An Ode to Trailer Park Boys

When the sepia-toned ariel footage of Nova Scotia’s most infamous trailer park begins to roll with the dreamy lilting piano chord theme carrying on through it, I feel my heart skip a beat. Trailer Park Boys, a cult classic mockumentary à la The Office but Canadian, raunchier, and subjectively better, is a nod to the working class and the antics of blue-collar buddies just getting by. But it’s also casually progressive, especially for a show born in the early aughts when being an out gay couple in a conservative-leaning proletariat class was an anomaly. And it’s where the now-famed star of such blockbuster hits as The Umbrella Academy, Juno, and Inception, Elliot Page, got their start. TPB, as it is affectionately abbreviated, has brought a sense of simplicity and comic relief to the trenches of mundanity and daily struggles of the working class.

Like any comedy hoping to keep an audience, TPB has a rotating cast of caricatures, but prominently features a gang of three buds that grew up together ‘in the pahk’: Bubbles, Julien, and Ricky. As my ex-boyfriend once aptly described it, Bubbles is the sweet and intelligent sidekick character of the group, caring for stray kitties and trying in vain to rein in his friends’ antics. Julien is the high-functioning alcoholic schemer always getting the boys in and out of get-rich quick plots that inevitably involve growing, hiding, and selling dope. And Ricky is the thick-skulled but doggedly loyal comedic relief in constant pursuit of a better relationship with his teen daughter (played by a young Elliot Smith in the early seasons).

The show centers around this iconic tready bopping around the park and causing mischief. The target of a majority of the hooliganry is the park supervisor, Mr. Lahey (played by the dearly departed John Dunsworth) and his later revealed romantic partner Randy (the cheeseburger king played by Patrick Roach). Following the timeless trope of kids pulling pranks on the adults in charge, the show sticks to its rhythm of pitting Lahey and Randy against the boys in a timeless cycle of cat and mouse. Such antics include selling single cigarettes to kids, ‘paving’ a driveway to one of the trailers with hash to remain undetected, and hunting down a stoned mountain lion in an illicit growing operation.

The characters experience triumph in the form of humiliating Lahey and Randy and getting away with schemes while also rallying around such disappointments as getting sent back to prison (again), getting drunk on swill behind the dumpsters, and failing year ten for the third time. But the magic of the show is the perseverance of friendship, navigating daily bullshit, and never taking anything too seriously. And in a modern world of filtered friendships on social media, cut-throat competitions for promotions and academic honors, and a deep universal pain riding below it all, it’s nice to live in a fantasy world of finding magic and camaraderie in the daily grind, if only for half an hour or so.

My ex introduced me to TPB, which has to be the most prevalent and unsurprising introduction to that show. We would watch episodes crammed into his twin dorm bunk bed with a bottle of Yellowtail we took turns taking swigs from. There was an authenticity in him that TPB mirrored beautifully and it can’t be denied my affection for both him and the show grew in parallel, intertwined. I had a sad in me I didn’t yet know how to coddle and the freedom of characters living their authentic lives, whatever that looked like, was an emotional panacea for me. Quotable lines from the show became notes we would scrawl into each other’s notebooks during class. We’d quote the show back and forth to each other in the dining hall every night. It was our first inside joke.

Before Netflix binging really became a thing, we would pirate episodes onto his laptop that seemed to constantly be crashing, clinging to the life support of its charging cable at all times. Rainy days, and there were so many in Portland, were passed beneath scratchy Target sheets with Bubbles, Julien, and Ricky engaging in shenanigans on the small screen between us. And as I begin to move through the world as independent feeling, thinking, observing adult just trying to pick the right people to align myself with, TPB became a litmus test. A stand-in for authenticity, I used TPB as a flag to see who shared a similar life perspective that was difficult to articulate. To me, a taste for the show indicated an appreciation for quirk, a lack of judgement, and a desire to support those you love through not just the big challenging hurdles, but the day-to-day monotony of life.

One of my all time favorite episodes, Season 3 Episode 6: Where in the Fuck is Randy’s Barbecue?, is probably one of the most nonchalant coming out stories I’ve seen on television, especially considering it aired back in 2003. Randy and Lahey, caught wearing costumes despite it not being Halloween, declare their romantic involvement to a crowd of park residents that has gathered in the driveway. Its not the season finale. Its not a huge plot point that is dragged on for many more episodes. It’s declared, and then it becomes just another piece of the trashy fictional artifice of Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Randy and Lahey begin to act as a couple in public and it is boorishly normal. In fact, their characters are still equally detested for the same reasons they always were, and that’s the beauty of it. Their sexuality neither elevates their characters to a moral high ground, nor hinders their character arcs and who they are in the show. It’s as unremarkable as Ricky stockpiling stolen grocery carts or Bubbles starting a DIY kitty shelter. And to this day modern television still struggles with how to represent queer characters as normal, average, flawed human beings.

It’s been nearly a decade since Trailer Park Boys entered my life. I live in a different city, a different state. I graduated college nearly 5 years ago. My friends and interests and relationship status has shifted, but inside I still feel the same connection to a show that brought me comfort and joy so many years ago. When I’m feeling overwhelmed by the seemingly endless arbitrary bullshit of existence, I grab some cheap beer, role a joint, and open my laptop to visit my old friends in Sunnyvale Trailer Park one more time.