December 31st promised to be both melancholy and chaotic, like the last 12 months. The return of the curfew stifled our remaining collective resilience, Golden Girl Betty White passed away at the age of 99, and Videotron’s Helix service crashed at the start of the TV special.Live from the universe.
So let’s see. At one point, the curse of 2021 is enough, creaks. Fortunately, the Bye bye 2021 overseen by Simon-Olivier Fecteau made us forget this extra crappy year, grilled with misfortunes, with its string of short and comical vignettes, punctuated by surprise appearances.
Patrick Huard in Dan Marino from the Dégât Fitness gym, he was tough. Claude Legault in Denis Coderre hitting the invisible wall of the vaccine passport advertisement, it was solid. The return of RBO – in full – in their iconic 2021 remix mini-putt sketch, it was perfect.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RADIO-CANADA
Patrick Huard in Dan Marino from the Fitness Damage gym
And Bruno Blanchet (in Georges St-Pierre or in Patrice Roy), Lord that we are bored. What an endearing and brilliant humorous bug.
No avalanche of political gags on COVID-19 or squeaky parody of the dire state of the world in this Bye bye 2021, whose mission was not to further divide an already edgy population, but to make people laugh for an hour and a quarter by forgetting the bad movie in which we have been playing since March 2020.
The very compact first 15 minutes of the Bye bye 2021 breathed a sustained rhythm into the show that did not slow down, except perhaps during the portion of Beautiful discomforts, fairly predictable and less biting than the rest of the review. That said, well done for moving a huge success from TVA to Radio-Canada. It is only Martin Matte who has the power and the talent to rise above the network war.
Also, what a good idea to have hired the talented comedian Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais for the opening musical credits. To paraphrase his song on Omicron: 2021, nothing has changed, we’re doing the fifth wave!
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RADIO-CANADA
Comedian Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais opened the Bye bye 2021 with a song on Omnicron
There lay exactly the challenge of Bye : laugh at the mud of 2021 without depressing or knocking us out. Mission accomplished. The process of crossing between a popular culture phenomenon and a current piece has resulted in funny flashes like The Woking Dead by François Legault, the Squid Game real estate or the parodies of Hubert Eats with the real Marc Bergevin who ate unemployed pudding with the real Mario Tremblay.
At the start of the hour, the segment on Hélo demonstrated all the effectiveness of this Bye bye 2021. In a few seconds, Edgar Fruitier, Anne Casabonne, Éric Lapointe and Julie Payette all passed through the wringer. Quickly, well done, thank you good evening.
The two actresses of the house troupe of Bye bye 2021 particularly impressed this year. First, Guylaine Tremblay made excellent imitations of Anne Casabonne (vaccine of mustard!) And Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc. Sound Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge, renamed Guillaume Le P’tit Viarge from Singers mascots, was surprising and very similar.
After a quick and successful appearance as Hubert Lenoir, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse landed her best moment as Véronique Cloutier in the very fair caricature Véro a Chaud, inspired by Loto-Meno. No one has yet succeeded in imitating the host of 1res time and Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse is the one who comes closest to it. Note that Stéphane Rousseau makes Louis Morissette more real than the real one: “I call Radio-Can you to tell them that they have just bought us a new TV show!” ”
Another favorite: comedian Yannick De Martino who slipped into the skin of poet-slammer David Goudreault, omnipresent and repetitive on all platforms in 2021. I saw him three times without getting tired.
The comedian François Bellefeuille takes less risk in the game of pastiche, preferring to play fictitious characters. Well liked, on the other hand, his Véronic DiCaire in super ecstasy in the stripper sequence Singers mascots, where the “mysterious crow” was alone in the world because “she comes from afar”. I still laugh at her.
As for Mehdi Bousaidan, he has gained ground over the years. His musical sequence with Mathieu Pepper and Sarahmée was super nice.
Of course, this retrospective has had softer moments, like hockey at Tivia Sports or Justin Trudeau’s vacation in Tofino. In the Hasbeen toy playlet, the gag on Jay Du Temple wearing pajama tops at 800 dollars was dying and the flash appearance of Penelope McQuade (excellent Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse) was tasty.
The voyages of Arnaud Soly, the return of Dany Vervaine or the “weekend update” of Céline Galipeau and Pierre Bruneau, brilliantly imitated by Guylaine Tremblay and Pierre Brassard: the Bye has served us a particularly strong cuvée this year.
Come on, precious readers. I kiss you like in Mondou’s ad, the most successful of December 31st. Slurp!