Hatching, Matching and Dispatching was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 television sitcom

Situation comedy

A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 series. The CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

 show starred Mary Walsh as Mamie Lou Furey, the matriarch of a family in Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...

 who own a combination ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

, wedding

Wedding

A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...

 and funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

 business. The remaining cast included Shaun Majumder

Shaun Majumder

-Life and career:Majumder was born in Burlington, Newfoundland and Labrador to a European descended mother from Newfoundland and an Indian father. He started his entertainment career as an announcer for the YTV game show CLIPS, and soon was hosting the network's popular morning kids show Brain...

, Mark McKinney

Mark McKinney

Mark Douglas Brown McKinney is a Canadian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. Following the run of their television series and feature film , he went on to star in Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 1997...

, Rick Boland, Joel Thomas Hynes

Joel Thomas Hynes

Joel Thomas Hynes is a Canadian writer and performer. He is usually credited as Joel Hynes when acting, but as Joel Thomas Hynes on book covers....

, Jonny Harris and Susan Kent. Hynes and Walsh were also writers for the series, along with Sherry White, Ed Macdonald and Adriana Maggs.

The series pilot aired January 17, 2005 as one of three CBC sitcom prototypes which included Getting Along Famously

Getting Along Famously

Getting Along Famously is a Canadian sitcom which aired on CBC Television in 2006.Set in the early 1960s, Getting Along Famously features Robin Duke, Bob Martin and Patrick McKenna as real-life couple Colin Mochrie and Debra McGrath....

and Walter Ego

Walter Ego

Walter Ego was a Canadian television sitcom pilot, which aired on CBC Television on January 3, 2005.The show starred Peter Keleghan as cartoonist Walter Davis, whose friends and family often provide fodder for his successful comic strip...

. The CBC employed a viewer response poll to gauge interest in these pilots, a technique previously employed with the shows Rideau Hall

Rideau Hall (TV series)

Rideau Hall is a Canadian television series broadcast begun in 2002 on CBC Television. It starred Bette MacDonald, Fiona Reid, Jonathan Torrens, Joe Dinicol, and Rejean Cournoyer....

and An American in Canada

An American in Canada

An American in Canada is a Canadian television sitcom that aired on CBC.The show starred Rick Roberts as Jake Crewe, an American television news host who was forced, after beating up his station manager, to accept a job in Calgary, Alberta as the host of the lowest-rated morning news program in the...

.

Hatching, Matching and Dispatching began shooting its first season of six episodes on July 18, 2005 and began airing as a regular series on January 6, 2006 with six episodes, following a rebroadcast of the original pilot on December 30, 2005. The episodes were repeated from July 18 to August 22, 2006. The CBC subsequently announced the cancellation of the series after its sole season.

The show's title — and a basic summary of its premise — had previously appeared as a one-time gag in a "Wake of the Week" sketch on CODCO

CODCO

CODCO was a Canadian comedy troupe from Newfoundland, best known for a sketch comedy series which aired on CBC Television from 1987 to 1992....

.