Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Smith a.k.a. Red Green: Toronto Mike'd #649

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

Mike chats with Steve Smith about his start in television producing Smith and Smith for CHCH, the huge success of The Red Green Show in both Canada and the United States, Duct Tape Forever, his new Possum Lodge Podcast and more.

Welcome to episode 649 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Thank you.com create custom stickers labels tattoos and decals for your home and your business the keitner group they love helping buyers find their dream home text toronto mic to 59559 and our newest sponsor cdN Technologies, your IT and cybersecurity experts. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me is Red Green himself, Steve Smith. So who do I have with me today? Is it Steve Smith or is it Red Green? It's a blurry line, but let's go with Steve Smith. Because I haven't been this confused since I had Ed the Sock on the program.

Yeah, I know that guy too. I wasn't sure who I was talking to, Steve or Ed, but hey, I got Steve again today. Do people want you to be read all the time? Like, are they a little disappointed when they get to talk to Steve Smith? I think generally people are disappointed when they meet me, regardless of any details. You know, I think people know that I created the character and that I have always been the head writer on the whole shebang so that they kind of know the red greens inside me,

whether I choose to present them or not. Is it tough on the voice? Serious question. Like I would think your voice would like when you have to get old gravelly, like red, is that at all tough to do? Yeah. You know, I get that question a lot. It really, it really isn't because I just, I whisper if I was yelling in that voice, uh, I would have no head at this point, but I just take it easy and they make me really hot and we're good.

Good. Are you good? Uh, generally speaking, I want to just check in and make sure are things going okay in your pod, uh, during this global pandemic, how are you holding up? Uh, physically fine. Uh, I'm, pod during this global pandemic. How are you holding up? Physically fine. I'm probably in the vulnerable group, but I don't worry about that. But I would say that it makes me, the whole thing kind of makes me angry a little bit, a little bit. You know, I mean, I know these things happen out of left field and there's nothing we can do

about it and everything, but it's time for them to do a better job in terms of handling it, treating it, protecting us going forward. I know that's been really hard to get along with, but we're a social animal. Social distancing is not going to work long term. But you mentioned came out of left field. I think that's the big thing here is that we didn't see this coming. Here it is. And then it's okay. I'm assuming the brightest, you know,

medical professionals we have are working very hard on this. I hope they're not like, you know, you know, sitting down and watching Netflix. I hope they're hard at work on some kind of a vaccine or some kind of protection. But in the meantime, I guess social distancing is sort of the best medicine we have, I think, unfortunately. Pretty primitive stuff. You know, it's a little bit like cancer in the 50s, where they really had no idea, you know, they're just kind of treating the symptoms, make it as make it as painless as possible, because they didn't know what to do.

And I, it's just same thing here. It's just, it reminds us, there's a lot more we don't know than, than what we do know. And it reminds us there's always another left field around the corner, if you will. You just, you don't know what's coming next. So. It's unbelievable. You know, like I grew up in the fifties where the, you know, the cold war, everybody's building bomb shelters in their backyard and everything. We thought there'd be a nuclear war. Well, man, this is close in terms of the fatalities. 80s, I grew up thinking that a bomb,

the nuclear bomb would be dropped, I don't know, Russia or a state, somebody, and we would all be toast, like, just kiss your ass goodbye. That's what I remember from the early 80s. Yeah, Dr. Strangelove, Slim Pickens riding that bomb. Yeah, and here it is, some

little thing, it's microscopic, you can't even see it, and it's taking us all down. It's incredible. Is it Hamilton? Whereabouts do we find you today i'm in hamilton i have a really old house here and uh i've been doing lodge meetings here for the yeah i don't know last five years or more i remember but anyway so i'm in my converted my old dungeons and dragons basement to possum live so So although there'll be no video on our podcast, it kind of gets everybody in the mood to be doing it here. Well, let's tell people that because we are going to go into a deeper dive,

but let's talk off the top here. What is this new podcast? So when does it launch and what is it? Okay. It launches June 28th and there'll be a new one. The last Sunday of every month for 12 months. We're going to write checks for a year and see how it goes. It's called the Possum Lodge Podcast. It's new. It's futuristic for me, but it's also a tremendous throwback for me because I am so old that I used to lie in my bunk bed listening to radio shows on a crystal

radio you know like our Miss Brooks and Amos and Andy and Jack Benny and all these people so and all the shows were on the radio I mean mysteries and drama so you had as a kid you had to create the pictures right and I think I i think i have a pretty good imagination and i think that's one of the reasons it got developed as a kid so that's what that's the kind of thing where it's not really a podcast we're doing it's a radio show it's all scripted we're even doing handyman stuff so you know you'll hear you'll hear what i'm doing but hopefully if we do it right you'll the kids will be able to picture it. Yeah, it sounds amazing. It's theater of the mind, right?

This is theater of the mind. Totally. Totally. And you're smart because you're fishing where the fish are. Because anyone who's hearing our voice right now already is comfortable with podcasts. So is it that you can't subscribe? Because can you subscribe to this before June 28th? Or is it basically mark your calendars because on june 28th you'll be able to subscribe to this podcast well you know we have

people already subscribing so okay and people just so great and they know that there's nothing coming on so we're not fooling them they know it's not not dropping until June 28th, but they want to encourage us. We've already got a bunch. There's no advertising, no commercials, no sponsorships. The lowest level is a dollar. You get in for a dollar a month, you get a podcast. Our thinking was, if a dollar is too much for you, you shouldn't be doing this. And if it's not worth a dollar, we shouldn't be doing this.

So we think it's, you know, I used to do television, as you know, and then I did one man shows. And with the one man shows, I was dealing with the end user. And I just, I like that so much better than going through a middleman, an advertiser, or, you know, some corporate goofball. So I want to live and die on fan base. And if I die, hey, it's been a great ride. I was gonna say, Steve, you were on TV. I thought you were just a podcaster. This is very exciting. So what's the, what is the call? So the name is Possum Lodge Podcast. Is that the name? Possum lodge podcast is that the name possum lodge podcast yes sir and we're like if you're going to give them one call to action where they should go

to subscribe because you mentioned the uh the dollar thing so i was going to say search for possum lodge podcast in your podcatcher but maybe there's somewhere else they're supposed to go uh where do you want to send the listeners who want to subscribe well i'm kind of illiterate in the technology department but the best thing to do just go to redgreen.com and there will be a link there and that'll get you there and it's patreon is the platform if you're you know what that is yeah yeah oh i'm on patreon too so after you've given steve your dollar if you have any extra change you can throw it it at Toronto Mike on Patreon. Okay, so everyone go to redgreen.com. You'll find the link there to

subscribe. Just back to Hamilton for a moment. Actually, speaking of Hamilton, I produce a podcast for Ralph Ben-Murgy. Oh, yeah. And I was chatting with Ralph the other day, and he likes to know who's coming up or whatever. And I said, I went, anyway, Ron Hawkins from Lowest of the Low. I said, Steve Smith

from Red Green. And he goes on to tell me this great story about how he was hosting a CBC radio show I went down to Ron Hawkins from lowest of the low. I said, uh, Steve Smith from red green. And he goes, he goes on to tell me this great story about how he was hosting a CBC radio show. And you were the guest. And he tells me that that was the most he's ever laughed ever hosting a show for, uh, CBC.

Um, so there's a little compliment for you right there from Ralph. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I remember Ralph. I haven't seen Ralph in years. Nice guy. Great guy and he lives in hamilton now so yeah i know he uh he moved to hamilton and the joke here is that you know most episodes are toronto-centric because

it's toronto mic'd but there's a a race between uh montreal and hamilton as to which city gets the most love beyond Toronto because of the guests I have. If I have on, for example, Steve Paikin or Tom Wilson from Junkhouse, there's such Hamilton boosters. Would you mind, just before we go into the television career, would you give some love to Hamilton maybe and just tell me why you love living in the Hammer? love to Hamilton maybe? And just, uh, tell me why you love living in the hammer. Well, you know, way back going way, way back. We used to say in, uh, in Toronto, they do the deal and in Hamilton, they do the work and I'm more of a worker than a dealer. So I actually was born in Toronto. I, we moved out of Toronto when I was maybe 12 or 13 so and there weren't a lot of moving bands going

that way you know what I mean uh but uh I ended up in Hamilton because I just had a connection you know with this with the city I was in a rock band in the early 80s and or the early 70s I should say and and we played Hamilton a lot Diamond Gyms right downtown and I don't know just something about about the people people. And I mean, I've got a, I've got a boat in the water here and, and now I've been here. I really, my first move to Hamilton was in 74. So I've been here a long time. Yeah. Is that, is that the queen bee, the boat? It was, it's the king bee now.

Is it true though that you used to that you would write on the boat? Is that where you would go to write? Yeah, absolutely. When we were doing the TV show, I had read somewhere that creative people, when they get stuck, they need motion. And some guys will go get in their car and just drive down the highway just to see headlights coming at them. And here I would sit up at the front of the boat, and wave motion uh was would stimulate i don't know if crazy but it worked

no it doesn't sound crazy at all to me because uh honestly when i'm stuck on a problem or something i go for a bike ride and when i get back from the bike ride i solved it all like and i've usually solved like most of the world's problems by the time I get back. So there's something about that motion, like for sure. Now, back in Hamilton, and I guess it's late 70s, but maybe help us get to Smith & Smith, if you will. So I know that's at CHCH in Hamilton, but like maybe give us a little bit of like what made you want to do that for a living? Okay, so we have to go back a little bit before that to get the real story.

My wife and I were in a rock band called Jason in the 70s. And we were performing all over the place. We did a lot of U.S. colleges. And I remember we did a gig at Cornell University. It's in Ithaca, New York. And the manager of Deep Purple came out to see us. And so usually when somebody important comes to see you, you just stink to join. Well, we had a great night. I think we had three encores. But we were a cover band, you know, we would do Beach Boys and Beatles and Four Seas and all that stuff. Anyway, but I couldn't wait to meet this guy,

right? So he comes up to me after the show. I said, well, what'd you think of that? He said, Oh, it was interesting. I said, interesting. We got like three encores. He said, yeah. He says, but you did the four seasons. You did the beach boys. You did. He says, I know all those guys. They do what they do better than you do what they do. What do you do? Right. And it was like, somebody took an ax and hit me right between the eyes. It was like, absolutely. And I went home that night and my wife and i got talking i was like you know we're in the entertainment business and if we want to try to make a living out of it we got to put something

new into it right and that within six months we were out of the band and uh we became smith and smith and we played these little joints and hardly get any work and just things are going horribly and we were about ready to quit and i got a call from a promoter named jim scarrett he's a hamilton boy too and he wanted us to open for al martino you remember him italian crooner i i know of him yes okay so we did that we ended up doing a cross-country tour opening for him and it was great work was all like Hamilton played big places, you know. So we get home. So I was like, well, okay, what do we do now?

You know, I don't want to go back to the little bars. And so my wife says to me, well, we should have a TV show. I said, okay, that's fine with me, you know. But I said, how do you think we should do that? She said, well, let's just, let's start here. We're in Hamilton. Let's see if we can get a show in Hamilton. And then if we can't get a show in Hamilton, we'll go over to Sudbury.

Wherever we have to go, we'll get a TV show. So, okay. So I start phoning the general manager. That's the guy that was the programmer. Right. And I never get him. I get a secretary and he wouldn't call back. And every day my wife would say, did you call him?

Yeah, I called him. I called him. So finally, after about 16 times, she said to me, you could go back and call him. I said day, my wife would say, did you call him? Yeah, I called him. I called him. But finally, after about 16 times, she said to me, you can go back and call him. I said, look, you know what? If you're so smart,

you go call him. See how it feels. She goes in the bedroom. She calls the guy. She comes out. She says, we've got a meeting Tuesday. That's great.

That's great. And your wife, Morag, just to shout her out. Yeah, Morag, what a sweetheart. 53 years we've been married. Congratulations, man.

That's no small feat. But it must be easy when you're married to Morag. Yeah, she's really a good one. She's a good one. Very early on, and we were both teaching when we got married, and she said to me, look, she said,

why don't you figure out what you want to do, okay? And then we'll just do that. I mean, you know. See, it don't you figure out what you want to do? Okay. And then we'll just do that. I mean, you know. It works for you. So you got the meeting, obviously. And I'm thinking, you know, I watched Smith & Smith. So firstly, I should tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So it was fantastic.

And I pulled an audio clip I'm going to play in just a moment for you. Oh, gosh. I know. Which I think a lot of people will get that nostalgia feeling from in a moment. When I think of CHCH back then, I think of

this is late 70s. We got Billy Van doing Hilarious House of Freidenstein there, right? He was a bit before me. We started there. We did our pilot in 76 and that show was just done i think that at that time yeah that show it's hard to tell when it was because i was watching it and it was they just keep kept rerunning it and you were never sure exactly when the hell they did

that one and uh maybe this is a bit later probably than the 70s it's probably in the early 80s but i remember billy red lions bringing us Leaf Wrestling. With the cutouts? The plywood cutouts of the audience? I don't know. They're doing that now. They're doing that now. It's making a comeback. But I remember Billy Red Lions, Don't You Dare Miss It, and he'd have King Kong Bundy

versus whatever, and Jimmy the Superfly Snooker or something like that. Nick Angelo Mosca was a wrestler back in those days. The good old days there. Yeah, Jim Tunney, I think, was the promoter. It's all true. But you're on Smith & Smith,

and it was a wonderful little show. And I'm just going to play a song, and we'll talk a little more about it here. Hopefully you can hear this. We didn't test, but heck it, we'll do it live. Let's do it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Losing but too tired to fight But if you take care Of someone who loves you Then everything will turn out right If you take care Of someone who loves you Then everything will turn out right Tonight's your night to read the credits good night everybody how does it hear how does it feel listening to that after all those years

well you know that i wrote that song i wrote all the music for the show other than the cover songs that morning did but uh you know i'm really i'm proud of the song i'm proud the music for the show other than the cover songs that morning did but uh you know i'm really i'm proud of the song i'm proud of the message we have i mean hundreds of people have commented on that people sing that at their wedding we did a um a thing a few years ago like maybe 10 years ago with the halifax symphony and and also the windsor symphony and they they played that song so it was a 30-piece symphony orchestra playing that. And it was just, you know, make you feel good. Cool. It's, you know, and that's, I guess every episode ended with that song, right?

Take care of someone who loves you. And just, I hadn't heard it in a long time. I'll be honest. I hadn't heard that since the 80s. And I listened to it the other day and it was like, just your flush back. It was wild. But so that's you and your wife, Morag, the Smith and I listened to it the other day, and it was like just your flushback. It was wild. So that's you and your wife, Morag, the Smith & Smith.

So it was syndicated, right? I watched it on CHCH, but people got to see that in other parts of the country, right? Yeah, it was syndicated. There were a lot of independent TV stations way back then. Plus, CH was on the satellite, so even people in Edmonton, they could get it off the satellite. But yeah, it was only syndicated in Canada. It never sold outside the country, but it was successful.

Obviously, it wasn't expensive to produce, and CH was just the greatest place to work. The general manager's name was Frank Bernardisus and we had that meeting with him and for the next eight years he and i would sit down have a little chat and he'd say okay he says uh you got a deal he'd shake my hand he said can you just write up whatever it is i said and i'll put it in a file so we know what to pay you he was a great guy great guy that guy had a lot of trust in you but what's not to trust there? Here's my question I've had forever. Why did Smith & Smith end? Max and me was great too, but I don't understand. Was there a business reason behind changing it up? Yeah.

Several things happened. CHCH was having tough times competing with the big boys, you know, bait on broadcasting. It was kind of, they had a little mini Ontario network and CH trying to compete with that. And there was a Canadian content ruling that as long as you were doing the Canadian content, they didn't care what it was. So there was a Monty Hall. Remember him? Let's make a deal. Of course. Well, some, I think a producer,

Jerry Appleton, I believe his name was came to CH and said he wanted to do a game show with Monty Hall would host. I think it was called split second and it would be on five days a week. It would satisfy all their Canadian content requirement. And he offered them a partnership in the show, which they thought would syndicate all over the world because it was Monty Hall.

Right. So they came to us and said, you know, they really didn't want that I was to go home and think about something else and come back to them with something. But for now, they didn't need anything. So that's the nature of the business. I didn't even take it badly. I't mad at anybody it's just like okay

i i want the people i'm working with to make the best decisions for their business too and if that's not me then i shouldn't be there so there was no like for example back then uh cbc wouldn't uh take uh say hey we'll we'll we'll we'll produce smith and smith there was uh you know any opportunities of that nature there was a kind of a unspoken law that you don't steal from each other we would go i went to cbc every year i went to cbc when i went to chch so from 1976 to 19, 20 years, 1996. Right. And I would get little things like they, I wrote a couple of shows. I wrote a, like an Irish Rover special or something.

I get little jobs like that. But I never, I never got the nod until, until the red green things did. And even with red green, they really – I'm not sure they wanted the show, but by then I had an audience. They wanted the audience. I remember one guy – we had a live audience at CBC, and I remember a guy in the audience saying to me, how did you ever get a network – how did you ever sell this show to a network?

I said I didn't. I said I sold you to an advertiser. That's right. Okay okay so to put a bow on this part so smith and smith is uh retired for all intents and purposes and then um there's me and max for a year in uh i guess the mid 80s 85 and it's a real family affair right like it's uh like yeah like like uh tell me a little bit about uh me and max and then we'll get you to, to red green and make the listeners happy here. But tell me a bit about Max and me, if you don't mind. Okay. Well, first of all, with Smiths and Smiths,

regardless of what was happening on the business side, we felt creatively that we'd hit a, we'd hit a ceiling and, you know, this was seven, half, eight years into it. And it wasn't, it was just getting repetitive. So we thought, well, let's try and do some kind of a sitcom. Because sitcoms, that's what people want, not, you know, our kind of bizarre Sonny and Cher thing. So that's, but we had to do it for the same budget as Smith and Smith.

So what are we going to do? Well, Maury and I are going to play multiple characters and we're going to get our sons to earn their keep around here. So we did that for a year. And I mean, we probably could have done it longer, but it was just too hard on the, you know, on the kids really, you know, it was just a lot to ask. I think it was good for them and they learned how to read and how to memorize. But that's something you just do one year. And do you, do you still work with them? Yeah. I mean, they both ended up working in the company. One son, my younger son, left for a while, but he's back now.

And, in fact, we'll talk about him later because he's doing the podcast with me. He ended up one of the writers on the Red Green Show. The other guy, the older one, is Max. He's kind of like visually creative. He produces a lot of videos, music videos and commercials and stuff like that. He's gone that direction.

I'm really fortunate. I have a really good relationship with both of them. Between me and Max and the Red Green Show because the Red Green Show is 1991, you spent many years doing the Comedy Mill. Is there anything else you want to highlight,

like anything you're particularly proud of between those two projects? And then we'll spend a little more time on the Red Green Show for some obvious reasons. Well, my list of accomplishments always starts with survival, so I'm pretty proud of that. From that time when I told you about the game show coming on until Red Green, that gap all through Comedy Mail and everything, that was a tough goal because, you know, Telefilm came into play, which was a funding agency for your listeners uh and suddenly the uh the broadcasters if they would give you a deal they would only give you maybe 30 of your production costs and you had

to go get the other 70 from telephone which is a government organization and so suddenly the thing's upside down it's like okay uh i was getting my head around a programmer being a gatekeeper between me and my audience. And now I've got a bureaucrat being a gatekeeper between me and the programmers. I'm back one more level. And I'm the creative force. I was kind of like, that was a tough adjustment for me. And to be honest with you, I never got over it. You must be grateful that technology finally caught up to your creative brain where you can

cut out all this middle nonsense oh absolutely and yet um when i started touring in 2010 that was like going back 150 years or a thousand years people sitting around the campfire and somebody telling stories you know i mean that's as simple as you can get and so satisfying and that's that you've got to be missing that right now. Like that, that energy you get when you're performing live in front of people, like we don't know when that's coming back. And I'm, I'm assuming that must be hurting your psyche, hurting your emotionally. Well, actually Mike, it's not because I did,

I did, I decided to do my final tour last year so that was me that was me saying goodbye and I just I had a sense of you know it was time to it was time to do something else and this is going to sound really crazy but like I'm an old I'm an old guy and I would I would write a 90 minute show memorize it you know get up there and perform it and it's like this is and the reaction was fantastic but this just it isn't enough it's boring because uh i'm doing the same thing every night and and you know i write a 90-minute show for me was 22 pages right and for the podcast i've already written over 500 and that's more that's what i should be doing and it's it's always been heavily scripted, right? There's not like, you know, it's not like curb

your enthusiasm where there's like, here's a, here's the, here's the, uh, the bullet points, you know, do your thing. This has always been very scripted, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I, it's just, I mean, some people are really good at ad living and everything, but to me, it's always, you're performing your first drafts. That's always the way I felt about it. And for me especially, it's kind of like, I just like it to be more, I don't mind somebody spinning off of it, but I want to know that there's a safety net there

of a script that's pretty solid. Right. Now, firstly, I'm going to fire my research assistant who wasn't aware that you had retired the live shows. So firstly, that's going to happen. And then secondly, I just watched the final two episodes of The Last Dance on Netflix,

which is about the Chicago Bulls doing the repeating, the three-peat, if you will. And at the end, I want no spoiler, but now I learned something. I don't want to spoil it, although it kind of like is real life stuff.

Can you spoil that? But I feel like there could be more live red-green, but I digress, because i feel like we could have got a seventh uh a seventh ring for that bulls team but anyway this is my own my own issues i need to address there but uh so i'm working some things out with you steve but the uh i'm happy so why don't we um talk about the red green show and people, I mean,

well, I got a lot of questions, but firstly, I guess tell us how the show came to be like the character already existed, but maybe tell us how it, the red green spinned off into its own show, his own show. Well,

after comedy mill and all that telefilm funding and all that baloney, I just wanted, I didn't know what I was going to do. And I just wanted to do something that was very, very simple and that would be fun for me to do. So I went back to my old friends at CHCH. Frank Gennaris was gone by then. He'd been retired, but his replacement, I just said to to him i just would like to make try see if i can make a television show out of red green and no telefilm no government investment just you'll give me what you used to give me for smith and smith and you know i said to him give me enough money that i can do something but not enough that you care what it is and uh that was

the mission statement so that's smart find that Find that. What is that dollar amount? That's like the sweet spot. Yeah. Yeah. I've always tried to, uh, charge 10% less than I was worth. I know that's not what you're supposed to do,

but that's what I've always tried to do. That's, that's where my job security comes from. So it was supposed to be Rick, Rick green and I, who had been writing together for years. Um, we put the show together.

And it was supposed to be a one season, you know, like a summer job kind of deal in 1990. And, you know, that's how it began. And I'm going to play, I'll play, let me play a little music from the, to warm people up here. Just a moment here a little uh red green show theme song so i'm curious when the americans discovered this uh this wonderful show so i know i know when i know how it worked out here because that's where i was but like at what point does this get uh american exposure i'm gonna say spring of 93 uh we were at a convention called nat p which is a north american television programmer and executive something like that. And so I was,

I was down there being represented by a distributor called Hearst Entertainment. And let me back up a little bit. The show was, the show was canceled after its second season. CHCH was in real trouble. It wasn't, they didn't like the show.

It was just, they just couldn't afford to do it anymore. And they can. And I, okay, that's fine. I only, I i expected to go one season so you know anyway uh the letters started coming in from canadians now you know i know this is an awful thing to say but usually when a canadian television program goes off the air there's a street party so so for them to be saying things like you know you got to do what you got to do to keep the show on the air and i would go down we had a post office box down on kensington and hamilton because by then we had kind of formed a lodge and had a fan club

and all that stuff and i would it was like miracle on 34th street i go down there to get my mail and the guy go oh yeah and he hands me a little bundle you know like that much mail right and i thanks and i turn i as soon as i get the door he goes oh no wait wait i think it was a bit more and he brings a box boom oh that is like miracle on 34th street that's yeah and your telefilm that'll be a big moment yeah i need to talk to you ladies to help you understand why we men do some of the things we do. For example, not stopping to ask for directions when we're lost. Okay, primarily, it's a pride thing. We're out there, we're driving around in our own vehicles, burning gas, got the sunglasses on, looking good, you know.

People see us going by, would never guess that we have no idea where we are. And we're not real excited about sharing that information. A man does not embrace the concept of going up to total strangers and saying, you may not know this, but I'm a moron. Whereas the woman that he's with is only too happy to share that information. I think it helps to ease her burden a little bit. See, to a woman, getting lost when you're on a trip is just a blameless act of nature. But to a man, it's a sign of personal failure. He knew where he was when he left. He doesn't know where he is now. All right, somewhere along the way, he crossed the line between the world he

knows and the world he doesn't know. That's exactly the way he feels about when he got married. And when he had kids. So if he admits he's lost in his car, he's going to have to admit he's lost in those other areas as well. That's way too much to ask. So just sit there, bite your tongue, circle the block a couple of times. Men aren't lost. They just take the long way.

Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together. Red Green strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't need garbage day to let him know what is being collected. But we're not all red green here. So for the rest of us, I encourage you to go to garbageday.com slash Toronto Mike.

Garbage Day ends the guesswork related to the collection of waste and recycling. Subscribers no longer need to worry about missing a collection or trying to figure out what bin to put out to the curb. So go to GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike, help yourself out, help out the show. It costs you nothing.

If you want tips for working from home, even Red Green is now working from home, recording his Possum Lodge podcast. If you want some tips for how to set up a safe work from home network, check out the free report at cdntechnologies.com slash WFH. WFH, of course, stands for work from home. And if you have an immediate IT need, you can always reach Barb at 905-542-9759. If you have any Toronto real estate questions,

please text Toronto Mike one word to 59559. The Keitner Group have partnered with Toronto Mike to fuel the real talk, and I sincerely believe Austin Keitner can help. As always, I want to thank Great Lakes Brewery for their fantastic partnership these past several years. They were first in to help fuel the real talk. They have a very convenient curbside pickup program.

If you order, you can actually get same day pickup from their retail store at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard. So stock up on fresh craft beer from Great Lakes. And thank you to Palma Pasta. They just celebrated their 35th anniversary. Palmapasta.com. They have locations in Mississauga and Oakville. The most delicious Italian food you'll ever eat that comes from a store.

And I mean that sincerely. And everybody who tries Palma Pasta agrees with me. So support a good family-run local business. Support Palma Pasta. And thank you, StickerU. StickerU.com is where you go if you want to order stickers, tattoos, decals. Online, very safe, open for business, stickeru.com. Let's get you guys back to the Possum Lodge and Steve Smith from the Red Green Show.

Yeah. So that got me, that was a turning point for me because I, you know what, this show is connecting with people. And then I would watch like an NFL game and I'd see 100,000 people in the stands. I think, do you think any of those people might enjoy, you know, the red green attitude? Yeah. So we went down, a few of us went down into the States and just started calling on programmers, distributors, everything.

And I would come into the meeting dressed as red green. i had a hockey bag with all this mail in it and i'd say to the guy i know you're guessing and i'm certainly guessing but here's a bunch of mail from people who aren't guessing you know and eventually out of that you know came the idea that somehow or other we're connecting with people, maybe not a lot of people, maybe not a huge audience, but the ones who, it's not a show they watch, it's their show. And that's, that's where PBS seemed to be, you know, that seemed to be the best fit.

And the first station to pick us up was Detroit. And the reason for that was the Detroit PBS station is carried in a lot of Canadian markets by a satellite. So they thought they could get Canadians to pledge because they'd be kind of proud of one of their own, you know, being in the States. And it turned out eventually we got a hundred, like 110, 120 stations. Right. That's it's like when you're watching a Buffalo's PBS, which is what I watch. And then there's this can con essentially and

you're like oh yeah they want us to you know send over our dollars of course right right so this i will uh i tell you uh previous guest of the show we call them fotms friends of toronto mike steve you're now an fotm so welcome to the to my own club here the the Toronto Mike Lodge. I'm going to rename it. But Jeff Lumby has been on the show. And so we've covered a bit of this. But could you speak to, as an artist, what it means to you when you start to have a loyal and fervent fan base in the States? Because it's a numbers game right there's just there's so many more americans that it's really it's a game changer

right absolutely you know i i always i always talk about marginal businesses you can have a marginal business in america and be very successful you have a marginal business in Canada and you're barely putting food on the table. So it's all, it's all math. If you can connect with an audience that size, it's just, you don't need a big, like 1.1%. You know, you'll be very successful. So yeah, that was huge. And the other thing for me was that, you know, you can be a creative person, but unless you're either a great actor or a moron, you self-doubt.

And you need, especially there's certain moments where you just need to have some reaffirmation that you're worth something. And that just changed me. It was just like, okay, somehow, I don't know how I did it, but I've managed to connect with people. So let's see how far I can go with this. And I'm pleased to know that you stayed here, though, that we kept you.

You're in Hamilton right now. Was there ever a moment where you thought maybe you'd take the operation south of the border? Well, yeah, I've been, you know, I've been asked a lot of times to move to the States, but never by anybody who was in the States. So, you know, I mean, like, why, like, why, why would that, why would that be necessary? I got, I got two sons and, you know, they were in high school and, you know, I'm just, I'm stubborn. I'd rather have a little i'd rather have less success and have control you know and i that's just the theme that'll keep recurring it's just

i talked about telefilm or programmers or anything that's why i love this podcast you know it's just kind of like we're gonna sink or swim on our ability to satisfy our friends and you know if you can't keep a friend, you shouldn't have one. Right. Was there a specific moment at all in the, because how many years did the Red Green show, there was like 300 episodes, right? How many years did that go?

15. Wow. Well, congrats. I don't know. I don't have any stats on this. I didn't do homework on this, but how many Canadian shows get to a 15th anniversary? Not very many.

I mean, you know, especially not comedy shows. This hour is 22 minutes. That would certainly be beyond that. Right. You know, mainly news. We just do news shows. That's our main forte. That's right.

So congrats on that. Yeah, maybe Hockey Night in Canada. That's your uh that's your uh example of a long-running comedy if you're a leaf fan which i am so yeah still i will say at least leafs are still a much better team than the the hamilton nhl franchise which uh oh man is that a low blow oh What was that guy's name? Balsillie or something like that? Yeah, the Blackberry guy.

Yeah, right. He used you. I felt bad for you guys because I don't know what was going on there, but it was such a tease. And if you tune into, for example, you tune into a primetime sports on 590, Bob McCallum would be talking to Balsillie like this is going to happen.

Like, oh my God, it's happening. Spoiler alert, it never happens. So, and it doesn't sound like it. If you spent five minutes with Bill Silly, you'd know it wasn't happening. Oh, no, I haven't had that pleasure. No. So, was there a moment, Steve, when you realized, hey, we've done this? And I can tell because you've got that Canadian trait of, realize, hey, we've done this. And I can tell because you've got that Canadian trait of not yeah, sort of self-deprecation, undervalued. You talk about, you know, asking for 10% less than your worth. And it's a very it's a good trait and it's humble, but it seems particularly Canadian to me. And I think I have it, too. But I don't ask for 10% less than I'm worth. I ask for like 90% less than I'm worth.

So I get to catch up to you on that one. But was there a moment when you, you know, you could look to your wife and say, Hey, red, green, this is something like, this is a hit. Yeah. I, you know, to be honest with you, that moment happened when those letters came in and I, I, I did a biography, I guess it was it was called and one of the things i said and which i still believe is you know play your aces you you've got to figure out what your aces

are you may only have one ace but play it don't don't play a two or a three and think well i'm gonna i'm gonna save my ace you know you know you never lead with an ace in bridge or something like that right so no play your ace and i decided red green was my ace and when i got one of the reasons i got to the cbc was the programmer had two teenage boys and they went to jumbo video to rent some movies or something they and he met them up at the cashier and one of them had a red green special and he's going what the heck my sons are renting a canadian show that's not on my network, you know? And that was one of the, so there you go.

And when I got to CBC, there was a huge movement. Like every month they'd be on to me about, okay, Red Green, this is fine for now, but you need to be developing something else. We want to do something else with Steve Smith. And I just stayed firm, no, this is what I'm going to go with this as long as I can, because everything I want to say or do I can do and say is right. Yeah. And once you find that character resonates with people and it really does. I mean, even if you didn't watch the show, you kind of got the references, like you got the whole,

like the duct tape and the different parts, like, you know, you kind of got the, you knew the character, even if you didn't watch the show, it kind of permeated the osmosis, if you will, of pop culture. Yeah. You know, I mean, I travel all over North America and I just keep meeting the same guy, you know, there's a, there seems to be a red green in every family. And if there isn't one in your family, it's probably you. That's right. That's a good, that's right. So I'm. So, when did the movie show up? Actually, before I ask you about the movie, was there ever any, like with PBS airing the show,

was there ever any attempt to at all Americanize the content or the programming? Did you keep it true to like Canadian roots throughout this endeavor? Well, we stopped saying Garberator. That was a huge adjustment. Or Chesterfield. Is that the other one? There's all these words. I learned once I learned these words that I, in my mind,

I never said Chesterfield anyway. So that was an easy adjustment. But yeah, it's got to be a garbage disposal in the States. No, you know what? Actually it helped garbage it's got to be a garbage disposal in the states no you know what um actually it helped that it was canadian you know it kind of like reinforced their image you know somebody said to me well not somebody a lot of people said to me uh they'll interview me and say um are you worried that uh how americans will think about canad this show. I said, they don't think about Canadians. Get over yourself.

Well, they'll know Wayne Gretzky and they'll know Red Green. So that's... Yeah, well, yeah. And people thought Red Green was done in northern Minnesota. Well, okay, on that note. Okay, very good. We should work together, Steve, if you're looking for a new project. Listener of Toronto Mic'd Rick C. in Oakville.

Rick C. in Oakville says, can you ask him why Duct Tape Forever had a kind of an American flavor? I know 3M is based in Minnesota and the rightful owners of Duct Tape. Did they try to and coerce Red and the Possum Lodge to lean it this way for an American audience? Still a big fan and wouldn't be disappointed to find them trying for a

bigger audience at the time. What do you say, Steve Smith to Rick C and Oakville? Uh, no. Okay. But, uh,

let me be clearer than that. Clearer than that. Um, I'm a firm believer. I don't, I'm going to kill my image as being kind of a goofy creative guy. I have a, I'm a firm believer and i don't i'm gonna kill my image as being kind of a goofy creative guy i have a i'm a firm believer in branding and uh when red green was when we finally got to the cbc which would have been 96 97 i brought a bunch of people together at the the programmer from cbc the book

publisher our u.s distributor uh i don't anybody else I can't think of an advertising guy was working with blah, blah, blah. And I said, I w I would like to define the red, green brand because one of the things that really accelerates a brand is if you can associate yourself with something else. So you have, it's a one word or something that's bigger than yourself. And it went all around the table. And I said, well, it's not as stupid as you think it is. I thought, oh, that's not really something I want to go with. Out of that meeting, what I decided the brand was, was duct tape.

That red-green was the human version of duct tape. You know, he'll put things together, and they'll sort of stay together and work for a little while and not work great, but'll work a little bit so that became a thing now all of a sudden duct tape's turning up on the show and and uh then we got an opportunity to do a a feature film here again i didn't have the money to do the the thing so one of the things i needed to do was to get 3m in so they put up some corporate money but that was 3M Canada it wasn't the it wasn't the U.S. corporation right because health film won't allow an American company to put money into a Canadian anyway so no it wasn't it wasn't coerced at all and and the reason I did

a feature film was because the fans kept bugging me when you're going to do a movie well you should do a movie I did a movie and I really enjoyed it and uh people say When are you going to do a movie? Well, you should do a movie. I did a movie and I really enjoy it. And people say, are you ever going to do another one? I said, no, just watch that one backwards. I trampled all over your line there,

but I knew it was coming. Maybe we shouldn't work together until we iron out these, these wrinkles here. Duct Tape Forever. Great movie. And it did it do well uh like financial i don't like i know i just had a a very interesting conversation yesterday with the lead singer and songwriter for the lowest of the low one of my favorite bands of all time his name is ron hawkins

and we talked a lot of common theme is about like the importance of money but how how how poor that is as a measurement of like success in the arts and i almost i catch myself because now i'm about to ask you like was duct tape forever uh was it particularly lucrative for you and your family and i'm asking that because i'm curious but at the same time like uh really is that a is that a decent measurement of the success of a piece of art? I'm asking some big questions here, but. Well, I think it is. I mean, I guess if you're in the old days, you know, you'd have like a patron who would keep you alive while you made a painting that was worth millions, 100 years after your death. But that doesn't happen too much anymore.

I think that it's really important to be successful financially so that you can keep going. I mean, the last thing you want is a creative person to just pack it in and work on a factory assembly line or something. Right. No, absolutely. So on that note, how did, uh, how did duct tape forever do? Well, our, our company put $700,000 into the movie. Uh, and I don't think we've ever got any of that back. So I wouldn't call that a huge success. However, I will say this,

we did, we did retain the video rights, DVDs and so on. So it really helped. And then we did a thing where we made a fundraiser on PBS and the top 40 stations that raised money for themselves. We didn't get the money, but we would have the movie premiere in their city. So we did our stuff. We launched our own movie in 40 markets in the US. And although, you know, all of that money, ticket sales, and we went to the stations, it probably bought us five more years of license fees. So, you know, in the overall scheme of things, you know, it worked out. But, you know, there's a reason I didn't do a sequel.

Well, I mean, hearing this now, it sort of sounds like you got screwed. Like, does that, I mean, I don't know the business. I should disclose that in case people thought I was from the business. I don't know the business, but I do know that if you put 700,000 in and then people like it and there's a fan base that responds and you get none back, it sounds like there's some shifty accounting going on somewhere. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to rile you up here. No, it's not going to rile me. I just think it's a really tough business. I think that, you know, you talked about this earlier earlier having a marginal business in canada you know making canadian

feature films is not a great business to be and i think that i think the success of a canadian feature film is getting the funding so that day you get the funding that's your that's your payday you know forget about forget it you know if i was in charge and i don't want to be and i'll never will be but i would focus it more on and same with tv on what kind of an audience are you getting how's that how's the end user feel about your product rather than somebody at a funding agency thinks you're a winner but couldn't you in 20 and we're going to talk about the podcast again and it sort of is in the same spirit you could uh you could do this you your own production company you and the family and everyone who works with you could could now put a movie directly to the uh consumer and skip skip all that middle nonsense you might not be in theaters but

you'll be in there on their big 60 inch television in their uh you know high definition in their living rooms yeah i mean I mean, you could. It would be really risky. It's not, you know, it's just, unless you charge them. There used to be a joke about a guy who had a movie theater, and he charged $3,000 a ticket. And somebody said, well, that's a little high, isn't it? And he said, yeah, but I only have to sell one ticket.

So there's a bit of that in that theory so so steve i uh when i was looking at some old red green videos and stuff yesterday uh i came across uh a bunch of uh they're called steve smith playhouse videos okay so i start i said the first one i decided i'd tune into was called plan nine from outer space Space because I know this old B-movie. Anyway, I need to know when were these made? What were they for? I need to know a little more about this

only because this is not red-green. Honestly, I laughed out loud. These are just... I need to know when were these made? Okay. I'm trying to remember. It got to be mid-90s, maybe 97, 98, somewhere in there.

I was in Bath, and I was sitting around a table at the television convention they have there in June. And the programmer from Chum City, they have the Space channel and all that stuff and you know he was he kind of he enjoyed my sense of humor so he asked me how i got started i said well in high school i used to write captions for the pictures so it'd be a picture and you know and i'd write something funny under it and i said i've always wanted to do the what's up tiger lily thing woody allen did and i said i need, the trick is to find somebody who has unlimited rights, you know, to these old movies. He said, well, we have a, we have a bunch of them, you know, and if you're interested.

So I said, okay. So I got a bunch of these movies. Oh my gosh. And I decided to do it differently. First of all, I had cut the movie down to a half an hour. I watched the whole movie. I decided who would be a central character in my version. And then I cut the scenes down to have that person featured a lot.

And then, to make it even more challenging, I only changed that person's dialogue. Everybody else's lines were the same as they were in the original movie. And it was just me, just me talking. It might might be a woman lead character just me talking like this it didn't bother me oh my god we would when we did those we would be laughing so hard in the in the sound booth it was just it was insane i did 13 of them and that was and it was just so much fun no they're great so like if if you learn nothing else obviously you're learning there's a podcast you should subscribe to uh possum lodge podcast but you should also go to youtube and look for steve smith uh steve smith playhouse and uh these are

they're really funny man i like just like i felt like i had uncovered some kind of like uh a jewel in the rough or whatever, like a diamond just lying in the grass or whatever. I'm like, holy smokes. Very good. All right. Before we say goodbye, by the way, I've thoroughly enjoyed this and I thank you so much for your time today. A little more about the podcast because I produce podcasts and I'm naturally interested. So obviously the call to action is for people to go to redgreen.com because there'll be buttons and things there that will say, here's how you subscribe or whatnot. But tell me just a little bit about the production of it. Like, so whose voices do we hear?

Who's doing what behind the scenes? Like, I love the details if you how the sausage is made, if you don't mind. OK, well, what I was trying to do was to incorporate enough of the tv show into it that there'd be a familiarity so uh my buddy pat mckenna is going to be in every every one of the 12 episodes that's harold and then uh jeff lumby who was winston roth rothschild sewage the septic so he's in there ranger gourd peter killah has in there bob bainbro who was Dalton Humphrey, Humphrey's everything. So I've got those four guys. It's kind of like the familiarity. And I'm also doing handyman tips, handyman corners.

So, like I said before, all you hear is the sound. You've got to figure out what I'm doing. I'm describing, obviously, but still, it's a theater of the mind. And then I've just created I'm taking the town of Possum Lake and just expanding all of that so I've got a funeral director I've got the mayor I got the sheriff I got the veterinarian so so I've got 16 new voices even and there's characters on the show that I would always talk about Moose Thompson Junior Singleton and so on that you'd never see well we're bringing them into the into the podcast so you'll actually for the first time ever, hear their voices. I started writing at Christmastime, and it was just flying out.

And I always judge a lot on if it's easy to write, if it's fun to write, then I'm doing the right thing. Sounds amazing. I'm going to subscribe. And that first episode drops on June 28th and my birthday is June 27th. So this will be. Wow.

Coincidence. I think not. Can you change the date of the first release to June 27th just for my birthday? Can you do that? I can. I can. Yeah,

but I'm not gonna. Thanks Steve for doing this, man. This was a lot of fun. Yeah, me too. Thanks Mike. And that brings us

to the end of our 649th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMike. Steve is at RealRedGreen. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at

Palma Pasta. StickerU is at StickerU. Y-O-U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group. Keitner is K-E-I-T-N-E-R. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. And Garbage Day are at GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike. See you tomorrow when my guest is the radio personality, formerly known as brother bill. and wander around and drink some goodness

from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold

but the snow wants me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is Rosie and Gray. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.