Moonshine's Jennifer Finnigan

10/24/22 • 46 min

I like my podcast guests to feel comfortable. That's not always possible over a zoom call, but that didn't stop Jennifer Finnigan, currently back for a second season on CBC's comedy-drama Moonshine. For our interview, the Montreal native chose to stay in bed.
That is a level of intimacy and/or laziness usually reserved for close friends or relatives so I'm flattered. Really.
Besides, Finnigan has been spending long days in production on an already ordered third season of the series, shot on the southern shore of Nova Scotia.
Created by Sheri Elwood (Call Me Fitz), Moonshine is about a ramshackle summer resort run by one whacked out family. Finnigan plays Lidia, the prodigal sister who returns from America. When her hippie parents (Peter MacNeill and Corrine Koslo) retire, Lidia gets drawn into a battle with her freaked out siblings for control of the joint.
Lidia's life takes a turn when she finds out her lying douche of a hubby was cheating on her. Finnigan's real-life husband Jonathan Silverman stepped right into the part.
The couple and their five-year-old daughter moved to Nova Scotia to work on the series. They've been having a blast working on Moonshine with Anastasia Phillips, Emma Hunter, Tom Stevens, Alexander Nunez and others. This season, Allan Hawco plays Lidia's new biker boy.
We also talk about Finnigan's past roles, including The Bold and the Beautiful (where she won three daytime Emmys), Crossing Jordan, Tyrant and Salvation. May all future interviews be this relaxed.

Previous Episode

Children Ruin Everything's Meaghan Rath

With a one-year-old baby at home, Meaghan Rath says that, yes, she is living the joys of her TV series, Children Ruin Everything. The sitcom is now into its second season Monday nights on CTV.
The Montreal native confirms that "Mommy Brain" is a real thing but at least her son is sleeping through the night.
Meanwhile, she is enjoying year two on the series. Guest stars this season include Kim Coates, Anna Hopkins, and Aaron Ashmore.
We go through some of her earlier credits, including her three seasons on Hawaii Five-0 , her work on the BBC horror-comedy Being Human and her stint opposite fellow Canuck Hannah Simone on New Girls.
Rath also confirms that, yes, as a young lass, she did once ask her parents for an agent for Christmas. "They were like, we don't know how to get you that."
Her first professional gig was the cult classic, "Lost and Delirious" starring Piper Perabo, Mischa Barton and fellow Montrealer Jessica Pare. She was 12 or 13 at the time. "It was a very fun and wild first job."
Her favourite all-time TV theme song? Rath breaks with precedent by choosing a great theme from a current series. Check it out on this fun chat with the Children Ruin Everything actress.

Next Episode

Frightenstein's Mitch Markowitz

I think I was about 35 before I figured out that Billy Van played all those crazy characters on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
The series, consisting of 130 episodes cranked out over nine months, premiered more than 50 years ago in 1971. It is one of the most eccentric and enduring, locally-produced, TV shows ever made in Canada. It broke so many rules in childrens television that you'd have to cut it down to about four minutes to get it on a broadcast network today. (Edited versions still play on Crave, Tubi and YouTube.)
My guest on this podcast is Mitch Markowitz whose older brother Riff Markowitz took the idea of a horror-spoof kiddie show to Hamilton's CHCH. Mitch helped produce but also, at his brother's urging, appeared on-camera in short segments as "Super Hippy." Vincent Price was flown up from Hollywood to shoot 400 introductory segments which helped the Markowitz's syndicate the series stateside. Jumbo-sized Fishka Rais played Igor, assistant to The Count, Billy Van.
Van, later a key comedy player on Sony & Cher, also played Griselda the Ghastly Gourmet, The Librarian, Bwana Clyde Batty, The Oracle, The Maharishi and the Wolfman -- the latter a werewolf disc jockey.
Van wasn't supposed to play any of them, but, as Markowitz relates, he stepped in when a Plan-A that would never fly today didn't pan out. Van's tour-de-force was an inspiration to Mike Myers, Jim Carrey and other Canadians who grew up with the series before hitting it big in Hollywood.
Markowitz shares those stories and talks about the recent animated spinoff in a Halloween party episode even "Brucie" -- a copyright-infringing monster The Count was always trying to revive -- would enjoy.