Canadian Comedy Program

The Red Green Show is a half-hour comedy series targeted to family audiences. The Red Green Show is the creation of Steve Smith (S & S Productions) and debuted on CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in 1990 and featured on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The low-budget variety show is a spinoff of the Smith & Smith variety show that featured Smith and his wife, Morag, and served as a debut for the Green character. The Red Green Show features Smith as Red Green, a gentle, handy, outdoorsman with a laid-back sense of humor. The Red Green Show is set at the fictitious Possum Lodge, Chapter 13, known as the hangout of “the last real men on the planet.” The cast consists mostly of incompetent outdoorsmen in plaid shirts who unwittingly work right into Green’s bizarre sense of humor. The Red Green Show is intended as a spoof on male bonding in the outdoors and gives an intentionally hilarious insight into the dreams and obsessions of men. Regular segments include the “Handyman’s Corner” (where Red’s philosophy of “if women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy” is played out with innovative, yet unseemly construction adaptations using duct tape, the “handyman’s secret weapon”); “The Experts” (featuring a panel of Possum Lodge, Chapter 13 members who answer viewer mail and find any way to respond without the words, “I don’t know”); and “Adventures with Bill” (a klutzy outdoors and nature segment hosted by Possum Lodge’s resident naturalist and narrated by Red and shot in black and white).