HALIFAX: The Trailer Park Boys' reign as the kings of Canadian TV comedy seems to have come to an end, with no eighth season of the successful Showcase cable TV series planned.
Though reluctant to confirm rumors of the series' demise given other Trailer Park Boys projects currently in development, producers Mike Volpe and Barrie Dunn indicate they're not looking to do another season of the show.
"Trailer Park Boys can live in many incarnations - movies, television...So, we're just figuring out what the next steps are. It's just evolution, I guess," says Volpe, with Dunn adding, "There's a lot of creative energy left with Trailer Park Boys."
Word of the end of the series leaked in late April when TPB cast member Sarah Dunsworth drafted a note on her Facebook page in response to the clamor of fans wondering when new episodes might be airing.
"At this point, there is no Season 8 of Trailer Park Boys. The show hasn't been 'dropped' by Showcase, the decision was made by Trailer Park Productions," she wrote. "Of course we'll all miss it, but it's better to end something while it's still good...I feel proud and lucky to have worked on something so wonderful."
Showcase did not return calls for this story, though Volpe and Dunn said that their connection with the cable channel that carried the show for seven seasons continues to be a good one.
"Our relationship with Showcase is great," says Volpe. "They've been tremendously supportive. It's been a good ride with those guys."
If this is the end of Trailer Park Boys as a series, the multiple Gemini Award-winning, Nova Scotia-produced show joins the ranks of Air Farce Live and Corner Gas, other long-running and beloved comedies that recently announced their bow-outs. TPB can hold its head high in that company, as a brilliant comic look at a group of n'er-do-wells in a Dartmouth, NS trailer park, a dysfunctional family of pot-smoking ex-cons with whom a huge fan base of viewers identified, perhaps despite themselves. The show's success was spun into a feature film released in the fall of 2006 that made nearly $4 million at the box office nationwide.
Last fall, a Trailer Park Boys special was shot for TV. It will appear on Showcase, says Dunn. "The latest I heard is that it's supposed to air in the fall. Last year we did the special and this year we're focusing on the movie."
Though the script and financing are still in development, Trailer Park Productions hopes to go to camera this summer with a sequel to Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, with series creator Mike Clattenburg returning to the director's chair.
Meanwhile, the three lead cast - Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay and Mike Smith - have been working on fresh comedic material apart from the Trailer Park Boys productions.
"Yeah, they're cooking up something new," says Volpe. "We don't know too much about it. I would say it's like a rock band. All of us have our solo projects but then we get together for a blow-out album and tour."
