The Red Green Show is Hiding Out on Roku

 

by Pa Rock

Culture Vulture

Back in the day, somewhere beyond twenty years ago, I would often sit up late at night on Saturday or Sunday evenings to watch some of the British mysteries and comedies on National Public Television.  I was living in extreme southwest Missouri, and that was one of the few ways to access international entertainment at that time.
 
At some point the local Public Television channel – out of Springfield, I believe – also began airing a Canadian comedy in its lineup.  That program was “The Red Green Show,” an absurdly funny thirty-minute comedy that was unlike anything I had ever seen.  The central character was obviously Red Green, a fictional Canadian ‘handyman’ who showed viewers how to use various power tools as he worked on oddball inventions from the sanctuary of his hugely disorganized workshop.   Green encouraged his (male) viewers with the line, “If women don’t find you handsome, at least make sure they find you handy.”
 
Red's various lodge brothers would drop by the shop and help out with his wacky projects, and Red’s nephew “Harold” was a regular on the show.  Red Green was played by Canadian comic Steve Smith, and Pat McKenna played Harold Green.  Red and Harold wore matching outfits of long.-sleeved plaid shirts, suspenders, and khaki pants.

The show ran from 1991-2006.  I was delighted this week to find that the Roku Channel has all fifteen seasons.  Roku is one of those “free” streaming channels where viewers must put up with commercials in order to enjoy their shows.  Yesterday I watched episode one, season one, and there were no commercials.  I’m sure as people begin discovering this program, commercials will start popping up.
 
In the first episode Red tells of a recent visit to his lodge where the brothers began discussing what it takes to be a real man.  They decided that, among other things, a real man should be strong and smell of gasoline, and the lodge brothers took that to mean that a real man had to have a good outboard motor.  Red determined to make an outboard motor using a 427-cubic-inch car engine that he had salvaged, and throughout the rest of the show as various skits played out, Red talked about the progress he was making on the new outboard motor.  He eventually finished the project and said that he took it for a test ride on Possum Lake, the fictional lake around which most of the show’s action takes place.  Red reported to the audience that the outboard motor had worked very well and topped out at eighty-miles-an-hour.  “Unfortunately,” he continued, “the boat could only do seventy-five-miles-an-hour!”
 
There was also a hilarious skit in the first episode where Red climbed up a fire tower to visit with the ranger who had lived there for years.  The ranger was so happy to have company that he did everything he could think of to get Red to promise and come back and see him again.  In another skit Red takes a young boy, around twelve or so, out to a field to teach him how to play croquet.  However, the grass in the field needed mowing before they could set up the croquet hoops, and Red spent some time pulling on a starter cord trying to get his old gas-powered mower started.   When he finally got the mower going, he turned it over to the kid and started him mowing.  Then Red walked off to do something else, saying “He’s going to be at that for a while,” and the croquet never happens.  But (and this is important) the discombobulated handyman did take time to congratulate himself for mentoring a young person!  Both of those skits were forerunners of regular features on the show.
 
When I was talking about this show to a friend, he remarked that it had been especially popular with “potheads,” but I’m here to tell you that it’s a hoot even if you’re not high!
 
Check out “The Red Green Show” on Roku.  It’s very funny stuff!
 
(Episode two is entitled “The Elvis Encounter,” and I am anxious to see it – you betcha I am!)