Thanks to pop-culture infusions such as Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, YTV’s That’s So Weird showrunner Gary Pearson has been able to trade earlier work on satirical shows like 22 Minutes and Mad TV to spoof Canadian teen obsessions – only with a softer touch.

“The kids love Justin Bieber, so we’ll send up Justin, but we won’t slay him, or we don’t do it from a parent’s point-of-view,” Pearson told Playback Daily by phone on Thursday from the Halifax set of the DHX Media teen series, now in its third season of production.

Unlike Saturday Night Live or Canada’s SCTV, which features cutting satire about or scathing commentary on popular culture, Pearson said That’s So Weird aims to spoof, and yet keep intact any notions young Canadians have of their pop culture heroes because they respect and love them.

“[Bieber] has certain little personality hooks that we send up. It’s more of a loving treatment,” Pearson added.

The satire on the YTV show-within-a-show comedy is performed by a young Canadian ensemble cast that has returned for the third season: Alana Johnston, Adam “AJ” Vaage, Alex Spencer, Hannah Hogan, James Hartnett, Joey Lucius and Kayla Lorette.

They perform live-action skits, commercial parodies and bizarre game shows around a fictional So Weird TV network on which fictional “Jamco” products are advertised.

The third season of 13 episode-series will each week feature a seven- or eight-minute mini sitcom where one of the characters has a problem that needs to be resolved, and is reflected in the programming on the So Weird TV network.

And wrapped round the mini-sitcom are varied gags and spoofs to tickle the funny bone of a 10- to 16-year-old audience.

Example: the cast satirizes CSI: Crime Scene Investigation with FSI, a fart-scene investigation where someone breaks wind and a red-headed cop enters the scene to identify the offending culprit.

There’s also spoofs on current Hollywood movies like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Thor and Captain America that young Canadians may have seen at the local cinema by this fall when That’s So Weird returns to YTV.

Gary Pearson, who also executive produces and writes on That’s So Weird, said the third season production shifting to Halifax has brought welcome camaraderie among the creative and technical crews behind the series, most of whom live in Toronto.

“No one is from here. Everyone is holed up in hotels, so they go out together in the evening or on weekends, and all that reflects well back on the screen,” he said.