The Value of a Good Running Gag

Back when bar trivia was a regular thing, places would often run theme quizzes built around some particular bit of pop culture. Television shows are great, owing to the larger volume of source material. So I heard about (but never participated in) quizzes for The Office, Parks and Recreation, Friends, and more. One time, a quiz was coming for a show called Letterkenny. I'd never even heard of it; how had there come to be so much of it that you could build a pub quiz around it? (It turns out that I'd never heard of the Canadian series because it was "airing" on Hulu, which I only finally added to my streaming arsenal not so long ago.)

So what is Letterkenny? A half-hour sitcom set in a fictional rural town in Ontario. The show loosely follows life for three different groups: the Hicks (farmers), Skids (opinionated lovers of drugs and black clothes), and Hockey Players (who... play hockey). Sometimes the groups interact with each other in an episode. Often, they're each in siloed subplots of the show. Actually... "subplots" might be a generous term. Sometimes, not much happens in an episode of Letterkenny -- that's its formula and its weapon.

Letterkenny is a straight dopamine hit, conditioning you over time to love recurring jokes, catch phrases, and clever wordplay. Sometimes, a "story line" is little more than a gimmick to arrive at a three minute exchange of puns about 80s sitcom titles, famous wrestlers, or words people don't like the sound of. Often, the cold open of an episode is an extended stand-up set on one topic, the dialogue simply broken up among three or four characters.

That might sound like a negative, and for some people it probably would be. But Letterkenny feels like a sitcom with none of the pretense. "We know you're here for the jokes, so here are the jokes." The rapid fire pace and the thicker accents (to a non-Canadian) might have you reaching for the rewind button on occasion, but still, you've never seen 22 minutes fly by so quickly.

The characters on Letterkenny barely ever change, but that's not to say there aren't some great characters on Letterkenny. If you've ever laughed at Kramer zooming through a door, or Cliff sharing a "little known fact" with the bar, or Sheldon glaring at someone in his seat, you've appreciated the value of a comedic pattern. When Letterkenny finds one, they are eager to return to the well. What starts as a show centered on maybe 8 characters quickly becomes a show where you look forward to 20 or 25 characters, as wild and fun recurring people are added on the periphery. You aren't ready for the highly strung Coach, the lascivious McMurrays, horny bar owner Gail, even hornier gay couple Dax and Ron, or doting groupie Roald.

But you have to get enough of the Letterkenny "drug" into your system to start wanting more. If you're at all like me, you'll need most of the 6-episode first season to even wrap your head around what the hell it is you're watching. The show started off for me as a B- at best, and I almost bumped off of it. But the thing is, I kind of want to go back now and watch those early episodes, because I'm not sure the show was actually any different then. I think I just grew to love it: every wacky side character, every deep cut song they found to underscore a fight montage, every running gag.

By the time I'd finished the (currently) nine seasons of Letterkenny, I was completely under its spell. (That may sound like a lot, but each season is just 6 or 7 episodes, and they've generally released at least two each year.) Letterkenny is arguably empty calories, but it's delicious. I'd give the series an A- overall, and I'm waiting eagerly for new episodes to arrive.