The brand new streaming service platform onVIVA.tv launched this September, and features CANCOM Comedy Content Creator Grant award winners Business Inc., Emily Milling, inDigE-
Girl Comedy and more. The onVIVA.tv platform was created with the mission to showcase and highlight Canadian-based emerging artists, producers, and content creators. Business Inc. was created by Simpsons writer David Cryan, his best friends Torray Green and Kimberley Wells, and filmed during the height of the pandemic. It stars some of Toronto’s best up-and-coming diverse actors, dogs, and comedians such as Bree Ali and Tik Tok sensation Anesti Danelis. We had the opportunity to speak with the three creates about the project and what viewers can expect.
Thank you for agreeing to catch up with Occhi Magazine. Congratulations on and best wishes with your new project Business Inc. Before we delve further into the series, please tell our audience how you all met.
David Cryan: Thanks so much. We’re excited our show is finally out and for people to start making excuses for why they haven’t watched it yet.
Kimberley Wells: Speak for yourselves. I strapped my whole family in a room and forced them to watch it a la the Ludovico Technique from A Clockwork Orange
DC: And did they like it?
KW: I let them out of the basement, didn’t I?
Torray Green: We were Writing Conservatory classmates at Second City Toronto. I started in a stand-up class and moved into writing where I met Dave in level 2. Kimbo came from Second City Chicago and joined the class at level 4. We enjoyed each other’s sense of humour so after our graduating show ‘Selfie-Fulfilling Prophecy’ on Second City Mainstage; the three of us continued writing as a group and produced a bunch of live sketch shows around the city.
Who are your biggest industry influences?
TG: A few of the creatives that I’d say are influential to me would be: Cess Silvera, Stephen Williams, Clement Virgo, Sudz Sutherland, Norm Macdonald, Deepa Mehta, Oliver Samuels, Phil Hartman, Kenny Robinson, Tom Green, Samantha Bee, Russell Peters, and Director X.
KW: I’m influenced by many different people but for comedy creators I’d say Monty Python, Larry David, Tina Fey, Graham Linehan, Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan, Chris Lilley, Catherine Tate, Donald Glover, Apatow Productions, Gary Sanchez Productions.
DC: For me, it’s mostly comedy writers, Garry Shandling, Albert Brooks, Larry David, Tina Fey, Mitchell Hurwitz, Armando Iannucci, but easily my most significant influence is The Simpsons, and so many of the people who have worked on it.
Business Inc is a workplace comedy about five immoral characters who create a corrupt one-stop-shop for any and all business needs. Please tell us more about the origins of this project and what the audience can expect.
KW: Basically we were like this pandemic isn’t horrible enough. Where can we add more stress and confusion into our lives? So we thought a self-produced web series was the way to go.
TG: We went over a few ideas and Dave pitched shooting a web series where the main theme is a group of shady people running multiple businesses.
DC: The idea was to do something absurd that wouldn’t limit our creativity, it’s a premise that allows us to go anywhere we want without having to ever spend time justifying why we’re doing what we’re doing in any given episode.
KW: Yeah, like a cartoon or a sketch show, the world needed to be flexible enough to support an overabundance of jokes, cultural references, and ideas hitting the audience one after the other that it may take a rewatch or two to get all of them.
TG: Essentially this show is a mash-up of Children’s Hospital, Always Sunny, Nathan For You, and Mr. Show if those shows were on speed and played on community access television.
I understand this was filmed at the height of the pandemic. Can you tell us more about the production and how it all came together?
DC: We’d been pitching a lot of things and doing a lot of writing but grew frustrated by the fact that it wasn’t leading to anything that got produced. So we wanted to try and write something we could go out and make ourselves on a shoestring budget.
TG: Filming at the height of the pandemic was like an unfortunate benefit. It made a lot of things harder with covid safety protocols and the restrictions on how many people could be on set but also made it easier to lock down cast and crew as well as securing some filming locations.
DC: We took all the appropriate safety measures but did have the notion of shutting down hanging over our heads the whole time and some actors dropped out, but luckily no one got covid and we were able to power through.
KW: I called up a bunch of my friends and told them they were in this web series. Everyone was stuck at home and itching to do anything without thinking about the consequences or the damage to their reputations and careers. Thankfully, everyone survived and is flourishing today all thanks to me.
What other projects are you currently working on?
TG: We’d love to get the opportunity to do another season of Business Inc eventually, we have a list of ideas a mile long, and the hardest part would be narrowing it down.
DC: Kimbo and I have been writing and pitching a lot of Pilots recently, one we just finished writing is an adult animated show called Popeman, which imagines what if the Head of the Catholic Church was a superhero like Batman. Like Business Inc, it’s very absurd, but dark with a sharp satirical edge.
KW: Yeah there’s Popeman and I just finished filming the pilot episode/proof of concept of the web series Workspace with my all-female production company The Boys Club. So I’m going to start post-production on that once all of Business Inc’s promotion wraps up.
Where can our readers find out more about you and your projects?
You can find Business Inc and all its socials below.
Business Inc
https://www.onviva.tv/en/channel/comedy/p/business-inc.1280
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/bizincbusiness
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bizuncbusiness
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BizincBusiness
FB: https://www.facebook.com/businesscomedytheshow
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9jlb2yjfjY9g-PDTibXSLQ
TG: @TorrayVerde on Twitter
https://vimeo.com/kounterkulture
DC: @WeirdAnecdotes on Twitter
KW: I’m an Instagram person
https://www.instagram.com/kimbosizzleslice
https://www.instagram.com/the_boys_club_productions
Images : Ermina Perez, Anesti Danelis, Bree Ali, Kimberley Wells (main) and (L to R in Foreground Alan Belerique, Ermina Pérez, Torray Green, Bree Ali, Anesti Danelis)
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