If Ricky were any smarter, he'd be broccoli

April 11, 2004 7:56 PM

I am down with Plato and Socrates, And I like to get busy with all the ladies.Grunt, grunt/ sumthin,' sumthin,' sumthin,'/ Grunt/ Up in ma shed, up in ma shed...
From Bubbles' first freestyle rap, to Mr. Lahey's ever-doomed attempts to keep control of Sunnyvale Trailer Park, to Randy's shirtless gut, to eight year old Trinity's nicotine patch, to J-ROC's genuine delusion that he is black: the brilliance of Trailer Park Boys rolls on. Season Four begins tonight in Canada on Showcase; and on April 15th Season One debuts on BBC America. Here's hoping that success won't change the best TV show ever to come out of Canada. Previously discussed on Mefi last year , but I hope the new season merits a revist to Sunnyvale. Pass the pepperoni and the rum and coke.
posted by jokeefe (29 comments total)

Sorry about the BBC America link. Is now fixed.
posted by jokeefe at 8:01 PM on April 11, 2004

They'll probably edit it since American's can't deal with some of the language. But this is good news!
posted by birdherder at 8:10 PM on April 11, 2004

Where did that apostrophe in Americans come from? It must have been a JRun error.
posted by birdherder at 8:16 PM on April 11, 2004

I watched a few episodes of this with a Canadian friend a few days ago...and laughed harder than I have in a long time. Not sure how it's going to work with all of the bleeps, but I do hope it succeeds in the U.S.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 8:20 PM on April 11, 2004

I downloaded and watched all of the episodes, from the first to the end of the third season, via bittorrent over the last month or so. I'd never even heard of it until recently. Fucking brilliant. Except for the (comedy) gunplay, it reminds me so much of the trailer parks in the redneck northern town where I spent my youth, and where I learned the fine arts of bong hits, street fighting, and pickin' up the nubiles [/self-parody].

I can't wait for the torrents of the new season to appear.

All hail the trailer park boys!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:21 PM on April 11, 2004

PS: Bubbles is a god!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:22 PM on April 11, 2004

>the best TV show ever to come out of Canada
I agree. With North of Sixty a close, close second.

>work with all of the bleeps
TPB is like watching a James Kelman novel.

The three TPB gents appear in a Tragically Hip video, turning wrenches on a huge raft of a car. Cold winter night, Don Cherry as driver for a fried chicken restaurant.
posted by philfromhavelock at 8:30 PM on April 11, 2004

Does BBC America actually bleep anything? It's a premium channel on my cable system.
posted by Slagman at 8:37 PM on April 11, 2004

I work at an art supply store in downtown Halifax, and every once in a while a local celebrity comes in.. (frequent visitors like Rick Mercer from This Hour)
The guy who plays Mr. Lahey on TPB came in about a month ago, and pretended to wring my neck while he asked me where paintbrushes were. ("for my 80 year old father." he said) He also used a wierd robot voice every once in a while. And he kept looking around to see if people were checking out the scene.
It was pretty obnoxious, but pretty funny as well.
Kind of like the show.
posted by paultron at 9:05 PM on April 11, 2004

BBC America is going to bleep out the curses on their evening time broadcast of the show, and then take the bleeps out for the late night broadcast.

TV Guide told me so.
posted by Old Man Wilson at 9:24 PM on April 11, 2004

Thank god they got rid of that dreadful website they used to have.

My only complaint about the show is that the dvds are so bloody expensive.
posted by dobbs at 9:33 PM on April 11, 2004

Canadians love to ask what it means to be Canadian. The TPB moment from the episode with Rush, in which a group of grown men stand around getting teary eyed as they talk about “Closer to the Heart “ would defiantly be a real Canadian moment.
posted by arse_hat at 9:48 PM on April 11, 2004

I put up my Trailer Park Boys Drinking Game on my blog a while ago. Pardon the missing graphics... my blog just moved into a new home. Enjoy!
posted by freakystyley at 10:00 PM on April 11, 2004

Here's hoping that success won't change the best TV show ever to come out of Canada.

I'm just going to have to give you the benefit of the doubt that you haven't seen Twitch City.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:23 PM on April 11, 2004

The TPB moment from the episode with Rush, in which a group of grown men stand around getting teary eyed as they talk about “Closer to the Heart “ would defiantly be a real Canadian moment.

Oh, man, yeah. Seriously. The bit that got me all misty was when Bubbles was playing the guitar along with Alex Lifeson and singing it at the end, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:14 PM on April 11, 2004

stavros "The bit that got me all misty was when Bubbles was playing the guitar
along with Alex Lifeson and singing it at the end, though" Though loath
to admit it I got a big old lump in my throat at that part. I don't really consider
myself a mad Rush fan but in my teens I did help do set-up and tear down on a
couple of Rush tours through Northern Ontario and once sat and read a book next
to Geddy at Sudbury's Lido hotel before a show.
posted by arse_hat at 11:45 PM on April 11, 2004

That's part of its charm-- for a show that features as its main characters two guys who are in and out of jail, not to mention the regular thievery and mayhem and the consumption of vast quantities of drugs and alcohol, the show has a real quality of compassion. Its heart is in the right place. Ricky's really a pretty decent guy, who loves his daughter; Julian is the voice of reason; and Bubbles is the town philosopher.

And it's really, really funny, in ways that just have to be seen to be appreciated.
posted by jokeefe at 12:45 AM on April 12, 2004

Here's hoping that success won't change the best TV show ever to come out of Canada.

I'm just going to have to give you the benefit of the doubt that you haven't seen Twitch City.

No, I haven't, but I'll keep an eye out for it. And I should probably have said the best fiction or the best comedy rather than just the best Canadian TV show, period: there's been some pretty amazing programming on the CBC over the years.
posted by jokeefe at 12:52 AM on April 12, 2004

... Not to take anything away from trailer park boys, of course, which is utterly hilarious.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:16 AM on April 12, 2004

I just don't get the show, but I'm pleased to see it going abroad. Usually all anyone sees of us is earnest CBC documenataries or hockey...

And paultron, do you work at Loomis? (I'm not a stalker, I swear, it's just an educated guess.) Wouldn't see Rick around much anymore, he moved to Toronto, I heard. Although my friend saw Mary Walsh chatting up the clerk at the Big General.
posted by livii at 5:48 AM on April 12, 2004

Geez, how many Haligonians are on MeFi?

You know, some day I really have to see this show. I've never caught an episode because I don't get any of the stations it's on, but I get to hear all the inside stuff. My lawyer is one of the producers, I sold a TV series to the same production company (and two of the owners are in my boss's office as I type), I went to school with one of the actors, dated the sister of another, and have produced radio commercials using the voice of a third (though none of the three principles).

Inside scoop: Every year the show has had trouble getting made because they can't find a trailer park owner willing to put up with the shoot. You wouldn't believe how greedy some of those buggers are.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 6:40 AM on April 12, 2004

Geez, how many Haligonians are on MeFi?

Count me in as another one... (Although I'm a proud transport Cape Bretoner...)
posted by Old Man Wilson at 7:26 AM on April 12, 2004

And how many Haligonians could join MeFi on the same day (I'm looking at you, Old Man Wilson!)

I'd call for a meetup, but it has to be by the end of the month, as I'll be an Ottawan (is there a better word for that?) by then.
posted by livii at 8:07 AM on April 12, 2004

Who'd ever have thought Metafilter would be tougher than grade nine?
posted by Keith Talent at 8:09 AM on April 12, 2004

A dope trailer is no place for kitty.

FUCK OFF WITH THE FUCKIN' GUNS ALREADY!

What's a shitrope? I don't wanna grab no shitrope.

The Trailer Park Boys is the funniest thing I've seen in... well, ever.

A friend of mine ran into Ricky and Julian at a local techno/house club in Hollyweird. They were out here pitching something or other. After he talked to them for a while he asked Julian "Whatcha drinking?"

"Rum and Coke."

Canada, because of TPB I can finally forgive you for Celine Dion. Kids in the Hall almost nullified Celine, but the trauma and carnage was just too fresh and ongoing. TPB, however, gives you the leeway for a thousand Celine's.

Come're, Canada, I want to kiss you and get you drunk and touch you where your bathing suit covers.
posted by loquacious at 1:12 PM on April 12, 2004

Halifax? Boo! Dartmouth? Yay!
posted by hughbot at 1:44 PM on April 12, 2004

"Fuck, I hate buyin' dope from cops. This doesn't even feel like a pound!"

Sheer genius. I wish I had the skills to make a Trailer Park Boys mod for GTA:Vice City. You know, make Tommy Vercetti into Ricky, the cops into Randy and Lahey, and one of the cars into the Shitmobile...
posted by arto at 11:05 PM on April 13, 2004

Oh, and stavros, it's already on at least one torrent site. Dunno if I should link to it here, though, copyright paranoia being what it is...
posted by arto at 11:14 PM on April 13, 2004

Way ahead of you -- downloaded and watched yesterday, arto. I do several gig a day in traffic up and down, thanks to massive costless broadband here in Korea, and seed the shit out of anything worth watching or listening, even though it stresses the crap out of my 5-year-old PC ('casue I'm poor and shit) and makes web-browsing slower than it might otherwise be, even using the latest shad0w client and thread-prioritizing tools.

Anyway, Share and Enjoy.

Aces, the episode was. Bubbles' jailbound powerchord was a fine TPB moment. Suprnova's down at the moment, or I'd link to the .torrent. Fuck copyright.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:15 AM on April 14, 2004