WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW
[ ♪ ]
In this very
studio in 1990,
the Red Green Show
was born.
The series had a low budget
and even lower expectations
and yet it survived
or 15 seasons,
generating 300 episodes,
a bunch of specials,
four books,
a weekly newspaper column,
a whole whack of DVDs,
a hamper full of T-shirts
and a feature film.
The show has been watched
in many places on the globe
and even
in outer space
and yet no one
has ever seen it
the way you're going
to see it tonight.
Hi everyone
and welcome to
The Red Green Story:
We're All In This Together.
My name
is Meg Ruffman
and I've worked with every
single one of these
cast members
in television,
radio, cartoons,
commercials
and films,
and what they won't
tell you... I will.
RED GREEN: Something
a little different
on the Adventures
With Bill this week.
Bill thought he'd show you
that he's a bit of a sport,
a bit
of a natural --
well, not really natural
at anything I guess,
but he thought he'd show
you about waterskiing.
I think maybe cleaning off
the dock might've been...
well, you know.
Mr. Rick Green!
[ APPLAUSE ]
So Rick, you had more
roles on this show
than anybody
I personally know.
And you were the
talent director for a while,
The director,
the talent director --
Actor, the guy,
the human piñata guy.
So which one of those
things is the most
fun for you?
Well, the acting is
obviously the most fun.
It is?
Yeah 'cause you're
goofing around,
and you've got
people laughing.
You're writing,
you're alone in a room,
you send off an email,
and either it doesn't
come back or it does,
re-written,
and you never know if it's
not come back if it's
going to air
if it was good enough or
it's just into the --
So, no, the acting
was the most fun.
♪ I'M GORGEOUS,
I'M GORGEOUS ♪
♪ I LOVE MY HOOTENHEIN ♪
[ LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE ]
Ready for another
beer there, Harold?
It's apple juice!
RICK GREEN:
Would you welcome,
please, Patrick McKenna.
Patrick, come on!
[ APPLAUSE ]
[ INDISCERNIBLE CHATTER ]
Okay Patrick, you had a
character to play
who was ridiculed often
by this one here.
Ridiculed and yet you had
the most forgiving kind
of personality.
I was paid.
You were?
WHAT?!
I've never
liked this man.
Your relationship --
not yours, but Harold's
relationship with Red,
how did you describe
it to yourself
in order to bring
out the forgivingness?
Oh, just
hero worship.
I just worshipped
my uncle.
If I could be like my uncle,
that would be great.
That's basically all I ever
said to myself every time...
Isn't he
the greatest?
I just played
that all the time
and that
was acting, man.
You'll get to see it
in a few minutes.
Oh yeah.
Oh, this guy.
I know.
Well, it certainly proved
your flexibility
as an actor.
That's one way of
putting it.
Okay, it took
a little extra time
and little
extra imagination,
but we now have the perfect
way to clean out your car.
You don't have to do any
bending, you don't
need a vacuum
and it won't kill
a whole afternoon.
So remember, if the women
don't find you handsome,
they should at least
find you handy.
Oh, if you're wondering
how that car cleaning
thing works...
I'll give you
three guesses.
[ LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE ]
PATRICK McKENNA:
Hands together for the
creator of the Red Green Show,
Steve Smith.
[ APPLAUSE ]
Oh yeah,
sit down.
So it's 30 years ao
you had this idea
for the Red Green
character when you
think about it.
Oh yeah,
it was 30, yes.
It was kind of
a while ago.
I was making fun
of Red Fisher,
the man who thought nothing
would bore you, you know.
It was his job to
fill the half-hour,
it was your job to
make it interesting,
and I thought, hey,
I can do that.
So it built up into --
you had a fan club of
120 000 people.
Oh, the fan club,
that really came out of
the show being cancelled
and people were writing in
letters and then we --
they wanted us to form
some kind of a real lodge
and have a
fan club going.
I remember one day --
we had a warehouse up
in Stoney Creek here,
and I had the possum
van sitting there,
and I went into
work one day
and there were two cops
sitting in a cop car.
So I get out of my car
and I'm just going
to the office,
they say,
Hey! Is that your van?
I said... yeah?
confidence?ch
Yeah...
And they said, Well,
we just ran the plates,
and those plates aren't
registered to that van.
And I'm thinking,
holy cow,
the possum van was a
repo to begin with.
I got 25 bucks worth of porch
floor enamel invested
in the paint job.
So they said, Maybe you'd
better come downtown.
And they flipped
open their badges.
It was their membership
cards in the lodge!
That's a true story.
And they still took him
downtown and beat the
crap out of him!
Obviously
not all of it.
RICK:
They left enough
for another season.
So how'd you know that
at the time when you
started it out
that you could entertain
millions of people
for 15 years
by just making
fun of guys?
We didn't know
anything of the kind.
In fact, my wife
and I had done a show
together for years,
and then she
kind of retired
because our boys were
going to high school.
So I was looking for something
to do for six months,
and Rick and I had been
writing together for 10
years prior to that
in the hopes that he was
eventually going to come
up with something.
Just something.
We were just -- I was
dozing a little,
but I think he's commented
earlier how we just
wanted to do something
that was fun for us.
And it was such
an amazing thing
that it responded
with other people.
I remember
very early on,
getting a picture from
four guys in Winnipeg,
and they looked like us,
which is depressing enough,
and they had written
their nicknames --
they fished together.
The one guy was
Jimbo and Stinky
and Shorty
and the last guy,
his nickname was
'What Rock,' okay.
Then in brackets it said,
"he was driving the boat."
I'm thinking,
this is our fan base.
We embraced
those people.
That was great.
Okay, so 30 years ago
you'd started doing
Red Green
on the Smith & Smith show.
We came across an old tape in
Stinky Peterson's suitcase.
We thought you might
like to see that.
You touched Stinky
Peterson's suitcase?
I know,
nobody told me!
It'd be
fairly dry by now.
[ ♪ ]
How you doin' there?
How are you doing?
It's Red Green
up at the lodge here.
You know something that
happens to me an awful lot,
I'll be at a party
or something,
and somebody will stand
right beside and say,
[SNIFFS]
You must do a
lot of fishin'.
Early on we were developing
the ideas for the show.
We were doing a bit of
writing and Steve said,
There's somebody
I want you to see,
so we went down
to Second City --
this was back in the
Old Firehall days,
it was a rockin' place,
and Pat came out
in one scene
as Harold as
an eight-year-old.
of Free Trade.
What?
We said that together,
we didn't plan it
or nothing.
Is that
a bonus mark?
And then Steve leaned
over and said,
Imagine that, 16 years old,
standing beside me.
And I was like,
that'd be good.
Otherwise, Red,
with the amount of
body movement he has,
he's going to blend
right into the scenery.
You need something
up there moving,
and so that was --
okay, that'll be fun.
Wow, that
was unfortunate.
The sugaring off didn't
really go so well.
Ho! There's a major
understatement.
Well, the first
part went okay.
We hooked Junior's pump up
to about 50 trees,
and then we switched it
on and in about 15 seconds
it sucked
them all dry.
40-foot oak trees
imploding.
You should have seen it.
You should have seen it.
You know what
it looked like,
it was so cool.
You know what
it looked like?
It looked like the Wicked
Witch of the West in
the Wizard of Oz,
I'm melting,
I'm melting!
I'll get you and
your little dog too!
Oh the inhumanity
of it aaaaaall!
Owww. Owww.
Owwwwwww.
♪ If he only
had a brain ♪
You know, when we were
starting to do the show,
before we had decided
what segments were
going to be in it,
Rick came to my house and
we put up a Super-8 projector
on the
laundry room wall,
and he showed me films that
he had shot in Europe with
a friend of his,
and it was the
same kind of stuff,
and that became
Adventures With Bill.
As soon as I saw that,
that's the way we
got to do it.
And no sound, we'll add
the sound in later
so that we can focus the
sounds we want to have.
[ NO SOUND ]
RED GREEN:
Anyway, he's all set,
throws the rope in
and gives me the signal.
I love this part, I just love
givin' it the gas and...
Oh, oh, boy oh boy.
Oh.
That's a shame,
that's a shame.
So he puts some of
the goalie gloves on,
and it's a little easier
on the fingers
but then I couldn't
get the signal --
Okay, I got it.
I love this part.
And away we go...
but look at his skis jammed
between the boards on
the dock there
and what a shame.
Whoaaaa!
Waterskiing's
kinda dangerous.
Try getting a little closer
to the edge of the --
well, oh, oh...
Maybe a little too --
now he sits farther back
so he won't --
Looks good, looks good,
looks good,
oh, oh, oh...
Well, I think he's okay.
You okay Bill?
Yup, yup, fine, fine.
This was a
misunderstanding.
He was bringing a ski in
and he gave me the signal,
meaning he had the ski,
but I thought that,
because I love this part...
and oh boy...
I felt bad.
Ah, he's okay.
Now he's finally figured out,
sit on the edge of the dock
and that way you can control
it better, and away we go.
Oh boy, love the boat,
love it.
What he didn't notice,
I guess, and I didn't either,
was that the rope was
tied around the --
And I was kinda busy
driving there and --
I think he kinda got ready
for a big jolt there but
actually --
oh, oh, ow!
And Bill's okay.
You know, he's tied up
for the weekend.
Welcome to the Experts
Portion of the show.
In this week's Experts
Portion of the show,
we have experts,
my Uncle Red and his good
friend, Edgar Montrose.
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
First letter
goes as follows...
Alrighty, "Dear experts,
I took my children to
a movie recently,
"and I was disgusted by
the language and the nudity,
"and that was just
in the car beside us."
[ LAUGHTER ]
"The movie was far too violent
for children or seniors
"or anyone who hasn't spent
time in either prison
or the navy.
"How can we get Hollywood
to clean up its act?
"signed, Offended"
Well, I agree
with this viewer.
I'm telling you,
my wife Bernice
dragged me out to see
Mary Poppins a few
years ago and man,
talk about offensive,
I thought I was going
to get diabetes.
They started singing that
supercali-narcoleptic-
extra-halitosis,
I just about lost
my licorice nibs.
I'll tell you what's
wrong with movies...
they give the kids a
false sense of reality,
like that movie "Speed"
when the bus blew up.
You never get
that much flame.
I know, I was the mechanic
at a bus company for
a couple of days.
Well, I would like
to caution our viewers
that there have been
some great movies made
that are both educational
and uplifting.
Yeah,
in the old days,
like "The Bridge Over
the River Kwai."
Did you see that baby
go up at the end?
And the train went
crashing into
the river.
It won an Oscar
for best picture.
But that one now,
"Bridges of Madison County,"
I waited for one of
those bridges to go up
but nothing!
And I wasn't the
only one disappointed.
Everybody in the theatre
was crying by the end.
[ LAUGHTER ]
Movies today
just don't deliver.
I do have to
disagree with you
because there has been
some great films made.
You know,
like "Forest Gump",
"The Piano",
"Dances With Wolves."
I saw that one.
[ LAUGHTER
AND APPLAUSE ]
Now, the native guy
was okay...
should've got the Oscar.
but the rest of
it was a yawn.
Now, what they needed
was one of those buffalo
to get backed up
with methane.
Catch his hoof on
a piece of flint
and go off like a
big, furry grenade.
Ka-boom!
Talk about your
burgers to go.
Well, I got the
job as Edgar
after coming back from
"Northern Exposure,"
and I was sitting
at SeaTac Airport,
and there is Steve Smith
and Gordon Pinsent on
the TV screen.
I was very curious
about what it was
so I asked the man behind the
counter if he could
turn that up.
And he turned it up and
I was listening to it,
and as I was listening,
it was men gathered
all around me --
there was people gathering
around me and they were
all laughing.
They were
fans of the show.
So I said, I got to
get on this somehow.
So I saw Steve
at the Gemini Awards
and I dropped to my knees
in front of him
and I said,
Please, please, I want to
be on your show.
I want to be on
The Red Green Show.
About a year later I got
a call and he said
come on over.
This here is the repair shop
part of the show we call,
if it ain't broke,
you're not trying.
Edgar Montrose here has
brought in something
for us to fix.
What do you got
for us, Edgar?
Oh no thanks, Red.
My mom wanted her
dining room set
refinished,
so I started it but I
was kinda hoping you'd
help me finish.
Well, I'll see
what I can do.
You've got it burned
up the side there,
what are you doing,
using a heat gun on
the varnish there?
No, that was
from the explosion.
You want to tell us
about that, Edgar?
No, Red...
not my
proudest moment.
All right,
I'll skip it.
Well, here you
can use duct tape,
and stick it on the varnish
and peel it off slow,
and she'll just lift
right off there.
No, no, I don't want
to refinish that chair,
I just brought it
in as a reference.
See, I want to repair
the other three chairs
so they match this one
so they're a complete
set again.
Oh, the rest of the
dining room set that
was maybe hurt
by that explosion you
don't want to talk about?
All right,
yeah, all right.
the other chairs.
Oh, okay.
But here again,
even with repair work,
you can use the duct tape
on that because the spindles,
sometimes
they get loose.
You can do
the keening work
or even if you got
tears in the material,
you can...
Or even if the chair
is loose, you can --
[ LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE ]
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
So are these the
other three chairs?
And the
dining room table.
Just let me say
in my defence
that chemical
paint stripper
and nitro-glycerine
are both
clear liquids.
This is a part Steve wrote for
Harold specifically as
a solo piece,
and I was just --
we were always hardwired,
and didn't I have the ability
to move around much,
so I guess there
was just the crew,
and Steve wrote
these little pieces,
maybe about 15-20
seconds long
of Harold's
teenage suggestions.
Steve has
a brilliant mind,
he can
memorize anything.
It takes
me a long time,
so I would just kind of
riff through these things.
Steve would sit about
three feet away from me
kind of going,
No, do that again.
And you'd do
it again, he'd go,
No, you missed this.
Do it again.
But each time it was
challenging me to be
more focused
and more specific
with the jokes.
'Cause he wrote these
jokes and he always said,
You can't improvise anything
better than what I've written
because I've already
thought of what you did,
chose not to use that
and made this joke.
And he was always right
because it was always the
second or third joke.
Steve was really
funny that way,
they were deep,
funny jokes.
So you tried to make
sure you got the jokes.
And that was
the introduction to,
this is the way we're going
to be approaching scripts.
So it was
really challenging
because I wanted to
impress him as well.
And coming from
Second City,
you have the immediate
gratification of an audience,
the studio had
to be very quiet.
So for me, the only reward
was if Steve laughed
or the crew laughed,
and once you've
done it 10 times,
it's really hard
to get people to laugh
so you've got to find new
moments and all that
sort of stuff.
That was the discovery of
the character
was him sitting right
in front of me just,
do it again, do it again,
do it again.
It was great.
RED GREEN:
And now here's something
for the young people,
or as we call it...
filler.
Hi, okay, welcome to the
first ever edition of...
Haha! Hoho! Wha!
Okay, so maybe
you've had a similar
high school experience
where a big kid
comes along
and he knocks the books
out of your hands
and he punches you,
and he stands on your lip
as he eats your lunch.
Yeah, well, okay, it's not
so bad the first few times,
but eventually you're going
to want to know the art of
Bully-Proofing!
Ow...
It looks soft,
doesn't it?
It looks soft!
There's numerous proven
techniques -- that looks soft!
Proven techniques
throughout the times,
like, for instance,
one of the good ones...
fleeing quickly...
often times a
good one.
The other one:
the deadly garlic diet.
Or perhaps the famous and
Oriental technique
of nunchuk.
That's a
good one too,
that's when you
throw up on a person.
But whatever you choose,
the point is
you got to stand up
for yourself so --
Harold!
What is it?!
Uncle Red, what?
with all that stuff!
Okay, all right.
I don't even
think so, BUDDY.
And clean up all those
blocks you knocked over!
Okay, alrighty,
thanks.
Okay.
Often these people would
show up to do the work,
the actual rigging of the --
sawing a bus in half
or whatever,
and they weren't
familiar with the show.
So there'd be a television
crew waiting for them
to saw a school bus
in half or cut the
lid or whatever.
And they'd be...
[IN FUNNY ACCENT]
What's going on here?
I don't know, these crazy
people in Canadian television,
why are they
making cut bus?
You want bus top off?
Yeah, yeah, just cut
it off and --
I got this unit
for 50 bucks.
50 bucks.
Yeah, a lot of
parts are missing
and it doesn't
run too good
but 50 bucks?
Boy, our society's values
are all screwed up.
Now, you can make
anything out of this.
You could make a...
Well, you're really only
limited by your own
imagination.
I tell you what
I'm going to do,
I'm going to turn this thing
into a cigarette car.
Now, you know you've got
those cigarette boats
where the driver
sits at the very back
and the hood goes way
out in front of him?
I'm going to make the version
of that for the road.
Yeah, I've already got
the back seat to drive from
and I've got
the big long hood,
except right now
it's a roof.
All right, I had to switch
to the sawz-all there
because I cut
through the torch.
But I got her all set,
she's pretty much done now.
Just got to cut
out the windows
and then drop
that whole roof down.
That's going to be my hood
and then I'm done, that's it.
Well, no, I've got to
hook up the steering
at the back
and then the brake
and the gas
and the clutch --
standard --
and then the
transmission,
and then the turn signals,
get her safetied.
That's a wrap.
And there
you have it,
the world's first
cigarette car.
Is she a beauty
or what?
Not much on seating,
but you can't beat
her for legroom.
Kind of looks like a batmobile
or something, doesn't it?
I can be a superhero.
♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na
busboy! ♪
Well, let's take
her for a spin
before they tighten up the
transportation laws.
This isn't a streetcar
named Desire,
it's a bus
called horse.
We actually did our first
day of shooting,
I'm going to say
December 10, 1989.
We did "Winter Poems".
We wanted to shoot --
we didn't want to
wait till spring
for the series to start,
we wanted to shoot while
the weather was with us.
And we were in a little forest
near this farm where we
did a lot of shooting.
We did, I don't know,
probably 48 of these
stupid little poems,
and we called it,
"The Winter of Our
Discount Tent"
and a dream was born.
"It is winter.
"Children's laughter
at the front door.
"They tumble
into the house,
"boots off,
hats off,
"sweaters, snowsuits,
scarves and mittens
"are peeled away.
"Hey, these aren't
your kids!"
Then a couple
of years into it,
you got cancelled.
It was nasty.
Do you guys remember how --
Now, wait a minute.
The show got cancelled,
we were still there.
We should have
been cancelled,
the show should have
continued on.
Yeah, that was --
it really wasn't that
the show wasn't doing well,
it was that the station
couldn't afford to --
they cancelled all their
productions so...
but that was tough.
I mean, I think
we all knew
it should have been
cancelled in the
first week,
and after that it
just didn't seem fair.
So it's like you shouldn't be
put up for adoption
when you're 11.
Either do it right away
or don't ever do it.
So anyway we kind of
accepted it.
We were disappointed
because it was fun for us,
but the reaction of the
viewers was unbelievable.
We had a post office
box number by that time
because we had the
fan club going,
and I would go down
there to get the mail,
and the guy would say,
Okay, here's the mail.
And it was all just
supportive mail from
people like you guys
to keep the
show on the air,
a lot of
heartfelt stuff.
And I'd take them
and that was pretty good.
Then I'd get to the door
and he'd say, I think
there's a bit more,
and I'd go back and he'd
have a big box of mail,
and I was getting
this every day.
And that's what got the show
picked up by another
broadcaster,
because I took those
letters in with me.
That's how we got
the show into America,
I took those letters.
And if you watch any of the
episodes where we have
the experts segment,
there's a big bag of mail
where whoever's doing
it picks up --
that's the very bag
and that's the very mail
that those
viewers sent in.
It was cool.
That's so cool.
So that -- and that's
when the fan club started?
That got
everything going.
And the crazy fans,
holy mackerel.
I was doing a book
signing in Detroit,
and these guys said to me,
You got to come out to
the parking lot.
We've got a
Possum Lodge 'vette.
So I go to
the parking lot,
it's not a CORvette,
it's a CHEvette.
They got this possum
made out of a coat
hanger on the hood
and they got the gas cap
duct-taped to the door
so when you open the door
it flips the thing open
and on the back of it,
on the hatchback,
they had duct-taped a
pair of gloves to
the outside
so that when you're
pushing it your hands
don't get cold.
Welcome to the
Possum Lodge Word Game,
where tonight's grand prize
is a weekend for two
at the solitaire
championships.
Okay, Uncle Red,
you have 30 seconds
to get Mike Hamar
to say this word...
And go.
All right, Mike, your
mother is married to...
Her job.
Exotic dancing's
her life.
Right, okay, okay.
I'm talking about the man
who took care of you
when you were young
was your...
Truant officer.
This is a
family member, Mike.
The man who slept
with your mother...
Could you be
more specific?
When I first
came on the show,
it was about three years
into the run of Red Green,
Rick Green and Steve
came to visit me
on the set of Robocop.
I was doing a henchmen
to a bad guy in Robocop
and I had a little
pompadour hair thing,
and I looked
really mousey.
I do anyway, but I looked
particular mousey,
and they came and visited me
on the set for lunch,
and I was introduced to
Steve for the first time.
I knew Rick before,
I'd worked with him.
And they told me generally
what they had in mind,
and I said, Well, what do
you want him to look like?
And they said, Well, that
looks pretty good, actually.
Let's go with that.
So it stuck and it worked.
It seemed to work.
He's a cute little
guy, you know.
Everybody wanted to
just give him a big hug
and take care of him.
Even I did.
I loved that little guy,
I miss him.
And now we've come to
a segment of the show
that I really enjoy,
what I like to call,
Meet Your Member.
Well, to be fair and
honest, Mr. Green,
I'm not really
a member yet.
I mean, I only applied
a few days ago.
Oh, that's right, Mike,
you're still in your
trial period.
Yeah, and I usually don't
do too good at trials.
Oh no, that's all
behind you now.
And Mike has unfortunately
spent most of his adult
life behind bars.
Plus I leaned
on a few.
Well, I think it's been
good for you, don't you,
being around the lodge,
around the guys and so on?
Oh yeah, yeah, sure.
I mean being around you
guys has been great.
Seeing the way you dress
and hearing the way you talk
and seeing what you've
made of yourself,
that's convinced me I
gotta get more education.
Oh so you're going
back to school, are you?
Oh yeah, I've got my eye
on a business degree.
I'm going to take my
thesis in Economics
and probably do
a Master's
in International
Money Lending.
Wow.
As soon as I get
my grade eight.
Well, Mike, we've
been watching you,
and we think you deserve
a little pat on the
back here so...
Mike, welcome
to Possum Lodge.
Oh really!
I'm in?
I'm a member?
Quando omni flunkus moritati.
This is amazing!
I've never belonged
to nothing legal before.
You know what I'm
going to do, Mr. Green?
I'm going to
save up my pay
and change my Satan tattoo
into a possum.
You know what else I've
got for you in my wallet?
I have your membership
card for the Possum Lodge.
Really?
Yeah.
Really?
Oh, you did
this for me?
Oh, gee,
thanks, Mr. Green.
A lot of times in the
early process
I think we'd do some of the
outdoor stuff together,
and we'd just do things like,
Steve would say,
We're going to discuss you
learning to drive.
And we'd just walk
down the street
and the cameramen would
follow us and we would talk.
And it was just sort of
an improvisation that
we would do,
and whether he'd use them
or not, we're not sure,
but we knew the
characters so well
and the respect between the
status of Harold and Red,
these conversations
were wonderful.
One time we're walking
down the middle of a
stream, talking,
and this butterfly came
in and landed on
the end of my fishing rod,
right in the shot,
and we just started talking
about the butterfly,
and then it flew away
and we went back to
what we were talking about.
No one broke the
scene or anything,
it was just constant
magic that would happen.
You just embraced it and went
with it and it was great.
Things like that happened
all the time,
when it can't get
better than this
than when you just
"are" with somebody.
Dalton Humphries brought
something in for us to fix.
What'd you bring
us there, Dalton?
Well, Red, you know,
today I was hoping
you could fix my
tennis racket here.
Just got
that last week.
John McEnroe have a
garage sale, did he?
Oh no, that's
brand new, Red.
Can you fix it?
Boy, I don't know,
Dalton.
See, this is
titanium graphite
and those strings are made
from snow leopard gut.
It almost looks like it's
been bent around a post
or something.
Yeah, no,
my wife did that,
around her knee.
Wow.
Yeah, Anne-Marie's
a smallish woman,
but when those
hormones kick in,
she's got
a power to her.
So did she break
the strings, too?
No no, we did
that together.
May I?
Sure yeah.
It was this
kind of look, see.
She had just
an impressive
overhand smash
that just really
got all of it.
Are you having problems
at home of any kind?
Oh no, no no no.
[CHUCKLE]
Nothing serious, Red.
We recently had
our 20th wedding
anniversary...
which I forgot.
And tried to pass off
this tennis racket
as an
anniversary gift.
And apparently Anne-Marie
isn't a big tennis fan.
Well, that's
too bad, Dalton,
but congratulations
on the 20th anniversary.
That's silver,
isn't it?
I don't know
what it is,
but I'll tell you
what it's not...
it's not
titanium-graphite.
Well, the way I got the
Dalton job, as it were,
was that one day I
was in an audition --
I think it was some ghastly
commercial audition,
and Peter Wildman
was there auditioning.
I said hi, and we chatted
because we knew each other,
and he left the building
and I was sitting there
just staring at
my lines or whatever,
and then he comes back in the
door and says, you know what,
you should phone Steve Smith
because there's this guy --
they had this character,
this country character,
and they had somebody in mind
for it and he backed out,
so why don't you
give Steve a call?
Listen, let me give
you his number.
So I took the number,
and I phoned Steve
and he said,
Yeah, sure, yeah, fine, good,
and then I
just showed up.
So that was it,
that was the whole deal.
Peter Wildman's
fluke walked up,
Bob, why don't
you phone Steve?
Steve phoned him,
yeah, that's fine.
ANNOUNCER: Announcing
a motion picture event
of unprecedented scope
and unparalleled
septic significance.
Winston Rothschild III
in his first dramatic role
as John Tole,
a poor, itinerant sewage and
septic-sucking technician.
I'll be around,
wherever you look.
Wherever
there's a fight
where some plumber's
cheating some poor guy,
I'll be there.
I'll be there in the
way a guy reaches
to raise the seat
or jiggle the handle.
Wherever people flush
without thinking
or walk through
their yards
without finding that
soft, mushy spot
or enjoy the smell of a sweet
summer breeze instead of...
something else.
I'll be there.
ANNOUNCER: Coming this summer
to a theatre near you.
[ APPLAUSE ]
So...
Oh my.
So you actually met Jeff
at an Oktoberfest weekend,
you were the
parade judges.
He and I were parade judges,
and there was beer
and there was a bus
covered with coins,
which is illegal
in every planet.
And Jeff and I
and his wife Julie,
we just kind of
hit it off.
We had the same
kind of attitude.
He's got this energy,
he's a positive guy.
So I thought, what
would be the least likely
positive-thinking guy?
it's got to be
a guy who owns
his own septic sucking
business, you know.
He thinks he's got
the world by the tail,
and it smells
like he's right.
I had never seen a Red Green
show up until that point.
It was pretty new on TV
and we just --
Coz it's a whole
weekend thing.
You do the fest halls
on the Saturday night,
the parade's
usually on Sunday
and then they have
a dinner afterwards.
So we spent the whole
weekend together,
and it was
just fantastic.
When we got back to Hamilton,
I had Steve on my show,
and then he became a regular
character on the show.
We'd do the odd
Handyman Corner,
radio version,
and then one day
Steve just said,
I want to take
you out for lunch.
So we went out to lunch
in Burlington,
and I seem to remember the
story going something like,
I really need a sewage and
septic sucking guy
for the show,
and your name
floated to the top,
and the rest
is history.
It's time for the
Possum Lodge Word Game,
and how would you like
a brand new bass boat
with 150 horsepower
outboard motor
and matching trailer?!
Everybody
would love that,
because you would look
so cool when you go fishing
with our brand new
grand prize of tonight,
a bait bucket!
And tonight's contestant
is Mr. Winston Rothschild
of Rothschild's Sewage and
Septic Sucking Services.
Uncle Red,
you have 30 seconds
to get Mr. Rothschild
to say this word...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, go!
Okay Winston,
your body has the life
sucked out of it,
you are...
Standing too close
to the sewage pump.
No, no.
You're six feet under
so you're...
Running out of hose.
When animals become
roadkill they are...
Bigger.
But thinner.
No no no.
I know, there's
an expression,
he's as 'something'
is a door nail.
Short.
No.
Flat-headed.
No.
Pointy at one end.
Running out of time,
Uncle Red!
All right, Winston,
if all of us go on
town sewers...
Oh geez,
I'd be dead.
There was this one time
we got this inauguration into
the Sons of Desert
Fan Club.
The Suns of Desert Fan Club
was something that was started
for the Laurel & Hardy
Fan Club back in the '20s.
I think it was Laurel & Hardy,
Abbott & Costello,
Martin & Lewis,
Smith & McKenna
were the only people
involved in this group.
And it really meant
a lot to me
because somebody
presented us with this.
I don't know if Steve
even remembers it,
but it meant a lot to me
because I'd never experienced
anything like that,
and I was a huge
Martin & Lewis fan.
I thought there was a lot of
what Steve and I did
was very Martin & Lewis.
When comedy teams happen
and communicate with
an audience,
it's rare.
So someone from out there
recognized the rarity of this
and was congratulating
us on it,
and I really
took it to heart,
because it's
hard to do that.
It's magic
when it happens.
So when I read all these
books about other
comedy teams,
if they talk about that,
I completely understand,
'cause odds are
it's not going to happen.
Good marriages don't
usually just happen,
you have to work at them
and this is what this was.
so a lot of great things
came out of that.
It's mail call.
[HOWLS]
Okay, oh, here's
a letter from... Phil Morton
of Grand Prairie,
Alberta,
or Bill Nerland of
Grand Price, Alabama.
It could be Dale Martin
of Great Proud America --
Bad handwriting,
Harold?
It looks like barbed wire,
I don't know what --
Must be a doctor.
"Dear Red" --
or is that deaf bed?
Dead bear!
Yeah, probably
dead bear, yeah.
Dead bear, okay.
I am your number one
fan or fur or fuzz.
I'm your
number one fuzz.
I never muss a
simple epilogue.
I have every epilogue of the
dead bear show on type.
My flavourite part of the
snow is handyman's coronary.
My waif -- my waif says
her flavourline part
of the proyam
is adwrenchers
with boil.
She rally licked the one
where boil built a
hand glitter
and tried to fry it.
Kelp up the gord walk
and kelp your
stake on the ice.
Your fry bleb.
Oh, B.S...
bleep cinch me up for
the bossom lounge far clone.
Okay, well, thanks
for rotting, bleb.
Very glad you
employ the shaw,
and I'll certainly tell
boil that you're waif
really licked
adwrenchers with boil.
Drop us a line again
some time soup,
and I will get
my nephew Herman here
to send you and your waif up
for a bossom lounge
far clone.
Hap Shaughnessy has
brought something in
for us to fix.
What do you
got there, Hap?
Well, I got an old
hockey stick here
and the tape
is coming off.
I was hoping you'd be
able to fix it for me.
Well, sure.
To fix tape, now,
I recommend... tape.
in the vice here.
Nah-nah, don't.
You have to be
careful there, Red,
I don't want you to scuff
Bower's autograph.
Man, you got Johnny Bower's
autograph on there.
Yeah, I got all
their autographs.
Dave Keon,
Frank Mahovlich.
George Armstrong.
Yeah, the whole 1967
Stanley Cup winning team,
got everyone on
the team.
Bobby Baun,
Hap Shaughnessy.
Yeah,
got them all.
You, uh...
you played on the
'67 Leafs, did you, Hap?
Well, yeah!
Okay, what was
your number?
Seven.
No, no, I think Tim Horton
wore number 7.
number was I WEARING?
Yeah.
Oh, I thought you meant
what number was I
in scoring.
I was number 7
in scoring,
but but number 3
in assists.
Not selfish,
that was my style.
No, okay.
No, what I'm saying is
what was the number
on your sweater?
On my sweater?
Yeah.
You mean jersey,
don't you, Red?
All right. All right.
On your jersey, all right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
That's all right,
you're not the first one
to make that mistake,
calling a
jersey a sweater.
Lots of people make
that mistake.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
And so what
was the number?
Oh, hundreds,
hundreds, Red.
It's an easy
mistake to make.
No, no, no, no.
What I'm saying is
what was the number
on your jersey
when you played for the
1967 Stanley Cup winning
Toronto Maple Leaf
hockey team?
Thirteen.
No, see that's odd.
I don't remember there
being a 13 on that team.
Well, that's what happens
to the memory, Red.
Now, you don't have
to ashamed of that.
The truth can sometimes
get hidden, you know.
Oh, she's not hidden,
she's gone.
You see, that's why
you could never be
a Maple Leaf.
You're not a
team player, Red,
you can never pull
together like we did.
Thirty guys sharing
the same dressing room,
the same showers,
the same victories,
the same defeats.
The same handwriting?
I taught them
all how to write.
I put on a cap that had VRI
on the front of it,
which is the Royal Canadian
regiment cap
that I had
from years ago.
And I sat there
and I told these lies.
He made Hap Shaughnessy
tell more lies, you know.
And I really have had people
stopping me in the street
over the years saying
they sounded real,
as though I were some sort
of character that had
been molded
by Steve Smith for
benefits for the show.
And I didn't mind
that I was there.
I just enjoyed it all
so so very much,
being a
water taxi pilot.
And the first ones I
couldn't even look at Steve.
Steve reminded me of
a young Bob Newhart.
He had that particular
look and those blue eyes.
And we'd be in this
small boat
and I'd be fishing
or trying to pretend
to be somewhere else
so that I wouldn't have to
look at Steve at the other
end of the boat
because I would laugh.
There was something about the
man that just put me away.
And his jokes,
the jokes got weirder and
stranger all the time.
I think my very favourite
was the fact that
I was talking
about my mother,
the topic had to do with
Anastasia, and I said,
Red, you knew my
mother, didn't you?
And he said, yeah, she sold
chips up in Port Alberny,
didn't she?
I said, no, no,
before that.
I said, you knew her
name was Annie,
well, Annie,
she's Anastasia.
And he said she is?
And I said, Yeah,
Grandpa Nick...
who was Czar Nicolas,
used to tell us stories
about how when the big
revolution came,
a good friend of
the family, Rasputin,
shoved her into a
large Fabergé egg
and took her to France.
She grew up in Paris
and had a thing
with Ernest Hemingway.
And Red says, you telling me
Hemingway was your father?
I said, yes, that's why Margot
Hemingway and I could
never marry,
our kids would
be idiots.
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
Okay...
[ APPLAUSE CONTINUES ]
OKAY!
We have a viewer
in Georgia who asks,
"Dear experts...
"I'm a bit self-conscious
about my height.
"I'm not short,
just vertically challenged.
"Recently I read that
astronauts actually
grow in space
"by as much as an inch,
is that true,
"and if so how can
I get into space?"
Oh, no, no, I don't think
people grow in space.
I met that William Shatner
and he's hardly tall at all.
Well, actually, Red,
most people do grow
in zero gravity.
I don't,
but most people do.
You were in space,
were you, Hap?
Oh, well, no, space starts
at about 90 miles up,
I only flew
88 miles up.
And what were
you flying in?
A cape.
[ LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE ]
A cape?
Like Superman?
No, not like
Superman.
Mine was white.
You know, this is a
bit of a stretch,
even for you
I'm thinking.
Well, I was with
the local circus...
Hap the Human
Cannon Ball.
We were performing
in Port Asbestos.
And just as I waved goodbye,
I slid down the tube,
a bolt of lightning hit
the cannon and boom.
The blast was so strong
and the wind was
so powerful,
all my clothes
were torn off.
I was totally naked.
Luckily I was 88 miles up
so no one could see.
Did you know Australia is
in the shape of a dog's head?
You know...
not too much air up there,
I wouldn't think.
I know the airplanes fly
at four or five miles up,
and they have to actually
pressurize the cabin
so that people
can breathe.
Oh, yeah, air is very,
very thin up there.
Luckily I was traveling so
fast I just opened my mouth
and scooped
enough oxygen in
to keep my
consciousness.
My real worry
was the landing.
I mean,
I'm 88 miles up,
going a mile a second,
speeding head
first towards Earth.
I guess the impact would
pretty much lose
whatever height
you gained.
Well, yeah, yeah.
Well, I got lucky,
Harold,
I blacked out so I didn't
tense up for the landing.
But when I came to I was
just outside of town
on top of a hay stack,
buck naked.
Wow, excellent!
Naked.
story, Harold?
Not really, no.
What kind of
guy is Ranger Gord?
Ranger Gord is profoundly,
profoundly lonely,
and profoundly officious
in whatever he does.
So his lot in life obviously
is very marginalized
by an awful
lot of people,
especially the people
he works for,
because they don't want
him to work for them.
So he tends to build
himself up a great deal
and make cartoons that make
him physically bigger,
and much more popular
than he actually is.
And I think that's what
carries him through.
Perhaps it's because he
eats too much creamed corn
and birch bark,
I don't know.
You know, I'm not
completely alone, Red.
Oh, oh.
I have Samantha.
Who is Samantha?
It's not like a bear
or something, is it?
No, Samantha
is a woman, Red!
Oh, for gosh sake,
good for you.
She lives in that cabin
right over on that
next hill there.
She's out most days
sunning herself in
her bathing suit.
This way?
This way?
Over here.
Over here.
a cabin.e's
Yeah.
I don't see
anybody though.
Oh, here.
She's in that big
window out front.
I don't really know if
her name is Samantha,
it's Samantha.
Yeah?
Just knowing she's there
is comforting though.
I wonder what her
real name is?
Would it be too much of
a coincidence if it
was Samantha?
Ranger Gord,
that's a log.
What?
I can see the window
and it looks a bit
like a woman,
but that's a log.
No, it's not,
it's a woman!
It's a log, take a
look yourself.
I'm in love with
a fallen log.
I got to get going.
It was really good to
see you again, eh?
Come on, stick
around for a bit.
Well, maybe another
time we'll stay over,
but not this time.
Oh, come on, I was going
to have a big barbecue.
I got canned corn.
And I got some beans for
a special occasion,
and I was going to
invite Samantha ov --
I guess there's no point
in inviting Samantha
over now, is there?
you need firewood.
Shut up!
How could you not
give that man a dog?
Isn't he
something?
We used to get mail from
real forest rangers,
and they loved
Ranger Gord.
They could
feel his pain.
You had worked
with him a lot,
that's why it was
easy to give him...
Yeah, well, Peter Keleghan
is a tremendous actor.
I mean,
he's done it all,
Cheers, Murphy Brown
and all that stuff.
But we were doing a show
called Comedy Mill
before we
did Red Green,
and Peter came in
to audition for that
and he was doing
a monologue,
and he had a jar
of peanut butter --
no, a little stuffed bear
for some reason.
He came in and he just
had the bear sitting
on his knee.
It's like that's really odd.
He's a good looking guy.
And good looking guys
aren't supposed
to be funny,
not fair.hat's
That's not fair.
Wait a minute,
I'm funny.
See? Exactly.
So he's doing
this monologue,
and then like he
pretends to forget.
And then he turns
the bear over,
and then he can read
a couple of words
and then he
carries on from there.
I was just like this guy is so
weird I got to hire him.
That became the beginning of
a very sick friendship.
The college
called, okay?
The company
changed their mind.
They're offering
you the job.
You're kidding?
Oh, that's so great!
Oh, that's
so great!
Oh, that's good,
that's good.
Oh, but I'd
have to go
and I couldn't leave you
to do the show alone.
Oh, no, no, I know,
I'm just telling you
that's all, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I'm going
to stay here.
Like you, all your life
right here in Possum Lake.
I don't need the hassle
of the big city.
You sure don't.
No, siree.
No.
Harold, you know
what I'm thinking?
I've never
had a clue really.
about this...
Okay.
Let's say you take the
job with the company
just for a laugh to
try it out, huh?
Take the job?
Yeah.
Just for a laugh.
To try it out.
Then I will come down
and visit you at
your job, eh,
and we'll make that
a segment in the
show, huh?
Oh, I don't know.
You shooting in
the city?
From what I hear
everybody's shooting
in the city.
And then once in a while
you come up here
to the lodge,
and be on
the show here.
Okay, okay, let's try it,
let's give it a shot.
I'll tell you
something, Harold,
you're not
such a bad guy.
I'll tell you
something, Uncle Red,
you're not such
a bad guy either.
You know
something else,
you're pretty smart.
You're not such
a bad guy either.
For a while Patrick
had to take a bit of break.
You were shooting
two series.
Can you tell us a little
bit about that moment?
In '95 a series
came up called Traders
that I happened to
audition for and
got cast in.
And it was,
you know, very exciting,
but I had no idea what
the schedule would be like.
And we were shooting on
Wednesdays and Saturdays.
So I'd shoot Traders
on Monday and Tuesday,
come in on Wednesday
and shoot Red Green
and Thursday, Friday
shoot Traders,
show up on Saturday
and shoot Red Green,
take Sunday off to learn the
lines for the next week,
and that went on
like that for five years.
So it was a long
period of time
where again I forget
that I was prepared
because you had to be
prepared for every
day of showing up
and there was no
excuses not to, you know,
saying, oh, I'm on another
television show,
really didn't swing
well with the cast.
So it was a very
tricky, tricky time.
It was an
exhausting period.
Exhausting.
Well, he's not
mentioning this,
but he won a Gemini,
which is our Emmy,
for comedy acting
and dramatic acting
in the same year.
Nobody has ever done
that before or since...
anywhere in the world.
[ APPLAUSE ]
There was a
point in the show,
around I think it was about
the eighth or ninth year
where I was doing
another program,
and I got
very, very tired.
I was just exhausted because
I was doing the show
for five years
and shooting Red Green
at the same time,
where everything in my life
suffered because of it,
my home life,
my -- physically,
everything was changing,
so something had to give.
So when the
other show ended,
I found I didn't have a
lot left to offer Red Green,
so I talked
to Steve about
maybe it's time for me
to leave the show,
it's been nine years.
I don't know what else
I can bring to the show.
It was growing in
a different way
that I didn't know if I
could do more of that,
at a certain age that I was,
you know, I was turning 40,
and all those
types of things.
A lot of things
going on in life.
And Steve said, well,
you know, if Harold leaves,
he can't come back.
He has to leave, he has to
graduate to somewhere
else in life.
And I said
I respect that,
I think that's where
I am at this point.
So we wrote Harold
out of the show.
We said good-bye.
He was going to get
a job in the city,
and there's a few
episodes about that,
and away he went.
And it was
so hard to leave
because it was like
going to university.
You knew it was the
right thing to do,
but it didn't make it
any easier to leave.
And you got to see that
you were leaving the
party at 7 o'clock
that you knew was going
to go on all night.
And as you're walking out the
door, people are going,
Yeah, bye --
anyway, back to work.
It was over.
You know,
you were just out.
The show had to go on.
[ RASPING COUGH ]
This better
be good, Harold,
I burned
half a tank of gas
and an afternoon nap
just getting down here.
Okay, Uncle Red, all right,
you know how some really
important people
have someone who does
everything for them,
every menial task,
you know, because
they're too busy
or too lazy
to do it for
themselves?
Well, yeah, that's why I'm
the lodge leader, Harold.
Okay, but out here
we call them secretaries.
Oh my gosh, you got yourself
a promotion, huh?
Yeah,
starting today!
Where is she?
Who?
Well, your
new secretary.
Well, who says a
secretary has to
be a woman?
Oh, all right,
Mr. 21st century,
what pathetic guy did they
hire to be your secretary?
I'm not getting a secretary,
I AM the secretary.
Yeah, I'm secretary of the
vice president of mergers
and acquisitions
la la...
Harold, I thought you said
you got a promotion?
This is a
promotion!
I actually rank higher
in the company
than my supervisor
in my old department.
I'm going to be helping
the boss like organize
meetings,
scheduling things.
WOMAN:
Harold, could you come
in here for a moment, please?
Yes, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am,
I'll be right there.
Who was that,
Harold?
My boss, the vice president
of mergers and acquisitions.
Harold, you got
a woman boss?
So, so do you,
Aunt Bernice.
Come on, Harold,
that's different.
Yeah, I know,
I get paid.
The high point for
the show for me,
and this is
weird to say --
well, there was
a few high --
One was doing location stuff
in all the parks we shot in,
which was fabulous,
it was so nice.
But the season I remember
as being a high point
was the season that
Pat McKenna took a break.
Now, it's not that
I hated Pat McKenna.
He brought tons
of stuff to the show,
and he's a fabulous guy
and a great guy to work with.
But when he wasn't
there that year,
there was no one
to replace him,
which may not have reflected
well on the show,
but what it did was
give the rest of us,
who played more
minor characters,
more stuff to do.
So we would -- as a
character I got to do
all sorts of different things
than I normally would
when Pat was there.
So as weird as that sounds,
and no slur against
Pat at all,
that was a pretty
fun season.
Well, we got a real big day
tomorrow at the lodge.
We're having a canoe race
against the guys from
Caribou Lodge,
so just got to get our
equipment back up into
shape there.
These canoe paddles took
a bit of a beating
during the talent show.
Buster Hadfield was
trying to juggle them.
He forgot about
the ceiling fan.
Oh geez. Oh fer --
[ GROANING ]
Red, I found
the canoe.
It wasn't
where you said, though.
It wasn't behind the
bag stop on the target range.
It WAS the bag stop
on the target range.
All right, well just
leave it there, Dalton,
we'll fix that later.
We'll do the
paddles first.
Just hold this,
will you?
That canoe is
going to float with
duct tape patches?
Well, not for
too long,
but it will just make
you paddle faster.
How long is this paddle
going to hold together?
About the same
as the canoe.
I'd say your best bet
is to go like stink
and wear a bathing suit.
That roll is done.
See another roll of
duct tape anywhere, Dalton?
No, no.
You might try
the cupboard.
The guys all know they're
supposed to put it back
when they're done.
Yeah. Right. Okay.
[ LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE ]
We're out of
duct tape, Dalton!
Okay, okay, okay.
Try to stay calm, Red.
Stay calm, we're out
of duct tape, Dalton!
You know what, I'm going to
phone the hardware store.
They'll deliver it today.
What's the number?
Number one
on the speed dial.
This has never
happened before.
I may have to shut down
the whole lodge.
Hello?
Yeah, this is
the Possum Lodge.
We need a dozen rolls --
Two dozen!
Okay, we need three
dozen rolls of duct tape
delivered right away!
What?
Pardon?
Huh?
What is it?
All right..
What?
Thanks.
What?
They're
on back order.
They won't have it
for two weeks.
Two weeks...
without duct tape?
Red, Red, try to
hold it together,
hold it together.
Hold it together
with what?!
He and his writers had
to come up with material
that would cover
the absence of Pat,
and what
happened was that
people like Jeff
and Bob and myself
got a lot more to do,
and there were new scenarios.
I had a Mike's
Teen Talk segment,
where I would give
advice to teenagers,
as if I was a
teenager.
I was in my mid 50s,
I think, at the time.
And there were
other scenarios.
But actually it just
showed in a great way.
It made the writers
think more creatively.
So those two years were
golden for the rest of us.
I don't know
how Steve felt,
but we all
got stuff to do.
Well, there doesn't seem
to be a single roll
of duct tape
in the whole
Possum Lake area.
I think those guys
from Caribou Lodge
are hoarding it all
and we're forced to fix the
canoe by recycling duct tape
we've used
on other stuff.
I think it's going
to work out fine.
Red, I found some
duct tape we could use.
Wow, where did
you get this?
[ SOMETHING
CRASHES OUTSIDE ]
Dalton, this stuff
doesn't stick.
Oh, sure it does.
Look, look, look.
Look.
Look.
Look, it's fine.
No, Dalton,
it's not fine.
No, no, Red.
Oh, yeah.
Don't do it.
I'm going.
No, Red, no!
Dalton, this is
an emergency.
Red, no one has broken
that glass in 50 years.
MIKE HAMAR:
Mr. Green, Mr. Green!
I brought you something
that I think might
cheer you up.
Oh my gosh, Dalton,
Mike brought us duct tape,
he brought us duct tape.
Way to go, Mike!
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Hold it.
This isn't duct tape.
It's masking tape
painted grey.
AUDIENCE: Nooooo!
It's not the
same thing, Mike!
It's not
the same thing.
Way to go, Mike.
Ah, Mike, sorry I
snapped at you there.
I haven't had duct tape
for over three hours.
Give me that
hammer, Dalton.
Are you sure you know
what you're doing?
Dalton, we can't go
on living like this.
50 years it's been
there, Mike.
I got it.
We're going
to be okay, guys.
Everything is
going to be okay.
I think we're going to be
ready for the canoe race
even without
duct tape.
The real handyman is
resourceful.
When the world hands
you a lemon,
you jam it into
a canoe hole.
We got the
paddles done, Red.
Yeah, they turned
out pretty good.
Yeah, we're going
to be fine.
We'll probably
come in second,
unless there's more
than two boats.
Hey guys,
how's it going?
Ed, what have you got
there in your hand?
Oh, a turtle bite.
I forgot the little guy
was in my pocket.
No, I mean
the other hand.
You got something that
looks just like a roll
of duct tape there.
Oh, it's a roll
of duct tape.
There's all kinds of
it up in the attic.
What's it
doing up there?
We were using it to
fix the heating ducts.
I didn't know it was
good for that.
Well, there ought
to be a couple more
rolls up there.
Stand back, guys,
I'm going to open
the trap door.
Holy smokes!
Holy smokes!
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
[ POSSUM SQUEALS ]
Meeting time,
Mr. Green.
You guys go ahead.
Don't tell the others
about the duct tape,
though, okay?
All right, if my
wife is watching,
I'll be coming straight
home after the meeting,
and looks like we can
get started on that house
addition right away.
And for the rest of you,
thanks for watching.
On behalf of myself
and the whole gang
up here at Possum Lodge,
keep your stick
on the ice.
And then the
movie came along,
and we talked about
doing the movie,
and I thought, well,
that's a one-time thing,
I think I could
probably handle that.
And I remember standing
on a hill one day,
and we're looking
down at the crew
and the trailers and
everybody being really busy,
and Steve went,
Can you believe this?
And I went,
No, this is the best.
He goes, Did you ever
think you would miss it?
And I went,
I miss it every day,
but, you know,
it's a new show now.
And he goes,
But if it could be,
would you ever think
of coming back?
And I said if it
could be like this,
if it could be this
much fun for me again,
because it wasn't anything
to do with the show,
it was what I was
going through,
I would love to.
So he just
opened that door
that maybe Harold
could come back.
And he did it in just
such a gentle way
that it was an
invitation to come home.
Sure.
And we did the last three
years and it was great.
It was all great.
Well, I didn't get the job,
which is fine.
I don't mind
not getting the job,
but I think they
gave it to Mike.
Come on.
I mean, Mike's a
good guy and everything,
but the man is a
known thief.
Why would you give a
$60,000-a-year job
to a guy who's got no
experience, no education
and no life --
I have exactly the same
qualifications and I'm older!
I didn't get the
job either, Mr. Green.
Oh, Mike, I'm sorry
to hear that,
I was really
rooting for you.
Yeah, I guess Dalton
must have got the job.
What a scam, eh?
I mean, he's a good
guy and everything.
But you couldn't
hire a worse person.
Yeah, there's a
waste of money,
Mike, right there.
Dalton is not the
guy for that job.
Dalton is an idiot.
He's a good guy.
Great guy.
Super guy.
Super guy, yeah.
Well, count me out,
I didn't get it.
Oh, what a
shame, gee.
We were really
hoping for you.
Thank you
very much, guys, yeah.
You know, they wouldn't even
tell me who did get it.
You know
what I think?
I think the Mayor gave
the job to his own wife.
No, no, she's already the
regional chairperson,
that's how the
mayor got his job.
I remember when
Pat came back,
because he was never
really off the show.
We'd do a bunch of
segments in a day
so we could drop him in
and keep him alive.
But when
he came back,
we had the plot
of the episode
was they were offering a
new job in town as a P.R. guy,
like a promotion guy
for the town of Possum Lake,
and we had all the guys
in the lodge were
running for it.
We had never
introduced Pat.
We didn't bring him
out at beginning
or anything.
So the first the
audience saw him was,
they said this is the
new guy that got the job,
and he came walking in
and holy cow,
the reaction of that
audience was so fabulous.
[ KNOCK AT DOOR ]
I'll get it.
Well, it sounds to me
like somebody's been
paid off.
No, they wouldn't
take a bribe...
I wouldn't think.
Gentlemen, I am
pleased to present
the newly appointed
director of public
relations
for the County
of Possum Lake.
[ AUDIENCE CHEERS ]
When we did the show
in front of a live audience,
it was a combination
of stand-up comedy,
theatre
and television.
And that
live audience,
when we came walking out there
and you could tell --
We never hired an
audience company to
bring us an audience.
We never
had a problem.
Those were people
who wanted to be there.
And the fact that they were
there day in, day out
and tremendously
supportive of us,
and they'd even
laughed at the stuff
that we all knew
was junk, you know.
Like that's good.
That's family.
So we were solid.
Are you all right,
Uncle red?
Well, I don't know,
it's a lot for me
to take in.
It's a lot
for me to put out.
Why are you
here, Harold?
I mean, what happened
to your life, your job
in the city?
I quit that job.
Well, that was a
good job, Harold.
It's going to be hard
to get another job.
I have another job.
Yeah, but you might not
have gotten it, Harold.
I applied for
that job, you know.
Yeah, you all
applied for that job.
That really
helped, thanks.
Yeah, I suppose if they
were looking to hire
somebody like you,
they're not going to
hire somebody like me.
Oh, well,
that's exactly right.
That's exactly right.
That's exactly right.
They were looking for
someone young and dynamic
and with a college degree
who's computer literate
and has some experience
in related fields.
Oh, no, that's
what I'm saying.
But, whereas if they were
looking for someone
middle aged,
opinionated, unemployed
but very good with
a chain saw.
All right, Harold,
that's enough.
We understand.
I'm very happy
to be back.
Great. Great.
about the new job.
Yeah, yeah.
But you know what?
What?
Truth be told,
I missed...
I missed, you know,
everybody.
Well, did you
miss me, Harold?
Did you miss me?
I wasn't even
shooting at you.
Yeah, I did,
I missed you.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I missed
you too, Harold.
I think I'm
going to cry.
No, I didn't
miss that, all right.
You know what
the best part is,
we get to work
together again.
How do you
figure that?
Oh, yeah,
that's my proposal,
I'm going to
make my job to do
the promotion and
marketing of Possum Lodge.
We got a
lot work to do.
Wow, Harold.
Yeah.
I mean, you think
Possum Lodge is good
enough to attract visitors?
We got a lot
of work to do.
A lot of people,
when I talk to them
about the Red Green Show,
would say the thing
that got me the most
was those quiet moments
when Red would sit
at his desk
by himself and just talk
to the middle aged guys.
And more people have
said that to me.
And I thought we'd look
at the very first one
that you guys wrote.
From show 86
and the 300th one,
the last one.
Wow! We'll watch
those together.
I want to talk to all you
middle aged guys out there
because I know what
you're going through.
I know what it's like to
wake up two hours before
your body does
or to watch a full head of
old hair swirl down
the shower drain
while a bushel
of new hair
sprouts out of
your nose and your ears.
And at our age you never
know if the call of nature
is going to be a shout,
a whine or a whisper.
You know, going to
the washroom
is like going to
a fireworks display.
You stand there for an
hour and a half waiting
for something to start,
and then once she gets going
there's a lot of oohs and aahs
but you're never really
completely sure when
it's over.
So as we go through
life it's important
that we move from one
phase to the next,
and we have to say
good-bye to the one
so that we can say
hello to the next.
You know,
if I say any more
I'll probably burst into
that song from Titanic.
Anyway, let's just leave it
that it's been a great ride
and every time we hear
the sweet sound
of a strip being torn
off a roll of duct tape,
we'll think of
each other.
Might even smile.
Remember,
I'm pulling for you.
We're all
in this together.
[ APPLAUSE ]
I think the mid-life
thing at the desk
came out of my
unfulfilled desire
to talk directly
one on one to my friends.
I just really didn't
think I was doing that
anywhere else
in the show.
There was always
intervention.
And, you know, I just --
I just have --
I'm the kind of person
that I have some things
that I want to say,
and I want to say
them to you directly
without anybody
editorializing
or commenting or
arguing, you know.
It was my favourite
kind of communication...
one way, you know.
So we started that and once
we got that segment in,
some people
really enjoyed it.
It later led to
a newspaper column
where I'm basically
doing the same thing.
And as far as aiming at time
middle aged men and everything,
well, I don't know
much about anything else.
I might as
well start with --
I really was talking to
myself in those things,
and you happen
to be eavesdropping.
I think what drew people
to The Red Green Show
was they'd see things
that were made up
that were totally insane
but possible.
Ever notice how many boat
trailers are left at the
side of the road
because these little baby
wheels either had a
flat or fell off?
I mean, they're lousy
tires to begin with,
and they're so small
that at 100 clicks
they're spinning
faster than...
something that
spins really fast.
Only a dufus would carry around
a spare for a trailer tire.
Where would you stick the
jack on one of these
babies anyway?
No, sir,
I got a better idea.
I mounted a few of these
high speed fans on the
side of the trailer
and kind of turned it
into a hovercraft.
Once these
things get going,
the unit doesn't even
touch the ground.
How can you
have a flat tire
when you don't
even have a tire?
Makes it a lot easier for
backing down boat ramps too.
Now, the fans all run off the
juice from the alternator,
so as soon as I start
the engine, I'm in business.
You know, I always thought
that the handyman corner
always had a basis
of some fundamental
understanding of physics
and engineering and stuff.
I always thought the show
was not a lack of
intelligence,
it was a waste of
intelligence.
I always found that
to be a higher calling.
I remember being on air
with one of the PBS guys,
I think it might
be Elkhart, Indiana,
somewhere like that
and on air,
we're live and he says,
You know, I've heard people
say this is a stupid show,
What do you
say to that?
I said, well, I've never
had anybody smart tell me
it was a stupid show.
Come on, Harold,
we're ready to go here.
Coming.
I gave up waiting
for Harold there.
He's been in the shower
for seven hours.
We either need
a second bathroom
or a closer tree.
So I said
to heck with it,
and I went up in the Possum
van and picked up Bonnie
on my own.
So as soon as Harold's ready,
we're good to go.
Oh, boy.
[ APPLAUSE ]
Okay, I'm all set.
Should we go
pick up Bonnie?
I've already
done that, Harold.
I can certainly see
what you like about her.
She's out there waiting
in the Possum van
right now.
What?
How rude is that?
We have something we'd
like to ask you together.
All right, fine.
Oh Bonnie,
sweetheart...
Can you come in here
a minute, please?
You have no idea how
to treat a lady, do you?
This is a
mistake, Harold.
[ LAUGHTER
AND APPLAUSE ]
So how do we look?
Like a
perfect couple.
You're going to save
a fortune on mirrors,
Harold.
I'm pretty excited,
know why, know why, know why?
Just had
your first coffee?
No!
This is my first date.
Bonnie,
this is for you.
Oh, Harold,
it's beautiful.
You pin it on me.
Perhaps, Bonnie,
you would like to do
it for yourself...
please.
Okay, okay,
we're good to go.
And what time do you
want me to pick you
guys up?
I usually am asleep
by ten, eh, so...
Mr. Green.
We were wondering if
maybe we could drive
ourselves.
I've got my license.
Well,
I don't know,
I mean, the Possum van
is a pretty big rig.
Uncle Red, Bonnie is a
licensed commercial
truck driver.
Yeah, she drives
an 18 wheeler for
Port Asbestos cartage.
Well, hey, great.
Hey, go for it.
Don't even --
Oh, okay.
I almost saw
up your skirt.
Okay. Okay.
Oh. Oh, okay.
OKAY?!!
All right,
you go have fun.
Don't do anything
I wouldn't do, huh?
[ POSSUM SQUEALING ]
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
If my wife
is watching,
I will be coming straight
home after the meeting.
Harold has
a girlfriend.
I don't know how
serious they are,
but if they ever get
married and have kids,
it's the end of the
world as we know it.
I got the job as Bonnie
through a writer named Rob
Sheridan who wrote for the show
and is now writing for
Little Mosque,
and he's fantastic.
And I had done a show
called the Sean Cullen Show
where I was a
lunatic nun.
And I think because of my
lunatic nun performance
on the show,
they watched it and immediately
said she could do Bonnie,
she could act like
Harold quite easily.
And that's how it came --
And then they phoned me
and said you got the part,
come in and do it.
So it was
pretty awesome.
You don't -- you rarely,
rarely get a part
before you actually
even audition for it,
but from Rob's amazing
recommendation
to my ridiculous
nun performance,
it all came together.
You got a
big love life,
and what made you guys
decide to give him
a love life?
Well, we knew two years
before the end of the show
that it was going
to wrap up,
so we wanted to complete
as many circles as we could.
And one of them we
had to have Harold
on his own two feet
and settled.
We didn't want
to leave that --
I think there was a
sense that for the
rest of the guys,
they were either
going to be okay
or it was too late.
So we wanted
Harold to be set.
Plus it gave us a really
great through line for the
last couple of seasons
to get him, you know,
dating a girl
and then engaged
and then
the stag and...
Eventually the wedding
on the final night.
So there were a
few reasons why it
really made sense.
Yeah, and it was fun
for you, I'm guessing?
It was terrific because
when they mentioned
that you're going to
have a girlfriend,
and I thought, oh this will
be interesting to see
what choice
they come up with,
who should marry Harold
after all these years,
because I think
in year three or five
they flirted with --
I had a girlfriend.
The tall blond.
Beautiful!
Beautiful girl.
And so then I thought will
they go that route again?
And then when
I met Laurie Elliot,
and she came on
as this female Harold.
And I thought do
I look like that?
Why didn't
somebody stop me?
Okay, we're all set
for the nuptials.
Not as big a turnout
as we had planned,
but, you know, as soon
as the wedding became
part of the show,
most of the guests decided
to stay home and watch
it on tv,
so we'll finally get
some decent ratings.
Oh boy.
You okay, Harold?
I'm nervous,
but I'm good.
I'm not as bad as I
thought I was going to be,
but I'm okay,
actually, I'm good.
Okay. Okay.
Before we have an embarrassing
puddle on the floor,
let's bring the
bride in here.
[ APPLAUSE WHILE WHILE THE
GUYS HUM THE WEDDING MARCH ]
All right. All right.
Okay. Okay.
All right, we're gathered
here together
to celebrate a big occasion
in all of our lives.
Very rarely does a television
show stay on the air
for 300 episodes.
Uncle Red,
Uncle Red.
Okay, okay,
okay, okay...
We're gathered here
to join this woman and this,
I don't know,
man, I guess,
in holy matrimony...
[ SHUDDERING
IN ANTICIPATION! ]
RED GREEN:
And holy mackerel.
the ring? has
Oh, I do.
That's not
the ring.
That's my ring!
Oh, oh, sorry.
Is it any of these ones?
No, that's our ring.
Winston's wearing
our ring.
Where did
you get that?
Someone
sold it to me.
RED: Okay, well,
never mind.
Harold, you put that ring
on Bonnie's finger,
and then I want you
to recite all the vows
you two made up, okay?
And, Harold, try to
keep it moving.
I would like to thank
everyone who helped
shape my life,
I know
you meant well.
The good news is it
brought me to this point
where I have found
a life partner
and I look forward to
spending the rest of
my life with her.
Ditto.
Okay, okay, okay.
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
If there's anyone
who knows any reason
why these two should
not get married,
he should
speak up now.
[ POSSUM SQUEALING ]
Meeting time.
No, no, Harold,
that can wait, okay?
So do the two of you
take each other --
We do!
We do!
We're here. We do.
We do.
Okay, well then I now
pronounce you man and wife.
Harold, you may...
kiss the bride.
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
Okay, so if my
wife is watching,
I will be coming straight
home after the meeting
and after doing all of
these televisions shows,
I think I'm ready to go
back to live performances.
And to the rest of you,
thanks for watching.
Meeting time,
Uncle Red.
You shouldn't
be here, Harold.
Bonnie thought it was
the right thing to do,
you know, because I told
her even though
we're married,
I'm still going to want to
come back to the lodge
every now and then.
Well, well, well,
you've turned
into a man.
I hope that's a
compliment.
Oh, I almost
forgot,
here's your
wedding gift.
Wow, that's a big roll
of duct tape.
It is, Harold.
I figure you're going
to be married
a long time.
And to the rest of you who
have been watching us
all these years,
on behalf of myself
and the married man
and the whole gang up
here at Possum Lodge...
AS RED:
Keep your
stick on the ice.
[ CHEERS AND APPLAUSE ]
My feelings going
into work every day were,
you know, number one,
I was really glad
to be there,
it was a very pleasant
experience,
but I also didn't want to
disappoint anybody,
and ultimately that's why I
stopped doing the show.
I felt that if I continued
to do the show,
I would start
to disappoint people,
and, you know, my fans first
and then me second,
and I just didn't
want to do that.
The core message of
the Red Green Show
is anything
is possible,
just keep on trying,
you know.
It will work.
It will work.
If it doesn't, well,
don't do it anymore.
It was comedy
and it was funny
and people
enjoy the comedy,
but it was never mean
and it was never dark.
It was always inclusive
and friendly and fun.
For me there's something
childishly delightful
about taking everything
you think you know
and just blowing it
out of the water
and constantly
taking the things
that we're familiar with
and turning them around
until you can -- you know,
we're going to take
a washer and dryer
and turn them
into a lawn roller.
Like not just, oh,
how can we do that,
it's like, why would
you even think of that?
I think sometimes the world
is a little bit upside down.
A lot of times friends of mine
are all upset and in a tizzy
over something that
honestly is meaningless,
they can't do
anything about it,
they have no effect on it,
they're just letting
it bother them.
Then they take some other
things in their life that
are very important,
and they treat them
like they don't matter.
So that to me
is the core message,
like focus on the
things that first of all
are very important to you,
and, secondly, you can
actually do something
about them.
There was always a
great deal of warmth
surrounding the show,
whether we were
out somewhere else
or just even in the studio
just among ourselves,
but there was always --
that's a great word for
the feel of the show,
it's just
always warm.
Trust, everybody trusted
each character in the show.
The characters
were people
that weren't celebrated
in life very often.
They were
welcomed here.
An experience like this
I don't think happens
a lot of times.
The money side of things
was never an issue, honestly.
This was a bunch of people
who got together,
united to do something that
probably didn't have
much of a
chance going in.
They probably didn't really
sit down and evaluate it.
For whatever reason,
something inside them,
you know what, said this is
something I would like
to try to do.
It was like the
old Mickey Rooney
and Judy Garland movies,
you know, my uncle's got
a barn, let's put on a show.
So we had
that going in.
And the fact that
you could draw an
audience to that barn
and they wanted to
come back next week,
it was just like --
it's a miracle.
I mean, you know, when you
get people, first of all,
that agree to do
something together
as like a
common united bond
and then you have other people
gravitating towards it
wanting to support it
and wanting to continue it.
It was a really welcome
environment to say,
you're okay, just be you
and everything will be fine
and it was
always that way.
So that was I think
the magic of the show,
that everybody felt
they could be themselves.
In my experience that just
doesn't happen very often.
This wasn't one of those deals
where one guy comes in
with a vision
and tells everybody what
to do and they do exactly
what he says
and success or
failure all depends on
whether or not
he was correct.
This was absolutely
a joint effort
that paid off,
and it paid off
at a much higher level
than anybody
needed it to.
closed captioning performed
by INTERCAPTION CANADA.