The Red Green Show

The Red Green Show was a television comedy that had aired on the CBC 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 Country Canada and The Comedy Network. It was produced by S&S Productions, which is owned by Steve and Morag Smith and directed by William G. Elliott.

The show

The Red Green Show was essentially a cross between a sitcom and a sketch comedy series, and it was a parody of many home-improvement, do-it-yourself, fishing and other outdoors shows (particularly the Red Fisher Show). Each episode unfolded through a series of mostly unconnected comedic sketches, but unlike a true sketch comedy, all sketches draw from the same single set of characters. Every actor always plays one 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 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 fishing, 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.

The show's basic concept is that it was 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 evolved over time and eventually included several regular segments that appear in almost every show. These segments are interspersed with each episode's three main plot segments, and they included 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. The segment customarily concludes with the aphorism "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."

He also gives sage advice to older men from behind his workbench, usually talking 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 guesses way off target, and finally accidentally says the correct word, whether it be a random word or in the middle of another word, all the while delivering a punch line.

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 — he claims to have been an astronaut, to have invented television, and to have once advised Walt Disney on how many fingers to put on Mickey Mouse, among other things.

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."

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. ^*. 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. ^*

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).

Characters

NOTE: The technical descriptions of the characters below come from the Red Green DVDs.

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 Green

Actor: Patrick McKenna
Sex: Nothing so far
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

Bill Smith

Actor: Rick Green

'Adventures with Bill' consists of grainy black-and-white home movies, in which Bill 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 Bill's voice (usually screams). In later seasons (especially Season 8), Bill 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 Bill 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 Bill has ever appeared in the Lodge itself was in the second season of the show, and in the final episode, where he also recapped favourite 'Adventures with Bill' segments from seasons gone by.
An interesting note about the 'Adventures' segments is that Red's narration tends to shift back and forth between past and present tense.

Ed Frid

Actor: Jerry Schaefer
Sex: Tense
Eyes: Mostly white
Address: Possum Lake Regional Emergency Clinic
Weight: 200 lb. when full of blood
Date of Birth: Late 50s, conceived during an episode of Wild Kingdom
Hair Color: Straight up
Aliases: Sick Leave

Ed Frid is the local animal control officer. 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 Ed. Everything always goes wrong and there is normally a panic about how "we're all going to die".

Buzz Sherwood

Actor: Peter Wildman

Buzz is a bush pilot in the Possum Lake area. He is very affectionate towards his plane, 'Beauty'. Buzz is a burned-out 1960's hippie who is very laid back.

Ranger Gord

Actor: Peter Keleghan

Gord is the local forest ranger. 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.

Bob Stuyvesant

Actor: Bruce Hunter

Ostensibly working for the government, Bob spends all of his time playing golf.

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

Glen Brackston

Actor: Mark Wilson

The local marina owner. Glen 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's also a big fan of slot cars. Glen and his wife have seven daughters.

Dougie Franklin

Actor: Ian Thomas

Dougie is very proud of his monster truck.

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.

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

Hap is the local water-taxi captain. But he is more Lodge-renowned for his wild exaggerations. For example, Hap 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.

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

Edgar K. B. Montrose

Actor: Graham Greene

Edgar is the lodge's explosives enthusiast. He first appeared in The Experts segments in season 4. He believes that any problem (including leaky roofs and getting rid of weeds) can be solved with explosives.
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").
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 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.

Winston Rothschild, III

Actor: Jeff Lumby
Sex: Abstainer
Eyes: Brown and watery
Address: c/o Septic Truck
Weight: 140 lb. before work
Date of Birth: Early 60s
Hair Color: Light brown when washed
Aliases: Mr. Suck

Winston Rothschild, III owns Rothschild Sewage and Septic Sucking Services 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. 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 and delivering a humorous quip describing his business (eg. "You think Fear Factor is gross, I have to eat off these hands!" and "We're Number 1 in the Number 2 business."). Winston also appears occasionally in "Ask The Experts", "The Possum Lodge Word Game", and in the show's main plot segments.
Winston is also a fan of self help speakers, such as Anthony Anthony (whom he likes to quote) and Walter Mollusk.

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.

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.

Dwight Cardiff

Actor: George Buza

Succeeded Glen as the local marina owner. Dwight is even lazier than Glen.

Adventurer Walter

Actor: Joel Harris

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).

Unseen characters

There have also been several unseen characters who are mentioned frequently in Red Green's anecdotes about life around Possum Lodge, including Stinky Peterson, Junior Singleton, Moose Thompson, Buster Hadfield, Old Man Sedgwick, Flinty McLintock, Wally "Kickback" Kibbler (Red's rival in high school and the mayor of Possum Lake), and Red's wife Bernice.

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 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.

Trivia

Ranger Gord's fire tower is located on Ferndale Road in Port Carling, Muskoka

External links

Sitcoms in Canada | 1990s TV shows in the United States | 2000s TV shows in the United States | PBS network shows | CBC network shows

The Red Green Show | La reda verda spektaklo

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