Q & A
Bye-bye, Boys
The Trailer Park Boys reflect on the end of their great run
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 2, 2008 | 4:14 PM ET
By Flannery Dean, CBC News
The Trailer Park Boys, from left; Julian (John Paul Tremblay), Bubbles (Mike Smith) and Ricky (Robb Wells). The eighth and final season of the Canadian show Trailer Park Boys airs Dec. 7. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press) You don’t need to be a hoser to love the popular Canadian TV show Trailer Park Boys — but speaking as a small-town hoser myself, it doesn’t hurt. Since its 2001 debut, Trailer Park Boys has acted as cultural adrenaline to fun-starved Canadian audiences.
"[American networks] were forced to bleep [Trailer Park Boys] and once you do that to the show, it changes the show’s whole feel, because the swearing isn’t a punch line — it’s the way we talk."
— Mike Smith (aka Bubbles)
Showcasing the illicit antics of three petty crooks — Ricky, Julian and Bubbles — this gleeful buddy comedy is set in Sunnyvale, a trailer park in Nova Scotia. Trailer Park Boys is heartfelt and always ridiculous, but it’s the show’s anti-consumer, anti-lifestyle approach that truly sets it apart. Sunnyvale’s down-at-the-heels-and-loving-it philosophy has been a welcome reprieve in a consumer-driven cultural climate where the tapas dish is considered essential to civilization, and where too many TV shows serve as nothing more than advertisements for clothing, music and shoes.
Created by director Mike Clattenburg, the show won a Gemini Award for Best Comedy Series in 2004, the same year it became the highest rated Canadian show on specialty television. Now, after seven seasons, this homegrown hit is coming to an end. Actors and frequent show co-writers Mike Smith (Bubbles), Robb Wells (Ricky) and John Paul Tremblay (Julian) stepped out of character to discuss the unexpected end of one of Canada’s most successful TV shows.
The series finale of Trailer Park Boys airs Dec. 7 on Showcase.
Flannery Dean is a writer based in Toronto.
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Ricky and Bubbles in a scene from Trailer Park Boys. (Showcase)
Julian and Ricky in a scene from Trailer Park Boys. (Showcase)

