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Trailer Park Boys

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Through taking this course, we learned how to become better and more serious watchers of television through a critical orientation. We have developed a skill to carefully and thoroughly examine television programs by understanding the history of its genre, developing informative judgement, and understanding different elements that make up television program in order to communicate our criticism to other viewers. When writing blogs post and having in class discussions, we have learned about television through genre and how television programs do or do not conform to the conventions of their genre. According to the text, situation comedies, a subgenre of comedy, are generally known to provoke laughter through jokes, humorous dialogue, and situations containing the same characters located in a domestic or workplace setting. For this essay, I will develop formal criticism of the television program Trailer Park Boys.  This essay will be an analysis of this subgenre, critically examining an episode of the postmodern television program Trailer Park Boys for its structure, substance, story, characters, and the ways that it encourages viewer involvement in the lives of the characters through humor. The analysis will also show how the elements of a situation comedy makes Trailer Park Boys for what it is to pass judgment on the quality of the program. All twelve seasons of the series are available on Netflix.

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Trailer Park Boys is a Canadian mockumentary situation comedy with a run time of thirty to forty minutes that aired from 2001 to 2018. The series has several movies and live performance that are derived from the stories of the television series. Following the mockumentary style of shooting, the program incorporates the use of long takes and handheld camera work to put into the effect of realism. Trailer Park Boys follows the daily lives and misadventures of three friends, Julian, played by John Paul Tremblay,  Ricky, played by Robb Wells, and Bubbles, played by Mike Smith. Inside of a Nova Scotia fictional trailer park, Sunnyvale Trailer Park. The three friends equally balance their personalities and represent the three modes of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos. Julian represents the logos. As the head honcho of the group, he leads in all of their plans to make money, usually illegally, using logic and reason to think of plans. Ricky represents the pathos. He is not the smartest of the group, or even in the entire trailer park, and usually uses his emotions and feelings when he makes decisions, which leads to bad decision-making and putting the group into trouble. Bubbles is the socially awkward but most ethical of the group, making him the ethos. Bubbles tries to steer his crime driven friends to make money the legal way. He provides insight for the group and acts as the shoulder angel for both Ricky and Julian. The trio get chased around the park by ex-cop Sunnyvale Trailer Park supervisor Jim Lahey, played by John Dunsworth and his sidekick wanna-be cop Randy, played by Patrick Roach. Ultimately, the twelve-season series mixes adventures and stupid humor / comedy between the personalities of three friends driven to create new stories every episode to build a connection with the story of the show and its characters.

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Creators
Mike Clattenburg, a Canadian TV and film director, producer, and screenwriter is best known for his work on Trailer Park Boys. Trailer Park Boys was inspired by short film written and directed by Clattenburg called “One Last Shot” shot in 1998 in black-and-white, which is where we see character Ricky, Julian, and Jim Lahey for the first time together despite having different character names. One year later, Clattenburg will move on to shoot another film with the same name to the show, but instead focusing on the character Julian who hires a camera crew to document his life after receiving a psychic prediction that he was going to die soon and Julian hoped the documentary would stop others from following his crime oriented lifestyle. The film gained the attention from Barrie Dunn, a television producer, at the Atlantic Film Festival, where from then on out both Clattenburg and Dunn worked on a proposal that turned the film into a television series. After getting rejected by The Comedy Network in Toronto, they made a deal with Showcase, based in Nova Scotia. With some changes from the film to the TV series , we now have what the world knows as Trailer Park Boys and the livelihood and friendship between Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles.

Cast
The cast that makes up the bulk of the show are John Paul Tremblay (Julian), Robb Wells (Ricky), Mike Smith (Bubbles), John Dunsworth (Jim Lahey), and Patrick Roach (Randy). Each character has their own specific trait that creates a sense of individuality between all the characters in Trailer Park Boys. Julian is known for carrying around a glass of rum and coke throughout the entire series, no matter where they are and what they are doing. Ricky is the not-so-smart stoner of the group who has come to terms with his stupidity and trademarked in the show for using malaprops when he talks, saying things like “all for all and one for one” (one for all and all for one) and “don't judge a cover of a book by its look” (don’t judge a book by its over). Bubbles is known for wearing glasses that magnify his eyes abnormally and living a much simpler life than Julian and Ricky hauling shopping carts to resell them and living with his kittens in his particularly small shed. Jim Lahey is the arch nemesis of the three friends being an ex-cop and supervisor of the trailer park who blames the trio for being part of the reason why he lost his badge, known for his drunken acts and his myriad of “shit” phrases where he takes idioms and metaphors and morphs them with “shit” directed to the trio (for example: “shit apple doesn’t fall far from the shit tree”). Randy is Jim Lahey’s assistant and sidekick in the series, known for being shirtless and how he his not being able to wear shirts due to how his skin reacts to any type of cloth on the top half of his body, revealing his big gut and he is also known for being addicted to eating cheeseburgers.

Popularity
Trailer Park Boys became very successful on the Canadian cable network Showcase being the network’s highest-rated series and also having success in many countries. The program has separate but tied films, such as Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, Countdown to Liquor Day, and Don’t Legalize It. The program also has live specials such as Live in Fuckin’ Dublin, Live at the North Pole, and Drunk, High, and Unemployed (Live in Austin). In 2016 the group travelled to Europe to film an eight part series called Trailer Park Boys: Out of the Park: Europe. The trio has made special appearance on popular television talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live. In the article, “How the World Caught Up to Trailer Park Boy” by Dan Kagan-Kans who described the show as predating “the mockumentary style of The Office and meta-commentary of Community” and talks about how the show was still running after fifteen years and the influence that the show still has after all this time. “It's a world that's so self-contained—and therefore foreign to those outside of it—it can be hard to get into. The boys rarely leave the park, don't have cell phones, only occasionally watch TV, and, for the earlier seasons, don't have internet. (Reading doesn't begin to enter into it.) A few cultural relics filter down, like the band Rush (which appears on the show), the nationally treasured restaurant chain Tim Hortons, and J-Roc's second-hand hip-hop, but that's about it. So there's little for outsiders to recognize and attach to—which has the thankful effect of protecting the show from the comforting web of pop-culture that smothers too many other comedies.”

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Description of the Episode: "Darth Lahey" (Season 11 Episode 4)

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Description of the Episode: "Darth Lahey" (Season 11 Episode 4)

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The episode of Trailer Park Boys that I will be breaking down and analyzing for its structure, substance, story, characters, and the ways that it encourages viewer involvement in the lives of the characters through humor is “Darth Lahey”, episode four of season eleven. To catch up to how the characters have developed this far in the series, Julian has decided to let go of his illegal and found a hobby in hauling lobsters to sell, Ricky is still scheming money by running a fake hockey school and convincing everyone in Sunnyvale to grow at least one plant of marijuana in each of their trailers. Ricky needs to get fertilizer for his plants, and the plan is to use the lobsters to trade for a fertilizer that has run out of stock due to a farmer buying all of it. Jim Lahey subsided from chasing the boys and figures out that he might be Ricky’s father, making him the great grandfather of Mo, who is the son of Trinity, Ricky’s daughter. Randy and Jim Lahey have parted in terms of their relationship after Randy realizes that he wants to pursue his career as a police officer.

Summary
The episode, with a runtime of twenty six minutes and nineteen second, begins with Julian inviting Ricky and Bubbles to go lobster fishing with him since they something to payback the farmer from previous episodes. We find Bubbles packing unnecessary gear and wearing a typical fisherman’s outfit, which is really reflective of his character because it shows his worry and his idea of fishing which he learned from TV. Ricky’s wife Lucy and her friend Sarah remind Ricky that was supposed to babysit because he promised them the day before. Ricky does not recount promising them since he was drunk and high, which is not a surprise to them. Ricky agrees to babysit since he is “a word of my man” (an example of one of Ricky’s malaprops). The scene changes focus to a confrontation between Randy and Ricky. Ricky finds Randy planting cameras as he strolls around the park with Mo in a stroller and warns Ricky that the cops will be at the trailer park soon because he knows about the marijuana plants. The program switches back to Julian and Bubbles out in the lake fishing, but since they have missed their window for fishing lobsters, Julian expresses how they could have caught more to make extra money. Julian reveals to Bubbles that he would like to settle with the rest of the trailer park on a piece of property right off the coast where they were fishing. Jim Lahey finds Ricky playing with Mo and Ricky learns of Randy’s plan through Jim Lahey, who has agreed to watch Mo so Ricky can move his operation elsewhere. At first Ricky is skeptical because he thinks Jim Lahey is still in touch with Randy and trying to Ricky arrested. In the next scene Randy walks up to the office of Officer Green with Officer Johnson by his side. The only reason Randy is confident in bluntly walking up to them is because Randy has black mail on Officer Johnson of them having sexual affairs, which Randy acquired once he knew Officer Johnson was using him for sexual pleasure when Randy asked Johnson for help on becoming an officer. Officer Green tells them that it is a waste of time, due to all the failed attempts Officer Green has had trying to arrest the trio. Green tells them that he does not care and they could do whatever they want. We then again switch back to Julian and Bubbles at the farm with all the lobsters, ready to make a deal. The farmer asks for one more favor, to extract bull semen, which might not seem too harsh but in previous episodes the farmer had explained the only effective way to do so is manually, using their hands. Julian and Ricky decide it is only fair to decide by playing rock-paper-scissors and before we get to see who won, the scene changes to them driving away. We now have three separate connective scenes that will build upon one another. Ricky is trying to contact Julian and Bubbles to help him move the plants, Julian and Bubbles are on their way back, and Randy has the police on his side. All these situations converging into one. As Ricky uses the kids from his fake hockey camp to shovel dirt in his car for his plants, Julian and Bubbles arrive back to see the park engulfed by police officers arresting everyone in the park. Officer Green, Officer Johnson, and Randy confront Julian and Bubbles about the search they are going to perform. Meanwhile Julian nor Bubbles know whether or not the marijuana plants are still in everybody’s trailer park. The officers search Julian’s bar and find nothing. This concerns Officer Green, but then the scene changes to Ricky meeting up with his crew where they were able to secure all the marijuana before the police got there. We follow Randy back to the police station where he believes he is about to get a promotion, but instead is confronted by Officer Green who angrily explains to him that they could not find anything illegal in the park, despite having to search twenty one trailer parks. Ricky arrives back to the park and find all of his equipment trashed (by the police) and everyone missing. One of the people he convinced to grow weed for him made him aware of what went down. Ricky drives to Jim Lahey’s trailer, since he still thinks Jim Lahey had something to do with the park search done by Randy and the cops. The final segment of the episode is Ricky and Jim Lahey dueling with hockey sticks, fighting and quoting lines similar to Star Wars when Luke Skywalker finds out that Darth Vader is his dad. The irony is that this is also when Jim Lahey reveals to Ricky that he is Ricky’s father, also reminiscent of the famous Star Wars scene, hence the name of the episode “Darth Lahey”.

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1. Story, Substance, Characters, and Representation

1. What happens in the lead-in? How does it entice the viewer to stay with the program?

2. What is the lack or disequilibrium? Is the lack removed to restore disequilibrium?

3. Identify the stages of the hermeneutic code—enigma, delay, and resolution—that move the narrative forward.

4. Are there oppositions?

5. What cultural values are represented? What ordinary personal issues are recognizable?

6. What shared substances may lead the audience to identify with the program’s characters? Can viewers recognize their own fallibility in the character?

7. What emotional appeals are present? How are they conveyed?

8. Does identification of intertextuality heighten the pleasure derived from the program?

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Now that we have an overview of the plot of the episode,  we can interpret the story, substance, characters, and representations. In this episode, the lead-in occurs when Ricky begins to freak out when he finds out that Randy is going to get the cops to Sunnyvale. The lead-in would make the audience engage more into the program in order to find out if the cops would actually catch Ricky. In the next scene where Ricky is trying to contact them, everything around him is starting to fall apart. Throughout the series, Ricky could light his weed joint with ease, whether just blew up trailer or even if he just got shot. This is the first time in a while we see Ricky’s lighter not working and him not being able to smoke his joint, an indication of foreshadowing the plot of the episode. The disequilibrium is Randy foiling Ricky’s last big marijuana growing operation that will give the trio enough money to put down crime for good. The villain of this episode is Randy, trying to get his spot as a police officer by trying to foil Ricky’s marijuana operation, but he ultimately fails. The enigma of this episode is Ricky finding out that his plans are about to be foiled. The delay presented by Randy being successful in getting the police to search the entire trailer park, which leads to the resolution of the episode. Randy’s outcome with the help of the police is not being able to find anything as well as Ricky being able to transport all the marijuana plants out of the park before the police search. The cultural values represented in the show are those of community. Although the ordinary personal issues of the Trailer Park Boys are not recognizable, the viewers are able to understand the show’s use of intertextuality, for example, the final scene of the episode directly correlating to the final scene of Star Wars Episode V. The shared substance that may lead the audience to identify with the programs’ characters is the essence of having the backup of your friends to help you in any situation. The friendship between Julian, Ricky and Bubbles is implicative of the three modes of persuasion. The three friends equally balance their personalities. Julian represents the logos, Ricky represents the pathos, and Bubbles is the socially awkward but most ethical of the group, making him the ethos. In this episode, we get to experience how dependent they are of each other. When Ricky (the pathos) was left alone, everything went to turmoil and he let his emotions drive his actions. Ricky was able to get everything in order, but tunnel-visioned his marijuana plants instead of thinking of the bigger picture, the livelihood of the trailer park. Without his logos, Julian, being there to help organize everything logically to make sure the operation of removing the marijuana plants away from Sunnyvale. And without his ethos, Bubbles, he was not able to do it ethically enough to get the cops. On the other hand, when Julian and Bubbles (the logos and ethos of the group) were together, they were discussing the end game for the park, moving away. Emotional appeals and intertextuality are present this episode (and at the same time) especially in the last scene of the episode when Ricky finds out that Jim Lahey is his father. Jim Lahey always thought has Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles as his arch nemesis and vice versa, but Jim Lahey had a special hatred for Ricky because he believes he is the reason he lost his badge and position as a police officer. Jim Lahey has been after the trio for the first ten seasons, but after Ricky’s father passes, Jim Lahey feels the need to be the correct father role for Ricky.

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The television program Trailer Park Boys accomplishes what it sets out to do and conforms to the conventions of a situation comedy. Trailer Park Boys provides laughter, warmth, and entertainment, no matter the context in which it is being presented. The audience might not accept the character for their actions, but it is through the “why” of their actions is what makes the characters relatable. The program engages and respects its audience. Whether it was Ricky’s sporadic behavior or Randy’s obsession and confidence of becoming a police officer, the acting helps bring about a natural feel for the characters. Robb Wells (Ricky) and John Dunsworth (Jim Lahey) are excellent in the final scene. Ricky’s facial expressions reveal his emotions very well, especially in the last scene. He conveys hurt and confusion without saying anything, despite losing a hockey-stick duel against Jim Lahey. The structure of the show works very well and is easy to follow. The progression of the scenes and story are chronological. The end of the show leaves the viewer wanting more and wondering what will happen next.

The show has a large following online and is well-liked by people of all ages who enjoy the humor whether or not they can understand the Ricky’s stupidity, Bubbles huge glasses, or Randy’s obsession with becoming a cop in this episode. Trailer Park Boys is Showcase’s highest-rate watched show in Canada and has also become popular in several different countries. Being available on Netflix has also boosted the popularity of the show.