:35

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:05:35

And most of the characters that I've played have that underneath. Well, cheers to you, man.

Speaker 3 1:05:42

Thank you, so we're going to get into our 10 questions.

Speaker 2 1:05:44

Yeah, Awesome 10 questions. Why don't you do, instead of going back and forth, because sometimes you lose track, why don't you just do first five? I'll do last five. Sometimes I lose track we just changed the format. All right, we just did.

Speaker 3 1:06:05

Why don't we do a Jeopardy style, where I give is yeah, okay, can I even read this?

Speaker 2 1:06:07

you've been a teen tv host, an actor, a comedy legend, a podcast entrepreneur and now a creator of your own shows pass.

The Future of Entertainment

Speaker 3 1:06:10

I get one pass right, it's five hundred dollars why do you think you continue to move around in so many different areas?

Speaker 1 1:06:17

um, I think it's a couple of things. Uh, is this like a speed round sort?

Speaker 3 1:06:21

of format, whatever, as slow as you want, you can do whatever you want.

Speaker 1 1:06:23

I think it's a couple of things. One is, after being on street sense for a few years, I applied to Ryerson because I wanted to study doing this for a living. The woman that I spoke to was like just just do it, be nice, learn people's names, be on time, say please and and thank you. So I think I've been able to work a lot for those very kindergarten rule, very basic reasons, and I think I've been open to things that have come my way and as long as I don't have a moral opposition, I've said yes, good answer.

Speaker 1 1:06:54

Improv as an approach to life yes, and.

Speaker 3 1:06:57

Your character, j-rock, is still quoted everywhere. When you hear people repeat those lines a day, does it feel like an old tattoo you can't get rid of or a legacy you're grateful for?

Speaker 1 1:07:05

Oh, the latter for sure. Yeah, like who would have ever imagined. In 2000, when we were bringing Cheez Whiz sandwiches from home and sitting on Coleman coolers between takes in clothes, we got at Value Village trying to make each other laugh. Who would have ever imagined we'd be sitting here talking about it today? It continues to be bananas, however. I I appreciate that. However, as much as I enjoy uh, bumping into people who love the show, I got a message just this morning from a guy from wales who's like man. Uh just want to say what a masterclass in acting that character was. Love those messages they are very meaningful.

Speaker 1 1:07:48

However, I think one of the things that has served me see the previous question is turning the page before people are sick of the book.

Speaker 3 1:07:56

That's good, perfect. Question three If your career was a pint glass, what is it most filled with?

Speaker 1 1:08:02

I thought you were going to say what size would it be?

Speaker 3 1:08:04

I was going to have to say shot glass and then skulk out of here.

Speaker 1 1:08:09

I don't even remember the end of the question.

Speaker 3 1:08:11

Pint glass. Okay, what's your pint glass? Filled with the most Luck, talent, hustle, timing or timbits?

Speaker 1 1:08:22

I'm going to tell you what. My glass is sure half full. There you go. Oh, good answer. That's my outlook for everything optimistic.

Speaker 3 1:08:29

I don't know what's in it, but you don't know what's in it yes, I, I can bright side anything happy, mystery liquid.

Speaker 1 1:08:35

This place is on fire, which is great because I was cold.

Speaker 2 1:08:38

Yeah, okay, I was taking that a different way, but I also like that, I was thinking you were saying like half full, because you're only half done yet.

Speaker 1 1:08:45

Oh no, let's be honest, I'm five, sixths of the way done.

Speaker 3 1:08:52

Question number four for you have you ever said sorry for something that you still don't feel you should have apologized for?

Speaker 1 1:09:00

Yes, for sure, and this is an ongoing conversation I have with, especially the young people I work with. If I'm being honest, especially young women that I work with there is a instinct I think, especially in this part of the world, to say sorry for things that don't require an apology, and you shouldn't be sorry for something you had no way of knowing. No-transcript. That might be why it's high on my radar of things that I try to help people work through, not do.

Speaker 3 1:09:52

Awesome, One second forgot my face.

Speaker 2 1:09:55

Question number five.

Speaker 3 1:09:56

Question number five what show or movie that you watched growing up?

Speaker 1 1:10:00

this is not something you've been a part of, but something you just absorbed as a kid or teen, or even now, that you'd love a chance to remake or create a sequel to infinite budget any, any project or thing you ever saw that influenced you well, when you said what show when you were growing up, immediately kids in the hall popped into my head because I thought it was going to be influenced you the most, or uh, it's interesting, that was the first show I saw that. I was like that those are my people, that's my language, I understand what they're saying and I thought it was made just for me. I don't know that you could ever recreate it. It was of a time and it was lightning in a bottle. So, uh, what remake could actually work?

Speaker 3 1:10:40

beachcombers there you go great, great pick yeah, question number six.

Speaker 2 1:10:45

This is a very deep and philosophical question. Okay, who would win in a fight, j-rock or chili?

Ten Questions with Jonathan Torrens

Speaker 1 1:10:54

chili would fight dirty chili would fight dirty. He'd probably be slappy and like hair pulley and like bird kicky. Um, so I I would say chili surprisingly I know I'm with it and j-rock's pants are so low like he probably couldn't move very fast. Kick yeah and he talks a big game.

Speaker 2 1:11:19

It's true yeah, question number seven. So, uh, we established you went to saint Pat's High. So if you had 100% control over what gets built on that site because it's been sitting empty, what would you choose?

Speaker 1 1:11:31

Hmm, Like a street sense museum my own enjoyment, because I sort of tie those two things together. Like my universe was CBC on Bell Road, freeman's McDonald's on Quinnpool, st Pat's Like my whole childhood is just imploding geographically because none of those places is there anymore. Freeman's is Freeman's yep, I mean. There are so many answers, from serious to comedic. The serious one would be a whole bunch of affordable housing. That would be great, yeah, and obviously a challenge in Halifax right now. I think the city is having real growing pains. It's a peninsula. There are no new arteries or avenues into it. I read a very compelling post by my friend, a TV producer named John Wesley.

Speaker 2 1:12:21

Chisholm, this morning I saw it. About the sheer volume of cars and how the math doesn't math.

Speaker 1 1:12:29

And I've been thinking that the last few times I've been in Halifax, as exciting as growth is, I've been thinking the city doesn't work right now it doesn't work. I agree with that, yeah, which is a shame, and it will again and it has before, but at this moment it's too much. So, yeah, I guess that's the earnest answer. It's a good answer.

Speaker 2 1:12:55

Really good answer, all right. Question number eight. So being quote unquote known comes with some negative consequences. What is something that you wish fans or the public wouldn't do?

Speaker 1 1:13:04

Oh, I love this question. When I started, people might say you're on Street Sense. Yeah, my Uncle Danny was on that show. Oh, really, yeah, he did an illegal curve and hockey stick story.

Speaker 2 1:13:16

Oh no, from Glace Bay.

Speaker 1 1:13:17

Yeah cool, what's he up to Well, actually he just started going to MUN Interesting connected. We've exchanged information. We've had a moment now the the exchange is very transactional.

Speaker 1 1:13:29

It's your j-rock right phones out cameras, up selfie time so I understand it's part of the job, it's it's not taxing, it's not complicated. Um, if the picture is low angle with a flash when I'm coming out of Sobeys in the winter and it's dark, the picture is not flattering and people are like J-Rock let himself go. If I say no, they're like you know who I met? Who's a dick. I always say you start in this job at a dick deficit. People assume you're one. So to get to you know who's not bad requires a certain amount of energy to get to you know it was a great guy.

Speaker 1 1:14:05

You practically have to give someone a deed for a piece of land. So I, I personally I enjoy meeting people. I wish the interaction was a little more tethered to an exchange, right? So I Authenticity. Yeah, I enjoy a message that's like like my aunt taught you in junior high no way, what's she up to? Yeah, versus you're that guy I get. I get nothing from that. Although I recognize I always say people take half an hour a week to watch the show, I can take 10 seconds to say thank you. It's just part of the job.

Speaker 2 1:14:40

Fair enough. 10 seconds adds up quick, though Yep, when it's thousands of them right.

Speaker 1 1:14:43

Well, and my life by design has very little to do with what I do, so we live in the quiet and visit the noise.

Speaker 2 1:14:52

That's awesome. So question number nine so you were on Joe Schmo, so created by Rhett, yeah so, who also wrote Deadpool. So if you were asked to appear in a deadpool movie, what obscure power would you pick?

Speaker 1 1:15:10

hmm, I would want to be able to guess the key of any song on the radio.

Speaker 3 1:15:17

Okay, could you imagine being with that guy in the time of need? He'd be like A minor.

Speaker 2 1:15:23

So mad. Yes, nice, kendrick Lamar oh yeah, kendrick Lamar, a minor, yeah, yeah, a bunch of them.

Speaker 1 1:15:31

Can you imagine how soul crushing it must have been to hear the entire? Super Bowl audience, who is arguably not entirely Kendrick's audience, but everybody knows that. Yeah, I actually. I couldn't believe he was allowed to do that song. Given the subject matter, I couldn't believe the crowd that was there knew it.

Speaker 3 1:15:52

I couldn't believe like the whole thing started. Drake didn't even really diss the guy, he just said he was in the top three with Kendrick and Kendrick wrote that song. I know. It's like whoa that's a weird response.

Speaker 1 1:16:02

I know Pretty aggressive, I know You're having a thumb war that becomes a slap fight.

Speaker 3 1:16:08

You're like.

Speaker 1 1:16:08

I didn't know those were the rules Fair enough?

Speaker 2 1:16:11

So question number 10, this is the question that we've asked everyone who comes on the show this year what is one piece of advice that you were given that you'd like to give to us?

Speaker 1 1:16:20

Hmm, were given that you'd like to give to us. I'm going to cite my father-in-law, who drops truth bombs on me all the time, and I have been guilty of this, and this is something that I've been considering a lot lately, because one of the downsides of getting your head spun around by shiny things is I'll think, like there's a motel for sale that would be cool. And he's like do you want to wait for Trent and Tina from Winnipeg, whose flight's been delayed three hours, to give them a set of keys to their room at one in the morning? Harsh reality check.

Speaker 1 1:16:57

So he always says so. Quick sidebar, which is actually a great name for a podcast too. Yes, when I bought the trailers he said you should get them undercoated. So I spent a week undercoating them and he rolls up in his truck. Never shows up when I'm killing it, only when I'm like up to my forehead in grease.

Speaker 1 1:17:16

He's like what are you doing? I said I'm undercoating the trailers, but I don't really know how long have you been doing it. This the trailers but I don't really know how long have you been doing it. This is day six. He's like hire someone who undercoats for a living to do it in two hours and you've just bought back six days of your life to do the thing. You don't actually suck at it's false economy as a phrase.

Speaker 1 1:17:34

So the piece of advice I would give you guys is, instead of doing 13 things half-assed, pick two and go hard at them.

Speaker 2 1:17:44

That's good, good advice, that's very good advice.

Speaker 1 1:17:46

It might be advice I'm giving myself in your presence, but I find myself thinking about that a lot.

Speaker 3 1:17:51

No, yeah. Well, we got a lot of ideas going back and forth, so that's great advice for us too. It's also just good to accept.

Speaker 1 1:17:57

There are some things you're not great at, or many things and focus on the ones that you're great at.

Speaker 2 1:18:02

Yeah, that's the thing. We have a couple of things. We have a bunch of things we want to do, but I think we have like three or four things we're starting to streamline them.

Speaker 3 1:18:07

We're getting better, we're writing notes and we're whittling them down.

Speaker 2 1:18:10

We have a TV show idea and podcast. Obviously book Great.

Speaker 1 1:18:16

Yeah, yeah, so grows and gets more traction will increase your profile, will increase people's awareness of you and then, when you want to do something else, yeah, it becomes easier.

Speaker 3 1:18:26

Well, that's something on the resume. Yeah, absolutely. Well, John, this has been an honor, Thanks fellas.

Speaker 2 1:18:31

Thank you so much Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 1:18:33

Cheers, cheers, cheers.

Speaker 2 1:18:34

Your glasses are empty and thank you for listening, and mine is half full man, you planned that.

Speaker 3 1:18:42

Oh man, you planned that the whole show. Thank you to Parrot Chat, asia Thai Food, yeah and to our sponsors and listeners. Have a great day.

Speaker 1 1:18:48

Wait, you have sponsors and listeners. Yeah both.

Speaker 2 1:18:50

Oh, this is pro, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 1:18:53

Cheers.