The New Red Green Show

"Whatever this is, we got a lot more of it, so don't even think about changin' the channel!"

"Whatever this is" is indeed probably the best way to characterize The New Red Green Show. It's a smorgasbord of old-time slapstick hijinks, good-natured fun-poking, and some of the most bizarre television ever to come out of your local PBS affiliate. That's right, the home of everything from Antiques Roadshow to Barney and Friends and Nature has yet another offering for those tired of the drivel on the networks and cable.

The show is the brainchild of Steve Smith, a Toronto native who left the fickle world of rock & roll for the more secure world of improv comedy. Canadian television gave him several different venues for he and his wife to expand their various characters; however, the backwoods handyman Red Green has proved most popular, and The New Red Green Show has become a hit in Canada and other English-speaking countries (for instance, our own US of A).

Like many comedy shows of yesteryear, Red Green offers a variety of segments, none particularly serious, and most playing directly off the setting: Possum Lodge (Chapter 13), a fraternal order in an eponymous town somewhere north of the border, even for Canadians. Red trots out at the beginning of the show in his trademark plaid shirt, beat-up fishing hat, and working man's pants, telling us the news from Possum Lodge. Some of that news includes a high-school reunion, dreaded because the three successful people from the town will be back, and the science fair where Red and the rest manage to destroy the entire school and village hall with their projects.

Cheesy? Of course. Entertaining? You bet.

Much of the charm of the show (also starring, until recently, Pat McKenna as Red's geeky nephew Harold, and Rick Green as Red's silent naturalist friend Bill) is due to the relative innocence of the segments. No Sex and the City or even ER this; as the official propaganda trumpets, "The New Red Green Show is a unique half-hour comedy series targeted at family audiences. Its purpose is to entertain and to provide an escape from the pressures of urban living."

And entertain it does. I can usually tell how good an episode is by how many "whatever"s escape my roommate's lips as we watch Bill attempting to portage his canoe over fallen trees and under bees' nests, or Red cleaning out several houses' worth of garbage from his car to improve his gas mileage. A typical episode, the last one for this year (the 191st!): Harold gives the guys a bunch of old computers which change their lives. Red makes a snowball gun out of a pitching machine. Mike needs help to break into a suitcase. Ranger Gord wants to fire-proof the forest. Red, Mike and Dalton try to barbecue a live pig.

Unfortunately, since local PBS affiliates have extremely broad programming powers, I haven't seen this episode. And even if you watch the show, probably neither have you. Why? Here in Chicago, the episodes are from four years ago. Many major markets don't even have Red Green. To combat this apathy, in the last three years Red has thrown a two-hour fundraising extravaganza, just like your usual PBS fund drive except entertaining. Giving each station a target dollar amount depending on the size of their market, the stations battle in a free-for-all to see who can come up with the highest percentage of their goal, filming gritty get-out-the-vote commercials and pitting against each other such traditional rivals as Miami and Tampa, New York and Beantown, and...Iowa and Salt Lake City? Yes, once again these two markets had one thousand and six hundred percent of their goals, respectively. The rest of the top ten often boasts names like Fort Wayne, South Dakota Public Television, and Grand Rapids, MI.

The demographics, like the show, speak for themselves. But Red fever is spreading like a cold virus in a small rural town. Chicago, Denver and Houston all met their goals too. Can world domination be far behind?

Probably not. Red would rather sing songs by the campfire about how stupid men are than worry about coastal cultural dominance. After all, he's got "a television show that's a fishing show, a fix-it show, and a men's advice program all rolled into about 3/4." What more could a practical man ask for?

The New Red Green Show is not for everyone. But for those who enjoy shows with "junk stores filled with crap that's only worth something if you want to buy it" and which "inherit 137 tubas and decide to have a parade," it's a winner. More information (mostly woefully out of date) is available at www.pbs.org/redgreen, www.redgreen.com, and other fan sites.

Unfortunately, even the PBS site doesn't have an up-to-date listing of which stations carry it and when. Check local listings, folks. Or in the spirit of Red, get some duct tape out and steer your antennas to Ontario to receive this gem of a show. As he says at least once every episode, "If they don't find ya handsome, they should at least find ya handy." A better sentiment for the new millenium can't be found.