Canada's Worst Handyman

• Main
• Trivia
• Crowners
  • Heartwarming
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

This page needs visual enhancement. You can help All The Tropes by finding a high-quality image or video to illustrate the topic of this page.

A Canadian Reality Show, Canada's Worst Handyman tries to rehabilitate the country's constructionaly challenged in much the same way as its sister program does for driving. This, involves sending candidates (usually nominated by their relatives) to a central location (referred to their "Handyman Rehabilitation Centre") to take classes on various techniques from professionals, and then (hopefully) applying their new-found skills to perform various DIY tasks in their designated room, all of these quests are aimed toward "refurbishing" their building into something, such as a bed and breakfast, dorm rooms, honeymoon suites, etc (which will invariably be labelled as "Canada's Worst ..."). There are also communal tasks (such as building a shed, or re-doing a kitchen), where the previous day's "most improved" serves as the foreman.

Unlike Canada's Worst Driver, there is no elimination; the five contestants stay for the entire season. Despite this, the most improved and worst people of the day are singled out at the end of each episode, the latter also has to hang their head in shame (in the Hall of Shame. With a nail. And a picture frame.) In the end, after final judgment, one person is ultimately crowned Canada's Worst Handyman. Your mileage may vary on whether this should be described as "winning" the show.

As with its sister, while the show is serious about trying to rehabilitate these unfortunate subjects, much of it is still Played for Laughs

The series started in 2006 and ran for 6 seasons on Discovery Channel Canada,.

---

Tropes used in Canada's Worst Handyman include:

• Bow Chicka Wow Wow: "A vibrating bed?!"
• Brick Joke: Season 2 had one, in a way. When plotting out their sheds (the frames were built for them), the contestants were told not to make their sheds be taller than a specific height. Of course, quite a few people did not Read the Freaking Manual, and did proceed to make their sheds be taller than the given limit. By the finale, most of the contestants realized why the height restrictions were put in place ... as most of them had to find various, ahem, "creative" ways to get their sheds out of the workshop after they realized that they were too tall to fit through the door.
• Clip Show: First two seasons ended with one, recapping the season, demolishing the apartment used (in Season 1), and delivering the ecosheds that were constructed and sold for charity (in season 2)
• Deadpan Snarker: Andrew, of course.

"Of course, water is known for pushing itself uphill all the time"

• Decided by One Vote: Even moreso than Driver, with only two experts, it almost always comes down to each giving their opinion, and Andrew being the tie breaker. If Andrew argues with one of the experts, and the other expert is the tie-breaker, it's probably because both experts agreed and the producers are playing up Rule of Drama by throwing in a Conflict Ball.
• Doom It Yourself: Of course, it wouldn't be a show about DIY gone wrong without ... well ... DIY going wrong.
• Duct Tape for Everything: Indeed, there has been at least one contestant who has had an addiction to falling back on duct tape whenever something goes wrong.
• No Ontological Inertia: Averted as it's Real Life, but several bad handymen learn the wet way that just because the main water line is turned off, that doesn't mean the water in the pipes goes away.
• Non Gameplay Elimination: Brian Pugh got thrown out of Season 4 after getting into a severe argument with fellow contestant Brian Macdonald. While the producers refused to reveal exactly what Brian P. said, it's believed that he made violent threats against Brian M., and possibly one or more of the other contestants. Many fans noted that Brian P. may actually have avoided being that season's "winner" thanks to the whole mess, since he failed every single challenge during his time on the show.
  • Later in the same season, it happened to Eric's partner -- the judges decided that Eric was spending too much time goofing around with his original partner, Marc, and so sent Marc home and brought in Eric's wife to replace him.
• Read the Freaking Instructions: This happens so much that "Read the instructions!" is pretty much the show's Catch Phrase! There are people who don't read then, people who only read a bit of them and give up, and people who mess up even with them.
• Take a Third Option: Occurs in various forms...
  • Is the common way of getting out of a situation you don't know how to get out of if. As usual, even this will end up not going so well.
  • On a more serious note, Season 5 had a very interesting way of dealing with Angelia's partner Matt during an episod. The turmoil he created (mainly surrounding a pact they made that she would quit doing such work if she was declared Canada's Worst Handyman) affected her performance, and as such, he was declared the day's worst "handyman" instead.
  • In Season 6, Dan managed to get named the most improved, and the worst of the day, at the same time!
    • Same with Johnny in season 4.
• The Silent Bob: Silent Keith (Season 5)