Canada, ‘we’re your new family’: Andrew Phung’s ‘Run the Burbs’ picks up the baton from ‘Kim’s Convenience’

Andrew Phung is standing in the middle of the perfect metaphor for what he’s bringing to Canadian television.

Inside a nondescript, warehouselike building in Scarborough is what used to be a diner on the Global TV series “Private Eyes.” Phung’s crew has turned it into a bubble tea cafe called Bubble Bae.

“That was like an epiphany one day,” said Phung, leading a tour of the set of his new CBC comedy “Run the Burbs” in early November. “Every TV show has a diner, a coffee shop, something. No place is a bubble tea place.”

He pictured a diner owned by a Chinese family, taken over by their daughter and converted into a purveyor of the ubiquitous drink that originated in Taiwan.

Like that daughter building on what her immigrant parents began, “Run the Burbs” is something of an heir apparent to Phung’s previous show, the acclaimed CBC comedy “Kim’s Convenience,” which ended in April after five seasons.

That series was about a couple who emigrated from South Korea and opened a convenience store in Toronto. Phung played popular character Kimchee, co-worker and roommate of the Kims’ adult son.

“I came from a show that was literally about the immigrant story,” Phung said, “but what is now missing is what happens to those children of immigrants when they have kids.”

Phung, 37, knows of what he speaks. He was born in Calgary to Vietnamese immigrants and now he’s raising children of his own, four- and seven-year-old sons, in Toronto.

In “Run the Burbs,” he’s Andrew Pham, a Vietnamese-Canadian, suburban, stay-at-home father to 14-year-old Khia, played by Zoriah Wong (“Nancy Drew”), and 10-year-old Leo, played by Roman Pesino, an actor and Raptors Lil Ballas dance team member. Wife Camille, played by Rakhee Morzaria, is of Indian descent and works in human resources with a sideline as an Insta-chef. To add another layer of diversity, Khia is queer.

“I wanted to tell a story of a very Canadian family that isn’t being told right now,” Phung said.

And he’s expanding on the kind of representation that was seen as groundbreaking when “Kim’s Convenience” debuted in 2016.

“I’m genuinely excited because I think (viewers are) gonna love it,” he said. “They connected to the Kims. I think they’ll connect to the Phams. Yeah, we’re your new family.”

“Kim’s Convenience” wasn’t the only reference point for Phung and his best friend and co-creator Scott Townend, also 37.

Emmy darling “Ted Lasso” comes up because of its positivity. (The shows have something else in common: like Brett Goldstein, a.k.a. Roy Kent on “Lasso,” Morzaria was a writer on “Burbs” before joining the cast.)

Phung mentions sitcoms he grew up watching like “Family Matters,” “Full House” and “Home Improvement,” and even the Griswolds of “National Lampoon’s Vacation” fame.

The point is that the Phams love each other and they make the most out of everyday life.

“There’s struggles, but you get to see this family thriving, and the parents being good parents and being good to each other,” Townend said, sitting with Phung in the Phams’ rec room.

“We never wanted it to be ‘ball and chain’ … It was always they’re in this together and they’re taking on the world together, much like Andrew and his actual wife.”

Phung drew on his own experience “of being a cheesy parent, of wanting to go on vacations, wanting to have matching T-shirts, wanting to play board games together.”

In a reversal of typical sitcom gender roles, Andrew is the parent trying to hold back tears as he puts Leo on the bus for sleep-away camp; Camille is the one who takes part in a street race with a tough guy from a local car club.

“Camille, like, she’s bold. She’s like a badass,” said Morzaria in a video interview.

Townend and Phung forged their own bond making sketch comedy videos in Calgary in 2006 and ’07, while Townend was attending film school there and Phung was doing improv with Loose Moose Theatre.

Back then, they honed their skills in the city’s 48 Hour Film Challenge, which as the title suggests gives participants just 48 hours to produce short films. In some ways, making “Burbs” has been almost as much of a whirlwind.

Phung and Townend developed the show in December 2019, pitched it to production companies in January 2020 and, by that December, had delivered a pilot and a second episode to CBC.

Trust me when I say this is a very fast turnaround for a TV show.

By March 2021, CBC had picked up the series for broadcast.

The day I visited the set, they were on the second to last day of 48 days of shooting.

(And yes, COVID-19 precautions were strictly enforced, including taking a COVID test beforehand, a screening questionnaire upon arrival and wearing a KN95 mask at all times.)

“From April onward, we’ve been working all day, every day, non-stop,” said Phung. “It’s been a crash course in making TV,” as well as the hardest thing he says he’s ever done.

But “this has been our dream since we first met, like this idea that two Alberta kids could have their own TV show.”

One gets the sense that who Phung is as a person had as much to do with getting “Run the Burbs” made as who he is as an actor and writer.

Laszlo Barna, founder of Pier 21 Films, which is producing the series, first worked with Phung on “The Beaverton” in 2016. He described Phung as “a fresh voice, immense comedic talent, great writer, very mature, one of the nicest people that I have ever worked with.”

During the pitch meeting for “Burbs,” Barna walked into the room and said, “Whatever it is, we’ll buy it,” Phung recalled.

He had already received encouragement in 2019 from another Pier 21 executive, Bill Lundy, who told Phung unequivocally when he ran into him in Montreal that he wanted to produce “an Andrew Phung project.” (Coincidentally, Morzaria was also in Montreal for work and was sitting next to Phung when he talked to Lundy, a bit of serendipity that Phung says gives him goosebumps.)

Phung also cites the CBC as one of his champions, ever since “Kim’s” creator Ins Choi spotted Phung at the 2016 Edmonton Fringe Festival and offered him an audition.

And then there’s his “amazing team” on “Burbs”: Townend, who directed as well as wrote and executive produced; showrunner Shebli Zarghami; consulting producer Aleysa Young; the cast, of whom Phung says, “I’m so proud”; the “talented” crew; the Vietnamese and Indian consultants who ensured they were getting cultural details right, such as making sure there was a steamer tray in the Phams’ kitchen.

He’s even grateful for the actors who tried out and didn’t get parts, saying he wants them to know, “You, as a performer, are so talented. Please continue to audition.”

Wong said Phung taught her a lot about working on a set, comic beats and other elements of the job, and always took the time to talk to her and Pesino “even though he had a really, really busy day.”

“He’s doing like 10 jobs on the show,” said Townend.

Phung’s attention to detail extended to helping come up with fake names for the dozens of DVD cases and posters in the movie-loving Phams’ rec room.

On top of that, Townend added, Phung “sets this atmosphere on set every time he comes in, when the actors get there and the crew gets there, and it’s a positive experience because he’s bringing that.”

“Thank you,” Phung told his friend. “You know, I got to work with Paul Sun-Hyung Lee on ‘Kim’s.’ That guy taught me how to be No. 1 on a call sheet because that guy led the way.

“I go back to what I said earlier about being so, so honoured about this opportunity,” Phung added.

Part of that is being aware that Canada’s TV industry isn’t overrun with Asian artists creating and starring in their own shows.

“I never want to make it about a race thing at all because I don’t want to lead on that but, like, you don’t have many Asian producers in Canada so I’m aware of how special this opportunity is. So I just don’t want to fail. I don’t want to let anybody down.”

While it’s true that Canadians often ignore Canadian-made TV — at least until Americans tell them it’s good — Phung thinks they’re willing to give comedies a chance.

“I feel like Canada is the place to be for this sort of thing right now,” said Townend.

Besides, Barna figures there’s an appetite for “anything that gives a positive spin in our lives. We were locked up like animals for two years. We’re hanging on by the thread of our vaccines. Here comes someone who sees the beauty in daily life.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo