After touring it as a one-man show and releasing it as a memoir Bruce McCulloch has adapted his autobiographical Young Drunk Punk for television. The program plays out like a Canadian sitcom take on Freaks and Geeks revisiting the comedian’s childhood as an inebriated scamp in 1980s Calgary.
“It’s really an interesting world that I feel we’ve somehow created” he says of the work he’s just spliced in his Toronto editing suite. “When you endeavour to create something you just make it up as you go and then eventually it becomes the thing it is. It feels like there’s a world here that’s quite interesting to me.”
The 13-episode series which premières on Wednesday January 21 is the first multi-episode television project McCulloch has been involved in since his work with the legendary sketch comedy troupe Kids in the Hall. “I’ve directed things but I haven’t been in a show since Kids in the Hall and I haven’t directed something in many years” he says.
In addition to co-starring writing and producing McCulloch directed the series’ first three episodes. “I have a complicated relationship with filmmaking because I did a couple of studio movies which were tough for political reasons” he says. McCulloch’s film credits include Molly Shannon’s Superstar and the Tom Green/Jason Lee flick Stealing Harvard. “I’ve always said the thing I do best is I’m a writer but it was really great to direct this time and be able to communicate ideas.”
In fact McCulloch now wishes he had directed more of his previous written material. “I actually did a pilot as an (executive producer) for Kevin Hart and Bill Burr just before Kevin Hart blew up. And I really wished I had directed it because I wrote it and it felt like the communication was lost somehow. So especially with this as we’re trundling around in the nether regions of Calgary which I understand more than anyone I think it was really good for me to direct the first few.”
As trite as it sounds Calgary does serves as another character in the series. In the first episode the family has a heated discussion over a bucket of Chicken on the Way. In the second they head to Nick’s Steakhouse & Pizza. The walls of their house are decorated with Mandy Stobo’s Bad Portraits. And the house itself is located in the very same townhouse community where these things initially happened in real life.
“I grew up in Brae Glen for my formative rock ’n’ roll and acid-gobbling years and when we scouted I thought ‘I’m sure there’s lots of places like that’” McCulloch recalls. “We realized when we were looking around that there was no place like Brae Glen and we should really do it there. It was kind of interesting obviously for sort of comedic reasons but it was kind of a nice moment in my life to be back doing this thing.”
Though he’s remained familiar with Calgary McCulloch hadn’t revisited his childhood home in years. “I’ve been back to Calgary every year since I moved away in ’84 visiting friends or doing shows through One Yellow Rabbit or whatever but I had not been back to Braeside or the DQ that I bought dope at as a teenager” he says. “So it was kind of interesting to think of — I never speak of myself in the third person but — a young Bruce McCulloch walking those streets…. It’s been a little developed there are a few more big box stores around it. But the complex itself is sort of oddly beautiful. Probably even more because the trees have grown. It has kind of a monochromatic beauty that I love and I love watching it as I edit it.”
The show’s also wallpapered and soundtracked with classic punk merch and music an aspect of the program that McCulloch is particularly proud of. “One of the great joys of this series is to a) listen again and b) celebrate The Diodes and The Pointed Sticks and Alberta’s Modern Minds and The Demics” he says. “The energy in the show for me is that music a little bit. Because it thrust me out of Calgary into Toronto. I left Calgary not really for comedy before that I left because The Damned played in Toronto and they didn’t play in Calgary. That music was really formative to me and there’s lots of it in the series.”
Calgary’s contemporary music scene also plays a role. Thanks to the recommendation of one Fast Forward Weekly music editor (cough cough) local punk outfit The Nancees appear in the show as a fictional group called Martyrs of the Barbecue. “They actually did a theme song for all of our Internet content which hasn’t ‘dropped’ yet as you kids say. Well you probably don’t say ‘dropped’ anymore” McCulloch says of The Nancees. “And there’s a band later on that’s part of the show called Martyrs of the Barbecue that we use one of (The Nancees’) songs and then we wrote a couple songs for them to do. And they become part of the fabric…. Hopefully next year they’ll be even a bigger part of it. They’re really good.”
Ultimately getting the right sort of punk was integral to Young Drunk Punk. “When I see music portrayed on TV there’s ‘punk rockers from England’ with safety pins through their noses” says McCulloch. “They never got it right. Even those moments having them play it had to be totally right. When it’s wrong you seem like the fuckin’ dumbest old man in the world.”
YOUNG DRUNK PUNK created by Bruce McCulloch starring Tim Carlson Atticus Mitchell and Bruce McCulloch premières on Wednesday January 21 on City TV.