America in the United States.
Deriving its name from the roadside gas station in the fictional town of Dog River, Saskatchewan, Corner Gas is the only gas station for 60 kilometres (37 miles) in any direction. Brent Leroy (Brent Butt) is the proprietor of the station and Wanda Dollard (Nancy Robertson) works at the station’s convenience store as a retail assistant. An adjoining coffee shop, The Ruby, is owned by Lacey Burrows (Gabrielle Miller), who inherited it from her Aunt Ruby.
The series completed its run following broadcast of its sixth season on April 13, 2009, with a total of 107 episodes.[1]
The show became an instant hit, averaging a million viewers per episode.[2] Corner Gas has been the recipient of six Gemini Awards, and has been nominated almost 70 times for various awards.[3]
On April 6, 2009, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall signed a proclamation that declared April 13, 2009 (and the same day every year after), "Corner Gas Day" in Saskatchewan.[4]
Concept
The series was created by Canadian comedian Brent Butt, who came up with the idea for the series after wondering what his life would be like if he had not pursued stand-up comedy (he would still be in a small town in Saskatchewan pumping gas). With the exception of the first season finale and second season premiere episodes, which are linked, most other Corner Gas episodes are stand-alone storylines that can be viewed in virtually any order, though occasional incidental references to previous episodes can be found.
Brent Butt originally developed the story line for CTV and The Comedy Network (TCN).[3] The show brings together broad, coffee shop humour within a community. The characters are archetypal. They have the personality of friends and family to which international viewers can relate. The show focuses on the lifestyle of small town folk. Though set in a small town in Saskatchewan, it is not about Saskatchewan or Canada, but rather the day to day interactions of the residents of Dog River.[5]
Filming locations
Corner Gas was filmed entirely in Saskatchewan. The inside scenes (Ruby Cafe interior, Police Department, Oscar and Emma's house, etc.) are filmed at Canada/Saskatchewan Production Studios in Regina. All of the outdoor scenes and all scenes that take place in the gas station are filmed on location in Rouleau, Saskatchewan. Rouleau is a small town on Highway 39 between Moose Jaw and Weyburn. The grain elevator has been repainted to read “Dog River” instead of “Rouleau", however the water tower still reads "Rouleau" - with post production effects used to repaint it to read "Dog River" in the first season episode "Grad 68". Also Regina, Saskatchewan, is known as the 'city' in Corner Gas.[11]Overview
The first episode of Corner Gas aired on January 22, 2004, and attracted 1.5 million viewers.[3] It became an instant hit. The first season consisted of 13 episodes. Less than two months after the first episode aired, CTV renewed it for a second season of 18 episodes.The show's final episode aired on April 13, 2009, airing in simulcast on CTV, The Comedy Network and A. The episode attracted 2,914,000 viewers on terrestrial television and an additional 235,000 on The Comedy Network, for a total viewership of 3,114,000.[15]
[edit] Main cast
· Brent Herbert Leroy[16] (Brent Butt) is the comic book-reading, sarcastic proprietor of Corner Gas. He is almost always good-natured, but has a tendency to fixate on minor details. He is a fan of adventure fiction such as The Saint in New York and The Executioner. His favourite food is chili cheese dogs, to the point where he can identify the individual ingredients by taste. Brent is 'adept' at many sports, such as curling, hockey and softball. His favorite football teams are the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Minnesota Vikings. He and Hank have been best friends since childhood, and Brent often makes fun of him and name multiple instances of Hank's stupidity. As of the Season 5 finale, Brent is 40 years old, and was born on November 6 (thus, his date of birth can be assumed to be November 6, 1967, since Brent graduated high school in 1986). Brent is said to be the hottest guy in Dog River, although other characters on the show acknowledge this is faint praise. He is also the Dog River Table Hockey Champion using a "dump it into the corners" style of play. It is implied that he and Lacey Burrows have feelings for one another, although neither will admit or act upon them. After the end of the series he went on to fulfill his dream of fly-fishing in the Yukon, while looking to wrestle a bear (he didn't find any bears, but he did see either a Sasquatch or an oddly shaped stump).
· Co-stars Brent Butt and Nancy Robertson married on November 19, 2005, following production of the third season.[17]
· Lacey Burrows[16] (Gabrielle Miller) took over the previously unnamed coffee shop in Dog River after the death of her aunt and renamed it in her honour, calling it The Ruby. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, she is perpetually trying to fit into small-town life, with mixed, but usually disastrous, results. She is a terrible liar, quick to jump to conclusions, a poor winner, thinks everybody has a crush on her, and is not the best at mathematics. Lacey frequently exhibits insecurity and regret about the path her life has taken. She has also expressed frustration at being unable to find "a stable guy" to date in Dog River. She considers herself a sweetheart and secretly believes that she alone of the town's women deserves the "Woman of Distinction" award (which she eventually wins). She is also very knowledgeable when it comes to hockey, coaching Dog River's hockey team, the Dog River Riverdogs. It is implied that she and Brent Leroy have feelings for one another, although neither will admit or act upon them. In season five Karen describes Lacey as, "Too upbeat, overly fastidious, a little needy - same old Lacey!". Her fashion sense trends toward the revealing. This was mocked in the episode "Doc Small", in which she welcomes Dr. Chris Garner, a doctor from an even smaller town than Dog River, to town, and Garner is shocked by Lacey's "slutty" top, which is actually one of her more conservative tops. After the end of the series, she opened a second Ruby in Wullerton, but it was quickly shut down by local health inspectors.
· Richard Henry "Hank" Yarbo[16] (Fred Ewanuick) is Brent’s perpetually unemployed best friend and most likely candidate for Dog River’s village idiot. He often hangs out at Corner Gas talking to Brent about whatever is on his mind. He constantly borrows money from other characters and rarely pays them back, nor does he pay his tab at The Ruby, and is always wearing a hat because of perpetual bad hair days; also, his hat repels mosquitoes as is revealed in season 2. He is a small sort of fellow, considering he can fit into a "Kung-Fu Johnny" T-shirt that Brent wore in grade 5. He has worked a range of jobs, from census worker to crossing guard to city accountant, never being able to hold down or stay focused in one for long. He expressed a goal of working as a rodeo clown. His mother lives in Saskatoon, and his favourite foods are grape Pop Rocks and pickles (despite accidentally choking on the same pickle two times). Hank is quite childish, doing such things as going to see an adventure movie designed for 6-year-olds five times in one week. He is shown to have a lot of interest in the CFL, most notably the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Saskatchewan's football team. In a Christmas-themed episode, it is revealed that as a hockey fan, he likes the Vancouver Canucks. Despite his village idiot routine, Hank actually has experience in many physical and maintenance activities, including auto mechanics, gardening, knitting, woodworking and plumbing, making him something of a jack-of-all-trades. His poetic side emerges when he goes fishing. This may have culminated in him sleeping with Karen. After the series, he continued to remain "Awesomely" unemployed.
· Wanda Dollard[16] (Nancy Robertson) is a quirky cashier at Corner Gas, and the self-professed smartest person in town. She has a sardonic and caustic personality and often enjoys lording her knowledge over others. Wanda is a single mother and has a 6-year-old son, Tanner Vincent Dollard, who has never been seen or heard on screen. Her son is displayed as a living nightmare for prospective babysitters (Season 1, Episode 4). Accused of being a know-it-all, Wanda is also one of very few residents of Dog River who has gone to university; she holds a degree in linguistics with a minor in comparative religion but took classes in many other subjects as well. Despite her extensive education, she considers her job at Corner Gas a privilege. She is shown as having a case of mild agoraphobia in one episode. There is also some reason to believe that she might actually be a robot. As seen in the episode "No Time Like the Presents", Hank speculated, "How do we know you're not already a robot?" to which Wanda replied, "That's ridiculous. Foolish human." Despite this, like Brent and Hank, Wanda grew up in Dog River. After the end of the series, she pursued a Ph.D. in theoretical physics though she still works at Corner Gas, albeit with a pay raise.
· Oscar Leroy[16] (Eric Peterson) is Brent’s angry, stubborn and occasionally senile elderly man stereotype father and former owner of Corner Gas, now retired. His all-purpose word is "jackass", and he often demands that the Dog River police arrest everyone who annoys him. He frequently and belligerently points out that "My taxes pay your salary!" to government workers. Oscar also has a tendency to exclaim "Holy hell!" upon encountering something new or surprising. He rivals Hank in his brain capacity and ability to make mistakes and the two are often shown scheming together. Oscar likes to show his handiwork around the house, but usually makes things worse every time he tries to fix something. When Brent presented his idea of selling Corner Gas to a huge company, Oscar replied "How dare you, How dare you keep the Pump and Go people waiting, sell it, sell it now" showing that he has no love of his old job. After the end of the series, he would go on to say "Jackass" over 1,275 more times...and counting. (Which ended up being the final spoken word of the series.)
· Emma Leroy[16] (Janet Wright) is Brent’s mother, and the brains and muscle of the family. She usually ends up having to deal with the fallout from Oscar’s actions, and he often embarrasses and annoys her, but despite this, she does truly love him. She has also found it hard to "let go" of Brent, and reacts badly when someone else appears to replace her in some aspect of his life. She is frequently shown knitting or crocheting on the show. Emma has also been shown to possess great strength (being able to hurl a cinder block at a skunk across the yard with little effort). She has a quick-tempered and a domineering personality. After the end of the series, she remained married to Oscar, despite doctor's orders.
· Sergeant Davis Quinton[16] (Lorne Cardinal) is the overly-sensitive senior police officer in Dog River, who has a habit of misspending the police budget, taking naps on the job, and making up the laws as he goes along (he's never actually read the police manual). He tends to treat his police position more as a 'fun hobby' than a serious job. He is obsessed with Cosmopolitan Magazine, retro-TV and classic cartoon shows; and is a science fiction aficionado. He believes that the original Battlestar Galactica may have really happened. His catch phrase is an enthusiastic "All right!". He is a fan of the Saskatchewan Prairie Fire (he is often seen wearing their gear while off duty). Davis once competed in rhythmic gymnastics; he also has a collection of the original Hardy Boys books. He is unable to make coffee, but is unwilling to tell anyone. His mother left him when he was only a baby to join a band. For a long time he thought their cleaning lady was his mom. In the episode named "I Love Lacey", Davis reveals himself to be a member of the Cree Nation. In season 5, Davis has been showing an attraction for Lacey, who is not interested. At the end of season 5, Davis is said to be 46 years old, which would make 1961 his year of birth. He was also seen as a police officer in Dog River in 1986 (the "Grad '68" episode in season 1). Davis is divorced but after the end of the series he eventually re-married. He lost his sense of smell after being hit on the head as a child, and his smell is only temporarily regained after being hit on the head by a ball, thrown by Brent.
· Constable Karen Pelly[16] (Tara Spencer-Nairn) is the ambitious and sometimes neurotic junior police officer in Dog River. Before becoming a police officer, she ranked fifth in Canada in the sport of static apnea, with a personal best of more than six minutes. She’s a very good cook, but does not like to bring it up for fear it will stereotype her. She does not want to admit that she does not know how to ride a bike. She is also at least ten years younger than most other characters on the show. Karen plays a mean table hockey game using a fast-paced style of game. Along with her excellent style of play, she is apparently an expert on the different types of table hockey games as she describes the year and model of the game. She tends to take her police position very seriously, unlike her partner Davis, and treats even the most minor problem officially. Karen frequently becomes annoyed with Davis' willingness to obey the mayor in everything and bend rules. They differ greatly on their views of what a police officer should portray; on one occasion, Karen states that "a police officer should be respected by the community", to which Davis casually replies, "Who said that?" Despite these differences, Karen and Davis get along well, although they don't spend much time together outside of work. In the episode "Hook, Line and Sinker" Karen goes fishing with Hank and is seduced by his "sexy fish talk". After the end of the series, she fell in love and married.
· Principal shooting set, as of February 12, 2010
· Dog River (Rouleau, Saskatchewan) has a population of “about 500” according to “Census Sensibility.” According to the Corner Gas tagline, it is 40 kilometres (25 mi) from nowhere, but still within a relatively short drive to “The City,” where characters are often shown going to shop or attend “support meetings,” in the case of Davis and Lacey. The rival town of Wullerton (Dog River residents spit anytime the name is mentioned) is 'just down the road.' It is stated in the episode “Tax Man” that Corner Gas is the only gas station for 60 kilometres (37 mi) in any direction. Series creator Brent Butt has said the town lies somewhere between Regina and Saskatoon; these two cities are 257 kilometres (160 mi) apart, so this fact does not contradict anything said on the series. In fact, the term 'the city' has been used at various times in the series to refer to Regina. The third season episode, “Fun Run” has one character drive to Weyburn for a lark, suggesting Dog River is probably closer to Regina than it is to Saskatoon. In the episode “Outside Joke,” when the Corner Gas station is believed to actually be outside the town limits, it is said to be in the fictional municipality of Pitt Creek. In "Kid Stuff," Wanda says it is south of the also fictional Crowley Lake.
· The town’s name is an homage to series creator Brent Butt’s hometown of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, through which the Doghide River flows. However, in the show itself, the second season episode “Rock On!” revealed that the town was named after a great uncle of Lacey’s who drowned a dozen dogs in the river. She discovered this trivia while researching information for a history plaque. In order to play down this unsavoury branch of her family tree, Lacey instead used a story that Karen made up—that pioneers somehow got hold of a hot air balloon, got an aerial view of the town site, and noticed that the creek formed a shape similar to that of a dog’s leg. “Block Party” revealed that the town was founded in 1905, and its founder was a Mr. Harold Main after whom Main Street was named (it was later renamed Centennial Street in 2005, the origin of the name being forgotten.) Main also constructed Dog River’s first building, a wooden shack that would later be burned down by Hank Yarbo a century later in order to maintain the accuracy of his Lego scale model of the town (he ran out of blocks and could not make a replica of the shack.)
· A real-life Regina tour operator regularly takes busloads of tourists to Rouleau to visit “Dog River.” Visitors can tour the on-location sets of Corner Gas, including the service station.[20][21] Many components of Dog River are, in fact, real attributes of Rouleau, notably the combined liquor and insurance store.[22]
· On February 9, 2010, Google Street View extended its coverage of Canada, including all streets within Rouleau. The remnants of the Corner Gas and Ruby standing sets, along with the grain elevator labelled "Dog River" are visible from ground level at the junction of Highways 39 and 714.
· The town has its own newspaper, The Dog River Howler (usually just called “The Howler”), to which almost everybody has contributed at one point or another. Its headlines are usually rife with inaccurate, sensationalist reporting. An example of exaggeration can be seen in “Hero Sandwich,” in which a proposal to install traffic lights at a four-way intersection prompts the headline “Crosswalk HELL—Mayor Insane.” Another example occurs when coyotes wander into town to eat chickens, prompting the incorrectly spelled headline "Cattle Slaughtered by Werewolfes [sic]." An example of simply untrue reporting can be seen in the first episode, in which a headline reads “Moose Jaw Gets NBA Franchise.” The paper is also rife with misspellings, for example in the third season that “Hank is phycic.” or in the fourth season that "Local cop catches barely thief."
· The "Police Department", consisting of Davis and Karen, keeps the peace in Dog River, though most of the time their duties consist of shooting pests at farms and using their radar guns to clock the flying speed of sparrows at 40 km/h (24.9 mph). They also park behind the "surveillance bush" waiting for speeders.
· In "The Littlest Yarbo," a short-lived Fire Department consisting of two firefighters, David and Carol (both showing remarkable similarities to Davis and Karen, respectively), was established by the mayor when the volunteer fire chief decided to sleep in as opposed to respond to a fire. The volunteer system was reestablished after Hank, Davis, and Oscar lit an uncontrollable leaf fire and the fire department did not respond as they were chasing a stray dog (the same one Hank thought to be "The Littlest Hobo"). Fitzy saw Davis in the aftermath as the only first responder there and gave him the new title of Chief, Volunteer Fire Department.
· The Dog River Police have two police cars, both 1994 Ford Crown Victorias. With the exception of the first episode and "Dark Circles," the police use only one of them.
· The residents of Dog River have a pathological dislike of the residents of Wullerton, a neighboring town, to the point that they spit on the ground whenever the rival town is mentioned (they are so used to it they sometimes do not realize it when they spit, and that the local newspaper will print "(SPIT)" after printing the town's name). Ironically, the people of Wullerton may not hate Dog River, as seen in the fourth season’s finale (however, this was only part of Hank’s fantasy sequence, and may not accurately reflect Wullerton’s actual sentiment towards Dog River). The reason for this has yet to be explained. Publicity for the second season indicated that the season finale would reveal the reason for the spitting; however, the episode as broadcast did not actually do so. It should be noted that this practice of looking down on neighboring towns is common in many prairie communities, primarily those in Saskatchewan and Alberta, such as Tisdale and Melfort.
· Thunderface is an in-universe fictional band that was formed in the mid-’80s by lead singer Hank Yarbo, lead guitar player Brent Leroy, and bass guitar player Wanda Dollard. In 2005, the band was expanded to include drummer Karen Pelly, the most competent musician in the group.
· Thunderface has suffered from relative anonymity due to confusion with their name (as well as the fact that they have had only one gig since 1986). They have been referred to as “Rumblepuss,” “Thunderbread,” “Thunderchunks,” and “Wonderface,” among other names. Their sound is described as similar to “a small animal caught in some kind of machinery,” and their sole gig since 1986 was booked due to the humorous nature of their poor performance. Along with their gig in 1986, they seemed to have done some school performances considering they blew the principal's eyebrows off. The only song they have been heard to play is “Capital Cash” by Fast Exit, a band that Brent Butt played guitar in before he got into comedy.
· The Surveillance Bush is a bush that is only seen in the first episode and the last episode. Karen is seen hiding behind it in the Police Cruiser in Ruby Reborn. Davis and Karen are also seen on the last episode hiding behind it before tailing Brent in the final episode. Since there is no wind a cast member is actually laying down shaking the bush. The bush was only planted for those two scenes.
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