Trailer Park Boys

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This article is about the television series. For the 2006 movie, see Trailer Park Boys: The Movie. For the pilot film from 1999, see The Trailer Park Boys.
Trailer Park Boys
Genre Mockumentary
Creator(s) Mike Clattenburg
Starring See List of characters
Country of origin Flag of Canada Canada
No. of episodes 45 (plus one special) (as of May 21, 2006)
Production
Running time 22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel Showcase
Original run April 22, 2001 – present

Trailer Park Boys is a popular Canadian mockumentary television series focusing on the misadventures of ex-convicts living in fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park, which is located near Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. It premiered in April 2001. The show's creator and director is Mike Clattenburg.

Shot COPS-style (cameraman's point of view), the low-budget program became something of a rarity in English Canada: a homegrown phenomenon. Characters, particularly "Bubbles", appear on novelty tee-shirts, the show's lead trio toured with Our Lady Peace, while currently they're on tour with Guns N' Roses, where you can see Bubbles sing his song "Liquor and Whores". They've also appeared in music videos with The Tragically Hip, while Bubbles has appeared with George Canyon and Snow, and they have been presenters at numerous award shows - always in character. Several famous artists appear on the show, such as Alex Lifeson from Rush in Closer to the Heart and singer Rita MacNeil in the season four finale Working Man.

The show has been a great success for the cable network Showcase, where it is the network's highest rated Canadian series. It airs in the United Kingdom and Spain on Paramount Comedy, in the Republic of Ireland on Channel 6 , in Iceland on Skjáreinn, in Australia on the Comedy Channel, in New Zealand on TV 2, in Israel on Xtra HOT, in the Netherlands on MTV Netherlands, in Denmark on DR2, in Portugal on SIC Radical, in Germany on Comedy Central Germany, and in Finland on Nelonen. In the United States, BBC America formerly aired a censored version of the show, but it is no longer part of their lineup.

According to an advertisement (viewed on March 27, 2007) on Showcase, season 7 will begin on April 8, 2007.

Contents

[edit] Background

The show was preceded by three films by Mike Clattenburg; the short films "The Cart Boy"[1] (1995) and "One Last Shot"[2] (1998), and the movie "Trailer Park Boys"[3] (1999). "The Cart Boy" introduced the character that became known as Bubbles. In this version, the character was known as Darren, Ricky was a security guard, and Julian was originally called Jason. The 1999 movie, which was around 70 minutes in length, can be described as a pilot to the series. Julian and Ricky were introduced as a pair who earned money from the community killing dogs, cats and other pets who naggled the neighbours. Other characters later known from the show were included; the not-so-bright duo Corey and Trevor, Ricky's girlfriend Lucy and their daughter Trinity. The actor playing Randy was also in the pilot, but as another character – a guy with a dog (and actually wearing a shirt (!)). Characters like Bubbles, Mr. Lahey and Sarah did not appear however. At the end of the film Julian and Ricky are arrested and sentenced to jail terms after a shootout session. At the start of season 1 of the show they are released after serving this sentence, and flashbacks from the shootout scenes are being shown in connection to this.

The show was filmed in real trailer parks in the Halifax area. During the first season, they shot at a park in Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia. The second season was shot at a park in Dartmouth, third season at a park in Timberlea and the fourth season at a park outside Dartmouth. Since then, the show (including the Christmas special and feature film), has been filmed at a closed set in Cole Harbour. Mike Smith (Bubbles), a musician formerly of the band Sandbox, was the sound man during the pilot movie and season 1, but became a full time actor when Bubbles became more popular during the second season. Barrie Dunn (who is a producer on the show and plays Ray, Ricky's sometimes wheelchair-bound dad), saw the original production at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax and thought it would be great on television. Showcase agreed to air the show and the rest is history.

[edit] Basic Story Outline

The show starts off in typical fashion: Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles scheme several plans inside their home, Sunnyvale Trailer Park, to get rich and retire from crime, as well as settle down with their relatives. Along the way, they face obstacles in the forms of scatological park supervisor Jim Lahey and his shirtless assistant supervisor/lover Randy, two dimwitted elementary school dropouts named Cory and Trevor, and the poor police officers who have to respond to the antics that occur in the park. They receive both help and hindrances from allies such as white rapper J-ROC and his homies, The Rock Pile, Ricky's sometimes wheelchair-bound dad Ray, Ricky's demanding (and surgically-enhanced) girlfriend Lucy, and Sarah, Lucy's best friend and probably the smartest person in the park. In the end, however, their capers always end poorly, robberies become botched, dope-selling schemes get ruined, and each season usually ends with some all, or none back in jail, planning to succeed next time.

Other episodes that do not follow this format tend to consist of the boys' personal problems, such as Bubbles' toothache and subsequent hypnotizing-of by Conky, his adopting of a wild animal, the annual trailer park fun day in The Green Bastard, etc. Often, the shows revolve around Lahey and Randy whose sole objectives, when they're not drinking, are to evict the boys, put them in jail, and drink some more liquor. The 1997 Christmas Special dealt with origins of the characters and how they came to be: how Jamie became J-Roc, the break-up of Lahey and Barb, Randy coming to live with Lahey, and what really happened to Bubbles' parents.

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of characters in Trailer Park Boys

From the pilot film and into the first season, the main characters of the show have been Julian, played by John Paul Tremblay, and Ricky, played by Robb Wells. Beginning in the second season Bubbles, played by Mike Smith, joined Ricky and Julian as a main protagonist. The antagonists Mr. Lahey, played by John Dunsworth, and Randy, played by Patrick Roach, are also major characters.

The main cast is joined by a large supporting cast and there have been several celebrity cameos such as Rita MacNeil and Alex Lifeson.

[edit] Money-making schemes

Over the seasons the Boys have undertaken many schemes to make money and get rich. Their goal in Season 2 is "Freedom 35," a plan to have enough money to retire by age 35. These schemes inevitably fail due to their own stupidity, Cory and Trevor, violence, or interference by Mr. Lahey, Randy and/or the police.

  • Throughout the series, Bubbles throws shopping carts down a steep hill at the mall, retrieves them later, repairs them and sells them back to the stores for $18. He reasons that it isn't theft because most of the money goes back into the malls in order to buy cat food. Lahey and Randy do not interfere in this enterprise, but in Season 5, Bubbles was given a hard time by Gary the Head Mall Cop, which hurt his feelings and made him cry.
  • Running an illegal nightclub in J-Roc's mom's trailer. Cory and Trevor passed out leaflets in a bar called The Empty Closet and attracted a gay all-male crowd. Cory and Trevor go home with some "ladies" that they picked up at the nightclub, but later they learn that they are in fact not "ladies". It was forced to be shut down by Lahey, Randy, and the police, but Randy, who wanted the credit for stopping it, allowed them to keep all the money they made.
  • Stealing people's groceries from Sobeys and Superstore, right off the parcel-pick up line and re-selling them back at the trailer park for money and booze.
  • Filming and distributing J-Roc's homemade porno movies. Such films include "From Russia With The Lovebone", "The Bare Pimp Project", and "J-Roc's Greasy Trailer Park Girls Gone Wild!" Ricky and Bubbles both got to star in the former two, while the third film was canceled following a trailer park breakdown by the police.
  • Reselling stolen gasoline, which was siphoned out of the cars of unsuspecting citizens. Ricky states that "regular tastes tangy, supreme tastes sour and diesel tastes pretty good." Plan fails when the police arrive, they blame it on Corey and Trevor, who are sentenced to 450 hours of community service. Since they were on oxygen tanks after drinking gasoline, they were unable to defend themselves.
  • Organizing a spring fair in the park, complete with a wrestling ring and Bubbles as his wrestler "The Green Bastard." This comes into idea after Ricky gains control of the park as supervisor, but it fails when Randy and Lahey stop the event and Ricky, losing his temper, flips some cars with a front end loader.
  • Staging a rap concert in the trailer park, with J-Roc and his homies as the main entertainment. It was a success that attracted nearly three hundred, until rapper DVS shows up (called DVD by Ricky) and pulls a gun out.
  • Growing weed in an abandoned trailer, then later in Bubbles' tool shed. The plan fails when Bubbles' tool shed burns down and destroys the crop.
  • Ricky and Julian grow weed in 4 fields and plan to sell it to dealers in Moncton. They attempt to disguise their scheme by stealing a propane truck, fixing it with old license plates, emptying the propane out and selling it for money then packing in the weed.
  • Ricky using kids to help them steal barbecues in an attempt to resell them, as minors are protected under the young offenders act. The plan fails when one of the kids' parents, who happens to be a police officer, catches them trying to hide the barbecues in the lake.
  • Stealing Christmas gifts from cars in the mall parking lot and re-selling them in front of the church on Christmas Eve. Ricky, Julian, Bubbles, J-Roc, Tyrone, and Cory and Trevor get past the mall security guards by wrapping up the crowbars, used to pry open car trunks, like giant decorative candy canes.
  • Running a prostitution ring in Julian's tinfoil covered trailer in the outskirts of the park, complete with furnishings stolen from a local motel and a government building. Half of the furniture is wrecked, because they used a garbage truck to steal the furniture, because Trevor accidentally switches on the compactor. Despite the fact that Cyrus breaks up the event, J-Roc takes the rap for the boys, leaving them to collect $400 bucks.
  • Ricky having Trevor bring barbecues or lawn furniture to the front of the house (where garbage would be picked up), then Ricky himself approaches, loudly proclaims the newly-placed items to be trash, then loads them into his car. That way, according to Ricky, it is not stealing, since it's garbage (when it's at the side of the road) and he's doing a favour to the people who don't want it anymore.
  • Julian's plan of stealing many gumball machines, removing the quarters and playing as many Video Lottery Terminal(VLT's) as possible. After that they collect the payout slips, get them photocopied and drive from one corner store to another cashing the fraudulent tickets throughout the year.

Despite these failures, the boys have made some successful ventures into making money. Bubbles recently made a legitimate business in his tool shed called "The Kittyland Love Centre," a daycare/spa/amusement park for cats. It has scratching posts, litter boxes, plenty of food, and, of course, Bubbles as the daycare's owner and sole employee. Cory and Trevor have opened up a convenience store (which they spell "convenients store") at the park where they sell gum, single cigarettes, corn chips, popcorn, chicken chips, and illegal DVDs and Doritos, much to Ricky's delight.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Trailer Park Boys episodes

To date, there have been six seasons of Trailer Park Boys broadcast, making a total of 46 episodes (including the 2004 Christmas Special). Season 7 of Trailer Park Boys is due to begin screening on 8 April 2007 on Showcase. The first episode will be available to be streamed on April 2 on Showcase's website. Thereafter, episodes will be available to be streamed the day after they screen on television.

[edit] The Movie

Main article: Trailer Park Boys: The Movie

The second Trailer Park Boys movie to be produced (The first being the original black and white production that sparked the series), Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (Tagline: Greasiest movie of the year) was released on October 6th, 2006, and distributed by Alliance Atlantis. Ivan Reitman is a producer of the project. Mike Clattenburg directed. The Big Dirty was nominated for a Genie (Canadian version of the Oscars) for best picture of the year, but did not win.

[edit] DVD releases

DVD cover Season Episodes Originally aired DVD release date (R1)
1 6 2001 April 2003
2 7 2002
3 8 2003 April 6, 2004
4 9 2004 April 12, 2005
5 10 2005 April 25, 2006
6 6 2006 May 8, 2007

[1]

[edit] Trivia

  • A trademark of Trailer Park Boys is the fact that the actors portraying Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles are never seen out of character, even in behind-the-scenes montages. Even at public events the actors remain in character. The only exceptions to this are the commentary tracks for the Season 4 DVD and the DVD blooper reels. The three have also done an interview with 100.3FM "The Bear", a radio station in Edmonton Alberta, while they were out of character talking about the release of the movie.
  • The unseen character of Donny (referred to as Danny by Ricky) who frequently screams, "WHAT IN THE FUCK?!", is actually Mike Smith, who plays Bubbles on screen.
  • One of the trademarks that hasn't been seen in recent episodes is interaction with the film crew and cameraman. Shakey, "documentary"-like shots have all but disappeared.
  • The series uses heavy ad-libbing to add realism. Most of the characters share the same names with the people that portray them. This perhaps gives a little bit more of a personal, emotional performance from them.
  • Mike Clattenburg and Mike Smith (Bubbles) are both fans of Rita MacNeil and were happy to have her cameo in "Working Man". Indeed, Bubbles shows that he is a fan as well.
  • Between Season 4 and Season 5, the salary for Assistant Trailer Park supervisor changed from $4,600 to $5,200 a year.
  • The show was offered to be developed in the US, but the creators wanted to keep the content strictly Canadian, and not have to censor the frequent swearing.
  • The show has some interesting intellectual moments: Bubbles quotes Plato when Julian consults him for advice on what to do about Lucy's crush on him; Ray enters into an impromptu discussion with the camera crew about Calvinism; Mr. Lahey (mis)quotes from the play Julius Caesar when Randy betrays him; Ricky makes an interesting reference to George Orwell's Animal Farm being about "deep shit" in Season 2 when trying to finish his Grade 10.
  • The final episode of Season 6 marks the first time that absolutely no one has gone to jail before the beginning of the next season. It is also speculated as a series finale by some, but John Dunsworth has stated that there will be a season seven next year. Mike Clattenburg also stated in the movie The Big Dirty that they have finished filming Season 7 . Filming began for the Seventh Season on July 10th, 2006.
  • The music played during the credits is an original composition by Blain Morris. The song was originally titled "Breeze" but is now called "Trailer Park Boys Theme"
  • In an episode in the second season where Mr. Lahey and Sam are running for elections of park supervisor, there is a reference to the Martin Scorsese movie Taxi Driver when a character that greatly resembles Robert de Niro's Travis Bickle is seen in the crowd as Sam is giving his speech.
  • In early seasons, J-Roc's gang, the RocPile, was comprised of a variety of people throughout the trailer park. Some of which were even caucasian like J-Roc himself. Lately, the RocPile has only been comprised of only J-Roc, Detroit Velvet Smooth or D.V.S. (an accomplished rapper who at first was insulted of J-Roc sampling his tunes on his mix record, ending up forgiving him and managing his rapping career), and J-Roc's best friend Tyrone.
  • Most of the antics Ricky does, or partakes in, he usually says its "No big deal."
  • In the first episode, Jim Lahey says, "I don't usually like to do this, but I'm going to call the cops." He then tells Randy to "put your shirt on and shut up" when he begins to protest.
  • Actor Robb Wells (Ricky) performs many of his own stunts, including dangerous driving stunts. In episode #25 "The Green Bastard" he was actually a few inches away from driving the front end loader into a ditch.
  • The "Shitmobile" (a 1975 Chrysler New Yorker) driven by Ricky, is owned by director Mike Clattenburg, and Mr. Lahey's car (a 1977 Chrysler New Yorker) is actually owned by Robb Wells (Ricky). According to the DVD commentary of Seasons 1 and 2, Robb Wells broke the door off of the Shitmobile during filming of Season 1, and Clattenburg states "I'll do something to his car". Later in the series, Lahey drives around his old car, but with the roof sawed off. There are actually two 1975 models used. The second was introduced in the Christmas Episode (which takes place in 1997) where Julian gives it to Ricky as a getting out of jail present. This eventually shows how the car got to its current state.
  • The Trailer Park Boys hosted "The Bear's 13th Halloween Howler" and are scheduled to host the 14th as well. "The Bear" is an Edmonton radio station "CFBR-FM" that plays rock music. It is a huge party full of crazy (and often sexy) costumes and drunken mayhem.
  • When DVS first shows up in the episode of Microphone Assasin, Ricky accidently calls him DVD. When DVS corrects him, Ricky appears a bit confused.
  • The actress Sarah Dunsworth (Sarah) is the daughter of John Dunsworth (Jim Lahey).
  • Jim Lahey constantly refers to Julian as sexy and has a secret crush on him.
  • In the recent novel "Variable Star" by Spider Robinson is a pair of recidivist Transportees aboard an interstellar ship named "Richie and Jules" who attempt to get the protagonist to help them grow poppies. Jules carries a dark drink at all times and they attempt to pass themselves off as "Corey Trevor and Jay Rock". Their counsel at the court case is "Lahey".
  • Cory and Trevor (Played by Cory Bowles and Michael Jackson respectively) have both retired from the show and will not appear in the 7th season. It is unknown at this time how the story about their absence will unfold.
  • J-Roc impregnated two different women in the 6th season. It is unknown at this time how this will unfold or how much his character will be involved in the show.
  • Jim Lahey will often refer to Randy as "Bo-Bandy". He only does this however, while inebriated. Some websites even state this is infact Randy's real last name.
  • In the third season episode "The Delusions of Officer Jim Lahey", Jim Lahey states it is the anniversary of the day he got kicked off the force. Later that day, when he puts his uniform on, Bubbles states that "its not Halloween yet". In the sixth season episode "Halloween 1977", it is revealed that the incident that got him fired actually occurred during Halloween.
  • In the second season episode "The Bare Pimp Project," one of the books Ricky is using to "study" for his Grade 10 is a Fodor's guide to Amsterdam, a city infamous for common recreational drug use.
  • Lucy's breasts at least did appear to grow in size between seasons. Whether or not the actress who portrays her actually had augmentation surgery is unknown.
  • It is unknown at this time if Treena, Jim and Barb Lahey's daughter, will make a return in any of the further seasons.

[edit] East Coast Music Awards

The Trailer Park Boys hosted the 2006 East Coast Music Awards as Ricky, Julian and Bubbles (in character). Bubbles performed his single "Liquor and Whores". "Liquor and Whores" actually has the same melody as a song he sings while drunk in season 4. The lyrics are "Fuckin' Randy's gut, is full of dirty ol' cheeseburgers".

They hosted again in 2007 which starts off with Ricky and Julian breaking out of jail and Bubbles was there to pick them up in the Shitmobile. They arrived at the awards show by breaking through the vehicle doors. Then Ricky and Julian had to change out of their prison uniforms, but came out in costume before wearing normal clothes. Ricky was dressed up as a lobster and Julian was dressed as a gorilla. Later on, they help Bubbles with his song "Kitties Are So Nice" which included a chorus and cats held by Ricky and Julian.

[edit] Inconsistencies

  • In an early episode, Bubbles explains that Julian's grandmother owned the Shitmobile, who like Julian, enjoyed drinking, which explains how the damage occurred. However, in the Christmas Episode (which takes place in December 1997), Julian gives the car to Ricky as a gift. Ricky cannot drive in the ice and snow causing the car to gain damage rather quickly, including losing the passenger side door. At the end of the episode, Ricky tries to restore the car, including painting it with a paint roller and spray paint.
  • In a season 2 episode, Randy states that he has been assistant Trailer Park supervisor for 12 years, however in the Christmas special, Randy is seen to take up the position in 1997.
  • In the earlier seasons, Bubbles voice was low and monotonous. It is now high-pitched and slightly squeaky. Also, Bubbles was treated as another resident of the park by Ricky and Julian, not as their best friend like he is today.
  • At the end of season two when the boys are being arrested at the farm they say that Bubbles is a farmer who came out to help them. However, George Green is there, and would know that Bubbles is not actually a farmer.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Cart Boy" on IMDB
  2. ^ "One Last Shot" on IMDB
  3. ^ "Trailer Park Boys" (pilot) on IMDB

[edit] Critical reviews

  • "Trailer Park Boys are the latest incarnation of a Canadian cultural classic." - The Globe and Mail

[edit] External links

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