Varun Patel
‘Schitt’s Creek‘ is a Canadian sitcom created by the father-son duo, Eugene and Dan Levy. The show also stars the two, and they play the characters of a father and a son as well. The Pop TV series has managed to perform exceedingly well and receive critical acclaim thanks to its light-hearted, feel-good comedy and the acting of its talented cast members.
The show revolves around the once-wealthy Rose family, who loses all their fortunes. However, the head of the family, Johnny Rose, had bought an ugly town called Schitt’s Creek as a gag gift, and now the family is forced to move there. In a classic fish-out-of-water situation, the Roses are forced to live in a place that they clearly do not fit in.
Is Schitt’s Creek Based on a True Story?
Well, for the most part, ‘Schitt’s Creek’ is not based on a true story. The characters, their journeys, and misadventures are some of the things that have been invented by the writers of the series. However, the Canadian sitcom has been inspired by several real things.
Dan Levy had been keen on starting afresh, away from his father’s shadow, so that he could make a name for himself. He wished to do something on his own so that his success did not get attributed to Eugene. The artist was in Los Angeles, involved in writing since he knew that that was what he wanted to do.
“I had been watching some reality TV at the time and was concentrating on what would happen if one of these wealthy families would lose everything. Would the Kardashians still be the Kardashians without their money?” Levy told Out. Interestingly, the ultra-luxurious estate of the Roses in the first episode actually belonged to Lisa Vanderpump from ‘Vanderpump Rules.’
Levy took that concept and went ahead with it to show how a family becomes a family without the one thing that held them together previously: money. “Money was the band-aid that cured all hurts in this family, and they’re realizing it’s not going to be as easy to get out of this town and that life does go on. It’s very natural now that each individual member of this family is starting to experience things they’ve never experienced before in their lives,” Eugene Levy told Deadline.
Dan had approached Eugene with the idea because of the latter’s experience with the kind of comedy that Dan wanted to explore with ‘Schitt’s Creek.’ Fortunately, Eugene was pretty impressed with the idea and helped his son flesh it out. Moreover, both of them acting in it also helped bring out the much-needed chemistry between their characters. In fact, the father-son relationship is the most genuinely progressive thing about the show, which portrays homosexual relationships unabashedly, without feeling the need to make its heterosexual characters transform themselves and “get over” their homophobia. There is zero homophobia on the show, and that actually adds to the series’ realistic feel-good nature.
Read More: Where Was Schitt’s Creek Filmed?
