Blackfly (TV series)

Blackfly is a Canadian sitcom which ran on the Global Television Network for two seasons in 2001 and 2002. Although shot single-camera like most Canadian comedies, this series was shot on videotape and contains a laugh track rather than making use of the usual live audience because most scenes take place outdoors.

The show is set in 18th-century Canada back "in days when beaver fur was good as gold" and features a twisted "Blackadder meets F Troop"-style Canadian history in which Benny "Blackfly" Broughton (Ron James), a Maritimes-born undersized but ambitious general jack-of-all-trades at the isolated Fort Simpson-Eaton on the colonial Canadian frontier, is joined by the prissy by-the-book upper class British officer Corporal Entwhistle (Colin Mochrie) whom he is usually able to talk into his latest doomed-to-failure get-rich-quick scheme.

Other characters include Blackfly's boss at the Hudson's Bay Company-style trading post, the rowdy, penny-pinching Scottish storekeeper MacTavish (James Kee), Misty Moon (Cheri Maracle), a wryly wise native barkeep who loves watching the white man blow his money on whisky at her Leg Hold Trap Bar between visits by her boisterous if distinctly anglophobic French Canadian voyageur lover Dijon (Marcel Jeannin), tough but good-natured local tribal leader Chief Smack-Your-Face-In (Lorne Cardinal), masochistic and desperate-to-be-martyred Jesuit priest Brother Jacques (Stephen Coats), the deranged and drunken fort commander Colonel Boyle (Richard Donat), and his buxom blond daughter Lady Hammond (Shauna Black), the hot-blooded young princess of privilege who had no idea what she was getting into when she decided to join her father in Canada after becoming a widow.

Changes to the show during the second season included the arrival of Misty's nasty little witch of a mother Mugwump Moon (Madeleine Bergeron) and the departure of Entwhistle who had inherited his twin brother's title and estate in England, although with his usual luck he found himself stuck back at the fort by the end of the series. The laugh track was removed as well, because James was displeased with the use of it in the first season.

The show was produced by Salter Street Films, and reruns began showing during the fall of 2009 on APTN.

The opening and closing theme was done by Blain Morris.

According to Ron James, the show was cancelled because of the two seasons suffered low ratings.

External links

• Blackfly at the Internet Movie Database