Done one Christmas special, done ’em all? That’s what comedy writer Bruce Pirrie was wondering a couple of years ago when Steve Smith, S&S Productions’ writer/producer/comic and embodiment of Red Green, asked him to help write back-to-back Christmas specials for The Red Green Show. And that’s why Pirrie finds it a little tricky to be really sure about what material he wrote for A Merry Red Green Christmas, the program which has earned him and four other writers a 2000 Gemini nomination for best writing in a comedy or variety program or series.

‘We wondered after the first [special] if there were any Christmas jokes left, but we did manage to find enough,’ says Pirrie, who shares the nod with Steve Smith, Bob Bainborough, Shaun Graham and Richard McDonald.

Think about it: presents, food, parties. You’ve got trees to cut down, stuff to hang up, things to assemble, things to take apart. Turkey and stuffing, mince pie and whipped cream, coffee and Bailey’s. Mistletoe and repercussions, possibly even involving duct tape.

Yes, fans of handyman Red Green are keenly aware of his weakness for this friend of the repair-challenged. In fact, there’s a movie on the way, Duct Tape Forever, and Pirrie did some rewriting on it.

Meanwhile, he’s a full-time writer on the Red Green series, airing on cbc, Comedy Network and pbs. The writers approach each episode as if solving problems for the characters, each of whom has his own peculiar obsessions.

‘It doesn’t take long until you start to know [the comedic approach] on an innate level. You get a Zen-like sense of this after awhile. It’s not Keaton and Chaplin, but it’s funny.’ He says ‘a mosaic of comedic styles and formats’ are ‘genre skipping all the way around the show,’ including silent visual comedy, animated segments, vaudevillian standup, physical comedy and some radio-esque bits.

Pirrie has also written, produced and served as talent director on another S&S production, Supertown Challenge, a game show parody developed by Smith and former Red Green actor Patrick McKenna. Broadcast for two, 26-episode seasons on Comedy, Supertown’s format in the first year involved two teams of three actors each – fictitious characters from a real town answering questions about small towns in Canada. In the second season, Pirrie says Supertown resembled ‘Front Page Challenge from Hell.’

Another new show might be on its way from the Burlington, Ont.-based prodco.

Pirrie says they’re pitching a show tentatively called Mr. Happy. So far, they’ve produced a half-dozen ‘three-minute editorials by a very angry guy.

They’re about trivial, mundane things like people who drive with their blinkers on.’ Pirrie is directing, and writing with Jeff Lumby.

If you thought that was his whole act, Pirrie has ever more: he added another color to his creativity rainbow by writing and cowriting some episodes of the first season of Salter Street Films’ new historical comedy Blackfly, debuting this fall on Global.

But, finally, who are comedy writers? ‘They’re solitary loners,’ says Pirrie, ‘who sort of laugh at odd times and lose their sense of humor when they talk about comedy.’ *