The Red Green Show

I used to think that "The Red Green Show" was stupid, but as I watched more episodes I caught on to how great this show is. It really does a superb job of poking fun at the "male bonding" craze that was going on in the 1990's and the entirely male cast represent all sorts of hilarious stereotypes of manhood. They do it so well and it always makes me laugh. And hard at that, too.

Steve Smith portrays Red Green, the leader of the Possum Lodge that's 135 beer stores away from Toronto. His mis-adventures mostly involve the goings-on in his lodge with real and fictionally members of his fraternity. Smith delivers a great performance as the grizzled "King of Men" but it's Patrick McKenna's Harold, Green's nephew that steals most of the episodes. McKenna's character is a nerdy but loveable bumbler who always flashes those pearly whites, has hilarious mannerisms, and just shines with his lack of aloofness. Plenty of recurring characters shine in this series. Co-creator Rick Green's ode to Harp Marx/Teller in the Green narrated "Adventures With Bill" are always a hoot, as Bill always seems to be abused by Red AND Murphy's Law. Gordon Pinsent's compulsive liar/tall tale teller Hap Shaughnessy, Oscar-nominated actor Graham Greene's explosive specialist Edgar Montross, and Peter Keleghan's lonely teary-eyed Ranger Gord are just three of the hilarious people Red interacts with.

Don't forget those classic "Handyman's Corner" segments where his "Handyman's secret weapon" (Duct tape) is always regularly abused; they rule. The Red Green Show, along with Absolutely Fabulous, are two sitcoms that Americans need to watch to understand why some people think that American sit-coms have lost their touch.

As you know I'm Canadian, and very proud of it, we have quite a few popular musicians and a couple big name comedians, and we have a couple of TV shows that make it big. One of those TV shows is "The Red Green Show". I remember watching the very first episode of Red Green, and I loved the show. It is very funny, and the cast is hilarious. The show is about a guy, Red Green (Steve Smith) who holds a meeting every day at the Possum Lodge, that's where the show takes place. Every show Red Green teaches the audience something, whether it's lessons on life, campfire songs, or how to make something out of nothing in Handyman Corner. As well as Mr. Green there's his nephew Harold (Patrick McKenna), Dalton Humprey, Mike Hammer, Old Man Sedgwick, a bunch of others and of course Bill. I love watching Adventures with Bill, and I kind of feel sorry for him, because in every episode of Adventures with Bill, something always happens to him, or to Red Green. One of my favorite segments is Handyman Corner, because he comes up with the neatest ideas. I remember this one-time it was a Christmas episode, and Red was making an advent calendar. You'll have to see the episode, because it's hilarious.

Look out! This show has supplied me life-saving laughs since the early 90s. I feel so lucky to have on tape nearly every episode, from the very beginning of the series - when old Red was so clean-cut and young that you can hardly recognize him as Steve Smith.

It definitely has lost its edge in the last couple of years, but the rustic humor is still pure. They just seem to be out new ideas for the Bill segments, The Experts and the Word Game.

I can't think of any other show or movie that could match this, in its style of humor and its near-accidental staging. This kind of show only comes along once. The way it's staged, it could have been a great live hit in the earliest days of TV.

It's more than likely that I love this show because it talks about people like me, who'll use duct-tape to fix a machine I depend on my life for, because it's easier than drilling holes and setting bolts.

No show that I'm aware of has done so much to celebrate men, even though the show mostly ridicules them. I'm sorry to see how much it's degenerated, in the last season, but you can only come up with so many believably outrageous (or is it outrageously believable) stunts.

I don't know from whence the concept originated, but I'll always love Steve Smith and Pat McKenna for giving me a show about myself, and the people I know.

...but it helps to know what the "Canadian Content Law" and other Canadian references mean. Lucky me, I am and I do.

Even so, The Red Green Show is a human cartoon with all of the pitfalls, screw-ups, lapses of judgement and fun that one could expect from The Simpsons, Warner Brothers and Family Guy.

Besides that, Red Green is a parody of everything that men are expected to be by either gender. Red's Handyman's Corner shows a man more obsessed with getting the job done quickly and cheaply, and have his project stay together just long enough to be effective.

And while his projects somehow survive, nothing else seems to fall the way of the gang at Possum Lake. Their get-rich-now schemes verify the wisdom of the adage "Those who strive to create a fool-proof plan too often underestimate the ingenuity and persistence of fools".

Red may keep his stick on the ice, but his head and those of his friends, God only knows where they've gone.

...and you might come close to getting the essence of what made "Red Green" so enjoyable. Never mind "The Man Show", THIS was the real deal!

What originally attracted me to the show was that it was indeed funny (in a bemused, Newhart way), but it also had a bit of an edge to it. There were some genuine barbs and mean-spirited feelings, some real cynicism and misanthropy concealed in the campfire songs and moose-poop jokes. In the last few years, that edge sort of went away (similar to the way "The Simpsons" lost a lot of their original venom after more than 10 years), but it was always funny and packed with clever word plays and tongue-in-cheek observations of the male psyche and character.

Many characters came and went over the years mostly wonderfully played by talented actors; the one I missed most was 'Garth Harple', the first "Animal Control Officer", whose sad sack demeanor and heavy handed irony ( his motto, "Another Super Day!!" could be teaser for every awful work assignment you ever had) was perfect for the show.

I admire Smith and company for quitting when they were still ahead...it must have been hard to abandon the money machine and a relatively sure thing, but to admit that you need to move on to other projects is the hallmark of true craftsmen at their best. Many many thanks to "The Red Green Show" for innumerable moments( over more than a decade) where I would almost snort beer (or milk) out my nose at some well done jape, sight gag or pratfall.