Trailer Park Boys

Trailer Park Boys is a popular Canadian sitcom/mockumentary from 2001 focusing on the misadventures of ex-convicts living in fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park which is located near Halifax, Nova Scotia. The show's creator and director is Mike Clattenburg.

The show has been a great success for Showcase, where it is the network's highest rated Canadian series. It airs in the United States on BBC America and in the United Kingdom on the Paramount Comedy Channel.

Contents

1 Background 2 Characters 3 Money-making schemes 4 Episodes 4.1 Season One (2001) 4.2 Season Two (2002) 4.3 Season Three (2003) 4.4 Season Four (2004) 4.5 Christmas Special 2004 4.6 Season Five (2005) 5 The Movie 6 Critical reviews 7 External links

Background

The show was born out of three short films (all directed by Mike Clattenburg). The shorts are: The Cart Boy (1995), One Last Shot (1998), and Trailer Park Boys (1999). The show was filmed in real trailer parks in the Halifax area. During the first season, they shot at a park in Sackville, second season at a park in Dartmouth, third season at a park in Timberlea and the fourth season at a park back in Dartmouth. From then on, the show (including the Christmas special and feature film), is being filmed at a closed set near Dartmouth. Bubbles was a sound engineer in the production and became a character when an actor did not arrive.

Characters

• Ricky. Played by Robb Wells.

Ricky enjoys both marijuana and alcohol, and is Julian's best friend. He isn't too bright, partially due to a poor education (he never graduated from High/Secondary School as a child). His dim mindedness can also be attributed to his drinking and dope smoking. He has a penchant for moral relativism.

Ricky is a self-taught horticulturist, having grown large crops of marijuana which he sells. He is an expert at getting out of trouble with the law, often tricking police and his victims into helping him physically carry the things he plans to steal.

He's fond of knock-knock jokes that don't usually have a punchline so much as a stream of profanity and he frequently wears track pants. His diet consist mainly of alcohol, chocolate milk, chicken fingers, chicken chips, pepperoni and cereal. Also likes jalapeno potato chips which he pronounces "Ja-lap-an-o", all dressed potato chips which he calls "Dressed All Over" and zesty chese potato chips which he calls "Zesty Mordant". He bears a passing resemblance to the magician Reveen.

His family consists of his father, his girlfriend Lucy and their daughter Trinity. Ricky was set on marrying Lucy until the wedding was interrupted by the police. Most of the time Ricky lives in an old Chrysler New Yorker which is missing its passenger side front door.

• Julian. Played by John Paul Tremblay.

Julian is the smarter of the pair and the leader of the group. His main goal in life is to get rich quick (usually from drug related activities and stealing items of value under $1000) and retire. He is never seen without a drink (almost always rum and Coke) in his hand. Julian is generally more sensible than Ricky, and sometimes thinks of getting a legitimate job, but "Freedom 35", the plan to get enough money through crime to retire early, always lures him back in.

• Bubbles. Played by Mike Smith.

Julian and Ricky's best friend and conscience, known for his hoarse voice and coke-bottle glasses. Abandoned as a child, Bubbles lived in a shed for 18 years of his life with his cats, who are his only family. He had made a living in the meantime by the generosity of his friends and a semi-lucrative shopping cart theft scam (he calls it re-marketing) with the nearby malls.

An animal lover, Bubbles makes the ballooning population of stray cats his own responsibility, feeding and looking after them.

His name comes from his childhood love of blowing bubbles. His parents abandoned him on Christmas Eve (his parents left him a note explaining his father was "shooting his mouth off too much") and left him an antique bubblemaking machine which he used for a time to entertain his cats. Sadly, the machine was destroyed when Bubbles' shed caught fire (because of Ricky's poor rewiring job when he used the shed as a temporary home for his grow-op).

Bubbles' evil alter-ego is a ventriloquist dummy named Conky; the pair bear a striking resemblance. Bubbles loves professional wrestling and even dresses up as his own character known as the "Green Bastard". He also drives a go-cart while wearing a CCM hockey helmet and makes expert use of the word cocksucker.

• Jim Lahey. Played by John Dunsworth.

A former police officer, dismissed for reasons he doesn't wish to talk about (he was caught with marijauna on the job), Mr. Lahey runs Sunnyville Trailer Park at the behest of his ex-wife, the owner of the Park. He is rarely seen without Randy and the two have a sexual relationship together as revealed in season 3. He develops a drinking problem between seasons 1 and 2 and lets the trailer park decline into chaos. He keeps trying to catch Julian and Ricky at their illegal activities but is fairly ineffective. Has a tendency to use the word "shit" as a prefix to most nouns.

• Randy. Played by Patrick Roach.

Mr. Lahey's assistant. He has an insatiable hunger for cheeseburgers, which has contributed to his large round pot belly and he never wears a shirt, except for one episode in season 2 in which he wears a shirt to cover the wire he is wearing in an attempt to catch Ricky and Julian doing something illegal. Randy was the one who insisted on coming out to the rest of the park after himself and Mr. Lahey are caught in a compromising situation. He went out with Lucy for a short while during Ricky's stay in prison between seasons 1 and 2.

Randy used to be a male prostitute who went by the handle "Smokey". He will sometimes fall back on this job whenever he doesn't have any money for cheeseburgers.

• Lucy. Played by Lucy DeCoutere.

Ricky's on-again, off-again girlfriend and mother to his child, Trinity. It is also hinted at that Lucy and Julian used to be together.

• Sarah. Played by Sarah E. Dunsworth.

Lucy's best friend. She moved in with Lucy and Trinity while Ricky was in prison at the beginning of season 1. She dated Ricky for a while and encouraged him to focus on school. However this didn't last long as soon as Ricky got rich, she was helpful in trying to get Lucy to file a child support suit against Ricky. In seasons 4 and 5, she dated both Cory & Trevor (as one entity) and talked of marrying them. She is the co-owner of a hair salon in the park.

• J-Roc. Played by Jonathan Torrens.

An Eminem-wannabe rapper who lives with his mother at the trailer park. He speaks in ebonics and very frequently asks "nawmsayin'?" (know what I'm saying) He often helps Ricky and Julian out. He also occasionally makes forays into the amateur international porn market (his titles to date are the low-budget movies, "From Russia With the Love Bone", "The Bare Pimp Project" and "J-Roc's Greasy Trailer Park Girls Gone Wild"). Real name is Jamie.

In the episode Who's the Microphone Assassin?, it is explored that J-Roc, and even people around him, forget that he's white. In Dear Santa Claus. Go Fuck Yourself, which takes place in 1997, J-Roc speaks very plainly and professes that he had never smoked marijuana up to that point in time.

Has come up with all sorts of nicknames for Randy. Including: Rico Suave looking maf**ker, Roch Voisine with a gut, Inflatable Elvis, Gut Cassidy and the Sundance Cheeseburger, and Starsky and Gut (Lahey & Randy).

• Cory and Trevor. Played by Cory Bowles and Michael Jackson.

Trevor and Cory are two rather stupid young adults who are often used as lackeys by Ricky and Julian, but it's rarely worth the effort because they have a tendency to screw up anything. Invariably, the pair are used by Ricky as scapegoats whenever something illegal doesn't go according to plan. Trevor is contstantly being harassed for cigarettes by Ricky. Everyone treats them as effectively one person.

• Ray. Played by Barrie Dunn.

Ray is Ricky's father who enjoys drinking alcohol, listening to blues music and reading the Bible. He constantly steals his son's pepperoni. For the purposes of claiming disability benefit, he spends most of his time in a wheelchair although he is not disabled and will stand and walk around normally when he believes no-one is watching. Interestingly enough, his wheelchair has three flags on it, a Pirate flag, a Canadian Flag and a Confederate flag. Ray is currently in jail for disability fraud after Lahey and Randy called the police.

• Sam Losco. Played by Sam Tarasco.

Sam is a former veterinarian who lost his job after helping Ricky fix a bullet wound. He later ran for Trailer Park Supervisor but lost to Jim Lahey after Julian slipped hallucinogenic mushrooms into his food prior to his speech to the residents of the park. Then he got his veterinary license back (on probation) and started up his practice again. He has a mild demeanor, but is not particularly fond of Ricky or Julian. His favorite food seems to be greasy hot dogs.

• Tyrone. Played by Tyrone Parsons.

• Detroit Velvet Smooth (DVS). Played by Gary "Papa Grand" James.

Tyrone and DVS are J-Roc's managers. Tyrone is part of the original cast, while DVS was introduced in the episode Who's the Microphone Assassin?. In that episode, DVS found out from Mr. Lahey about how J-Roc was pirating his songs, and proceeded to crash his rap concert at the trailer park and threatened him. He later had a change of heart when the park residents told him about J-Roc, and since then DVS and Tyrone together manage J-Roc's career. It was Tyrone and DVS who came up with the idea of having J-Roc pretend to go to jail to increase his street cred. Ricky often calls DVS "DVD".

• Officer George Green. Played by George Green.

The local police officer most often dispatched to deal with Ricky and Julian. He is easily fooled by the pair and it is very rare that he makes an arrest.

• Cyrus. Played by Bernard Robichaud.

Bully who enjoys waving his gun around and terrorizing the residents of the trailer park. Ruled over the park while Julian and Ricky were in jail at the start of Season One, becoming their nemesis.

• Trinity is Ricky's daughter. She has an addiction to cigarettes and sometimes gets drunk which usually ends up in Lucy being angry at Ricky. She has even eaten a hash brownie made by Ricky (unbeknown to him) in the episode "Mrs. Peterson's Dog Gets Fucked Up" with her exclaiming "These brownies taste funny." Played by Jeanna Harrison.

• Treena Lahey is Jim and Barbara's daughter. She hero-worships Ricky, much to the chagrin of her father. Played by Ellen Page.
• Barbara Lahey is the owner of Sunnyvale Trailer Park. She was married to Jim until she divorced him due to his embarrassing shenanigans. She was briefly engaged to Sam Losco in Season 2 until Julian & J-Roc showed her "The Bare Pimp Project", a low-budget adult film. Recently she proposed to Ricky until he went back to jail at the end of Season 4. Played by Shelley Thompson.

• Terry and Dennis. Played by Mio and Nobu Adilman

Terry and Dennis are a pair of Japanese-Canadian brothers who use their grandmother's house as a cover to deal hash. The brothers debuted in the episode Give Peace a Chance in season five. Ricky knows them well since their childhood days, but they are not well-liked by Julian and Bubbles. The brothers like to walk around the house wearing only their bathrobes while not covering their private parts.

• Levi. Played by Ardon Bess.
• Desiree. Played by Sandi Ross.
• Candy was Julian's girlfriend at one point in the series.
• Erica Miller is a police officer who fell for Julian, hoping that he'd leave his current life behind. She later realized that he'd never change and arrested him. Played by Shauna MacDonald.
• Jacob works at a convenience store. Played by Jacob Rolfe.
• Alex Lifeson from the band, Rush. Played himself in the episode, Closer to the Heart.
• Rita MacNeil. Canadian singer-songwriter. Played herself in the episode, Working Man. website (http://www.ritamacneil.com/)
• Nancy Regan. Halifax based journalist. Played herself in the episode, Working Man. website (http://www.nancyregan.ca/)
• Mrs. Peterson Mistakenly thinks Julian is her grandson. Is in the episode "Mrs. Peterson's Dog Gets Fucked Up", when Julian and Ricky have to take care of her dog.
• Detective Ted Johnson Played by Jim Swansburg

Is the police officer who arested Ricky at his wedding (season one). He returns in season five as George Green's replacement.

Money-making schemes

Over the seasons the Boys have undertaken many schemes to make money. These inevitably fail due to stupidity, violence, or interference by Mr. Lahey and Randy and/or the police.

• Running an illegal nightclub. Cory and Trevor passed out leaflets and attracted an all gay-male crowd.

• Reselling stolen gasoline, which was siphoned out of the cars of unsuspecting citizens. Ricky states that "regular tastes sour, supreme tastes bitter, and diesel tastes kinda good". Plan fails when gang is arrested and Cory and Trevor come down with gas poisoning.

• Selling CDs of JRoc and the Roc Pile. Plans falls apart when the band from whom they're ripped off the rap tunes (Detroit Velvet Smooth) shows up all the way from Moncton with guns.

• Using underage children (protected from jail by the Young Offenders Act) as part of Junior Achievers to steal barbeques. Foiled when one child turns out to be the daughter of a police officer.

• Filming adult videos. All have been produced by J-Roc. So far such films include From Russia With Lovebone, The Bare Pimp Project, and Trailer Park Girls Gone Wild, which was not finished due to the police interrupting the shooting of the latter film.

• "Freedom 35" Julian and Ricky cut a deal with the guards at the local prison. This deal entails the growing of marijuana, converting it into hash, and smuggling it into the prison. The most memorable moment in this particular season is in the last episode at the very end with Ricky and Julian sitting in prison. Ricky was quoted saying "... at least the dope's good. (Winking)"

• Out of boredom, Ricky comes up with a superweed variety of marijuana which he planted in a field along the highway. Julian returns from prison, and they decide to make money off of the crops. Classic scene is when Rita MacNeil is forced off a bus to help cultivate the crop. Ruined when the guys are caught and go to jail and Cory and Trevor, who are on the outside, are tricked out of the cash.

• The Roc Pile stealing groceries from supermarkets and then re-selling them back at the trailer park for profit

Episodes

Season One (2001)

(Summary (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/seasonone/default.asp))

1. Take Your Little Gun and Get Out of My Trailer Park
2. Fuck Community College, Let's Get Drunk and Eat Chicken Fingers
3. Mr. Lahey's Got My Porno Tape!
4. Mrs. Peterson's Dog Gets Fucked Up
5. I'm Not Gay, I Love Lucy... Wait a Second, Maybe I am Gay
6. Who the Hell Invited These Idiots to My Wedding?

Season Two (2002)

1. What in the Fuck Happened to Our Trailer Park?
2. Jim Lahey Is a Drunk Bastard (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season2_2.asp)
3. I've Met Cats and Dogs Smarter Than Trevor and Cory (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season2_3.asp)
4. A Dope Trailer Is No Place for a Kitty (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season2_4.asp)
5. The Bible Pimp (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season2_5.asp)
6. Never Trust a Man with No Shirt On (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season2_6.asp)
7. The Bare Pimp Project (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season2_7.asp)

Season Three (2003)

1. Kiss of Freedom (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_1.asp)
2. Temporary Relief Assistant Trailer Park Supervisor (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_2.asp)
3. If I Can't Smoke and Swear I'm Fucked (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_3.asp)
4. Who's the Microphone Assassin? (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_4.asp)
5. Closer to the Heart (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_5.asp)
6. Where the Fuck is Randy's Barbeque? (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_6.asp)
7. The Delusions of Officer Jim Lahey (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_7.asp)
8. A Shit Leopard Can't Change Its Spots (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season3_8.asp)

Season Four (2004)

1. Never Cry Shitwolf (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_1.asp)
2. Man's Gotta Eat (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_2.asp)
3. Rub 'N Tiz'zub (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_3.asp)
4. The Green Bastard (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_4.asp)
5. Conky (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_5.asp)
6. If You Love Something, Set It Free (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_6.asp)
7. Propane, Propane (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_7.asp)
8. Workin' Man (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season4_8.asp)

Christmas Special 2004

1. Dear Santa Claus. Go Fuck Yourself (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/specials/)

Season Five (2005)

1. Give Peace a Chance (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_1.asp)
2. The Shit Puppets (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_2.asp)
3. The Fuckin Way She Goes (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_3.asp)
4. You Got to Blame the Thing Up Here (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_4.asp)
5. Jim Lahey Is a Fucking Drunk And He Always Will Be (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_5.asp)
6. Don't Cross the Shit Line (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_6.asp)
7. The Winds Of Shit (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_7.asp)
8. Dressed All Over & Zesty Mordant (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_8.asp)
9. I Am The Liquor (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_9.asp)
10. The Shit Blizzard (Summary) (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/episodes/eps/full_season5_10.asp)

The Movie

There is currently another Trailer Park Boys movie in production (The first being the original black and white production that sparked the series.)

External link:

• IMDB.com - Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425601/)

Critical reviews

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

External links

• Official website (http://www.trailerparkboys.com)
• Showcase's Trailer Park Boys website (http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/)
• IMDB entry for Trailer Park Boys (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290988/)
• #1 TPB Fan Site - Excellent forums (http://www.trailerparkboys.org/)
• Official season 1-2 website/game (http://trailerparkboys.com/shittest/instruct.html)