Regina, SK: It’s 3 a.m. but the Ruby Café is bustling with activity as C100 Halifax, the first of eight radio stations, goes live to air from the Regina set of Corner Gas, with Fred Ewanuick – who plays Hank, best buddy of gas station owner Brent LeRoy (Brent Butt) – as its first guest.

The Sept. 18 ‘Canada wakes up in Dog River’ tour is part of CTV’s campaign to promote the show in advance of its fourth-season premiere that night.

Showing little sign of fatigue, the cast goes from one radio station to the next, set up throughout Studios 1, 2 and 3 of the Canada Saskatchewan Production facility, regaling the hosts with anecdotes about life on Canada’s top-rated sitcom. Gas is up for best comedy at this year’s Gemini Awards, after winning last year.

Eric Peterson – Brent’s grouchy dad Oscar – tells a Toronto station about being approached by little kids who wanted him to say ‘jack-ass,’ while, over in the soundstage that substitutes for the LeRoy basement, Butt details for Calgary’s 96.9 Jack FM the differences between his farming hometown of Tisdale, SK and tiny Rouleau (population 450) – aka Dog River – where Gas films its exteriors.

Gas delivered 1.2 million viewers for the first episode of season four, in which – in a typically dramatic storyline – Brent gets his hair cut by Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn), one-half of Dog River’s two-person police force, much to the dismay of his mom Emma (Janet Wright).

No original Gas episode has ever had an audience of less than one million, and Virginia Thompson is determined to keep it that way.

‘You can never take your audience for granted,’ says Thompson, who exec produces with Butt and David Storey. ‘Every year, as producers, we think about what we can do with CTV to keep the show going.’

Production on season four’s 19 episodes wrapped shortly after the radio tour, and features directors Storey, Mark Farrell (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Robert de Lint (Incredible Story Studio), Jeff Beesley (Borderline Normal) and, for the second time, Butt himself, who helmed an episode entitled ‘Potato Bowl.’

‘It’s a classic Corner Gas ‘small’ story,’ he explains, in between radio interviews. ‘A potato bowl gets broken and causes a lot of problems.’

The show’s expanded story department includes Butt, Farrell, Paul Mather (Rick Mercer’s Monday Report), Kevin White (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Andrew Carr (Comics) and Rob Sheridan (Naked Josh).

In other storylines this season: prissy coffee shop owner Lacey (Gabrielle Miller) and Karen test their friendship by instituting an open-borrowing policy; Emma gives police officer Davis (Lorne Cardinal) and store clerk Wanda (Nancy Robertson, the real-life Mrs. Butt) piano lessons; while Brent finds himself in the doghouse when Hank proves to be a better ‘son’ to Emma than he is.

Gas also played host to Prime Minister Stephen Harper this year, who, like former PM Paul Martin and former governor general Adrienne Clarkson before him, filmed an appearance in August for an upcoming episode.

If that weren’t enough, the residents of Dog River experience their first-ever explosion, which causes quite a commotion. Butt would only reveal ‘…it’s a big blowup with dynamite and everything.’

The Gas crew also shot a series of short webisodes, available on the CTV Broadband Network, for this season.

‘The webisodes are little episodes that focus on the quirks of each character… there’s a Brent-isode, a Lacey-isode, a Wanda-isode, etc,’ Thompson explains.

CTV has found innovative ways to promote its hit comedy in past years, including free gas giveaways and a nation-wide Corner Gas stand-up comedy tour.

‘Corner Gas is a show that resonates with Canadians in a personal way,’ says CTV head of programming Susanne Boyce.

‘[We] have been able to take the series beyond the television screen – to build a brand that lives outside of television.’

Had the show not enjoyed ‘huge support’ from its broadcaster, particularly where financing is concerned, Thompson doubts Gas would have become such a sensation.

‘CTV pays up to 75% of the cost of Corner Gas, which means that instead of filling out funding applications, we are able to focus on the creative of the show,’ she says. The past three seasons have been budgeted at roughly $9 million each.

For his part, series creator and star Butt likes that CTV lets a ‘greasy nightclub comic’ take charge of the content.

‘I told them I just had to be in charge of the funny,’ he recalls. ‘They afforded me the chance to be a producer on the show, which I’m really appreciative of. If you take that away from me… I can’t help with the accounting.’

The show recently signed a deal with Arthur Hasson’s Multi-Platform Distribution Company to find a broadcaster south of the border, while a first-ever Corner Gas book, entitled Tales from Dog River, is set to hit bookstores Nov. 1.

‘We don’t want to beat Corner Gas into the ground,’ says Thompson, when asked about the future of the sitcom. ‘We’re going to make the show for as long as it’s fresh and funny, but once it takes a turn, we’ll probably say ‘auf wiedersehen.”

Produced by Prairie Pants Productions, Corner Gas airs Mondays at 8:30 p.m. on CTV and Saturdays at 8 p.m. on The Comedy Network.

www.cornergas.com