Remote Planet is a half-hour weekly comedy series on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa, Canada. Every week, the show takes you on an adventurous ride through outlandish sketch comedy, featuring a talented array of writers and voice actors. We have recently completed our thirteenth season on the campus-community radio station.

Remote Planet was founded in 1999 by writer and radio producer Chris Laursen as a semi-scripted, semi-improvised program of randomness featuring a good dose of independent music. Marg Tannahill and Linda Quinton-Ploughman (who is now busy raising a family) were the first voice actors on the show, and as it evolved through Season 1, it became scripted, structured, and garnered more voice talents, including Marc-André Bélair, who is still very active on the show today.

The addition of the twisted, verbose surrealist comedic writer Richard Hemphill and voice actor Natasha Abraham (who provides the sultry “Remote Planet” introduction to every episode) to the mix in Season 2 brought a fuller range of hour-long scripted storylines, leading into Season 3 and 4, both of which were very consistent in quality of comedy. Richard, in particular, is a masterful voice actor, and brought forth such memorable characters such as fashion maven Ama Stole, sarcastic butler Waddles, psychotic little Jeffy, and Ochto, Warrior God of Praaaaan. J. Dan Enright joined as a key writer in Season 4, contributing tales of Argentinean houseflies’ theatrical struggles, ladybugs nightmares of drunken aphids, a Satan-possessed laundry machine, and the making of the “great Canadian disaster movie” to the airwaves. Key voice actors who joined the series during this period include Shalome Swinamer, Mary Shearman, Juanita DeVos, Karl Claude, Sora Olah, Steve Patterson, Tamara Beaudoin, Owen Spendlove, Jamie Douglas, Monique Fuller, Tonia Snow, Flavia Ingham and Jody Haucke.

In June 2002, RP produced an award-winning live stage comedy, Murder Most Stinky, written by Richard Hemphill and directed by Shawn Rocheleau, another voice actor from the radio show. Check our Archives for reviews and background on that production. That summer, Chris and Richard also produced sketches for CBC Radio One’s morning shows across the country.

But the true breakthrough for RP was in Season 5 (2003/2004), when we scrunched the works down from hour-long episodes to a tightly-packed sardine can of satire in half-hour sketch comedy format. The amazing Andrew Kirkwood joined Chris and Dan as a principal writer and co-producer, and the three of them pulled the voice actors together for an incredible season. During the summer, Chris relocated to Toronto and continued to develop RP there, while Dan and Andrew steered the CKCU series through its sixth season along with writing and production help from Richard Hemphill, Damien Bailey and Bill Demmery.

Season Seven (2005-2006) saw Chris move on to new pursuits, with the show continuing under the able stewardship of Bill, Dan (who remains a committed Planeteer from his new homebase in Vancouver) and Richard, and with continued outstanding performances by the entire cast. Throughout the season, we had an eclectic mix of short- and medium-length skits as well as full-length comedy epics.

A special note: our own Richard Hemphill has had two successful runs at the Ottawa Fringe Festival, producing Monstrous Beasts in 2005, and head/case in 2006. Well done!

Bill took over production of the weekly show after Andrew and Dan's departure, and continues to write the majority of the material and to produce the show. Season Eight saw the introduction of newcomers Amy Ford, Josh McMillan and Richard Parks (who also hosts our live broadcast, most weeks).

The last several seasons have continued with the mixed sketch format, with an increasing emphasis on commercial, social and political parody. A new, live segment, has been introduced: the RP Weekly News Roundup, featuring our own take on the headlines in the capital, and very much in the style of "22 Minutes". Several sub-series have also emerged within the RP body of work: Richard Hemphill's Lester-and-Onion epics, for example; and Bill's Snoozy Suzie and Kanata 9-1-1 franchises.

Actress Marg, and her husband and actor/sound tech Dave Wade, retired from RP at the end of Season 13, though their work will continue to be to be heard on RP for years to come.