“Hulu has picked up the first two seasons of the acclaimed series, and American viewers would be wise to delve into its coarse, hilarious, rural weirdness.”
That’s Tim Goodman’s assessment of Letterkenny, which premieres in the United States Friday on the streaming service Hulu. The San Francisco-based TV critic, who writes for The Hollywood Reporter, is one of the most respected reviewers Stateside. He’s smart and edgy and not afraid to tell it like it is, and if your show is any good, that’s exactly what you want.
Goodman is also savvy when it comes to Canadian TV, having been a moderator several times at the Banff International Television Festival. He was already, as he admits in his review, smuggling ‘Kenny into ‘Frisco well before this Hulu premiere — so often Trump was about to slap on a tariff.
“The series is very, very Canadian,” writes Goodman. “That is, there are elements about it that are odd, even to Canadians, whose capacity for calmly accepting unconventional things on the intake is pretty well established.”
He goes on to say he loves the show, calls it “a highly stylized bit of brilliance” and adds that it is “hilariously odd, foul-mouthed, juvenile, eccentric, smart, deceptively heartwarming, absurd, niche and, yes, relentlessly creative and likely not for everyone.”
advertisement
Not bad for a little show thought up by Jared Keeso and a few of his puck pals over after-hockey brewskies. Read the rest of Goodman’s review here.
The Hulu pick up is for the first two seasons. In Canada, CraveTV just premiered the fourth (I think; seasons are getting harder to define these days) and Bell Media has ordered many more. In two years there will be 75 episodes in total, all shot in beautiful, downtown Sudbury, Ont.
New Metric Media president Mark Montefiore is busy expanding the brand. He’s already spun off Letterkenny-inspired Puppers beer, available to LCBO outlets across Ontario. Montefiore brought some with him to Russia last week when he was cheering on teams in the World Cup and managed to shoot photos of the brew with St. Peters and other Russian landmarks in the background. Da! St. Puppersberg!
There’s a second coast-to-coast Letterkenny Live tour coming this December and plans for a whiskey brand and even a feature film. Check out my Canadian Press story on Letterkenny‘s bid for world domination here.
