How To Cook Steak

September 7, 2020 10:18 AM

Letterkenny style (ie: includes swearing). Because it's Labour Day. Note the spelling. Letterkenny is a place in Canada, consisting of hicks, skids, hockey players and Christians. They all have problems. Though to be fair ...
posted by philip-random (58 comments total)

I have no idea what the hell this is but I am laughing my ass off!
posted by Ber at 11:27 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I’m here for the women’s hockey.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:36 AM on September 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

Steaks? I suggest you let that one marinate.
posted by Zedcaster at 11:40 AM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

Pan sear & oven FTW.

Also I think I may need to start watching Letterkenny.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:46 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Ber, it is a TV show called “Letterkenny,” and I find it hysterically funny. It’s available for streaming in the US on Hulu; I’m afraid I don’t know about streaming outside the US.
posted by snowmentality at 11:47 AM on September 7, 2020

Letterkenny has the most jokes per minute of any show I can think of. But they all use incredible Canadian slang and talk so fast that I find it easier to follow with closed captioning turned on.
posted by KGMoney at 11:53 AM on September 7, 2020 [8 favorites]

and fiercely anti Alt Right Nazis
posted by philip-random at 12:06 PM on September 7, 2020 [15 favorites]

I was always lukewarm on Squirrelly Dan but he won me over with the comment "Oh yeah. Me and Gordon Ramsey are both morons" from that steak cooking bit.

And Ber it is a CANADIAN tv show with 8 seasons (on Hulu in the US as mentioned). It is based loosely on the small rural town (Listowel Ontario) that the lead grew up in and shot up North in the Greater Sudbury area (which is important because French Canadians & First Nations people factor into the story lines which aren't a thing really in Listowel but big thing in the North). It is about hicks, skids (short for skidmark - drug dealing / using freaks) and hockey players in a small town. Later seasons have added French Canadians, Natives, Mennonites and Americans.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:08 PM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

2017 interview with Jared Keeso, creator, star, co-writer.
posted by philip-random at 12:11 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

hysterically funny.

Can confirm.
posted by Brockles at 12:13 PM on September 7, 2020 [8 favorites]

I tried reverse-searing a steak recently; I browned the center and left the outside pink. Not all that impressed with the result. Am I doing it right?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:16 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm with Wayne on this one. S&P for me and get those good grill marks, bud.

The Letterkenny subreddit is also decidedly not shy about where they stand Re: Nazis as per this post from yesterday: LET ME BE VERY, VERY FUCKING CLEAR: IF NAZIS ARE FEELING THREATENED ON THIS SUB? FUCKING GOOD. THIS IS A THREAT.

Pitter patter.
posted by slimepuppy at 12:19 PM on September 7, 2020 [25 favorites]

I've never understood the appeal of this show. Can someone explain it to me? (Sincere question.)
posted by mikeand1 at 12:43 PM on September 7, 2020

"You paid 20 a piece for 'Berta beef?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:43 PM on September 7, 2020

The other day, I overhead a conversation between two colleagues. I asked one of them, "Do you watch Letterkenny?" He answered, "Yeah," with a puzzled look. I said, "I heard you say 'figure it out', and 'can confirm.'" He was a little abashed and said, "I'm not from northern Ontario. It just kind of seeps in." I said, "Ferda!"
posted by No Robots at 12:46 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

It is about hicks, skids (short for skidmark - drug dealing / using freaks) and hockey players in a small town.

In Vancouver we used to use "skids" as short for skateboard kids. YDMW (Your Dialect May Vary).
posted by Zedcaster at 12:50 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

Can someone explain it to me? (Sincere question.)

The jokes are delivered very, very fast and there's a lot of wordplay and very niche slang, some amount of which is made up. (I don't think anyone really gets called ten-ply). Also it's just nonsensical.
posted by GuyZero at 12:53 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Letterkenny has the most jokes per minute of any show I can think of.

Absolutely, to the point that when you key into the in jokes and quick asides, watching it again is every bit as funny. You miss a lot the first time around.

I've never understood the appeal of this show. Can someone explain it to me?

No. It's really really funny to some people. If that's not you, there's no 'explaining', it's just why it isn't possible to always make universally popular shows. Taste is subjective.
posted by Brockles at 12:53 PM on September 7, 2020 [12 favorites]

Tanis is the very best character on the show, by god. Every moment with her is a damn gift. (She's the First Nations woman facing down the Nazis in that short.)

Mx. sciatrix grew up within an hour of Listowel, with a mother out of the Maritimes to boot. The speed at which they can spit (and the accent that comes out when they're drunk) is just about right.

I've never understood the appeal of this show. Can someone explain it to me? (Sincere question.)

What's got you confused? It's a sitcom; they aren't usually that hard to understand, and they're rarely to the taste of absolutely everyone.
posted by sciatrix at 12:54 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don't get half of the jokes and I am laughing to tears right now. Thanks for posting.
posted by mumimor at 12:57 PM on September 7, 2020

Letterkenny is hit or miss for me (I usually just end up watching youtube compilations like this) but damned if I don't say "S&P, the choice for me" any time I season ANYTHING since seeing the steak bit.
posted by btfreek at 1:00 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've never understood the appeal of this show. Can someone explain it to me? (Sincere question.)

Well, to be fair....
posted by aramaic at 1:02 PM on September 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

The Letterkenny subreddit is also decidedly not shy about where they stand Re: Nazis as per this post from yesterday: LET ME BE VERY, VERY FUCKING CLEAR: IF NAZIS ARE FEELING THREATENED ON THIS SUB? FUCKING GOOD. THIS IS A THREAT.

> If you got a problem with having a problem with Nazis you've got a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate.

> I’d have a scrap.
posted by i used to be someone else at 1:02 PM on September 7, 2020 [9 favorites]

Hard yes
posted by sjswitzer at 1:09 PM on September 7, 2020

Agree with the advice above that captions are recommended for American audiences. For a take it or leave it sitcom about Canadian hicks and hockey players, that show manages to sneak in a lot of forward-looking ideas on racism and sexism and class (and just basic fairness and empathy) in between the rapid-fire fart puns.
posted by notyou at 1:15 PM on September 7, 2020

Letterkenny has the most jokes per minute of any show I can think of. But they all use incredible Canadian slang and talk so fast that I find it easier to follow with closed captioning turned on.

I'm actually from Northwestern Ontario, not the same region as Keeso (Listowel is in Southwestern Ontario, not the north), but this is basically the same slang I grew up with and is really, really close to my original accent (add about 30% Fargo to get mine). Even the cadence of their speech is *very* small town Ontario. I love it so much, in part because its dialogue *is only barely exaggerated*.
posted by Fish Sauce at 1:18 PM on September 7, 2020 [16 favorites]

Like I said, my spouse is from the same region Keeso is--a bit closer to Sauble Beach. They're in agreement with Fish Sauce--the dialogue really is only barely exaggerated, and we've joked about ten-ply being a Thing before.
posted by sciatrix at 1:20 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

Something really touching emerges a few seasons in when, despite their regular donneybrooks, it becomes really clear that the hicks, skids, hockey players, First Nations, Christians, Mennonites and the rest have a real loyalty to Letterkenny and affection for each other, and “if you come for one of us you come for all of us” bond. I was not expecting to get misty-eyed over it, but I did.
posted by sjswitzer at 1:28 PM on September 7, 2020 [7 favorites]

What's got you confused? It's a sitcom; they aren't usually that hard to understand


I understand the show itself fine -- it just doesn't make me laugh. It has a few moments here and there, but I guess I just find it mildly amusing most of the time.

Dialog-based comedy depends heavily on timing and delivery, and this is constant, rapid-fire dialog with a deadpan delivery. Just doesn't do it for me. It comes off more like "bad acting" to me (but of course I realize it's by design, hence the quotes).
posted by mikeand1 at 1:34 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Setting aside the Ontario-ness of much of it, the Edmonton of my immigrant youth was chock full of people exactly like the two hockey bros. It's like a comedy flashback to things that weren't comedy at the time.
posted by aramaic at 1:41 PM on September 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

As far as injokes in the show go for Canadians, I always get a kick out of how hilariously all over the place the French Canadian accents are. All the lead French characters have a mix of regional Quebec (qweebec? Kbec?) accents but the secondary one line extras all have Sudbury valley accents (like me). It's like watching a show where characters from the same place speak with either an urban Boston accent or one from rural Louisiana and nothing inbetween.

I also love the Old Order Mennonite jokes about the names... when I moved to this area of Southern Ontario with all these Mennonites, I had no idea it was a thing (sorry Anita Dyck-Friesen and Harold Butts I've laughed at your names way more than I should have).
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:54 PM on September 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

Christ, I love this show. The slow mo fight choreography and slang warms my heart.
posted by zdravo at 2:18 PM on September 7, 2020

“if you come for one of us you come for all of us” bond. I was not expecting to get misty-eyed over it, but I did.

Yeah it's one of those gentle comedies (which is funny because it's got so much fighting) where at the end of the day nearly all the people get along and are neighborly if not entirely friends even if they sometimes get into temporary scuffles. I wish there were more women in it because I think Tanis and Katie are amazing and I even warmed up to Gail after a while. The female hockey players were fun. The directing, writing, and choreography is tight and the music choices are pretty great too. If you've lived in any small town at least some of this will be relatable. I grew up in a small town in MA (USA) and we had hockey players and these guys were familiar.

I also maintain that this fight/dance scene is possibly the best thing I've ever seen on television (context, the men entering the hotel room are guys from the city who have been insufferable and patronizing to the local guys the entire wedding. The name of the episode is "We don't fight at weddings")
posted by jessamyn at 2:28 PM on September 7, 2020 [9 favorites]

“I find it easier to follow with closed captioning turned on.“

- KGMoney

Thank goodness it’s not just me. Thought I was going deaf.

Well, I am going deaf, but it’s also taking me quite a while understand the dialect.

Even though I spent a lot of time with small-town Canadians when I was a young fella.
posted by shorstenbach at 2:40 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

the music choices are pretty great too

Yes! The song choices are always perfect for the scene they score. Letterkenny consistently picks the absolutely correct song for scene punctuation. And the scene Jessamyn linked to is the apex of that.
posted by dogmom at 2:41 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thinking about a super-soft birthday party for my 60th.
posted by No Robots at 2:54 PM on September 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

I’ve stanned this show to people often enough to have gotten, “so kinda like Trailer Park Boys?” more than once. But, despite never having seen that show, I think the answer must be, “kinda, maybe, but also very much not.” I guess I should go find out but I just learned there are episodes of Letterkenny I haven’t seen yet, so...
posted by sjswitzer at 3:11 PM on September 7, 2020

My favourite character is Stewart. It's like, what if Tom Cruise just stayed in a small town and dealt meth?
posted by No Robots at 3:17 PM on September 7, 2020 [11 favorites]

I even warmed up to Gail after a while

One of my favourite things about Lisa Codrington is that in real life she's also a super accomplished playwright and a big deal in Stratford's George Bernard Shaw festival. Melanie Scrofano as Mrs. McMurray is hilarious, too, and I wish Wynonna Earp left her more time to be on Letterkenny. Kaniehtiio Horn, who plays Tanis, was a part of Canada Reads this year, too, which was great.

I lived in Sudbury for a couple of years... and it turns out I lived in the building right next door to the store where Bonnie McMurray worked in the first season and where the skids hang out in the parking lot (which is also right next to the original Modine's). It was a really terrible neighbourhood then, I hope it's improved a bit.
posted by Fish Sauce at 3:20 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

I grew up in the Gatineau valley, in Quebec north of Ottawa, and Letterkenny reminds me of where I came up. I have three work colleagues who say the same thing: but they come from Northern Alberta, Eastern Fraser valley BC and Southern Alberta. So many of us who grew up in or on the fringes of rural Canada know all the characters and get the slang...

(Except my colleague from Newfoundland, who says the show is ok but that they talk too slow!)


I also like all the dog love: Disciplining Gus is a personal favorite...
posted by bumpkin at 4:10 PM on September 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

So I was having an MRI of my brain the other daaaayyyyy... And I found it a little boring. So, upon deciding that the MRI could read my thoughts, I decided to play a Letterkenny medley in my head for the neurologists. My fond hope is that at least one of them went home wondering what, "'Would a nazi getting turned on by inter-racial gang bang porn?' 'Who the fuck doesn't.'" could possibly mean.
posted by stet at 4:12 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

Stratford's George Bernard Shaw festival.

As someone married to a person from Stratford I should mention - the Shaw festival is in Niagara on the lake and Stratford has the Shakespeare festival. Its a subject they are very sensitive about! Its like saying Marathon is that place with the big goose.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:08 PM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

It was a really terrible neighbourhood then, I hope it's improved a bit.

Only slightly.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:14 PM on September 7, 2020

Its a subject they are very sensitive about! Its like saying Marathon is that place with the big goose.

Or that Terrace Bay is the place with the Winnie the Pooh statue.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:18 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ah, I thought they were both at Stratford.

I have no idea who has the big goose (Wawa?). I do know that Terrace Bay has great Canadian-Chinese food.
posted by Fish Sauce at 5:20 PM on September 7, 2020

Yeah, Wawa's the goose.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:25 PM on September 7, 2020

My father-in-law has some long-standing grudge against Terrace Bay that, from what I've been able to drag out of him, has something to do with an old-timer hockey beef. So it's very Letterkenny.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:26 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have no idea who has the big goose?

Previously.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:27 PM on September 7, 2020

Jinx mandolin conspiracy!
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:33 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

(Except my colleague from Newfoundland, who says the show is ok but that they talk too slow!)

There's a great bit where Newfie hockey players totally out-chirp the Ontario team.
posted by No Robots at 5:48 PM on September 7, 2020

2017 interview with Jared Keeso , creator, star, co-writer.

Watching these guys talk makes me feel like I need to turn in my Canadian passport.
posted by good in a vacuum at 5:50 PM on September 7, 2020

Yeah, Wawa's the goose.

So, which came first then, Vegreville or Wawa?
posted by aramaic at 5:53 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

goosES
posted by not_on_display at 8:21 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Named after the town of Letterkenny, Co Donegal, Ireland I assume.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:38 PM on September 7, 2020

that show manages to sneak in a lot of forward-looking ideas on racism and sexism and class (and just basic fairness and empathy)

Well, to be faaaaaiiiiiir....

It has a strange mixture of forward-thinking gender-based discussions (usually when Squirrely Dan brings up Professor Trisha's latest lecture from his Women's Studies class), but it hyper-sexualizes the women on the show to the point where I honestly have to turn it off in the middle of some episodes and come back days or weeks later when my "all media is problematic, and many otherwise-enjoyable pieces of media are written and directed from a nearly unbearable level of douchey male gaze-iness, but you can enjoy media in spite of it" tank is full up again.

Also the young woman who plays Katie's acting style makes it seem like she's on different show than the rest of them. She'd work in a teenage sex & rom-com Hollywood B-movie; she doesn't work for me at all on the show. She is clearly "acting," while the rest of them have a particular way of speaking that makes them believable as these somewhat-unbelievable characters. (Same problem with Gail. Tanis, as noted, is the exception.)

There's a lot of fun to be had with this show, and as mentioned above the music choices can't be beat, but I hope you like bouncy breasty cleavage and orgasmic-level sexual sighs coming from women ALL THE FUCKING TIME, while the men riff on their fuckability.

Named after the town of Letterkenny, Co Donegal, Ireland I assume.

Nope - there's a Letterkenny in Ontario.
posted by tzikeh at 4:26 PM on September 8, 2020

Nope - there's a Letterkenny in Ontario.

I don't know if they actively said where the name comes from. There's a ghost town by that name in Renfrew County but there isn't an active town called Letterkenny in Ontario. It is partially famous because it is claimed that Al Capone had a cabin there that he would hide out in. Listowel, the basis of the show, was largely settled by Irish Protestants and is named after an Irish town so it is conceivable that they got the name for the show from the Irish city.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:51 PM on September 8, 2020

Oh my god, I haven't laughed this hard in ages. Fuck you, Shoresy!
posted by funkiwan at 10:44 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

→ My favourite character is Stewart
As a Stewart, it pleased me that Letterkenny had a character with the correct spelling. Last time we had one of those was Beavis & Butthead.

And yes, I signed up for Crave (Bell Canada's shitty, shitty streaming service, which doesn't even have a skip titles function) just to watch this.
posted by scruss at 11:49 AM on September 14, 2020 [2 favorites]