>>PREVIEW
THE FRANTICS: REUNION SPECIAL
Saturday, January 28 at 11 p.m.
The Comedy Network
If you blinked you might have missed it. In 1985, CBC ran 13 episodes of a sketch-comedy show called Four on the Floor. It featured The Frantics, a comedy troupe formed in 1979, featuring Dan Redican, Paul Chato, Rick Green and Peter Wildman. Prior to their small-screen debut, the guys had gained some attention with many fast-paced live performances and a CBC Radio series called Frantic Times.
With Four on the Floor, TV viewers across Canada were exposed to the team’s irreverent brand of humour, exemplified by recurring bits about getting a boot to the head. The show didn’t have a lot of money or promotional muscle behind it and a few sketches just plain missed the mark, but it definitely delivered some hilarity.
Now, more than two decades later, the talented comedy quartet returns to television in a one-hour reunion special. The new show is jam-packed with a wide-ranging assortment of material. Some bits come in at less than a minute in length.
"We tend to get to the point very quickly," says Wildman, a veteran of both The Frantics and The Red Green Show. "As soon as we start covering ground a second time, or we are not moving forward, we want to get out."
It’s this rapid-fire pace that gives The Frantics their name. It’s also a welcome remedy to the Saturday Night Live doldrums, where paper-thin sketches often drag on and on. After seeing The Frantics on television or in a live performance, Wildman believes "the audience comes to appreciate that we are not going to waste their time."
Leading up to their current TV special, the guys first reunited for a live show in 2003 after more than a decade apart. Troupe member Redican, star of The Comedy Network’s Puppets Who Kill, recalls that the return of their old timing and rhythms was "just about immediate."
When putting together material for the new special, The Frantics had to decide how much stuff from the past they wanted to revisit. While many of the best moments in the upcoming special are new material, such as Chato’s song about soccer moms pillaging the environment behind the wheels of their SUVs, the team has also revived familiar favourites like Mr. Canoehead, their truly Canadian superhero.
A trademark boot-to-the-head bit is also included, but it was not something Redican was initially in favour of. "My thought was, ‘Let’s not just bring back a gratuitous boot-to-the-head reference.’ With a lot of recurring sketches, you are just doing the same sketch over and over again until the audience hates you. But a boot to a head has to be an element in a sketch that is really about something different." By adding a new motivational-speaker angle, Redican feels the boot shtick worked out well.
All four Frantics have a lot going on in their individual professional lives. Wildman works in the creative department of a Toronto rock radio station; Redican’s Puppets Who Kill is now in its fourth season; Green is the main creative force behind History Television’s History Bites and Chato runs a successful web development company.
Nonetheless, there’s a feeling among the group that they would like to continue to work together as much as possible. One can learn about their upcoming Canadian live tour at www.thefrantics.com and they seem very open to the idea of further TV specials.
Wildman says that being back with the Frantics is like "seeing an old girlfriend again. Your heart starts racing and you recall the attraction." As well, he adds, "it’s a ton of fun." |
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