Letterkenny (TV series)

Letterkenny is a Canadian television sitcom created by Jared Keeso and directed by Jacob Tierney, both of whom are also its developers and primary writers. It premiered via Crave on February 7, 2016, and concluded on December 25, 2023. The series follows the adventures of people residing in the fictional rural Ontario community of Letterkenny and stars Keeso, Nathan Dales, Michelle Mylett, and K. Trevor Wilson.

Adapted from a YouTube series called Letterkenny Problems, the show was commissioned by Crave in March 2015. It is distributed by Hulu in the United States, with the first two seasons debuting in July 2018. Subsequent seasons were added on December 27, 2018. Hulu acquired exclusive U.S. streaming rights in May 2019. The 12th and final season was released on December 25, 2023.

The show has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Canadian Screen Award for Best Comedy Series. A spin-off series created by and starring Keeso, Shoresy, debuted via Crave in 2022.

Overview
Letterkenny revolves around the titular rural Ontario community, which took its name from Letterkenny in Ireland and is populated mostly by the descendants of Irish immigrants who escaped to Canada during the Great Famine. The majority of episodes open with text stating, "There are 5000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems." The series focuses on siblings Wayne and Katy, who run a small farm and produce stand with help from Wayne's friends Daryl and Squirrely Dan.

Episodes deal with small-town life amongst different types of people: the farmers ("Hicks"), gym goers and out-of-towners who play for the local ice hockey team ("Jocks"), the town's obviously closeted Christian minister Glen, the drug addicts ("Skids"), members of the nearby First Nation reservation ("Natives"), the neighbouring Mennonites, and the Québécois. Early plots often revolved around Wayne defending his reputation as "the toughest guy in Letterkenny", the town's unsuccessful ice hockey team, the Skids' schemes to rip everyone off for drug money, and Wayne's dating life after dumping his high school sweetheart who cheated on him.

Each episode begins with a cold open presented in a mockumentary style with characters speaking directly to the camera, which is intercut with a regular sitcom format depicting the scenario the characters are describing; after the opening title sequence, this mockumentary style is abandoned and the camera is never addressed again. The show has been praised for subverting the trope of small-town residents being portrayed as narrow-minded and unintelligent; this is most commonly exemplified by the running joke that almost all characters express sophisticated and informed views on social issues and can produce a constant flow of one-liners, puns, comebacks, and wordplay when in conversation with each other.

Cast and characters
• Jared Keeso as Wayne and Shoresy

• Nathan Dales as Daryl

• Michelle Mylett as Katy

• K. Trevor Wilson as Squirrelly Dan

• Dylan Playfair as Reilly

• Andrew Herr as Jonesy

• Tyler Johnston as Stewart

• Alexander De Jordy as Devon (seasons 1–2)

• Dan Petronijevic as McMurray (seasons 2–12; recurring season 1)

• Melanie Scrofano as Mrs. McMurray (seasons 2-4; 6; 8–12)

• Jacob Tierney as Glen (seasons 2–12; recurring season 1)

• Lisa Codrington as Gail (seasons 2–12; recurring season 1)

• Kaniehtiio Horn as Tanis (seasons 2–12; recurring season 1)

• Evan Stern as Roald (seasons 3–12; recurring seasons 1–2)

• Mark Forward as Coach (seasons 3–12; recurring seasons 1–2)

• Sarah Gadon as Gae (seasons 3 and 6; guest star season 5)

• Kamilla Kowal as Bonnie McMurray (seasons 9–12; recurring seasons 1–8)

Production
Letterkenny is filmed in Sudbury, Ontario. It is the first original series commissioned by Crave, and premiered on that platform on February 7, 2016. The town of Letterkenny portrayed in the series is fictional and is not based on the real Letterkenny in Ontario, which is now part of Brudenell, Lyndoch and Raglan. The town in the show is instead loosely based on Keeso's hometown of Listowel, Ontario.

The show has its roots in Letterkenny Problems, a short-form web series created by Keeso and released on YouTube in 2013. The original Letterkenny Problems consisted almost entirely of Keeso and Dales trading off comedic one-liners while simply standing in various locations, a theme that would later resurface as the intro to some Letterkenny episodes. Letterkenny Problems garnered a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Original Fiction Program or Series Created for Digital Media at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards in 2014.

Tierney and Michael Dowse are also involved in the production of the series. Tierney additionally has a supporting role as Pastor Glen in the series, whose cast also includes Michelle Mylett, Dylan Playfair, Andrew Herr, Tyler Johnston, Lisa Codrington, Kaniehtiio Horn, and K. Trevor Wilson.

In March 2016, Letterkenny was renewed for a second season. In August, just weeks after production wrapped on Season 2, CraveTV announced that they had ordered a third season. A 2017 St. Patrick's Day special episode, "St. Perfect's Day", was released. The third season was released on July 1, 2017 (Canada Day). In October 2017, a Halloween episode was released, and it was announced that the series had a new media partner which agreed to a production commitment for 40 new episodes, a 26-city Letterkenny Live! tour beginning in February 2018, and Letterkenny merchandise. The fourth season was released in December 2017. The fifth season was released in June 2018.

The Letterkenny Christmas special was released in November 2018, followed by sixth season in December. The Valentine's Day special episode was released in February 2019, followed by the seventh season in October 2019. The eighth season was released in December 2019, and the ninth season was released in December 2020. In September 2020, seasons 10 and 11 were confirmed, with filming planned to begin in August 2020 but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2021, production began on seasons 10 and 11 and it was also announced that Shoresy, the hockey player voiced by Keeso but whose face was never shown in Letterkenny, would be the focus of the spin-off series Shoresy. Letterkenny released its 12th and final season on December 25, 2023. To prepare for the final season, New Metric Media re-acquired the distribution sale rights to the series and the rest of their catalog from WildBrain and struck a streaming deal with Netflix internationally. That same month, Crave announced a content deal with Keeso and New Metric Media for at least 49 episodes of Shoresy and other potential Letterkenny spinoffs to be announced.

Littlekenny
Littlekenny, a six-episode animated spin-off serving as an origin story focusing on the main characters as children, premiered on June 28, 2019. Episodes more closely follow the original Letterkenny Problems format than the extended universe of Letterkenny.

Shoresy
In June 2021, Bell Media announced the Letterkenny spin-off Shoresy, based on the eponymous character played by Keeso. The series was written by Keeso and directed by Tierney. It premiered on Crave on May 13, 2022.

Home media
The series has been released on DVD in Canada by Elevation Pictures and in the United States by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Critical reception
John Doyle of The Globe and Mail called the series "refreshing and intoxicating [...] funny, mad, droll, childish, and spiky". Focusing on the show's characteristic use of thick Ontario dialects, he wrote, "Not since Trailer Park Boys launched have we heard the flavourful, salty Canadian vernacular used with such aplomb and abandon. [...] Almost all the conversations are raw comedy and utterly plausible as small-town guy talk, not just in Canada but in villages and parishes wherever the grass grows." Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone called the show "marvelously goofy [...] strange, simple, [and] delightful".

The series has also been praised for its complex and fully-rounded depiction of its First Nations characters, which the producers attribute to the show's practice of involving the actors directly in the creation, writing, and costuming of their characters.

Ratings
Crave stated that Letterkenny debut was the biggest debut of any series on their platform since it launched in 2014, and that (as of March 10, 2016) nearly one third of all its subscribers have watched the series.