How Smoking Is Portrayed in Canadian TV Shows

In the world of *Letterkenny* — Jared Keeso’s rapid-fire, surreal comedy about a small farming town in Ontario — smoking is not merely present; it is ceremonial. The show’s hero, Wayne (Keeso), the self-proclaimed “toughest guy in Letterkenny,” has a pre-fight ritual that is as iconic as it is simple: “He pulls a swig of whiskey and hands off the bottle to a friend; he unbuttons his shirtsleeves, lights a cigarette, takes a puff, and flicks the rest away” [citation:9].

This single puff is a declaration. It signals readiness, masculinity, and a certain stoic coolness. The cigarette is not about addiction or even enjoyment in these moments — it is a prop in a ritual of dominance.

🚬 “Smoking Darts” — The Language of Tobacco

The show’s slang is a character in itself. In Letterkenny, cigarettes are almost always called “darts” [citation:8][citation:1]. The term is used casually and constantly. In a cold open from Season 11, Wayne, Daryl, and Squirrely Dan are “smoking darts and talking about the last time they truly enjoyed one” [citation:1]. Dary mentions savoring a cigarette the first time he had sex. The show doesn’t moralize about this; it simply observes it as part of small-town life. “They say it’s terrible for you, but why do they get to dictate what the hicks do with their lives?” the show seems to ask [citation:1].

🚬 The Skids and Cigarette Bootlegging

Not all smoking in Letterkenny is romanticized. The “Skids” — Stewart, Devon, and the rest — are the town’s goth/meth-head counterculture, portrayed as simultaneously pathetic and dangerous. In a key plotline, the Skids make a deal with the Native crew to buy cheap cigarettes (“a dime a dart”) for their own use, only to be caught reselling them for a profit (“a buck a dart”) [citation:5][citation:8]. This act of reselling cigarettes — an authentic small-town black market — leads to a massive brawl as the Natives seek revenge [citation:8]. Here, cigarettes are not a ritual but contraband, a symbol of the Skids’ untrustworthiness and shady dealings. Tanis, the leader of the Natives, is also shown chewing tobacco — another form of tobacco use that sets her apart and underscores her tough, no-nonsense persona [citation:5].

In stark contrast to the nicotine haze that occasionally drifts through Letterkenny, *Schitt’s Creek* is virtually a smoke-free zone. The Rose family — Johnny, Moira, David, and Alexis — navigate their fish-out-of-water existence in a small town without ever lighting up. The show’s creators built a world that is, by design, gentle, optimistic, and largely free from the grittier vices [citation:6].

IMDb’s parental guide notes “minimal smoking,” and multiple reviewers confirm that cigarettes are almost entirely absent [citation:2]. The only notable exception is in the Season 6 premiere, which is literally titled “Smoke Signals” [citation:6]. The title is a playful red herring; the episode involves a literal toaster fire, not cigarette smoke. This is telling: even the episode titled “Smoke” has nothing to do with tobacco. The show’s world is one where the harshness of smoking has been edited out entirely.

Why the difference? Schitt’s Creek exists in a slightly idealized universe. The humor comes from character and situation, not from the grit of small-town reality. Cigarettes simply don’t fit the aesthetic. The Roses have other vices (Moira’s wigs, David’s vanity, Johnny’s anxiety), but they are not smokers. This choice reflects the show’s overall ethos: kind, inclusive, and ultimately wholesome. Smoking, in the world of Schitt’s Creek, is neither wholesome nor kind.

📜 Letterkenny’s Authenticity

Letterkenny is committed to a certain kind of rural authenticity. It’s a show where people drink, fight, work the land, and yes, smoke darts. The creators are not endorsing smoking; they are depicting a subculture [citation:9]. As The New Yorker notes, the characters are “great-looking, have tons of free time, and are somewhere between twenty and thirty-five; they drink, fight, smoke, flirt, and occasionally screw” [citation:9]. Smoking is part of that package — a signifier of a particular lifestyle.

📜 Schitt’s Creek’s Optimism

Schitt’s Creek, in contrast, is deliberately optimistic and uplifting. Dan Levy, the show’s co-creator, built a world free from homophobia and, it seems, free from the harms of tobacco [citation:6]. The show’s humor is derived from character interaction and the absurdity of the Roses’ situation, not from the gritty realities of small-town life. A cigarette would feel out of place next to Moira’s wigs and David’s sweaters.

📜 Television Evolution

Both shows debuted in the mid-2010s, a period when on-screen smoking had already declined significantly from its mid-20th-century peak. However, Letterkenny’s choice to include smoking is a deliberate stylistic choice, while Schitt’s Creek’s choice to exclude it reflects a broader trend toward family-friendly, aspirational content on mainstream platforms like CBC and Pop TV.

📺 Beyond the Comedies: Crime Dramas and Smoking Tropes

The contrast between Letterkenny and Schitt’s Creek becomes even more interesting when you consider other Canadian television. In crime dramas, smoking is often used as a shorthand for toughness, world-weariness, or moral ambiguity.

• The Bridge (2010): A Canadian cop drama where “the officers frequently drink (beer, hard liquor) after hours” and drugs and drug gangs are central to the plot [citation:3]. The show is described as “milder than its U.S. counterparts,” but smoking still serves as a trope for the grittiness of police work.
• General Trope: In many Canadian productions, smoking is used to signal a character is troubled, rebellious, or carries the weight of the world. It’s a visual shorthand that transcends genre [citation:7].

Letterkenny subverts this slightly — Wayne’s pre-fight cigarette is not about emotional turmoil; it’s about cold, hard ritual. It’s about control, not anxiety.