Canada's comedy king has his eye on crime.
Brent Butt returns to the small screen Monday with the second season of "Hiccups," but behind the scenes, the show creator is mulling over his next big TV series -- an hour-long crime-of-the-week procedural.
The CTV hitmaker says he's pumping out several ideas for his production outfit, Sparrow Media Company, and is particularly intrigued with crafting a light-hearted detective-type show.
"I want (Sparrow) to be a full-on production company with a slate of projects," Butt says by phone from his basement home office in Vancouver.
"I like all kinds of television so I'm pretty receptive to the notion of doing any kind of TV show. The one that I'm working on right now is ... an hour-long comedic crime show."
The sitcom guru is loathe to reveal too much at this early stage, but notes this isn't his first foray into the murder-mystery genre.
Butt was set to begin filming his first feature film this summer, a goofy whodunnit called "No Clue." He built the tale around a bumbling detective who finds himself way over his head.
Funding and scheduling hurdles have put the project on hold until next spring, but he says crafting the screenplay was an interesting exercise.
"I had never really written a murder mystery where you have a number of suspects, (where) you have to withhold some information from the viewer, and let them have other information," says Butt.
"I'm a fan of that genre, watching murder mysteries, and I like detective shows. So as a fan of it, it was fun to try and do it and it actually worked out pretty good."
Amid all these production plans, Butt says he's keen to finally launch a second season of his "Corner Gas" followup, "Hiccups."
He was initially expecting the goofy comedy to return to CTV's lineup in the winter, but says it was shelved amid corporate restructuring that followed the media empire's Bell buyout.
"Everything was kind of on hold for a little while. It took longer than I'd initially hoped," Butt allows.
"It is a little difficult to sit and wait. It doesn't really eat at me too much, I have a good ability to let that stuff go but ... I'm really proud of the second season. I really think the show found its legs and started really clicking. It has a rhythm to it and that's when comedy really starts to work."
"I think it's a noticeable step up from the first season and so you want to get that out and you want to see how people respond to it."
Things kick off with wacky kids' author Millie Upton in talks over a movie adaptation of her "Grumpaloo" book series.
Millie, played by Nancy Robertson, heads to Los Angeles for a series of business meetings with her life coach Stan, played by Butt, in tow.
It doesn't take long for the high-strung Millie to get waylaid by an irresistible urge to check out the Hollywood sights, and get herself into some tabloid-style trouble.
"It was a really fun episode to shoot," Butt says of the trip to L.A. "My only regret is that we shot so much stuff we came in way too long and had to make some very difficult editing decisions. But that's just part of the process."
As an emerging comic, Butt lived in L.A. for about six months in the early '90s, but says he didn't have the paperwork to remain and work.
He very nearly returned south of the border as the creator of "Hiccups," which was originally envisioned as a Canada-U.S. co-production for ABC.
Butt says his impressive "Corner Gas" track record brought him attention from several U.S. networks after the massively popular ensemble comedy ended its six-year run in 2009.
"There were kind of two factions at ABC, one that wanted to do the show and another that didn't. The one that didn't ultimately won," Butt says of "Hiccups."
"I think there were people in-house who were championing other projects and at the end of the day, they're only going to do so many. And somebody probably had a higher ranked champion than we had. But you never really know. So much of it is politicking behind the scenes and you're not privy to it. We knew we were going ahead and doing the show anyway."
With a second season in the can, Butt says "Hiccups" is now starting to be shopped around to international buyers.
Season 2 shenanigans include Stan trying to learn hypnotism, Millie starting a clubhouse in her storage locker, and a bid by Anna and Joyce to put Millie on a cleanse.
"Hiccups" begins with the first three episodes airing Monday nights before moving to its regular slot on Sundays starting June 19.
