Fans of the hit Canadian comedy “Trailer Park Boys” will be thrilled to learn that the three main characters from the show—Ricky (Robb Wells), Julian (John Paul Tremblay) and Bubbles (Mike Smith)—just began a new international tour, the “Still Drunk, High & Unemployed Tour.” Everyone else will be confused.
The atmosphere at the trio’s show at the Durham Performing Arts Center on Friday, Oct. 21 was certainly one of confusion. The people in attendance were an eclectic mixture of rednecks, hipsters dressed as rednecks, hipsters dressed in normal hipster regalia (think “barista who resents that people assume that they’re a barista”), drunk college boys and confused dates who appeared to have been dragged into something for which they were wholly unprepared. In this way, the audience mirrors the comedy of “Trailer Park Boys” itself, which often switches back and forth between mocking the rednecks of Sunnyvale Trailer Park and the urbanites who disdain them at breakneck pace, while all the while playfully showing viewers the world through the eyes of the recidivist main characters.
From the outset of the show on Friday, it was obvious that the Trailer Park Boys knew exactly who their audience was. Opening gags included Ricky, the incompetent member of the group, gluing a jug of urine to his own hand and Bubbles, the playful, immature “nice guy” almost having a nervous breakdown as Ricky and Julian began to argue. Neither one of these bits would be especially funny to those uninitiated into the cult of “Trailer Park Boys,” but to the audience in attendance (including myself) they were pure comedic gold.
The reason these jokes were so funny had little to do with their substance and far more to do with the characters themselves. Over the course of ten seasons, including seven on the Canadian network, Showcase, and three on Netflix, viewers have watched the boys go through thick and thin together. Ricky, Julian and Bubbles have been to jail more times than any of them could count; they’ve gotten rich, only to lose their money either due to their own ineptitude or the interference of vindictive characters; they’ve smoked a lot of dope, drank a lot of rum and Coke and eaten quite a few chicken fingers. Through it all, each one of the characters has established a set of quirks and incompetencies that play of the others’ and that highlight the ridiculousness of the situations that they get themselves in to.
All that Ricky, Julian and Bubbles had to do to squeeze some solid laughs out of the crowd was pepper a few of their familiar mannerisms into their on-stage dialogue. With that strategy in their toolkit, they could play us like a harp.
Looking back at the show, it is easy to see that many of the jokes fell short of being “humor.” Many of the gags were not gags at all, but rather were truncated lines of dialogue interspersed with colorful swearing, directed either at each other or in many cases the audience; the random outbursts were often the only parts of the joke to draw any laughs.
Being a fan of “Trailer Park Boys,” I find it hard to dismiss the staleness of these jokes as bad writing. Instead, “Still Drunk, High & Unemployed” suffered because the format of the show itself. “Trailer Park Boys” derives much of its humor from its wide and eclectic cast of characters, who are funny in their own right in addition to serving as comedic foils for The Boys. While Ricky, Julian and Bubbles’ antics in the show almost seem plausible (albeit hilariously misguided) in “Trailer Park Boys,” onstage they seem forced.
Perhaps because of this, parts of the show sank to pandering humor that would never have made it into an episode of “Trailer Park Boys.” Frequent innuendos suggesting that Ricky or Julian were gay drew great laughs from some segments of the audience; in contrast, in “Trailer Park Boys” the subject of sexuality is treated completely differently. In the TV show, the Boys go to great pains to demonstrate their indifference and sensitivity to a fellow trailer park resident upon learning that he is gay in an attempt to avoid their own discomfort with the subject. In this situation, the humor arises from their awkwardness in dealing with the subject, not the subject itself.
However, the cleverness and playfulness of “Trailer Park Boys” came through. In one bit, Julian wheeled a cart of cheeseburgers onto the stage and began selling them to audience members for $10 each, bantering with people as they approached him and even tearing a dollar bill in half when its owner refused to pay $10 for the burger.
These and other jokes showed a return to form for the Boys, both lampooning people who fall for their cheap scams and making fun of the characters themselves. In walking the fine line between celebrating rednecks and making fun of them, “Trailer Park Boys” has managed to wriggle its way into being a cult show across multiple demographics, as evidenced by the diverse crowd that pushed and shoved each other out of the way in attempts to buy beer before the show started. Practically every other person was wearing a costume to match one of the characters from the show, and many of those that weren’t wore fan gear and sported imitation haircuts or faux “white trash” apparel. To say that people really like this show would be putting it lightly.
Despite the hit-and-miss comedy of “Drunk, High & Still Unemployed,” the show was funny, and the full, diverse range of “Trailer Park Boys” fans in attendance left happy. If last Friday night was representative of the “Drunk, High, & Still Unemployed Tour” overall, fans of “Trailer Park Boys” should try to catch a show in their area; conversely, if you haven’t seen “Trailer Park Boys,” you can probably miss it.
Ricky, Julian and Bubbles will be continuing their international tour into Dec., with upcoming dates in Charleston, S.C. andTampa, Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.