“It’s boring Bye byethey do unfunny sketches for boomers », Launches actress Rose Adam in a very delicate parody of the film 1995 by Ricardo Trogi performed at Bye bye 2024 by the film’s own actors.
When the apprentice director breaks his camera, his sister, Nadia, retaliates. “We don’t care, Hugo Dumas will like it better Live from the universeanyway.” There is a form of lucidity there: the Bye bye divides by wanting to unite whileLive from New Year’s Daywhich launches -’s final annual television evening, is a consensual, rhythmic and perfectly put together show. Thus mastered, the genre is more rewarding and less risky.
Rocket departure
There is nothing to say against the show hosted by France Beaudoin which is there to move us while evoking in the blink of an eye – through flashes, songs or presences – facts or images that have marked the twelve recent months.
We see Charles Tisseyre singing “Soleil, soleil”, MC Gilles and Pierre-Yves McSween forming a duo in solidarity with those who have lost their jobs and Philippe Wauthier descending from the hangers in a blue man, like Philippe Katerine during the ceremony of opening of the Olympic Games.
We think of Jean-Pierre Ferland, before Louis Morissette’s letter on the dangers of toxic masculinism opens up to a very moving parent-child sequence. In addition to Louis Morissette, Marthe Laverdière, Patricia Paquin and Alexandre Aussant (Mona de Grenoble, under her drag queen name) were the guests of a show where a countdown by Jeannette Bertrand launched a review of the year through a medley of 42 songs in one continuous blast of 14 minutes.
Among the vocal performances, the American Katie Kadan broke the screen and, as in the past, tolerance and inclusion were a common thread of the show. The eviction, during this 2024 evening, of the television version of the special program See you next year (listening to the radio broadcast at 6 p.m. hardly left any regrets) was compensated by 30 minutes of behind-the-scenesLive from New Year’s Day and an equivalent elongation ofInfoman.
Format
We really didn’t have the impression that the credits granted to Jean-René Dufort were equal to this additional third of the show. This was above all filled by the fairly massive rerun of sequences already broadcast over the year. Apart from being reheated, this end-of-year special, placed under the aegis of “Why the world is without love”, a song by Mireille Mathieu covered for the occasion by Voivod, had lost relatively little of its bite, starting with the The start which caustically mocked the catastrophic broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on -.
One of the major issues of this annual Infoman review was “Cléopont”, a parody based on peplums (including Cleopatra by Mankiewicz) on Geneviève Guilbault and the third link. Another good moment: “Mordus de Fitz”, interview by Paul Arcand with the real Pierre Fitzgibbon and two fakes, played by Jean-René Dufort and Marc Labrèche, unleashed (“We have the right to remain elegant, but it’s shit”), on the results of the arrival of the Los Angeles Kings.
Jean-René Dufort applied to Denis Coderre the concept “In the head of…”, previously developed for Céline Dion. The comical montage ended with a panic of the neurons while the ex-mayor of Montreal lost his temper against an incisive journalist (“The head is calling Denis; Mayday, Mayday!”).
Infoman added this year a small moralizing bent, strongly emphasizing the linguistic excesses in politics, then on the a priori irreconcilable divisions, through a metaphorical experience which had the merit of bringing together Eric Duhaime and Ruba Ghazal.
In a sequence of this Infoman 2024where we saw Marwah Rizqy don a record number of 360 ties and the Olympic hammer champion cause the rupture of the pipes on René-Lévesque Boulevard, Jean-René Dufort made fun of the Soccer Canada spy scandal at the Olympics in sending a drone to spy on the team Bye bye.
Say “Bye bye” again
It might have been interesting if this espionage had been successful, if the creative teams spoke to each other or were gathered in high places. Because redundant means were used and several fairly minor subjects were treated both by Infoman than by the Bye bye.
This is the case with the use of the series The weapons to create comic springs. As for the interview with Réjean Tremblay and his partner by Denis Lévesque, it earned us a course on the extermination of iguanas in Florida at Dufort and a colorful sketch after midnight at Bye bye with Christine Beaulieu as Julie and impeccable Claude Legault as impassive Réjean.
The question of alpha males, just as commonly discussed, saw Bye bye the resurrection of Guys contract with Alexandre Champagne and Jonathan Roberge. On a related subject, the Bye bye did a sketch on “The Bear’s Choice” TikTok phenomenon from last spring (excellent surrealist treatment with an amused Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse).
On the other hand, when the Bye bye released the armada of a parody of Bettlejuice to also make fun of Geneviève Guilbault and the third link (geopolitical subjects, nothing; climate issues, nothing; social issues such as the enrichment of the rich and the impoverishment of the poor, nothing) we began to count the subjects uselessly recurring, not only from one show to another but also from one year to the next, like the reappearance of a Dave Morissette parody, this time as a joke women’s hockey. With this in mind, it was obvious that Guylaine Tremblay was going to reprise his character of Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge, in a rather funny sketch.
Nostalgia and advertising
With Bettlejuice, Guys Contractthe TV nostalgia aspect for creators diving back into their youth continued with Watatatow recycled into The Bedfords. Fortunately, because without that, the subject, like many others (for example, foreign interference) would not have been discussed. Not frowned upon, the line “No need for sex education classes, I learn everything from my DPJ educator”.
The use of Gilles Latulippe (brilliant Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais) to haunt the plaintiff demanding the closure of the adjacent eponymous theater was clever and logical. The sketch also brought to life Suzanne Lapointe, with whom Latulippe hosted The demons of the noon between 1987 and 1993.
The eclipse was treated in song with a parody of a tailgate party (festive event around a car trunk). Katherine Levac made a cameo while texting during the eclipse, a reference to the viral image captured during Justin Timberlake’s concert. This shows the eminent priorities that needed to be addressed in this crucial year 2024!
We nevertheless found some real good moments: a roulette sketch at the casino where, after winning by betting 1 dollar, François Legault and Pierre Fitzgibbon became bolder and placed 700 million on the Northvolt box. Delicious question from the dealer: “What is Northvolt?” » Answer: “I do you know? A company that makes batteries. They haven’t done anything yet. » Another question “What if it doesn’t work?” » “We’ll catch up on the third link, we’ll charge 1000 dollars per tank. » “But it won’t happen on the 3rde link ! » “That’s not Northvolt [notre faute] ».
It had a lot of punch, but the evening was not often of this level (weak brief statements by false Céline Galipeau and Sophie Thibault and parody of Chefs hardly more joyful), except in the parodies of advertisements: Bell’s fiber “the worst of the Internet even faster”, Boeing and, above all, Desjardins, mocked following the poster illustrating National Patriots’ Day with a flag of the Canada.
But it’s not because “Desjardins, I remember » was funny that we had to be served a sketch in the same vein twice. Irony: advertising is now integrated into Bye bye to the point where it was Coca Cola which paid the necessary tribute to Jean-Pierre Ferland!
“Times are tough” sang Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais in the opening number, in a pretty Canadian evening setting which set the tone for this all-out nostalgia: subtracting the nine minutes of “Happy New Year” wishes. THE Bye bye totals 67 minutes, commercials included. The 45 minutes of sketches (including credits) are the subject of a one-hour program where the creators film themselves giving birth to the thing. Given the half-baked results, would they not have now taken a tour of their compartmentalized world?
