TPB and the Littlest Hobo

It is unfortunate that I was not privy to the wholesome goodness that is the Littlest Hobo when I was growing up.  For me it’s a mysterious Canadian show from the eightys that I sort of remember hearing about when I would come up to Ontario from Virginia as a kid to visit relatives.  The Littlest Hobo show never aired in the States, at least not in the broadcast area that I lived in.  My alternative would have been Lassie I guess.  But the two shows are quite different and have their own distinct style I’m sure. 

I became instantly curious about the Littlest Hobo after watching a Trailer Park Boys episode last night.  In the short scene Ricky sits and ponders (as much as Ricky can ponder) a horrible day while he eats a foot-long stick of pepperoni and drinks straight from what appears to be a bottle of C.C. while watching - through a windshield – an episode of the Littlest Hobo on a TV sitting on the hood of his car.   Whew, that was a mouth full, sorry!

You see, this is one of those things that I personally really love about the show.  As much as I appreciate and try to understand TPB, some of the writing or personality about this show I just can’t always catch. It’s those little Canadian or Atlantic Canadian cultural references such as this example of Ricky watching the Littlest Hobo that are just enough out of my own sphere of relevance that it makes it mysteriously appealing to me.  I love that.  

When this scene came up last night Mimi jumped at the sight of Ricky watching the Littlest Hobo – she started singing and laughing and I was like, ”what the hell is going on?”.  The obvious connection between Ricky’s own plight and the plight of the Hobo revealed in the line of the Hobo’s song “maybe tomorrow I’ll want to settle down, until tomorrow I’ll just keep moving on”, was clear. However, I had to research what the Littlest Hobo actually was.  This show is accessible to me in most senses.  I mean hell, I live in Nova Scotia and Mimi taught near the fictitous ”Sunnyvale Trailer Park”.  I’ve met all of the cast now and know some of their relatives.  And it goes without saying, I have a sense of humour and enjoy new takes on the ancient telling of the story of good vs.evil.  But some of the idiosyncratic cultural references in TPB that breeze over the head of this kid  – who grew up in the states 1200 miles from Cole Harbour - make this show a novelty to me and something really special amid the world of generic, cookie cutter TV programming that “everyone” is supposed to be able to “relate” to.

To reveal or show to the audience, ever so briefly, (maybe 5 seconds worth) a tragic character in a modern Canadian TV show relating (almost certaintly on a subconscience or unconscience level – because that is the only level Ricky appears to work on) to another tragic character in a retro canadian TV show (that has probably been stuffed into the nastalgia file in most peoples’ memories) is a fantastic technique written within one of the best TPB episodes.  Those subtle gems are what makes this show such terrific Canadiana and just great art. 

Unlike myself, I assume the character Ricky has been watching the wholesome goodness of Littlest Hobo since he was a little kid.  At the same time it’s both hilarious and tragic that the character Ricky would  have never absorbed or learned the lessons of the Littlest Hobo’s theme of fighting crime and would ultimately wind up living a life of crime himself.  But we know that in the end Ricky usually winds up doing the right thing.  Maybe some of the Hobo’s lessons managed to work their way into Ricky’s brain afterall.  Maybe, just maybe.  Hey, that’s Ricky. 

There’s Mimi and Ricky.