Trailer Park Boys Revisited

I reviewed this show eight years ago, back in 2011, after having seen two seasons.  At that time they were up to seven seasons and two movies.  It began in 2001 with season 1.

Now it’s 12 live action seasons; one animated season; two special 8 episode seasons (Europe & USA); three movies; and three live specials.   It seems the show was originally cancelled after season seven (2007) and picked up again for seasons 8 (2014) through 12 (2018), then the animated series. 

Out-of-the-Park Europe had the trio start in England and work its way across Europe performing tasks (e.g. walk across Abbey Road, sample the drug district of Copenhagen without doing any drugs) which were really set up for them to fail.  Then they picked up again in the US with a similar set-up.  “Beat this guy at basketball” – who turns out to be Dennis Rodman.  “Out smoke this guy in weed”, and the opponent turns out to be Tommy Chong.  You get the idea.

It’s similar to Beavis & Butt-head (Beavis asking about Black Sabbath, “are these guys American?” Butt-head: “No, they’re from Seattle”) in that while most of the characters are stupid, the humor itself is very clever.  However, I find it’s something I can tolerate in small doses.  The live specials are my least favorite, but they are entertaining and have some good audience participation. 

Basic Premise.  A trailer park in Darmouth, Nova Scotia pays host to a trio of dysfunctional Canadian rednecks, Ricky (Rob Wells), Julian (Jean-Paul Tremblay), and Bubbles (Mike Smith).  Ricky is easily the most arrogant and maladjusted, one of these guys who constantly misquotes words – like Bush Jr. and Trump – and throws his weight around, blaming everyone else for his own mistakes.  Julian is always with a rum and coke in his hand, having some elaborate but dishonest scheme hatched up which usually gets them back in jail by the end of the season.  Bubbles lives in a storage shed with cats and rustles shopping carts.  The trailer park supervisor, Lahey (Dunsworth) is a drunk, his assistant Randy (Pat Roach) loves cheeseburgers and never wears a shirt despite a huge pot belly, and a variety of other characters (J-Roc, Cyrus, Barbara) come and go. 

As the show progressed through the seasons more celebrities graced the show with their presence.  Canadian band Rush, guitarist Alex Lifeson in particular, are big fans, and Lifeson himself shows up multiple times.   In the Dublin special the group did a video of “Closer to the Heart”, with Bubbles as Alex, Julian as Neil, and Ricky as Geddy Lee (who he refers to as “Freddy”), which wins them a trip to Ireland on Rush’ private plane to catch a Rush concert there.  But toking on the plane gets them arrested and they plead out – the judge himself is a fan of the show – by doing a comedy special for charity.  Other celebrities are Sebastian Bach, Tom Arnold, Snoop Dogg, and in the final episode of the animated series, Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age. 

Back in the early 70s, after the original series of Star Trek was cancelled, they did an animated series.  A big advantage of animation is that you’re no longer limited to humanoid aliens, and what happens is only limited by the animators’ imagination.  Likewise, the animated TPB series gives us the guys as boys, a mission to outer space, a hurricane, and finally meeting up with QOTSA.  

From seasons three onward the trio remains the same:  Ricky, Julian and Bubbles.   Lahey remains drunk, Randy never wears a shirt, and various other characters come and go.  It’s not something I could binge watch all thirteen seasons, three movies, three specials, and two miniseries, but I’m glad I kept up with it.

The Drunk & On Drugs Happy Funtime Hour.   A six episode miniseries in which Wells, Tremblay and Smith portray different sets of trios – none of them being the Trailer Park Boys themselves.   John Dunsworth (Lahey) and Pat Roach (Randy) are also in here.  The plot is borderline incoherent and involves some time/space shifting into WWII.  To say it gets confusing is an understatement, so it’s best reserved for those with, as I like to call it, “high tolerance for weird s**t”.  

Trailer Park Boys

More TV!  Yes, I’m inspired yet again, and by yet another “mockumentary” show.  This is a Canadian show (eh) about three very low class Canadian males: Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles.  There have been 10 seasons (season 11 approved) and three full-length movies, of which I’ve seen seasons 1- 6, the three movies, and the European series (8 episodes).  The show takes place in a trailer park in Nova Scotia, Canada.  The Canadian flag is fairly prominent in many scenes.

 Ricky is kind of stout, has a poofed up hairdo, huge sideburns and a semi-goatee, usually wearing flashy but trashy clothes.  He’s usually either smoking or toking or drinking and almost always up to no good.  Ricky is a brash, arrogant fast-talker who blames everyone else for his problems.  I’ve yet to see him take responsibility for anything.  His brief bits of normalcy were mall security cop (butting heads with Bubbles over shopping cart theft) and completing the 10^th grade.  Jail is a very real possibility for him, and he’s no stranger to the orange jumpsuit.  When he’s not in jail he’s usually living in Julian’s old car, a full-size American car missing the front passenger door.  His romance with Lucy was broken up by jail the first time – arrested at his own wedding – and later he hooked up with her former roommate, Sarah.

 Julian is more well-adjusted, but he’s simply hiding a more devious criminal mind behind a mask of complacent conformity.  He usually wears a plain black t-shirt, has well-groomed black hair and goatee, and is rarely seen without a glass tumbler of rum & coke in his hand (even while driving).  I’d say he’s the most likable of the three.  By the end of the first season he’s scored a 1976 Pontiac Firebird as his ride, with a matt maroon finish, black interior, Rally II wheels, and aluminum dash.  By season 6 he's driving a mid-80s Monte Carlo.

 Bubbles is just plain…weird.  He wears Coke bottle glasses which magnify his beady eyes, mumbles, swears, lives with cats, and hustles shopping carts – steals them from one chain, fixes them, and then sells them to the competing chain.  He reminds me of Milton from “Office Space”.

 Trevor & Cory.  This pair are always up to no good, and are easily the dumbest crooks in the park. Cory has dreadlocks, Trevor just has longish hair.  Usually they act as incompetent backups to RJB’s plans.  They idolize Ricky and Julian, who in turn abuse them and constantly bum cigarettes from them.

 Lahey & Randy.  Lahey is the unpopular and rarely sober Park Supervisor, a failed ex-cop with a chip on his shoulder.  He’s the consistent nemesis of Ricky and Julian, vowing to put an end to their criminal exploits – if he can emerge from a drunken stupor long enough to do anything.  His assistant, Randy, is a chunky doofus who never wears a shirt.  (All the episodes take place in warm weather – what does Randy do during the winter?).  Despite the conflicts with Lahey, there is a “devil you know” deal with him, so when Sam Losco tries to get elected park supervisor, the boys rally behind Lahey to clean him up and discredit and defeat Losco.  

 J-Roc and T.  T is a black guy who teams up with J-Roc, who is white but talks and dresses like a rapper.  Every other sentence from J-Roc is “knowwhatI’msayin’?”  Unlike Trevor and Cory, J-Roc usually brings the goods, so to speak.  He tends to be Ricky and Julian’s go-to guy for nefarious deeds, be it setting up a nightclub in the trailer, getting Julian his Firebird, or framing Sam Losco in an amateur porn film to shoot down his engagement to Lahey’s ex-wife (who actually owns the trailer park).  Although he’s partners with T, T has practically no lines and doesn’t seem to do anything.   

 Ellen Page shows up in Season 2 as Lahey’s daughter Treena.  Although she was about 14 at the time, she looks more like 10.  Even today she still looks like a teenager.

Alex Lifeson is in TWO episodes: first as himself when Bubbles tries to get Rush tickets and Ricky ends up kidnapping him - so Alex is wearing HIS clothes; then in a later episode he plays a local vice squad cop in drag, but I recognized him anyway.  

 For years I have never thought there was a “Canadian” accent, per se.  To my ears, most English-speaking Canadians speak with what I would consider a normal “American” accent.  But here I hear a few items:  the word “about” pronounced “aboot”, and “Car” consistently pronounced “cah” (like in New England).   But none of these guys sound like Kennedys.