How is Hank Making Ends Meet? Fred Ewanuick Ponders the Enduring Mysteries of CORNER GAS ANIMATED

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Fans of CORNER GAS ANIMATED, as well as the live-action version of CORNER GAS, have always had a question about Hank: How does he survive, financially speaking? “Well, I don’t want to dig too much into the mystery of it, but I’ll say this – spending our time on the Prairies, and especially once you get outside of Regina and Saskatoon, the cost of living goes way down,” said Fred Ewanuick, who played Hank in the original CORNER GAS, and now voices Hank in CORNER GAS ANIMATED, which kicks off Season 3 with back-to-back new episodes, Monday at 9 p.m. ET on CTV Comedy Channel. Win Butler of Arcade Fire has a cameo in the first episode, while Brett Kissel has a cameo in the second episode. “Dog River, Saskatchewan is a smaller community, and it has been established that Hank lives a little bit out of town,” Ewanuick continued. “I don’t think it costs much for him to get by. Borrowing five bucks every week from Brent probably does the trick.” But what about living accommodations? Has the audience ever had a decent look at Hank’s house? “There were a couple of times – I’m pretty sure it was the knitting episode, and there was another time where Hank is getting driven out of town and dropped off at the house,” Ewanuick said. “So there have been a few glimpses inside the house and around the house, but we don’t know exactly where it is, or how he keeps it … like, what does he have growing in the ‘back 40’ that’s helping pay the bills? We don’t know anything … ” One thing everyone knows for sure is that even among all the lovable comedic characters in the CORNER GAS universe, Hank is the one who gets made fun of the most. Everyone takes shots at Hank. Even Oscar. And Hank is always there for the rest of them. What’s up with that? Hopefully Ewanuick hasn’t developed a complex. “I have been developing a series called ‘Everybody Hates Fred,’ and maybe it stems from my years of being the butt of everybody’s joke,” he said. “I absolutely love playing Hank, but yeah, there are days where it feels like, ‘Hey, do you think maybe I could have a zinger here once in a while?’ But even when Hank gets a zinger in, somebody zings the zinger.” Zinged zingers aside, there always has been something really endearing about Hank, and it’s largely related to his own happiness. He’s definitely one of the most beloved characters in Canadian sitcom history. “The thing I’ve always loved about Hank is his pure honesty,” Ewanuick said. “He’s so sincere and naive. He thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. But I’ve just always loved how earnest he is. Everyone thinks he’s stupid, and he’s not bright, for sure. But he’s a pretty pure character in my eyes. He’s very content. He absolutely loves where he is, I believe that.” CORNER GAS ANIMATED has achieved the admirable feat of essentially replicating the exact same feel and atmosphere as the original CORNER GAS, from a viewing perspective. But it’s obviously a different experience for the actors involved. “I didn’t come by it naturally, I’m still learning, but I hope I can get even better, because I’d love to do more animation work,” Ewanuick said. “The performance is not really your own, which sounds weird. But it’s the work of the animators, and the voice director, and the writing. There’s also an animation director who is picking different takes. The animators are adding all your visual expressions and reactions, which you have zero control over. It’s all based on what you give them in the voice record, but even more so than a live-action performance, a voice performance is absolutely a team effort. It would be odd to take an award for voice performance, because it’s really so influenced by at least five people.” Okay, fine, but just to be clear: If Fred Ewanuick wins an award for his voice work on CORNER GAS ANIMATED, he’ll accept it, right? “Oh yeah, absolutely,” Ewanuick said. “I’ll take pictures of it, and send them to everybody else.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv