What can be said which hasn't already been said about this ingenious Canadian program? It's full of foul mouthed, drug addicted, jail bouncing fun. The show originated from a short film that John Paul Tremblay, Mike Smith, Rob wells, and Mike Clattenburg originally made called "The Cart Boy". This video shows the modestly dressed and coke bottle glasses donned character Bubbles, stealing shopping carts to help collect money for the stray cats he takes ownership to. This idea catapulted into a multi-season television series that brings you through the adventures of Julian, Ricky and Bubbles who all live in a trailer park in Nova Scotia. The premise is simple; the boys are constantly in and out of jail and finding new crazy schemes to make money, all the while finding ways to stay drunk and high. Ricky tends to mispronounce everything under the sun, and Julian is never seen in a framed shot without a rum and coke in his hand or near him. There are very important side characters such as the trailer park supervisor Jim Lahey, his shirtless boyfriend/assistant trailer park supervisor Randy, as well as the timeless J-Roc, Cory & Trevor. The show ran for 7 official seasons; two vignettes (one post season 7 and one a pre-quel inspired by Christmas), not to mention two full length feature films.
This show is a staple in Canadian culture, and has made a huge surge into the States as well. Slowly but surely, the boys are becoming known on an international level too. After 7 seasons and 2 movies though, what's left to do? Theatre of course!
This show was wise enough to perform at the Plaza Live Orlando; this really was the perfect venue for a show like this. With such an intimate setting, you were guaranteed a good spot no matter what. The stage set up was less than complicated, involving only the 3 main characters, a video screen and a digital video camera. In keeping consistent with the premise of hair-brained schemes, Bubbles is hell bent on being in the new Jackie Chan movie. He comes up with several scenarios to record for Mr. Chan, and looks to Julian and Ricky to help him out with it. Sadly, they end up more of a distraction from Bubble's plan, but a hilarious and entertaining distraction nonetheless. The boys manage to retouch old routines from the show in the material they are sending to Mr. Chan such as an astronaut launch gone wrong, revisitation of a scene from an old episode where Julian scares off local thug Cyrus, as well as the quintessential Julian joke demonstrated by dancing out a scene from Dirty Dancing, (with bubbles in drag dressed as Jennifer Grey no less). There was a lot of crowd participation; this type of show with a cult like following begs for it. Some of the antics revolved around Julian selling the theatre's hot dogs for $10 a pop (one kid in the crowd tries to pay for a hot dog with his chain and is caught in a cyclone of greasy chain jokes), a girl is pulled to play out an American Idol scenario where she sings (and wows the audience), and a group of girls are brought up to play a quiz show where Bubbles finds one member particuarly frightening, and focuses on her "Dahlmer-like resemblance".
They manage to revisit Lahey and Randy in this show by Skyping them and harrassing them. Immediately they are connected to Lahey, drunk as always, and Randy utilizing a water pipe as he so often does. The back and forth is relentless, and in typical TPB style (lot's of swearing, shirtless jokes, and other hilarious back and forths). Conky , who was Bubble's alternate personality as channeled through a puppet in earlier episodes of the TV Series, is a free standing puppet with seemingly his own soul. In between intermissions, and pre-show Conky is being videoed with no live human operating him, to give the sense of him carrying his own weight.
I have seen the Kids in the Hall live, which was spectacular, and this Trailer Park Boy's spectacle far surpassed it in the comparison of Television shows brought to life in a theatre style. The stripped down stage set up really brings the whole low budget feel from the TV to the stage, and their classic degrading, lewd banter never goes out of style. The show was surprisignly bordering the line of 3 hours, which gave fans like me (obsessed and raving ones) the feeling like I didn't pay nearly enough to see such brilliance in action.
If the humor of this show satisfies you, then keep an eye out in 2012 for their newest collaboration with Amy Sedaris...Drunk and on Drugs Happy fun time hour.
