Pouring one out for Crave’s Letterkenny after 12 seasons

Executive producer Mark Montefiore shares Letterkenny's "raison d'etre" and names its unsung hero.


The 2023-24 broadcast season marks the end of some of Canada’s most acclaimed and lauded TV series in recent years. Playback is raising a glass to celebrate the shows that made us laugh — and cry — by asking the creatives and producers behind the series to reflect on the magic-making process. After featuring Transplant and Sort Of, we’re concluding with Crave’s Letterkenny.

Few could have guessed that a series of digital shorts could lead to a major Canadian-made franchise, but that’s exactly what happened when Letterkenny Problems debuted back in 2013.

Fast forward more than 10 years and Letterkenny, produced by New Metric Media in association with Play Fun Games and Crave, has delivered 81 episodes, eight specials, one spinoff and a premium lager, ending its run on Dec. 25, 2023. (Cheers, Puppers.)

Along the way, the show has earned 12 Canadian Screen Awards (with more potentially on the way), and turned creator, star and executive producer Jared Keeso into a household name.

Mark Montefiore (pictured left), executive producer and New Metric Media founder and CEO, looked back on the series with Playback.

What was your most memorable moment on set?

Mark Montefiore: First off, there are the laughs. Countless, countless laughs when the cameras were and weren’t rolling. It was on a daily basis where someone at the monitors would have to call cut cause the camera was shaking due to our operator laughing their asses off.

There was a dog on the farm that was kind of wild and would attack crew members at random and piss on their equipment out of spite. I think his name was Son of Toby or something like that. His Dad was Toby and was a real good dog. “Son of” wasn’t so much.

Another experience wasn’t on set, but after the launch of season one we started getting fan mail, and what struck me was the emotional impact the show was delivering. In particular, we received countless emails from ex-soldiers suffering from PTSD and others suffering from mental health issues who found Letterkenny to be a ray of light in a dark sky for them. That became a raison d’etre for us. Comedy can sometimes be distilled to “just a joke” until you realize the difference and/or escape it can actually make for people.

On a lighter more practical note, we had a challenge finding the right Modean’s Bar in Sudbury, and every season we seemed to find a new bar for various reasons. The ongoing joke in the show was that the previous bar “burned down.” We now have merchandise with Modean’s on fire and it cracks me up every time.

At what point did you know you were on to something special?

The day I first watched the original YouTube video of Letterkenny Problems. I shared it with friends and they actually messaged me back!

Looking back, what would you have done differently?

Long list business-wise, should have bought a farm in Sudbury or a hockey team and rename them — that’s still in the cards. But nothing creatively, as Jared is a genius and mined every story beat possible. Would have loved to have created Puppers from day one. We didn’t create Puppers until season two. We are truly lucky to be able to have had the opportunity to put it all out there.

Who would you say is an unsung hero of the show?

Our producer, Kara Haflidson and our network executives at Crave. Jared Keeso is the soul and Kara is the beating heart of Letterkenny.

Why do you think the show resonated with audiences?

It’s f*cking funny.

A version of this story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2023 issue

Image courtesy of Bell Media