POSTING #58

Red Green

I like Red Green.

There, I've said it---and I feel better.

It has taken me a long time to work up the courage to admit it.

It’s not easy to hold up your hand and say you like Red Green.

For a start, women (whom I also like) can't stand Red Green.

That's more than half the population.

And among men, there are scads who consider the Red Green programs, low-brow, puerile, sophomoric, ridiculous---whatever.

But I still like Red Green.

I am not entirely clear why, but some possible reasons come to mind.

I really identify with the handyman segments: "If your wife can't find you handsome, she should at least find you handy".

It was my fate to be blessed with two brothers who could fix anything.

A roof is leaking. No problem.

A car battery is dead. A piece of cake.

Need a new electrical circuit. Nothing to it.

After trying for years to emulate my brothers, I realize I belong to the group of men who believe the bigger the problem, the bigger the hammer.

I felt good watching Red Green trying to patch up botched handyman projects with duct tape (my favourite remedy was plastic wood).

I also liked the comic performances of superb actors like Gordon Pinsent and his tall-tale-telling character, Hap Shaughnessy, and Graham Greene with his explosives-loving character, Edgar K. B. Montrose (the K.B apparently stood for Ka Boom!).

(Click here for an entertaining Wikipedia article on the Red Green show.)

So, OK, I like Red Green.

But I have always felt that it is something to keep to myself.

Saying you like Red Green is like saying to a seat mate at a concert of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra that you are going to Shelburne on the weekend for the Old Time Fiddle Championship.

Or saying to a group of nutritionists that you love Tim Bits.

That reminds me. I once shocked a devotee of the Stratford Festival by saying that we had been to the Blyth Festival---to see The Ballad of Stompin' Tom. I thought for a time she would need a defibrillator.

Sorry for going on so long about my lamentable lack of sophisticated taste.

But there is a point---and a story.

I was browsing the web recently and came across a website that was featuring a complete set of all the programs for the 12 years Red Green was on the air, plus the pilot that led to the show.

It was a liquidation offer, which suggested that the Red Green organization had over-estimated the demand for the collection and was having to get rid of the unsold DVDs.

With a set of these DVDs I would be able to watch the programs whenever I wanted without having to hunt them down in off-hour reruns, and I would be helping the Red Green folks by taking some of the unsold disks off their hands.

After I ordered the set I learned in the confirmation email that the DVDs would be shipped from an unpronounceable city in China.

From China?

Red Green?

I began to smell a rat.

The DVDs came and as I began to play them it became clear that I had been had.

They were bootlegged versions of the real thing.

The pictures and voices are fine but the music and laughter are badly distorted.

I've done some research and found that there is no authorized, complete collection of the programs---but that the Red Green people plan to release one in 2010.

Now I feel really embarrassed.

It is bad enough to like Red Green but it is even worse to be sucked into a scam that even Harold, Red Green's half-wit nephew, wouldn't have fallen for.

I've decided that I will just have to soldier on, remembering Red's catch line from the segment on advice to men: "Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together."


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See you next Sunday for Posting #59 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.