Kids Get To Be Kids and Parents Get To Be Real in CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, Says Creator Kurt Smeaton

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede In the first episode of the new CTV Original comedy CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, a celebratory and hopefully serene family dinner begins. Out of the blue, one of the young kids screams, “TOILET” at the top of her lungs. Naturally, chaos ensues. A truly admirable trait of CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, which debuts Wednesday, Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, is that the kids truly behave like kids, rather than little zinger machines, pumping out perfect punchlines, as is the case in so many other shows. EMMY® Award-winning creator and executive producer Kurt Smeaton (SCHITT’S CREEK, KIM’S CONVENIENCE) was asked if that was specifically by design. “It was Day 1 in the writing room,” Smeaton said. “That was the conversation. I did not want that precocious sort of comedy, you know, where the kids are smarter than the adults somehow. I wanted parents who were good at what they did, who loved their kids, but it was still hard anyway. And I wanted the kids to be real.” CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING is an eight-episode, half-hour series, filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, Ont., starring Meaghan Rath (HAWAII FIVE-0) and Aaron Abrams (HANNIBAL) as a married couple named Astrid and James. As they raise their two small children – Felix, played by Logan Nicholson, and Viv, played by Mikayla SwamiNathan – mom and dad try to keep the memory alive of what their life was like pre-kids, but it’s getting fainter with each food fight. “I really enjoy having kids, but I have to admit, it made me encounter much more poo in my life,” Smeaton said. “So the inspiration was, I was a new dad, and I was reading all these studies about how parents were less happy than people who didn’t have kids. And those studies made good points and seemed legit. But I also thought, there’s this other thing they’re not mentioning. I wanted to make a show that admitted, yeah, it’s hard, and sometimes it sucks, but there’s this other part that almost makes up for it, or makes the balance much more even. The rewards are intangible. You feel them. You can’t show them to people, necessarily. They’re just an intrinsic feeling you get. I wanted the show to be honest about that, too.” So if the goal of CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING was to highlight multiple sides of parenting in comic ways, what was foremost in Smeaton’s mind when casting the two adult leads? “The conversations you get into with kids, and the things you have to teach them, and tell them, are already so heightened and strange, I wanted people who could play the comedy without having to be broad about it, or adding any ketchup to it,” Smeaton said. “Both Meaghan and Aaron are very smart, and they’re really great at being in the moment, for comedy and drama. I needed both. I really wanted to believe that these people love their kids, but can also be very frustrated by their situations. They both give great performances.” Ennis Esmer (BLINDSPOT) and Nazneen Contractor (RANSOM) are also part of the CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING cast, while Seán Cullen (WORKIN’ MOMS) and Anna Hopkins (THE EXPANSE) make guest appearances in Season 1. The adults collaborate to create a comedic world in which the kids are kids in a realistic way, rather than a traditional sitcom way. “You know, that made casting the kids difficult, because kids are so trained, right?” Smeaton recalled. “Most kids who are in the acting world that early are kind of conditioned. But we managed to find two kids who were able to do it, and it’s not an accident. Even little Mikayla, who was 5 at the time of shooting, she gets the jokes, she knows what she’s doing. So it was really important for us to ground this in reality as much as possible. Because parenting is already funny enough. You don’t need the kids to be little comedians. They’re funny as it is.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv