Our nation suffers from a conspiracy-prone mind-set. Or maybe it’s just me. But on hearing in quick succession that three of our most revered comedy series were winding down – with Air Farce Live and Corner Gas heading into their final season, and Trailer Park Boys reportedly done – didn’t you wonder if there’s some kind of hara-kiri trend in comedy taking shape? Has Canada lost its funny bone?

I asked the Big Three just that, and you’ll be heartened to hear that I got a resounding ‘No way.’ Canada loves its comedy as much as ever, say programming bigwigs at CBC, CTV and Canwest. Indeed, their message to producers is ‘keep ’em coming.’

‘The fact that in Canada we’ve had three successful series that have decided that this is their final season – clearly they are separate decisions,’ says CTV’s EVP programming Ed Robinson. ‘There is no reason to think that in some way comedy is easing off. There will be the next evolution for all of those.’

Far from being fluff, comedy is nothing less than Canada’s cultural signature, according to Kirstine Layfield, CBC’s executive director of network programming. ‘In Canada, our best way of defining ourselves in the world is through our comedy,’ she says. ‘That’s why we’re so good at it; it’s what we do best.’

So if it’s so special to us, and we love it so much, then presumably this vacance à trois will create a void in our popular television viewing that will need filling. And so, the burning questions for viewers and producers alike are what’s going to fill it, and where’s it going to come from?

Just as Air Farce, Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys each represented the pinnacle of its own distinctive niche, their broadcasters all have a unique and promising claim to fame in the comedy arena.

CTV can take a bow for pushing audience totals for Canuck comedy with Corner Gas, which has from day one brought in one million-plus viewers. The success of the series, arguably, came from a confluence of three key elements. First, there was veteran funnyman Brent Butt’s pitch about what his life would have been like if he’d stayed in his small Saskatchewan hometown and hadn’t ventured out in search of the footlights. Then there was CTV’s very own comedy specialty channel, Comedy Network, which has for a decade made a point of nurturing new talent and taking chances, and which operates as CTVglobemedia’s vehicle for ‘all things comedy.’ And just as crucially, there was the BCE benefits package, which forced the network to provide the needed dough to promote the bejesus out of the thing once the main network decided to run with it.

In the six-plus years that have since elapsed, you can add to that the net’s aggressive broadband strategy. So, in addition to the likes of Corner Gas and Comedy Now, Comedy Network has a list of kicks at the can you may or may not have heard of – from Odd Job Jack to History Bites, Keys to the VIP and The John Dore Television Show. And yes, Comedy is in development with Butt and other Corner Gas writers – as well as non-Corner Gas folk – on quite a number of new projects.

‘We just keep on welcoming people to come to us with their ideas,’ says Robinson.

He won’t talk specifics, beyond conceding that none of the new projects is about what life would have been like had Brent Butt moved, say, to Vancouver and become a coroner, but ‘whatever ‘The Son of Corner Gas’ might be,’ he says, ‘I hope that Corner Gas will inspire people to say, ‘It is possible.” 

CBC, which has always done well with satirical humor on shows such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Rick Mercer Report, also has the dollars and commitment to keep new stuff flowing into the system. In the last couple years, the pubcaster has gotten back into the scripted comedy world, hitting a much-needed home run – both in Canada and, perhaps uniquely, abroad – with Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Layfield notes that the sweet and ironic fun it pokes at cultural dichotomies speaks to the experience of Muslims as well as first-generation Canadians, and internationally, its brave yet lighthearted exploration of the ground on which insiders and outsiders come together makes it the Lester B. Pearson of comedy.

‘At CBC, we’re always looking for the next comedy and revering the ones we’ve had for a long time,’ says Layfield. Or, as another CBCer put it, ‘We’re filthy with comedies.’

On the scripted end, the net has done well with Sophie, which is going into its second season, and it has a new 13-part one-hour series starting in January called The Session, from Temple Street Productions, about a woman (Erin Karpluk) who goes back in time and gets a crack at making good on her regrets. Beyond that, Layfield says, there are six more comedy pilots in the works, three times that many in development, and three to four times that many in pre-development.

For its part, Canwest has recently demonstrated a revitalized commitment to Canadian programming, and its acquisition of the Alliance Atlantis channels provides it with a considerable quantity of programming infrastructure. Canwest also has its own fare, such as ‘da Kink in My Hair, going into a second season, and, through Alliance Atlantis’ Showcase, has Billable Hours, Kenny vs. Spenny and Rent-A-Goalie. It recently hired PJ Tarasuk in the new post of talent manager to ‘nurture’ – or should that be ‘create’? – a star system. But most significantly, it now has to kick in a significant number of production dollars as part of its own benefits package from the Alliance Atlantis purchase.

‘We have the ability, with the benefits money, on the scripted drama side, to develop and commission all kinds of scripted programming – comedy, dramedy, drama, one-hour comedies,’ says Christine Shipton, SVP of drama and factual content, ‘and we have a full range of shows in development now.’ Of those, there are seven or eight comedies, and the pilot decisions will be rolled out throughout the summer.

And while Canwest does things like troll Just for Laughs for The Next Big Thing, Shipton is also calling on the production community to step forward. ‘We’ve put it out there that we need some highly promotable concepts; most of our comedies in development are that.’

So while Canwest is the newbie of the bunch, my call is to follow the money. As with CTV and Corner Gas, that benefits package burns holes in broadcasters’ pockets that gets stuff out there like no other. As the takeover target, the specialties formerly owned by Alliance Atlantis are the recipient of this new spending. So I predict that the next million-plus hit comedy will be developed out of Showcase and then migrate to the main network.

But I wouldn’t mind being wrong, because the source of it is less important than the fact of it. And given the groundwork that the three have laid – and are laying – funny things are coming – and in a good way. I can feel it.