This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear weekday
afternoons on the Drive. Mark Critch is one of the most recognizable faces in
Canadian comedy, and he's becoming one of the more recognizable faces in the US
thanks to his television series, a CW original Son of a Critch, and
he is joining us now Son of a Critch. This is based on a
book that you composed some time ago. Mark, Yeah, I was a
twenty eighteen I wrote this story about growing up in the eighties on an island
in Canada off the Coasta, Canada called Newpoundland and we joined Canada nineteen forty
nine. Before that were our own dominion. And anyway, it's all about
my life going to Catholic school there and feeling like an outsider being I had
older parents and was really a kid out of time, you know. I
was listening to a lot of Dean Martin and stuff with other people were listening
to ATDs and it was a rude awakening. And so this is season three
now and we're just delighted to be able to come down and share our story
with people in the States. It really it resonates with me because I grew
up in a culturally diverse background in deep South Louisiana, where everybody speaks the
Akadi French from Acadia, and you have this very very intense Roman Catholic culture
going on. I was one of the few white Protestants. My parents were
of English descent, so I was taught to speak a certain way and not
use the dialect I mean, and if I if I spoke the incorrect dialect
of French, I was scolded. So I see a lot of that in
your character as a young man. And we're about the same age, so
I was a late bloomer as well in the eighties. Oh that's fantastic.
I always think of it as, you know, almost like star Trek,
where the house is the starship Enterprise and schoolyard is the planet. You beam
down here and have your adventure, and you fight someone and you barely survive,
and you get back on the shuttle, you beam back up to your
house at the end of the day, going what was that, you know,
And that's the way it kind of felt growing up. What is the
culture in Newfoundland? Is it? Was it by and large English or was
it French? Or a mixture of both. Oh no, it's English and
Irish. So you would have been started to settle in fourteen ninety seven.
We were settled and it was all about codfish. So you'd have all these
people with from places in Ireland and in places like like Devin in England and
Liverpool and things like that, and these little codes and they became bigger cities
and stuff over the years, but very very Irish and as you say,
with the Acade language, it has its own kind of very Irish thing.
So how'd you go, Oh my god, out hands now down here at
the thing that you wouldn't understand the word people were saying generally, you know,
depends and where they're from. So there's a lot of similarities there.
Oh really yeah. Like the big thing I had to shake when I left
that part of the country was you would drop certain prepositions. For instance,
if I were to ask you if you're going to go eat lunch with the
Akadi language, you'd be coming out, go and eat, go and eat.
Oh yeah, you know, I think we drop a lot of h's.
You know, they were going to have a heart attack. You might
say you're going to have an art attack. You drop an H here and
added somewhere else. But when we speak quickly, and we'd always say,
you know what, we're not speaking too quickly, you're listening too slow.
We're talking to Mark Critch. His television show is Son of a Critch on
the CW now and it's third season. It's a charming tale, and I
love how you make the main character. He is a late bloomer, but
he's not necessarily bullied. Well, no, like he What I would do
is, you'd have these bullies and you try to I would use stathaw.
I developed humor. You know, a guy would come up and he's gonna
beat me up because of the way I look or what have you, because
I have an inhaler or whatever it is. And then you start to do
impressions of teachers or you tell them jokes and then they get confused and go,
oh, no, I want to beat this guy up, but I
think I like him now. And so, you know, always trying to
be the mascot of the of the bigger kids and the tougher kids, and
yeah, try trying to calm these situations with humor and using that as a
weapon in a way. Son of a Critch is the television show on the
CW now in the third season. I highly recommend it. And it was
because of your television show, Mark Critch, I was able to get through
this confounded actors and writers strike here in the US. I discovered a lot
of Canadian content. Well, that's great to hear. You know, we
we were probably able to step up and serve your Canadian neighbors because we have
so much I mean we spent I mean growing up, come on, I
mean the great American entertainment. Yeah, growing up it would be you know,
it's tough to compete with here in Canada, and we know so much
about you and where your neighbor kind of looking over the fence at all the
cool things you have. So it's nice to be able to bring something to
the pot luck entertainment wise from across the street. You know, Son of
a Critch on the CW. It's got a great cast too. Malcolm McDowell
really fits into his role as Patrick Popcritch. Did you have to coach him
at all as to what your real grandfather was like? No, the thing
is with that, whether it's him or young the great Young Benjamin hav An
Ainsworth who plays me or any other cast. I kind of write it and
put it out there and say, Okay, this is my story, but
you don't. It's not like you're playing a historical character like Winston Churchill or
Kennedy or something where people are like, well that's not the way he spoke
or walked or war. It's you had to make it your own now,
so you know. And when the first ay filming with the great Malcolm mcdowe,
people know from Club Where Orange and a million other things. He came
on set and I didn't really know how he was going to play it,
you know, and then he started to act and I thought, oh,
so that's who he is. Okay, cool, and it's your memories and
people in your life. But they do become characters, and you had to
let that go because you can't box these people in, especially when you have
people as talented as that. And Malcolm's always playing some loathsome character. It's
fun to see him in a comedic role. He's such a sweetheart, and
he is terrifying when you first meet him until he speaks to you, because
you have this impression of all these horrible I mean, he killed Captain Kirk
in the Star Trek movie. Yeah, yes, and he comes in and
he is just mischievous. He's the biggest kid on set. He's eighty years
old. And young Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who is now fourteen, who plays
me as a kid, is very professional, you know, and he works
very, very hard. And Malcolm will show up big twinkle in his eye
and full of laps and playing pranks and stuff. And it's great because it
reminds you that you can get older, but you don't have to grow up.
Son of a Critch. Mark Critch is with us. He is the
executive producer and creator and how much of the writing goes to his credit?
You play the father in this role who's not seen that often because you work
in radio. Yeah. I live next door to a radio station growing up,
so it's a little bit the wonder Yours and a little bit WKRP in
that way, and so it was really cool to grow up next to this
world. I always say, like dad was a lighthouse keeper, but the
lighthouse was a radio station, so we lived next door to it back in
those days. Because if something went wrong, you had to get up there
quick overnight. And it was just a world of characters, and of course
radio in the eighties was king. They were the most famous people in town,
you know, and everybody felt like a superhero. So that was a
real great treat to and you know, when you have a love of music
and stuff like that, it was just the best place in the world to
grow up next to. Oh. I got started at a very young age
at my hometown radio station, I remember it well. And you just made
love to the community and they you, oh my god, you know,
it was amazing, and everyone did an impression of my father. He had
what we would call it towney twang, and that he had very much a
kind of an irishy accent, but he didn't change it, you know,
and so it was a bit of a Walter Winchell thing going on. And
so people loved him for that that he didn't sound like a radio guy.
He had this thick accent, and everywhere he went, you know, doors
would open and people would and a funny thing with people always assumed you were
really wealthy because you're on the radio. People assumed you were fitous, you
know, and know, and radio money isn't like that. And then the
dad would come in and but what I would love to see the love people
had for him because they had You were in their homes, you're in the
kitchen, you're you're letting them know if there's a snowstorm, that there,
what have you? And that's that's and he really carried that with a great
deal of responsibility too, you know, to tell the truth and to do
right by people. And those were all great lessons to learn. C W
Son of a Critch, Mark Critch is it's about his life. It's a
really charming tale and it's probably something you've not seen before. I encourage you
to look forward on the CW and I thank you for joining us. Mark,
Oh, thank you, Lee. It's a real pleasure. Thanks for
listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen
to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation