Bye-bye, Boys

Q: Trailer Park Boys comes to an end on Dec. 7 after seven seasons. Why now?

RW: Well… [Laughs] We haven’t really been told exactly [the whole reason why it’s ending now] — that’s probably more a producer question.

Q: You guys are also writers. Did you have input in the last episode?

RW: No, not for the special so much, no. Mike [Clattenburg], the director, and I believe Timm [Hannebohm] — they wrote the episode. At the time, I don’t think it was intended to be the final one.

Q: So the end has come as a bit of a surprise?

RW: A little bit. We’ve suspected that it was coming the last couple of years. But we don’t really know exactly. We just had a very brief call with the producers. We’re hoping to get an explanation at some point [and hear] exactly what the details are.

Q: The show’s been a success in Canada, which isn’t known for its edgy TV culture. Why is it so hard to make good TV here?

MS: Hmm. We’re stumped. [All laugh.]

RW: It’s definitely hard. [The show is] just trying to break some of those rules. All of the shows made [when we started] seem to have the same old formula … We were being very different. Now there are a few new shows out trying to push things a little differently.

Q: The show features some funny visual gags, like seeing people spark cigarettes with barbecue lighters and drink out of cut up pop bottles. How do you come up with those details?

Ricky and Bubbles in a scene from Trailer Park Boys. (Showcase)

MS: Most of that stuff just comes from growing up in rural Canada. Everybody I know always lit cigarettes with barbecue lighters, people cut two-litre bottles of pop in half and drank out of them…

RW: Or used piss jugs.

MS: Or used piss jugs. Go to any town in rural Canada and you’ll see that kind of stuff. It’s sort of part of our culture.

Q: One of the things that has always struck me is that Trailer Park Boys represents poverty, but not in a depressing way.

RW: It’s neat to look at poverty in a positive way. A guy can live in his car and that’s all he needs to be happy, as long as he has food and his family. So many people want to have so much money, and all these bills and everything else cause so much stress in their lives, and these people [on the show], their lives are so simple and they’re much happier in many ways.

Q: All of you have played these characters for a while — are you sick of them yet?

MS: No, it’s fun. We don’t do it probably as much as it appears. They are fun characters to do. That’s not to say that we don’t want to pursue other things and try and play other characters, but these particular ones are fun because we improv a lot. We just try to make each other laugh when we’re doing live shows or live TV.

Q: The show aired on BBC America in 2004 to mixed reviews. Do Americans get Trailer Park Boys?

MS: Yeah, I think they get it. I think the problem was they 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. But when you bleep it, it becomes a punch line. It really stands out and changes the feel of the show.

Q: Why did they bleep the show in the first place?

MS: That Janet Jackson thing at the Super Bowl — her costume malfunction or whatever they called it — the CRTC or whatever it’s called in the U.S. cracked down big time, and they were going to fine networks for swearing. They screened one of our episodes and it was going to cost like a million dollars to air it.

Q: Did that teach you something about making future deals with U.S. networks?

MS: Yeah. [The show] starts airing down there in January on Direct TV, and it’s not going to be bleeped. We’re looking forward to seeing how that goes.

Q: Robb, you worked on the script for the Trailer Park Boys movie, The Big Dirty. What did you learn from that experience?

RW: We learned a great deal. The major thing was [that] it wasn’t true to what we wanted as a film of Trailer Park Boys. There was a lot of influence. It was in collaboration with Ivan Reitman’s company and he was fabulous to work with. But their idea of Trailer Park Boys and our ideas were two different things.

Q: I can see that, that there’s a different vision infiltrating in a way in the film.

RW: It is what it is and it was a great experience. The second movie [the upcomingCountdown to Liquor Day] is more true to what we’ve always wanted for Trailer Park Boys.

Julian and Ricky in a scene from Trailer Park Boys. (Showcase)

Q: What future plans do you have as individuals?

MS: We’re stumped again. The three of us are working together on different things. We’re trying to develop a new TV show, working on a couple of screenplays. We have an office in Dartmouth and we meet up every day and work. Everything is still sort of in the early stages. But we have big aspirations.

Q: So, you’d like to come back to TV?

RW: We’d like to do more Trailer Park Boys as well.

Q: Mike, you went on tour with Axl Rose in July 2007. What was that like?

MS: It was crazy. I was only supposed to go for a couple of shows. I ended up getting drunk and staying for two months. Axl is quite an interesting dude to hang out with.

Q: Was your Trailer Park Boys experience good preparation for being on tour with Axl?

MS: Yeah, I mean I was in pretty good drinking shape from Trailer Park tours. Guns ‘N Roses don’t hold back. They know how to go full tilt.

Q: What are you going to miss most about filming the show?

MS: It’s just a really fun job. We get to go to this trailer park and hang out with our friends and laugh all day, which is basically what we do. It’s hard work but that’s what I’ll miss most about it. That was our job and it’s a really good job. You get to go and goof around all day.

RW: I’m going to miss the whole creative process, but mostly the cast and crew.

JPT: Same thing. You go to work every day and you try and make each other laugh and few people can say that these days.

MS: What other job can J.P. go to and take his shirt off and rub oil all over his muscles?

JPT: That’s a good part of it, I guess.

Q: What aren’t you going to miss?

RW: Lots of things I can’t tell you.

MS: This guy that’s always on set and every day he’d jab me with a sharp stick. I’m not going to miss that guy.

JPT: Randy [played by Patrick Roach]. He’s all oily and sweaty: it’s like hugging a baloney log.