When Nashville Met Sunnyvale

Three months ago, I couldn’t have told you a word about the Trailer Park Boys and the mishaps of Julian, Ricky and Bubbles. After a heavy dose of DVD time and occasional YouTube excursion, I cannot fathom how I endured without them.

Seriously, check out the Mustard Tiger and you'll see what I mean. The Nova Scotia-based comedy conjured up laughter I didn’t know I still had. Set in Sunnyvale Trailer Park, the boys plot to get ahead through illegal schemes and usually boomerang back to jail by each season's end.

The boys brought The Ricky, Julian and Bubbles, Drunk, High and Unemployed Tour to Nashville on Tuesday. They emerged in spacesuits after a backstage opening that involved drinking from piss jugs and hidden cameras. Also introducing the boys was Conky, Bubbles' ventriloquist dummy that takes on a personality of its own. Conky broke up the action on occasion, illustrating Ricky's inability to comprehend a two-dimension screen.

The early plot followed the get-rich schemes integral to the show, including Julian selling hot dogs to the audience and Ricky plotting a religious school. Bubbles’ attempts to film an audition tape to send to Jackie Chan drove the night. He played cut-rate Jeff Foxworthy wig in a Are You Smarter Than a First-Grader, which pitted audience members against Ricky. His responses were high points in an already uproarious night, especially the number of legs a centipede has and the difference between beavers and beavners.

Now, I didn’t prepare myself for one thing – the boys’ celebration of a dirtbag lifestyle, mostly drinking and smoking marijuana, appeals to demographics I’m no longer or never was a part of. So it was a pretty drunken crowd. At least one guy got booted, and walking out the majority were shambling and bleary-eyed.
But people got into the spirit, and most kept to yelling lines from the show. One couple dressed as the boys’ dim-witted henchman, Cory and Trevor. People seemed to know them much better than I expected. They even earned a nice write-up in the Nashville Scene, with Robb Wells conducting the interview in character as Ricky. Even in print, his delivery shined through. They reenacted a scene from the first episode with an audience member in the role of trailer park bully Cyrus.

Audience participation in theBubbles Idol section was painful; the boys mocked their volunteers who insisted they could sing to get onstage. One girl salvaged the whole skit by singing Conhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifky’s Patrick Swayze ode to Julian. Soon, Bubbles donned a wig and dress then tried to coax Julian into dancing along to Time of my Life.

After a brief clip from their new show, The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Time Hour, the boys reemerged. Mike Smith wore normal eyeglasses and joked how nice it was to finally see the audience (he can’t see anything in Bubbles’ pair). John Paul Trembley (Julian) and Robb Wells both seemed genuinely shocked at the Nashville’s turnout for the show. Most of the Polk Theatre’s main floor was full.

The live show perfectly capped the three-month odyssey with the boys' profane yet intelligent brand of humor. To see them onstage instead behind a shaky, faux-documentary camera enhanced the experience, even if it didn't quite compare with their best episodes. I'll chalk that up to a lack of a Steve French cameo.