During Fred Ewanuick’s six-year tenure on Corner Gas as Brent Butt’s loveable but spacey sidekick Hank Yarbo, the 38-year-old actor became one of the most recognizable faces in Canada. His gentle absurdity coupled with his competitive larks made him a comedic staple to the show that revitalized Canadian comedy.
Fast-forward to 2010 and Ewanuick has found himself the star of CTV’s new series Dan for Mayor, as a thirtysomething slacker bartender who announces his candidacy for mayor of Wessex, Ont., when his saccharine ex-girlfriend Claire (Mary Ashton) reveals she’s engaged.
It’s a role the star seems primed to play, but will his former fans buy it?
Ewanuick insists there are no similarities between the two characters (“Dan doesn’t wear hats”), but upon first watch it’s hard not to disagree. Both men lack ambition but grow frustrated when they aren’t taken seriously, both usually try to do right by people with disastrous results, and both sport a misguided sense of confidence.
But if viewers stick through — and why shouldn’t they, given the sent-from-heaven timeslot and heavy CTV promotion during the Olympics? — they will see a quiet evolution.
Whereas each episode of Corner Gas was a self-contained unit in which the characters reset at the half-hour mark, Dan for Mayor has a different vibe, with quick scenes, character growth and an ongoing story that hooks you, but doesn’t shackle you. It’s the perfect venue to expose the actor’s lesser-known chops.
Ewanuick certainly does his fair share of heavy lifting, but he’s surrounded by a talented cast that ignites the torch when it’s handed off.
Benjamin Ayres (The Vampire Diaries) steals every scene he graces with his grotesque ‘stache; Suzanne Coy (Heartland) is the Canadian version of Glee’s Sue Sylvester; and Ashton is a breath of fresh air compared to the absurd characters with whom she’s surrounded.
Paul Bates (Welcome to Mooseport) also fills that role as Dan’s campaign manager and best friend, who “probably hopes Dan forgets about the campaign in a week.”
The series was put into production a few years after Corner Gas writers Kevin White, Mark Farrell and Paul Mather solicited the idea during a routine pitch meeting, and they immediately cast Ewanuick when he freed up with Butt’s announcement of the end of Gas, which shuttered last April.
Speaking of, Butt has his own new creation, Hiccups, to keep him busy these days. That series also premières Monday night in an obvious back-to-back scheduling match-up that wasn’t in the original cards for CTV.
During Dan’s production days, White told TVGuide.ca that not having the shows together was in everybody’s interest. “We’d like to be able to live and die on our own merits,” he revealed.
But interests have changed and the series is now sandwiched on CTV’s new Monday night comedy lineup between Hiccups and CBS’s smash comedies Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, essentially creating a must-see comedy block for CTV.
And while Hiccups’s anchor of a slot stands to lose eyeballs to established hit How I Met Your Mother on CBS, Dan will face off against the return of the washed-up CBS series Rules of Engagement.
Let’s see if he’s up to the challenge.
Dan for Mayor kicks off Monday, March 1, 8:30 p.m. ET, CTV.
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