I’ll tell you without reservation, that it is one of the funniest situation comedies I’ve ever seen.  Absolute no shit ridiculous.  Shot in a style that openly mocks reality television and all it’s inherent flaws.  The protagonists are often the antagonists and of course, end over end.  Not without tragedy like too much salt or Tapatio in the Hamburger Helper but always hysterical.  It can be painful to watch but it’s always absurd.  The best comedy has it’s fingers in the truth.  It’s a prerequisite.  All In The Family, not Happy Days.  Hell, even the Daily Show uses tragedy almost exclusively to make us laugh.  No dearth of glut there.  Or here.  Never is these days, never has been anyway.

No comedy can be entertaining without tragedy,  No tragedy is worth entertaining without some comedy.

They deliberately walk the line between the heart that feels and the mind that jeers.

Not much objectionable.  Very little violence with the exception of occasional gun play where no one ever gets shot, no gore and very little sex.  Squeaky clean if not for the copious bombing of the word fuck and it’s every iteration.  That and all leading characters are drunks and/or dope dealers who live in a Canadian trailer park with a quotient of white trash that might not find peer in Alabama or Ohio or Nevada.

The premise is simple.  A handful of relativity harmless not yet middle aged fuck ups, in a sea of less than overachievers, trying everything there is save honest work to get ahead.  In a Canadian trailer park.  It really is brilliant.  I can’t help but adore it.

Julian is the ring leader and by far the most charismatic.  Not terribly bright and never, ever without a drink in his hand.  Whether in jail, driving or knocking over a liquor store.  Occasionally demonstrating common sense and always bringing the big picture, the go to guy.  We want to root for Julian but he’s a dumbass.

Ricky is the dumbest and arguably the funniest.  He laces reflexive malapropisms with a propensity for confessional soliloquy that often devolves into his exclusive brand of crap, plastic wisdom.  I stand by that last sentence………..in lieu, of a paragraph. Ricky is a bit of a sociopath, yet hardly dangerous.  Ricky burns his father’s trailer down while attempting to cook french fries, getting drunk and getting laid.  Ricky’s father then takes up residence at the town dump in the sleeper cab he once owned as a trucker before he embarked on a course faking disability for a government check.  We want to root for Ricky and his father but they are consummate dumbasses.

Bubbles is easily the smartest and most compassionate.  He lives in a shed and loves kitties.  Makes his living repairing shopping carts or stealing them from one of two malls and selling them to the other.  His mode of transportation is a go cart he always pilots helmeted with goggles and often uses to tow the shopping carts that are his stock in trade.  He dreams of owning and operating a kitty day care.  They call him Bubbles because he loves bubbles.  We root for Bubbles.  We should, we have to because there is no one else.

Randy is a whore.  He prefers to go shirtless, despite the Canadian winter and his enormous gut.  When not prostituting himself for cheeseburgers, he makes his money as a male prostitute.  He’s an ally and lover of trailer park supervisor Mr. Leahy and an occasional lover of Mr. Leahy’s estranged wife and trailer park owner Barbara.  He will literally do any goddamn thing for a cheeseburger.  Randy is the epitome of pitiful, clueless but always defaulting to his own simple heart.  We can’t root for Randy; he’s just too goddamn dumb.

Mr. Leahy is a retired cop, trailer park supervisor and chronic alcoholic that drives a completely roofless car.  With a Hunter S. Thompson countenance,  he is the constant attempted foil to our “Trailer Park Boys”.  It’s a ridiculous “Scooby Doo” allegory, he never prevails.  Always foiled by the meddling kids.  We don’t root for Leahy, he’s too far gone and we’re just not supposed to.

We are left to root reluctantly for characters we can’t completely get behind and that is the beauty of the entire thing.  It’s gorgeous in it’s absence of anything at all redeeming in any meaningful way.  Genius escapism; allowing viewers to feel better about themselves while watching near blind hamsters take a turns at the wheel of their lives.  It is tragic and it is simultaneously funny as fuck.

Like I said, I adore it.

As far as I can tell, it’s pretty scarce on American television.  It’s uniquely Canadian.  Why are the Canadians so much funnier than us on a pure per capita basis?  I find it on The 101 Network via Direct TV.  It’s called “Trailer Park Boys”.  Just fucking Google it.  It rocks.

Drinks for my friends.