The Red Green Show
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Red Green Show | |
|---|---|
| Image:The Red Green Show.jpg From left to right, Harold, Red and Bill. </small> | |
| Genre | Sitcom Sketch comedy |
| Camera setup | Single camera |
| Running time | 21 minutes |
| Creator(s) | Steve Smith |
| Starring | Steve Smith Patrick McKenna Rick Green |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original channel | CBC |
| Original run | 1991–April 7, 2006 |
| No. of episodes | 300 |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Red Green Show is a television comedy that aired on CBC Television in Canada and on PBS in the United States from 1991 until the series finale April 7, 2006 on CBC. Reruns currently air on CBC Television, CBC Country Canada, The Comedy Network, and various PBS stations. It was produced by S&S Productions, which is owned by Steve and Morag Smith and directed by William G. Elliott.
[edit] The show
The Red Green Show is essentially a cross between a sitcom and a sketch comedy series, and is a parody of home improvement, do-it-yourself, fishing, and other outdoors shows (particularly the Red Fisher Show). Each episode unfolds through a series of comedic sketches, several of which are unrelated to the main plot, but unlike a true sketch comedy, all sketches draw from the same single set of characters. Each actor always plays a single character throughout the show.
The title character, Red Green (Steve Smith), is a lazy handyman who generally tries to find shortcuts to most of his projects, trusting the vast majority of his work to duct tape (which he calls the handyman's secret weapon). He is the president of the Possum Lodge, a fictional men's club in the small town of Possum Lake, Canada, near the also-fictional rival town of Port Asbestos. He and his fellow lodge members have their own TV show (which is more or less the show itself), in which they give humorous lessons and demonstrations in repairwork and outdoor activities (like fishing and camping), and advice for men on relating to women, among other things. The characters Bob & Doug McKenzie, from SCTV's Great White North sketch, are an obvious comparison and a likely inspiration (with Dave Thomas, who played Doug McKenzie appearing on the Red Green Show along with his real life brother Ian Thomas, as Ben & Dougie Franklin).
The show's basic concept is that it is a cable TV show, taped in part on a hand-held camera by Red's nephew Harold, arguably Canada's most famous nerd. The show's structure has evolved over time and now includes several regular segments that appear in almost every show. These segments are interspersed with each episode's three main plot segments, and they include such staples as the "Possum Lodge Word Game", "Handyman Corner", and "Adventures With Bill" (a slapstick home movie-style sketch with a voiceover by Red).
In "Handyman Corner", Red attempts to demonstrate creative and often hilarious ways to tackle relatively common tasks, such as taking out the trash or making use of derelict cars. Memorable examples include a paddlewheeler made out of pallets and a revolving door, a jetpack made from two propane tanks, and a kiddie ride made from a bar stool attached to the agitator of a washing machine. Green often uses duct tape in these projects; in one episode, he even tried to duct tape the Ontario-Quebec border as a potential solution to Quebec separatism. The segment customarily concludes with the aphorism "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
Red also gives sage advice from behind his workbench, usually talking to older men about married life or coping with changing society ("Let's face it," he quips in one episode, "these days, if you're not young, you're old.") This segment always concludes with "Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together."
"The Possum Lodge Word Game" usually appears as the second or third segment of the show, immediately following the first plot segment. It is structured much like Password and Pyramid, in which the objective is to get a contestant to say a certain word in thirty seconds by giving them various clues. On this program, however, the contestant almost always gives either way off or odd answers through the segment, but finally says the correct word by accident, usually as part of a punch line.
Red often recites small bits of poetry in the woods, and the segments were named depending on the season and a humorous twist on a famous saying. For example, the winter segment was called "Winter of our Discount Tent".
Other regular segments include "The Experts", where Red and another character answer alleged letters from viewers and always give ridiculous advice; Ranger Gord's "educational" safety cartoons; and occasional advice segments by Dalton Humphrey and Mike Hamar. Hap Shaughnessy appears in many segments and always tells outlandish stories about his life — among other things, he claims to have been an astronaut, to have invented television and basketball, and to have once advised Walt Disney on how many fingers to put on Mickey Mouse.
The show usually concludes with Red giving a message to his wife, Bernice (usually a double entendre), and delivering his signature piece of life advice in the form of a hockey metaphor: "Keep your stick on the ice." This is followed by a general meeting of the Possum Lodge membership, which begins with the ritual stating of the Lodge motto: "Quando omni flunkus moritati" (Pseudo-Latin for "When all else fails, play dead"). From Season 6 onward, this is followed by the Man's Prayer: "I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess."
[edit] History of the show
Smith originally created the character of Red Green for his 1979-1985 sketch comedy series Smith & Smith. The series was a parody of the long-running Canadian outdoors show The Red Fisher Show (1968-1989), starring B.H. "Red" Fisher, in which Red and his friends would show silent films of their fishing trips with commentary at "Scuttlebutt Lodge". The character also appeared in Me & Max and The Comedy Mill before becoming the focus of his own series.
The Red Green Show was produced first by CHCH in Hamilton, Ontario, then by CFPL in London, then by the Global Television Network, before finally finding its permanent home at the CBC for the 1997 season (its seventh) onward.
The show ended April 7, 2006 after its 15th season with exactly 300 episodes. (This longevity inspired a joke in one episode, where Red says "The question is, can you do anything with crap? The answer is obviously yes, we're in our fourteenth season.")
The last episode was filmed on November 5, 2005, at the Showline Studios Harbourside location. At the time the season began taping, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was locked out, rendering the show's studios at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre unusable. [1]. The last episode concluded with the show breaking the fourth wall by thanking the audience and fans for their popularity. In addition, the Man's Prayer was changed to "I'm a man / But I changed / because I had to / Oh, well".
The low-budget movie Duct Tape Forever (2002), was based on the Red Green Show. It was screened in select American theaters and became a box office bomb, and has since appeared occasionally on PBS stations during pledge drives. In previous years, the show would stage live mini-telethons (sometimes called "Red Green-a-thons") for public television stations in the United States.
Since 2000, Red Green has been the "Ambassador of Scotch® Duct Tape" for 3M. [2]
Smith says he has no intentions of ever reprising his character. However, there is a Red Green cartoon in development, said to be a prequel in which Harold is a teenager.
In May 2006, the seventh season of the show was the first complete season to be released on DVD (there are also six "Stuffed & Mounted" compilations, which draw from many different seasons).
[edit] Characters
NOTE: The technical descriptions of the characters below come from the Red Green DVDs.
[edit] Red Green
- Actor: Steve Smith
- Sex: Unashamedly male (some of the time)
- Eyes: Blue with a touch of wry astigmatism
- Address: Possum Lodge
- Weight: Great investment (goes up 10% a year)
- Date of birth: Christmas Eve, 1945 (almost perfect)(I think)
- Hair color: Grey mixed with skin tones
- Aliases: Bernice's Old Man
Harold joked once that he thought that Red was in his early 60's.
[edit] Harold Dorkman Spooner Mepps Green
- Actor: Patrick McKenna
- Sex: still unknown
- Eyes: Huge
- Address: YMCA Possum Lake
- Weight: Not much (muscle weighs more than fat)
- Date of birth: When Bobby Fisher won the big chess thing
- Hair color: Reddish brownish dorky
- Aliases: Wedgie Boy
[edit] Bill Smith
- Actor: Rick Green
'Adventures with Bill' consists of grainy black-and-white home movies, in which Smith indulges in outrageous stunts and (often exceedingly) dangerous activities. Although the segment is mostly silent (with a voiceover by Red) various sound effects are usually heard, as well as small snippets of Smith's voice (usually screams). In later seasons (especially Season 8), Smith can be heard speaking very quietly (although Red's narration is usually overtop of it). A running joke in the series was that Bill never really spoke (apart from the aforementioned small snippets). In The Red Green Book, in a transcript of a typical lodge meeting, Red said that the reason Smith is not heard very well in the 'Adventures' segments is because the camera they use has a poor microphone. In the same transcript, it was revealed that he can be quite a chatterbox when he wants to, often rambling on about subjects no one cares about. He was heard speaking clearly for the first time on the Hindsight is 20/20 special, in which he talks about how his chain-smoking aunt died after coughing up her own lung during Thanksgiving dinner.
The only time Smith has ever appeared in the Lodge itself was in the second season of the show, but he still was not heard speaking.
Red's narration tends to shift back and forth between past and present tense.
[edit] Ed Frid
- Actor: Jerry Schaefer
Ed is the local animal control officer. Ironically, Ed is deathly afraid of most all animals. He is featured in The Red Green Show in a segment called "Talking Animals." In this segment, Red tried his best to get the truth about an animal brought in by Frid. Everything always goes wrong and there is normally a panic about how "we're all going to die".
[edit] Buzz Sherwood
- Actor: Peter Wildman
Sherwood is a bush pilot in the Possum Lake area. He is very affectionate towards his plane, 'Beauty'. Buzz is a burned-out 1960s hippie who is very laid back.
[edit] Ranger Gord
- Actor: Peter Keleghan
Gord is the local forest ranger, known for being both handsome and bipolar. He has lived in the local fire watch tower for almost 20 years. He is often the host of Ranger Gord cartoons, in which he is disproportionately muscled and the other characters are animals. These cartoons invaribly end well for Gord (although not necessarily for the other characters) and purport to teach a message of safety. Gord's full name is Gordon Ranger, but prefers not to be called "Ranger Ranger".
[edit] Bob Stuyvesant
- Actor: Bruce Hunter
Ostensibly working for the government, Bob spends all of his time playing golf, although he is not very good at it.
[edit] Dalton Humphrey
- Actor: Bob Bainborough
- Sex: Who cares?
- Eyes: Shrewd
- Address: Humphrey's Everything Store when it's closed
- Weight: That's what Dalton does best
- Date of birth: When everything was cheap
- Hair color: Rusty mouse
- Aliases: Dalton Harumphrey
Dalton, owner of the Humphrey's Everything Store, shows us how bad life can be. He usually complains about his marriage to Ann Marie and in a series of clips aired around the twelth season, we saw just how some of his life at home is when he would come home late with Red.
[edit] Glen Brackston
- Actor: Mark Wilson
The local marina owner. Brackston is extremely lazy, preferring to avoid actual work whenever possible. His true passion is his recreational vehicle, which he is usually working on whenever Red visits him. He is also a big fan of slot cars. Brackston and his wife have seven daughters.
[edit] Dougie Franklin
- Actor: Ian Thomas
An American now living in Canada owns the local wrecking yard. Franklin is very proud of his monster truck with dual quads.
[edit] Ben Franklin
- Actor: Dave Thomas
Dougie's brother. Dougie is very jealous of Ben whom he thinks was their mother's favorite of the two.
[edit] Hap Shaughnessy
- Actor: Gordon Pinsent
- Sex: Abstainer
- Eyes: Brown because he's full of it
- Address: Fantasyland
- Weight: The more he talks, the lighter he gets
- Date of birth: Varies with each anecdote
- Hair color: Unbelievable
- Aliases: Too numerous to list
Shaughnessy is the local water-taxi captain, but he is more lodge-renowned for his tall tales. For example, he once claimed to have gone whaling in a canoe, riding the whale's tail for "Ten, twenty months", wearing him down. He also claims to have ridden out "Moby Richard", refusing to call him Moby Dick because he "didn't know him that well." He once claimed to have worked on a tiger ranch in Kenya, and that wrote a letter to Gwyneth Paltrow and that he got a response (though Red discovered they had exactly the same handwriting), and that he once filled in for Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, and that one time he fought Sonny Liston.
[edit] Mike Hamar
- Actor: Wayne Robson
- Sex: Conjugal visits
- Eyes: Shifty
- Address: c/o Federal Government Corrections
- Weight: 143 lb. plus whatever he stole
- Date of birth: During the post war amnesty
- Hair color: Shiny
- Aliases: Mary Butternut
Mike, whose mother is an exotic dancer and who had "between 3 and 7 dads" (his mother was a heavy sleeper), is currently on parole from federal prison where he went after committing a series of petty felonies, apparently various forms of theft. Mike hangs around Possum Lodge because Red is supposed to supervise him as he makes his way back into society at large. Mike can be seen trying to help Red with various projects around the lodge and messing them up even more than Red. While Red's projects may not go as planned, Mike rarely even plans. Mike's multitude of mistakes also leads to his low self-esteem.
[edit] Edgar K. B. Montrose
- Actor: Graham Greene
Edgar is the lodge's explosives enthusiast (Though he claims it is only because he watches a lot of Road Runner Cartoons.) He first appeared in The Experts segments in the season 4 episode The Movie Project. He believes that any problem (including leaky roofs, getting rid of weeds; and getting fair service, acting like a suicide bomber) can be solved with explosives.
In The Guard Dog Project, Edgar said that he was born in Santa Boya, Saskatchewan. He also said...
"I didn't fit in with those narrow minded nitpickers. Always saying things like, 'shouldn't you hav a licence to handle explosives?' or 'Shouldn't you be using a longer wick?' or 'where did the schoolhouse go?!'. That sort of thing."
He later enlisted in the Army, and was dishonorably discharged three weeks later for blowing up the main office (turns out they were only thinking of building a new one.)
Due to years of being an explosives enthusiast, Edgar has lost most of his hearing, often leading to non-sensical responses to Red and Harold's questions (example: Red says "What have you brought for us today, Edgar?" and Edgar responds "Oh, just fine, Red"). He is also missing a finger on his left hand. Though it has never been stated explicitly, it is strongly implied that he lost it in an explosion. He claims that he doesn't have many friends, "and has yet to meet a woman that likes to spend a saturday night watching him blow a fully grown Douglas Fir tree clean over the lake."
In the last episode of the series, in a segment that discusses the lives of the characters after the end of the show, it was implied (but not explicitly stated) that he had accidentally killed himself trying to use explosives to heat his chair.
Edgar's middle initials (K. B.) are rumored to stand for Ka Boom, in reference to his excessive usage of explosives. "Ka Boom!" is also his unofficial catch phrase.
[edit] Winston Rothschild, III
- Actor: Jeff Lumby
Winston Rothschild, III owns Rothschild Sewage and Septic Sucking Services (Phone number 1-800-555-SUCK(7825) and is the sole employee. He is always seen wearing a hard hat, a white button-down shirt, a bowtie, hip waders, and heavy boots. (In early episodes, he had long curly hair, which was later shortened considerably.) He is generally upbeat and has a positive outlook on life, despite his occupation. He is generally unlucky in the game of love, though this may have more to do with him taking his dates out to dinner in his septic truck than his personality.
Winston is featured on The Red Green Show in numerous fictitious commercials interspersed among the show's main segments. Most of the time, these commercials feature him standing in front of his septic cleanup truck(Honey Wagon) and delivering a humorous quip describing his business (eg. "We'll take that smell off your hands","You think Fear Factor is gross, I have to eat off these hands!" and "We're Number 1 in the Number 2 business."). Rothschild also appears occasionally in "Ask The Experts", "The Possum Lodge Word Game", and in the show's main plot segments.
Rothschild is also a fan of self help speakers, such as Anthony Anthony (whom he likes to quote) and Walter Mollusk.
[edit] Kevin Black
- Actor: Paul Gross
A yuppie land developer who is always trying to buy the Lodge property. He bought Bluff Point, a local land area nicknamed 'Blood Point' due to its mosquito infestation.
[edit] Arnie Dogan
- Actor: Albert Schultz
A roofer and country singer, Arnie is almost always in a cast of some kind due to the danger of his job. He claims to have written over 10,000 songs.
[edit] Dwight Cardiff
- Actor: George Buza
Succeeded Glen as the local marina owner. Dwight is even lazier than Glen.
[edit] Adventurer Walter
- Actor: Joel Harris
Bill's replacement in the later seasons, Walter is just as accident-prone as Bill was. Bill eventually came back near the show's concluding seasons, but Walter continued to stick around as his co-star.
[edit] Bonnie
- Actress: Laurie Elliott
- Harold's girlfriend (starting with the 14th season), Bonnie is a licensed commercial truck driver from Port Asbestos. She is virtually the female version of Harold - she shares his voice, mannerisms and geekiness. The final season of the show features the courtship of Harold and Bonnie, who get married in the final episode. A flash-forward reveals that Harold and Bonnie will have two children (a son and a daughter).
[edit] Unseen characters
There have also been several unseen characters who are mentioned frequently in Red Green's anecdotes about life around Possum Lodge, including George "Stinky" Peterson, Junior Singleton, Moose Thompson, Buster Hatfield, Old Man Sedgwick, Flinty McClintock, Wally "Kickback" Kibbler (Red's rival in high school and the mayor of Possum Lake), and Red's wife Bernice.
[edit] Guest stars
In addition to the regular cast, there have been a number of guest stars who have appeared on the show, the most notable of which include Don Harron, reprising his Hee Haw character Charlie Farquharson, and Canadian Colin Mochrie from the television comedy improv Whose Line Is It Anyway? (playing Frank Kepke, a hobbyist/store owner who makes things entirely out of hotdogs). Various people have also been taken directly from the live studio audience to appear on the show.
[edit] See also
[edit] Trivia
- Ranger Gord's fire tower is located on Ferndale Road in Port Carling, Ontario, near Muskoka. [citation needed]
- Actor Steve Smith played Red Green, while actor Rick Green played Bill Smith.
