A year after the pilot first aired, Toronto-based S&S Productions will bring another six 30-minute episodes of An American in Canada to CBC in January. Working under producer Colin Brunton (Over the Falls) and exec producer/writer Howard Busgang (Boy Meets World), director Shawn Alex Thompson (Puppets Who Kill) recently wrapped season one of the comedy series, which follows the adventures of Jake Crewe (Rick Roberts), a displaced and desperate newscaster from Arizona who takes a job at a Calgary radio station.

S&S’s David Smith says the company had ‘a hell of a time’ putting An American in Canada together, in part because Telefilm Canada backed the pilot, but not the series. ‘That’s very bizarre. I mean, how are they going to recoup?’ he says. ‘I guess there just wasn’t enough money to go around.’ The budget was cut to $350,000 per ep from $450,000, and filming went ahead with LFP cash and some equipment on loan from CBC. The series also saved a few pennies by switching to HD, making this the national broadcaster’s first high-definition project.

The prodco also had to save money on History Bites, cutting back to 15 half-hours when the History Television series didn’t qualify for the LFP. (‘It’s not Canadian history,’ explains Smith.) Each ep of Rick Green’s (Prisoners of Gravity) comically educational series costs $60,000 and is funded by S&S and the Rogers Cable Fund. Season five has been shooting on locations around Hamilton, ON – taking advantage of the Ontario tax-credit regional bonus – since July and will wrap in October in anticipation of an April air date. Green again directs, produces, writes and hosts.

S&S is also nearing completion of another 18 half-hours of The Red Green Show, which goes into its 12th season this fall with host and CBC mainstay Steve Smith, who also produces along with his brother David. The series shot exteriors all summer outside Hamilton and will film its studio segments from mid-September to mid-November at the CBC studios. Airing begins Oct. 18.

Each ep set S&S back $150,000 and is backed by Telefilm and the LFP. This season sees the return of costars Patrick McKenna and Gordon Pinsent.

Risk-y business

Because Telefilm passed on the proposed 13 half-hours, it is unlikely that Ocnus Productions will take its comedy series The Endless Grind into a second season. ‘Its chances are not particularly good. I’m not certain if we’ll revisit it,’ says producer Greg Lawrence.

Instead, the Ottawa prodco is going ahead with Enter At Your Own Risk, a new comedy sketch show for CTV hosted by Toronto comic Harland Williams (Sorority Boys). Thirteen 30-minute eps will shoot in the capital this fall and winter, on an undisclosed budget, for an air date sometime in 2003. Joining Williams will be comics Sean Tweedle and Deven Green. Lawrence expects the series will be funded entirely by CTV.

Funding did, however, come through for Kevin Spencer, which again scored cash from the LFP, and is now midway through an eight-month production schedule of another 13 animated 30-minute eps for The Comedy Network. Dave Bigelow edits and directs material penned by Lawrence and Robin Smith.

Thanks to Ocnus’ distribution arm, the adventures of Kevin and his white-trash kin are now also seen in Australia, Spain and Portugal, and the series is apparently close to selling in the U.K. and U.S.

Miss Goody Two-Sues

Just because there’s already a popular Canadian TV show hosted by a sexual educator named Sue doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a second, according to Ottawa-area producer Kari Lynn Robinson. The MTV alum (I Got Married at Spring Break) will soon wrap production on season one of Sex With Sue, a 13 x 30 lifestyle and talk show hosted by radio talkaholic Sue McGarvie. A few final interviews and some B-roll footage are being shot in Toronto this week before the series goes into the editing suite at Dante Entertainment Group with Tanya Maryniak (Urban Soles).

Robinson doubts viewers will confuse McGarvie with fellow radio and TV vet Sue Johansen of the W Network’s long-running The Sunday Night Sex Show. ‘If you say ‘Sue from the radio’ up here people know who you mean,’ she insists.

The series will air on the Passion diginet when it launches in the new year. The show is a coproduction between Robinson’s Cause She Can Productions and Dante. Dante’s Jeff Boulton produces with director/producer Robinson. McGarvie and Lillyann Goldstein exec produce. Each ep is privately funded at $20,000.

Life begins at Forty Thieves

Having tested her material on the local stage, Mississauga, ON filmmaker Johanna Kern (Cherries for Brian) has begun work on a trilogy of privately funded fantasy features, the first of which – tentatively called Frank, Big Baba and Forty Thieves – will go into post just as soon as she hires an editor.

Working under the banner of After Rain Films, DOP Michael Zeynali shot the picture on HD around Toronto and Durham region with U.S. fight choreographer Mario Xavier and director/writer/producer Kern.

The story, about a brother (Nathan Pidgeon) and sister (Agnes Podbielska) lost in a sinister fantasy world, is adapted from a play Kern mounted last year in Mississauga. Andrew Guy (The Rhino Brothers) also stars. No word yet on a release date, distributor or budget.