Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay and Mike Smith star in Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor DayMichael Tompkins
Call it serendipity or basic Canadian inventiveness, but the concept of binge-viewing and the Trailer Park Boys have finally come together.
CBC News reports that Julian, Ricky, Bubbles and all the other low-rent denizens of Sunnyvale Trailer Park will relocate to Netflix later this year. Launched in 2001, Trailer Park Boys has become the low-budget success story of Canadian television. Whereas America takes inordinate pride in NASCAR-loving rednecks, we have these guys.
Filmed in various Nova Scotian locales, the TPB premise has steadfastly focused on the inept actions of three smalltime crooks – Ricky (Robb Wells), Julian (John Paul Tremblay) and Bubbles (Mike Smith) – who reside in a mobile community in keeping with their socio-economic trappings.
The TV hook is that the unholy trio and all their low-rent friends and family are being followed by a documentary film crew, which naturally captures their most embarrassing and outrageous moments.
And Trailer Park Boys is more than just a TV show: There have also been two well-received movies – Trailer Park Boys: The Movie and Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day – with the third feature, Trailer Park Boys 3: Don't Legalize It, slated for Canadian release on April 18.
The first seven seasons of TPB aired on the Canadian cable channel Showcase. Although some past seasons are currently available on Netflix, the video-streaming site announced on Wednesday that it will now make available all seven seasons to domestic and international subscribers.
Next comes the new episodes. Later this year, Netflix will run ten new eighth-season episodes for subscribers, who can screen all the episodes in one sitting, as per the Netflix viewing method that made a hit out of House of Cards and breathed new life into the defunct Fox sitcom Arrested Development.
New season-nine episodes of Trailer Park Boys will be made available to subscribers soon after.
And somehow the binge-viewing concept makes even more sense with TPB; any devoted fan will tell you that right after you watch one episode, you immediately want more, which is not coincidentally the same manner in which Julian consumes rum and cokes on the show.
"Netflix is undoubtedly the perfect home for the boys," said Patrice Theroux, who oversees global film operations for Entertainment One, the distribution company behind the new TPB seasons.
Of course, some fans of the show may be wondering what the lads have been up to recently. Season seven finished airing way back in 2008 and apparently there have been sweeping life-changes for the white-trash heroes.
Changes like: Ricky has apparently invested in a huge marijuana crop, most of which he has somehow stashed in the walls of his trailer, while Julian has opened a combo bar and gym in his trailer.
And Bubbles? The bespectacled heart of the trio is busily preparing his latest business venture, called Shed and Breakfast, which he hopes will attract tourists to Sunnyvale.
Even the most humble man can still dream, eh?