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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear weekday

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afternoons on the Drive. Mark Critch
is one of the most recognizable faces in

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Canadian comedy, and he's becoming one
of the more recognizable faces in the US

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thanks to his television series, a
CW original Son of a Critch, and

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he is joining us now Son of
a Critch. This is based on a

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book that you composed some time ago. Mark, Yeah, I was a

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twenty eighteen I wrote this story about
growing up in the eighties on an island

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in Canada off the Coasta, Canada
called Newpoundland and we joined Canada nineteen forty

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nine. Before that were our own
dominion. And anyway, it's all about

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my life going to Catholic school there
and feeling like an outsider being I had

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older parents and was really a kid
out of time, you know. I

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was listening to a lot of Dean
Martin and stuff with other people were listening

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to ATDs and it was a rude
awakening. And so this is season three

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now and we're just delighted to be
able to come down and share our story

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with people in the States. It
really it resonates with me because I grew

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up in a culturally diverse background in
deep South Louisiana, where everybody speaks the

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Akadi French from Acadia, and you
have this very very intense Roman Catholic culture

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going on. I was one of
the few white Protestants. My parents were

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of English descent, so I was
taught to speak a certain way and not

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use the dialect I mean, and
if I if I spoke the incorrect dialect

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of French, I was scolded.
So I see a lot of that in

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your character as a young man.
And we're about the same age, so

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I was a late bloomer as well
in the eighties. Oh that's fantastic.

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I always think of it as,
you know, almost like star Trek,

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where the house is the starship Enterprise
and schoolyard is the planet. You beam

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down here and have your adventure,
and you fight someone and you barely survive,

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and you get back on the shuttle, you beam back up to your

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house at the end of the day, going what was that, you know,

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And that's the way it kind of
felt growing up. What is the

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culture in Newfoundland? Is it?
Was it by and large English or was

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it French? Or a mixture of
both. Oh no, it's English and

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Irish. So you would have been
started to settle in fourteen ninety seven.

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We were settled and it was all
about codfish. So you'd have all these

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people with from places in Ireland and
in places like like Devin in England and

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Liverpool and things like that, and
these little codes and they became bigger cities

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and stuff over the years, but
very very Irish and as you say,

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with the Acade language, it has
its own kind of very Irish thing.

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So how'd you go, Oh my
god, out hands now down here at

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the thing that you wouldn't understand the
word people were saying generally, you know,

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depends and where they're from. So
there's a lot of similarities there.

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Oh really yeah. Like the big
thing I had to shake when I left

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that part of the country was you
would drop certain prepositions. For instance,

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if I were to ask you if
you're going to go eat lunch with the

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Akadi language, you'd be coming out, go and eat, go and eat.

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Oh yeah, you know, I
think we drop a lot of h's.

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You know, they were going to
have a heart attack. You might

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say you're going to have an art
attack. You drop an H here and

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added somewhere else. But when we
speak quickly, and we'd always say,

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you know what, we're not speaking
too quickly, you're listening too slow.

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We're talking to Mark Critch. His
television show is Son of a Critch on

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the CW now and it's third season. It's a charming tale, and I

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love how you make the main character. He is a late bloomer, but

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he's not necessarily bullied. Well,
no, like he What I would do

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is, you'd have these bullies and
you try to I would use stathaw.

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I developed humor. You know,
a guy would come up and he's gonna

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beat me up because of the way
I look or what have you, because

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I have an inhaler or whatever it
is. And then you start to do

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impressions of teachers or you tell them
jokes and then they get confused and go,

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oh, no, I want to
beat this guy up, but I

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think I like him now. And
so, you know, always trying to

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be the mascot of the of the
bigger kids and the tougher kids, and

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yeah, try trying to calm these
situations with humor and using that as a

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weapon in a way. Son of
a Critch is the television show on the

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CW now in the third season.
I highly recommend it. And it was

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because of your television show, Mark
Critch, I was able to get through

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this confounded actors and writers strike here
in the US. I discovered a lot

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of Canadian content. Well, that's
great to hear. You know, we

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we were probably able to step up
and serve your Canadian neighbors because we have

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so much I mean we spent I
mean growing up, come on, I

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mean the great American entertainment. Yeah, growing up it would be you know,

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it's tough to compete with here in
Canada, and we know so much

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about you and where your neighbor kind
of looking over the fence at all the

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cool things you have. So it's
nice to be able to bring something to

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the pot luck entertainment wise from across
the street. You know, Son of

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a Critch on the CW. It's
got a great cast too. Malcolm McDowell

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really fits into his role as Patrick
Popcritch. Did you have to coach him

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at all as to what your real
grandfather was like? No, the thing

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is with that, whether it's him
or young the great Young Benjamin hav An

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Ainsworth who plays me or any other
cast. I kind of write it and

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put it out there and say,
Okay, this is my story, but

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you don't. It's not like you're
playing a historical character like Winston Churchill or

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Kennedy or something where people are like, well that's not the way he spoke

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or walked or war. It's you
had to make it your own now,

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so you know. And when the
first ay filming with the great Malcolm mcdowe,

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people know from Club Where Orange and
a million other things. He came

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on set and I didn't really know
how he was going to play it,

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you know, and then he started
to act and I thought, oh,

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so that's who he is. Okay, cool, and it's your memories and

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people in your life. But they
do become characters, and you had to

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let that go because you can't box
these people in, especially when you have

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people as talented as that. And
Malcolm's always playing some loathsome character. It's

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fun to see him in a comedic
role. He's such a sweetheart, and

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he is terrifying when you first meet
him until he speaks to you, because

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you have this impression of all these
horrible I mean, he killed Captain Kirk

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in the Star Trek movie. Yeah, yes, and he comes in and

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he is just mischievous. He's the
biggest kid on set. He's eighty years

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old. And young Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who is now fourteen, who plays

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me as a kid, is very
professional, you know, and he works

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very, very hard. And Malcolm
will show up big twinkle in his eye

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and full of laps and playing pranks
and stuff. And it's great because it

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reminds you that you can get older, but you don't have to grow up.

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Son of a Critch. Mark Critch
is with us. He is the

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executive producer and creator and how much
of the writing goes to his credit?

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You play the father in this role
who's not seen that often because you work

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in radio. Yeah. I live
next door to a radio station growing up,

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so it's a little bit the wonder
Yours and a little bit WKRP in

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that way, and so it was
really cool to grow up next to this

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world. I always say, like
dad was a lighthouse keeper, but the

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lighthouse was a radio station, so
we lived next door to it back in

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those days. Because if something went
wrong, you had to get up there

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quick overnight. And it was just
a world of characters, and of course

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radio in the eighties was king.
They were the most famous people in town,

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you know, and everybody felt like
a superhero. So that was a

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real great treat to and you know, when you have a love of music

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and stuff like that, it was
just the best place in the world to

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grow up next to. Oh.
I got started at a very young age

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at my hometown radio station, I
remember it well. And you just made

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love to the community and they you, oh my god, you know,

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it was amazing, and everyone did
an impression of my father. He had

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what we would call it towney twang, and that he had very much a

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kind of an irishy accent, but
he didn't change it, you know,

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and so it was a bit of
a Walter Winchell thing going on. And

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so people loved him for that that
he didn't sound like a radio guy.

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He had this thick accent, and
everywhere he went, you know, doors

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would open and people would and a
funny thing with people always assumed you were

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really wealthy because you're on the radio. People assumed you were fitous, you

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know, and know, and radio
money isn't like that. And then the

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dad would come in and but what
I would love to see the love people

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had for him because they had You
were in their homes, you're in the

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kitchen, you're you're letting them know
if there's a snowstorm, that there,

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what have you? And that's that's
and he really carried that with a great

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deal of responsibility too, you know, to tell the truth and to do

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right by people. And those were
all great lessons to learn. C W

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Son of a Critch, Mark Critch
is it's about his life. It's a

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really charming tale and it's probably something
you've not seen before. I encourage you

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to look forward on the CW and
I thank you for joining us. Mark,

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Oh, thank you, Lee.
It's a real pleasure. Thanks for

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listening to Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen

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to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from
five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation