Mosquito Lake

Mosquito Lake was a short-lived Canadian television sitcom, which aired on CBC Television in the 1989–90 television season. The show, a family sitcom, starred comedian Mike MacDonald as Bob Harrison, the father of a family spending the summer in a dilapidated cottage on Mosquito Lake. The cast also included Mary Long as Bob's wife Rita; Tara Charendoff and Bradley Machry as their kids Tara and Brian; Dan Redican as George, Bob's friend from the neighbouring cottage; and Maria Vacratsis as Ramona, the owner of the lake's marina. The show was created by Paul K. Willis. Critical response Tony Atherton of the Ottawa Citizen wrote that "For the record, the show does have funny moments, some clever lines, and a cast that could be quite likeable. But the pluses are swept away like a floating dock in a bad storm under the barrage of moronic plots, clichéd characters and cheap sets." He compared the show to "Fred and Barney meet the kids from Growing Pains". Greg Quill of the Toronto Star also felt that the show had squandered its potential, opining that "the premise is fine – on paper. Cottage life, blustering American tourists, the call of the wild, the summer getaway are things Canadians understand all too well. And, in MacDonald and Redican, the series has a couple of potentially bright stars...so why constrain the talent here to scripts and situations so obviously derived from the American model, and adapted so poorly? For all its blather about being a Canadian show, Mosquito Lake could be set in Michigan or old Detroit or Southern California. If CBC is going to make the expensive leap into situation comedies, why can't it follow through with something original, or at least something funny?"