Schitt's Creek won a record-breaking nine Emmys this year. Photo / Supplied
Eugene and Dan Levy's Emmy-sweeping sitcom about a rich family forced to move to a small-town motel finally has its moment in the spotlight. Stephen Armstrong and Helen Hawkins offer a primer.
There were two possible reactions to Schitt's Creek's record-breaking win of nine Emmys last month. Either, "Wow, my secret show is now loved by everybody else!" Or, "Schitt's what?"
The sitcom's "sit" is simple: the Roses, a super-wealthy family, are defrauded of all their money and left with just one possession: the town of Schitt's Creek, bought as a joke. In episode one parents Johnny and Moira and children David and Alexis totter into its only, distinctly lacklustre motel, distraught at losing their finery, friends and future.
What follows is a spiky sitcom that's immersed in modernity and yet traditional, edgy yet comforting. The banter is bitchy, but not mean, the storylines — sexual misadventure, unemployment, sexual misadventure, loneliness — never unpleasant. What gives it its edge is the impeccable delivery of the lines. Characters reveal their best sides, but there's no schmaltz. It's the ideal sitcom for these uncertain times, a tribute to family bonds triumphing over adversity.
Eugene Levy — the heavily eyebrowed Canadian comedy legend whose CV ranges from mockumentaries such as Best in Show and A Mighty Wind to the American Pie films — created the show with his son, Dan, who had spent years trying to avoid his father's shadow. He hosted various MTV Canada shows from 2006 to 2011, but then started working on an idea with his dad and read about Kim Basinger's purchase of a town in Georgia in 1989. They assembled backing — from the Canadian state broadcaster CBC, the US channel Pop TV and, oddly, ITV — begged Eugene's old sparring partner Catherine O'Hara to play Moira, got together a largely Canadian cast and launched in 2015 to moderate indifference.
The show grew slowly until Netflix snapped it up, enjoyed a steady rise and exploded this year just as the sixth and final season aired, wound up because the Levys didn't want to risk the show's standards slipping.
Delivered by an irritated David, plus eyeroll, "[I'm] reorganising my knits!" is a typical laugh line. And what knits: fluffy, bulky, festooned with starbursts, tyre marks, strips of tape. Preferably worn over a kilt. Dan Levy shops for his "David" look himself. More important, he helps to shop for Moira's wardrobe. Moira makes Patsy and Edina look drab. "More is more — too much is never enough" is Dan's rule. Mother and son suffer from a mania for monochrome. Moira's clothes are structural support for her ego, a lifeline to her former self. She dresses up for all occasions, including going to bed, sporting hats Johnny Depp would kill for and the chicest of shoes (Balmain, Prada, McQueen), even for a trip to an Amish farm. Although her outfits teeter from ludicrous to luscious (inspirations include Daphne Guinness and Steven van Zandt), when assembled on O'Hara, smiling beatifically under her wig of the day, wearing enough jewels to stock a charity shop, she is simply a stunner. And charity shops and eBay are where much of this Emmy-winning clothing comes from.
There are more than 100 in the wardrobe department, chosen to match the mood of the scene. Some are worn backwards. "You'd better remember which nails you pulled those wigs from," Johnny warns Alexis, "because your mother keeps a spreadsheet."
The support cast is stocked with what look at first like sitcom clichés — the weaselly mayor, Roland Schitt, and his smiley teacher wife; the strawberry-nosed garage owner, Bob; Twyla, the café owner (played by Dan's sister, Sarah), who seems smalltown normal, until she starts talking; Ted, the wholesomely cute vet; Patrick, the oh-so-straight business consultant. But as with most elements in the show, the cast go on adding unexpected layers to these eccentrics without ever becoming grotesques.
In Schitt's Creek the locals blithely accept people regardless of race, class and sexuality as long as they do their best to be nice right back. Fans flock to the show's main location: Goodwood, Ontario, population 663, which provides Bob's Garage, the Café Tropical and Rose Apothecary. The town hall is just down the road and the motel an hour away. Success has brought international tourists to watch filming or attend Schittcon, organised by the Schitt's Creek Fans Shoot the Schitt Facebook group.
Dan Levy, who identifies as gay, had set out to create a "town where homophobia doesn't exist" and was so successful that 1,800 mothers of LGBTQ+ kids signed a letter thanking the cast and crew for their representation. A key early scene has David falling into bed with Stevie, the motel manager, then addressing her confusions about his sexuality the next day. "I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I've been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay, which got a bit complicated . . . I like the wine and not the label, does that make sense?" "The wine not the label" is now an increasingly common way for pansexual people to explain their sexuality. It was playing that scene, and others, that helped the actress playing Stevie, Emily Hampshire, to realise she too was pansexual. "I had to ask Dan what pansexuality was, I didn't know at all," she told Gay Times. "Cut to five years later, definitely pan!"
None of the big US gongs came the show's way until this summer's sweep. At 2019's Emmys, season five was finally nominated in four categories (winning none), although Dan Levy won an MTV award. In Canada the show has been treasured since it first aired; O'Hara has won the Canadian Screen awards best comedy actress for the past five years. All eyes are on Dan Levy now, literally: he says he can't walk his dog without at least one person yelling "Ew, David!" at him.
The show's fanbase is immense and creative. The cast have come to feel like friends to many, and their disappearance is being taken hard. Common are online montages of their catchphrases. Expect more as withdrawal gets harder.
A celebrity fan emerged recently on Times Radio: the choreographer Arlene Phillips, who swears the show helped her through lockdown. She has already created one 20-minute musical number, David and Patrick, and is working towards a whole show based on the series.
This is a swotty fanbase too: when Dan revealed he had signed up for a free online course in indigenous peoples at the University of Alberta this summer, 64,000 others signed up for it as well.
Join in the fun and become somebody who giggles when a recipe instructs: "Fold in the cheese." Say "ew" a lot.
Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy)
The ousted proprietor of the Rose Video chain is a patriarch with slick-willie hair and sharp suits; underneath he's just a dad trying to cope. His attempts to get the town and his family in order gradually melt away across the seasons. Eugene Levy's long improv stint with the Canadian sketch troupe Second City is always on display. In one scene he gets laughs from the way he eats an egg sandwich.
David Rose (Dan Levy)
The highly phobic former New York gallerist arrives at the motel in Schitt's Creek stocked up with male cosmetics, knitwear and a heap of resentments. His brittle bickering with his sister has inspired countless highlights reels/T-shirts/mugs (standard repartee: "Eat glass!" "Lick rust!"), but he gradually thaws, opens a designer gift store and is ready to fall in love. David's journey reflects that of Dan Levy, whose motivation in writing the show moved from mocking the shallow world of celebrity socialites to creating a world he would want to live in. So successful has he become that ABC signed Levy to a three-year writing, acting and producing development deal in 2019.
Moira Rose (Catherine O'Hara)
Former soap star, wig-lover and mother — in that order — Moira Rose is the sometimes delusional, dauntlessly self-centred matriarch whose insane British/Canadian/mid-Atlantic/retro-Hollywood accent is an object lesson in not just stealing the show but renting it back to the original owners at twice the price. The mighty O'Hara's 40 years of comedy sparring with Eugene Levy pay the richest of dividends in Schitt's Creek. Most cherished is her unhinged vocabulary. Lines like, "I am very booked up, David — I am positively bedevilled by meetings" (the vocab culled from a book of rare words O'Hara had been given) are heavenly; her desperate attempts to restart her career epic.
Alexis Rose (Annie Murphy)
She's a meld of Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, her hand gestures based on their way of holding a handbag, but turned upside down (and doubled). Murphy also wrote the triumphant spoof pop track A Little Bit Alexis ("Hide your diamonds, hide your exes, I'm a little bit Alexis"). One constant delight is her habit of dropping in hints of a past so murky you could hide a steamship in it. There are Facebook pages dedicated to recording her misadventures: "You learn pretty quickly when you're in a Ugandan diamond smuggler's villa, playing for your friend's freedom"; on being told she cannot run in heels: "Tell that to me at 21, escaping the Yakuza."
Murphy was on the verge of giving up acting when the Schitt's Creek audition arrived and got the role only when the first choice had a schedule clash; she now has an Emmy and a lead role in AMC's forthcoming comedy Kevin Can F*** Himself.
All six seasons of Schitt's Creek are avaiable on Netflix.
Written by: Stephen Armstrong and Helen Hawkins
© The Times of London
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