Are Canadians ready to see a six episode series about Canada losing to the United States?
This seemed to be the acceptance hurdle facing creator Anthony J. Farrell (The Office) and New Metric Media (Letterkenny, Shoresy) in mounting Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story, streaming now on Paramount+ and GameTV.
Hear this however. Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story sails over every expectation. It is gold medal good, like watching an Olympic comedy relay race with our own SCTV lane.
Let’s go back to September, 1988. Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson went from hero to zero after beating arch rival Carl Lewis in the Men’s 100-meter race, the showcase event of the Olympic Games that summer in Seoul, Korea. The hero part: he blew cocky Lewis off the track in a record-breaking time of 9.79 seconds. The zero: after being awarded the gold medal, Johnson tested positive for a performance enhancing substance and his medal was ripped away and handed off to Lewis.
Like millions of other Canadians, I remember the sheer joy of watching that race on TV with friends. It was like Team Canada’s win over the Soviets in ’72, sixteen years later. Then came the sickening news it was taken away due to, gasp, cheating. It was like getting kicked in the nuts by Uncle Sam.
Especially, of course, for Johnson, the Jamaican-Canadian later reduced to doing “Cheata” energy drink ads for a notorious Toronto sauce hustler. Ben kept alleging that everybody else in those races was also on the juice and his crime was simply getting caught. Decades of performance enhancing drug admissions in baseball and other Olympic sports suggest he may have had a case.
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Still, even 38 years after Seoul, how do you sell the notion that Johnson may have been, as the poster for this movie suggests, if not the G.O.A.T, then definitely a scape-G.O.A.T.?
Farrell says it was New Metric Media boss Mark Montefiore who suggested they all lean into the turning this story into a comedy. There would likely not be a way to lawyer up a straight ahead dramatic approach, and Canadians, still with their elbows still up, would likely turn thumbs down on a show about getting kicked off the podium. So why not do what Canada does best: deconstruct it. Mock the stanozolo out of it. Make it wildly funny — yet also score some points about how Ben may not have been wrong, wink wink, nudge nudge.
To pull this off, the producers had to find two actors who looked the parts and be funny. They found them in Shamier Anderson (John Wick: Chapter 4, Invasion) as Ben Johnson and Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor (Greenland, The Babysitter) as Carl Lewis. Both have comedy and acting chops and they each bear a physical resemblance to their characters. Anderson, who benefited from having Johnson available as a consultant, nails the runner’s halting cadence and wide-eyed naivete. Bachelor lets it rip as the ugly American, doing everything but twirl a moustache as the villain of the piece, especially in one scene where he pushes an old lady who wanders onto the track face down in lane seven.
The genius move was hiring a deep bench of Canadian sketch comedy players to wig up as bit players throughout the six episodes. This puts a very welcome SCTV spin on things. The comedy specialists include Ryan Belleville (Workin’ Moms), Darryl Hinds (Air Farce and Second City), Lisa Horner (Kim’s Convenience), Emma Hunter (Mr. D, Letterkenny), Buresh John (Mr. D, Last Frontier), Jonathan Langdon (Trap), Gita Miller (Workin’ Moms), Andrew Phung (Kim’s Convenience), Dewshane Williams (Hello Tomorrow), Leslie Adlam (Bria Mack Gets A Life), and Arnold Pinnock (Plan B). Sure there was a script, but all involved admit there was a fair bit of improvisation going on at all times.
Hunter, firmly established as Canada’s Melissa McCarthy, stands out as several characters, including a peppery Italian race fan and an uptight sports commentator. Bellville and Phung make the most of every over-the-top cameo, pushing boundaries just like in the good old SCTV days, especially the sketches you could not write or promote today.
Anchoring it all to some semblance of story are more actors who know funny, including Karen Robinson (Law & Order Toronto), hilariously Patois as Ben’s slap-happy mom; Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall, Superstore), just sane enough as a lawyer who keeps cutting in with the word “Allegedly”; Ennis Esmer (Children Ruin Everything) as Ben’s needly-happy drug doc, the late Jamie Astaphan; Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black) as Ben’s coach and friend, the late Charlie Francis; and Malaika Hennie Hamadi (Bria Mack Gets a Life) who plans intern Khara.
Bruun in particular has the tricky task of conveying Francis’ genuine affection for his star sprinter while playing straight man to a succession of comedic cameos pulling the micky out of every scene.
The premise is that this is a documentary Johnson has commissioned, one where he is telling his own story. McKinney’s lawyer character can only keep throwing “allegedly” over everything. There are plenty of telling takes to the camera, and Anderson is terrific at keeping a straight face.
It is when the camera suddenly cuts to Johnson taking about 45 needles to the ass that nobody can keep a straight face, especially the audience.
The sneaky thing about this approach is that we are all in on the joke as well as the suggested truth, that this layer of cheating and coverups really did exist in sports. Would Johnson have gotten his medal back if he had a savvier team around him, including his Olympic sponsors? In about 9.79 seconds.
That doesn’t make him a hero, but perhaps more human, and damn if the man can’t take a joke.
Directors R.T. Thorne (The Porter) and Cory Bowles (Trailer Park Boys) do a great job of juggling sketch and satire in what is a crowded and diverse field of talent. Hats off to design and visual effects as well for keeping this on track on a Canadian budget. Scenes set at Olympic stadiums and network anchor booths are handled with a certain kitchy flair that places viewers in context without drowning it in hardened reality. Had this been the Carl Lewis story, an American studio would have spent ten times the budget for one-tenth the laughs.
Speaking of laughs, when has Canada needed them more? Broad, slapstick comedy, especially any kind of physical shtick, is rare and so welcome. It feels good to laugh, not just at this story, but laugh period.
One final note: New Metric, this is a franchise. Take that sketch comedy bench and sick ’em next on the dismantling of The Avro Arrow, Toronto Maple Leafs during the Harold Ballard rein of terror, the high office years of Toronto mayor Rob Ford. Deconstruct all our shame and humiliation and spin it into comedy gold. There is no end to these Maple Mocumentary possibilities.
Don’t Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story, can be streamed now on both GameTV and Paramount+ Canada.
