Here’s a Canadian TV program that, even if you didn’t actually view it, you probably remember. If you were living in the US in mid-2012 you can’t have missed the media blitz given this program by the late FEARnet cable channel, who made it the cornerstone of their broadcasting. Unfortunately it was around then that the SPACE channel (later the CTV Sci-Fi Channel), the show’s Canadian broadcaster, pulled the plug, as announced by its primary creator Craig David Wallace in his acceptance speech for the Writers Guild of Canada TV Comedy Award.
If you were living in the US in mid-2012 you can’t have missed the media blitz…
Viewed from a ten year vantage point, TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL stands as a never-to-be-replicated TV event. A comedic raunch-fest whose content is adroitly summed up by the oft-used description “THE EVIL DEAD meets BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER,” the show is no longer as fresh as it initially seemed, due mostly to the fact that subsequent programs have stolen its thunder, most notably ASH VS. THE EVIL DEAD.
TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL stands as a never-to-be-replicated TV event.
Ostensibly a follow-up to Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD trilogy (consisting of THE EVIL DEAD, EVIL DEAD 2 and ARMY OF DARKNESS), ASH VS. THE EVIL DEAD, executive produced by Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, ran for three seasons on the STARZ network during the years 2015-18. Its tone and overall attitude were virtually identical to those of TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL, which in any event is the better show. It may not have had the budget or pedigree of ASH, but it had a crucial component that program didn’t have: it was quintessentially Canadian.
Canada, let’s not forget, is the nation that gave us the comedic likes of SCTV, as well as freak-outs like PUPPETS WHO KILL and WHAT IT’S LIKE BEING ALONE. TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL partakes of both extremes, particularly in its second season, which (to borrow a quote from Roger Ebert) could have been written, filmed, and perhaps even conceived of, only in Canada.
It may not have had the budget or pedigree of ASH, but it had a crucial component that program didn’t have: it was quintessentially Canadian.
The program’s inception was a 2003 short. Following a handful of Wallace directed mini-films (as well as the little seen 1995 feature THE LAYPERSON’S GUIDE TO MODERN LIVING) that began with THE PRINCIPLES OF KARMA (1996), the TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL short was made for the Canadian Film Centre, and played at the Toronto Film Festival. It featured a high school punk (Stephen Arbuckle) getting ahold of a sentient “Book of Pure Evil”
(inspired by THE EVIL DEAD’s Book of the Dead) that turns him into a basketball whiz and makes him inordinately attractive to the opposite sex, only to have things go very wrong very quickly, as enumerated by the last line of dialogue: “You’re fucked, Todd.”
It took another seven years for the TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL series, created and executive produced by Wallace, to make its way to the screen. Its first season wasn’t without problems, being a bit too lightweight and inconsequential overall (to the point that the DVD gag reel is nearly indistinguishable tonally from the finished product), and shows its influences (which include the aforementioned BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and THE EVIL DEAD, as well as the early films of Peter Jackson) a bit too blatantly.
In its favor, the show is breezily entertaining and genuinely funny, with a nifty heavy metal soundtrack and a cheerful willingness to take its material clear over the top. An example of that attribute occurs in the all-singing musical episode; that concept was previously utilized in BUFFY, yet that show would likely never have contained a song called “Ample Fun Bags,” as this one unashamedly does.
In its favor, the show is breezily entertaining and genuinely funny, with a nifty heavy metal soundtrack and a cheerful willingness to take its material clear over the top.
As for the plot, it, like the preceding short, involves a supernaturally powered tome, housed in the aptly named Crowley High School (whose emblem is an upside-down pentagram with a goat’s head superimposed over it). The book’s first victim is Todd (Alex House), a metalhead who becomes an expert guitarist as a result of the book’s intervention. He’s saved (or so it seems) from the fate of his short film predecessor by his best friend Curtis (Bill Turnbull), who bears a prosthetic left arm that becomes the object of countless politically incorrect gags. Also in on the rescue is Jennie (Maggie Castle), a sullen goth babe who Todd lusts after, and Hannah (Melanie Leishman), a nerdy chick (or, more accurately, a pretty girl with glasses) who’s in love with Todd. Opposing them is Atticus, an evil guidance counselor (Chris Leavins, who acting-wise steals the show) aiming to replace Todd as the book’s primary target.
Each episode features a disaffected teen getting hold of the book and using it for his or her own selfish means, only to wind up dying in spectacularly gory fashion. It’s up to Todd and his pals to make things right, but every time they come close to getting their hands on the book it flaps away. Also on hand is Jason Mewes (a.k.a. Jay of the not-so-dynamic Jay & Silent Bob duo) as Jimmy, a stoner janitor who can’t leave the school, and a group of metalhead miscreants who can’t enter the place, the reasons for which are revealed in the subsequent
season.
Each episode features a disaffected teen getting hold of the book and using it for his or her own selfish means, only to wind up dying in spectacularly gory fashion.
Slick, irreverent and funny (the “Checkmate” episode in particular, containing Melanie Leishman’s never-to-be-forgotten intonation of the line “We’re so wasted”) are adjectives that adequately describe the first season of TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL. Yet it took until the second season, I’d argue, for the show to reach its full potential.
That claim, keep in mind, is from one who found the widely-detested second season of TWIN PEAKS superior to the 1990 first. It was in 1991 that Messrs. Lynch and Frost really let their ids run wild, and in so doing greatly expanded the boundaries of mainstream television. Their efforts, of course, were rewarded with decreased ratings and a cancellation by ABC (a state of affairs that remained in effect until 2017).
Likewise, in the case of TOOD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL the second season appears to have been too wild for mainstream viewers, who deserted the 
show in droves. Yet I say that second season amplified everything that was good about the first, and smoothed over may of its problems. No, the season two storylines didn’t change appreciably from those of season one, nor the ultra-shallow tone or derivative conception (there’s a second BUFFY-inspired musical episode in this season—sample lyric: “I’m gonna leave you alone, I’ve got a new girl who wants to chew on my bone!”), but the game was raised, in terms of craftsmanship, imagination and sheer outrageousness, to such a high level that it’s much easier to brush those criticisms aside.
“I’m gonna leave you alone, I’ve got a new girl who wants to chew on my bone!”
Here we have an episode in which Crowley High finds itself plunged into a video game universe where Curtis grows breasts and Hannah a penis. In another episode a postmodern angle is introduced that sees a pair of film nerds transforming their reality into a literal movie, and using various filmmaking techniques to do away with people (such as a split screen used to slice a guy in half), and in another a hippie environmentalist turns the school into a prehistoric forest where, among other things, Atticus gets raped by an ape. Then there’s the astounding “See You Later, Masturbator,” about a pervert who’s granted the power of invisibility, which may be the most hilariously twisted thing I’ve ever seen on episodic television.
As in the first season, the second contains a number of unexplained elements that, as Wallace promises on the last episode’s DVD audio commentary, were set to be explained in season three. Clearly he spoke too soon.
David Lynch, as we all know, responded to the cancellation of TWIN PEAKS by making a prequel feature, 1992’s TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME—a notorious flop that nearly destroyed Lynch’s career. TODD’s creators also put together a feature in the wake of their second season cancellation, an animated three-parter that sought to sum up seasons three and four in 80 minutes.
A far more economical project than FIRE WALK WITH ME, TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL: THE END OF THE END was financed, in part, by a 2013 crowd-funding campaign, although it took until 2017 for the film to be completed and released. The verdict? I say that in the category of animated feature follow-ups to truncated Canadian TV series, THE END OF THE END is an undoubted triumph.
…in the category of animated feature follow-ups to truncated Canadian TV series, THE END OF THE END is an undoubted triumph.
A live action version would have been preferable (one was promised if the crowd funding campaign reached a million dollars, which it didn’t), but in the absence of one this cartoon will suffice. The look, feel and outlook of the series are replicated quite well, with Craig David Wallace directing (together with Richard Duhaney) and co-scripting, and all the show’s actors lending their voices.
The film begins with Jimmy and Atticus switching jobs, and Hannah, who died at the end of the series, returning to life. The book also returns to wreak more havoc, as does the sex and drug-tinged humor that pervaded the series. The animation, despite the low budget, is impressive, with the characters depicted as exaggerated caricatures of their live action TV counterparts, an effect that harmonizes quite well with the many otherworldly monsters who turn up to do them in.
TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL: THE END OF THE END wasn’t much of a success (it being incomprehensible to viewers unfamiliar with the show), but it does appear to have sated TODD’s rabid fan base. More importantly, it finishes off the program in a reasonably satisfying manner, complementing the show’s two seasons quite well—and three out of three definitely ain’t bad.
TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL: THE END OF THE END wasn’t much of a success (it being incomprehensible to viewers unfamiliar with the show), but it does appear to have sated TODD’s rabid fan base.