TL,DR Alert: Corner Gas vs. Homestuck

it looks linke fwabio wants
wants to level with us about something?
he wants that us all to
keep it real about.............................

CORNER GAS

Seriously, though, it's a great show. I'm probably not going to find a lot of people who are avid Homestuck and Corner Gas fans,so I'll try not to get my hopes up that anybody has seen the show before. It's a Canadian sitcom set in the fictional Saskatchewan town of Dog River, population "about 500". The eight main characters are:

Brent Leroy, the protagonist and the owner of the titular gas station.
Hank Yarbo, Brent's perpetually-unemployed childhood friend.
Lacey Burrows, a newcomer from Toronto and the owner of the restaurant adjacent to Corner Gas.
Wanda Dollard, Brent's coworker/only employee at Corner Gas.
Oscar and Emma Leroy, Brent's parents.
Constable Karen Pelly and Sergeant Davis Quinton, comprising the entire Dog River police department.

If anybody's wondering why I've spent half a year uploading exclusively Homestuck fanart and now I'm suddenly following it with an essay about Canadian television, it's because a) Corner Gas and Homestuck (the parts of the latter that aren't incredibly dark and gory, that is) are pretty similar in tone, and b) I've already done a Homestuck/Corner Gas crossover of sorts, and plan to do more.

Ways Corner Gas and Homestuck are similar:


Endearing characters and friendship. The developed characterization in both is probably why I haven't done a million crossover comics and animations already. Some basic correlations can be drawn, but little nuances blur those correlations. Also, you know how the kids have that tight-knit friendship for whatever reason? Everybody in Corner Gas kind of has that as well, just because in such a small town, everybody knows each other. Corner Gas has that episodic-sitcom status-quo-is-paramount kind of format, but the fact that everybody has these unshakable bonds, no matter how underhanded and conniving they may be, helps to make it plausible.

Complex plots and great continuity. Naturally, not as complex as Homestuck. Still, some plots only make total sense after you walk yourself through it a few times. If anybody's seen the episode where Brent and Hank have that "you owe me one" war to see who owes who the most helpful favours, you know what I'm talking about. As for continuity, there are tiny things in the series of little consequence that recur throughout, like small details about the cast. There are incredibly minor, even nameless characters who appear so scarcely, while still more than once, that one might expect that the show was simply short on extras, but their personalities are consistent. It makes sense, if you consider the small-town thing. Dog River is just short on citizens.


Of course, you've probably picked up that setting-wise, the two are actually not the same at all. I might as well outline stuff that's specific to Corner Gas.


Cutaways. Like Family Guy, but not. Imagine Family Guy, but whenever a cutaway happens, there's a quick camera-swoosh as if the camera is quickly relocating itself to wherever the cutaway is, and the joke is relevant to at least the current conversation.

Pretty much all of the plotlines are trivial. For example, the helpful-favours battle mentioned above. Or the one that centers around Davis trying to get rid of a mounted fish he got from an auction. Or the entire plot about Karen and Hank swapping wordplay riddles. It helps (here's a similarity I forgot) that there are usually four or so plots going on at any given time. The crazy thing is that it's all pretty engaging.


The show ran for six seasons and ended on - get this - April 13th, 2009. Weird. Anyway, it's pretty awesome, and I strongly recommend it. Strongly. If you're not Canadian, there are probably some references that won't make sense, but nothing particularly important. Turns out, there's a channel on YouTube with every single episode, untouched by copyright somehow. I've been linking to it for this entire paragraph. So here's 40 hours of video; take it or leave it.

One final note: The fourth-season finale takes a crazy turn from the usual not-a-lot-goin'-on atmosphere, and it's much more powerful with that atmosphere built up. So if you don't watch them in order, at least put that one off for a season's worth or two.