Comedy Now!

Before he became a staple of Canadian sketch television, Gavin Crawford was an Alberta transplant building a name in Toronto’s alternative club scene. His 1999 half-hour entry in CTV’s Comedy Now! series — titled Ripe and Red — functions as an early showcase of the character-driven stand-up that would define his career. Rather than standing at a mic delivering observations, he populates the stage with strange, fully realized personas, bending his voice and physicality to fit each one.

Produced in a Toronto studio under the guidance of veteran television executive Sandra Faire, the set arrived at a pivot point for Crawford. He had just made his Montreal Just For Laughs debut and was gaining traction as a theatrical comic who didn’t fit the standard club mold. The performance earned a Gemini Award nomination for Best Performance in a Comedy Program, effectively laying the groundwork for his own sketch series the following year and an eventual eight-season run on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.