A Red Green send-off...

A WPT exclusive interview with the
man that brought Red Green to life

Saturday night, a WPT era comes to an end when the network airs the 300th and final episode of The Red Green Show at 9. Steve Smith, the man who created the character and played Red Green since 1990, speaks to Be more Tuned In about his appreciation for Wisconsin's Red Green fans, how American Public Television helped save the already popular Canadian show and what it was like to don his trademark flannel and suspenders as he hung up his duct tape for the last time.

In 1990, after more than a decade of successful comedy programs with his wife, Morag, Steve Smith pitched his idea for The Red Green Show, a program based on some of his earlier sketch comedy work, to a local TV station in Hamilton, Ont. With just one season in mind, he never imagined that the lodge-owning character and his cast of odd, yet lovable, friends would make him a bona fide star.

"Absolutely not," Smith says. "I had no idea that this would be more than what we planned. The show was just a summer job back in 1990. It was just something fun for us to do." (Continued...)

Public television lends a hand

After two seasons, the show was a cult hit, but the station had run out of funds for producing it and The Red Green Show was cancelled. It wasn't until the news of the program's supposed end was announced that Smith learned just how popular his "summer job" had become.

"I started to get upwards to a thousand letters a day pleading for me to do whatever I could to keep Red Green on the air," he remembers. "Well, I've always thought that Canadians and Americans have a lot in common. And, we had already found an audience in Canada. That's not always easy, since Canadians are often biased against Canadian shows, because we've done some pretty horrible stuff on TV up here over the years.

"So, while I was watching Monday Night Football, I started to think that in those stadiums filled with 70,000 people, 'I bet there's a couple of Red Green fans in there -- the type of guys who figure they can fix a microwave by themselves to save a couple bucks.' I contacted some public television stations and we started small with five or six. But now, the show is on nearly 100 stations in the U.S."

That support of American Public Television along with a move of the show's productions to Toronto's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), saved the program and ensured its long-term international longevity.

There's a bit of Red in everyone

For every fan of the show who has viewed a familiar, too-close-to-home moment in Red and the cast's weekly mishaps, it should be refreshing to learn that Smith wasn't simply making fun of "handymen" in the show's weekly segments -- much of the material was inspired by his own life.

"I really am embarrassed to admit that a lot of the show's material has come out of what I guess you'd call personal experiences," Smith says, laughing. "When I was younger, I was always the kind of guy who wanted to figure out how to put things together in my own way. For example, I once put a six-cylinder engine in a car with a four cylinder. But I didn't close it up and make it look nice -- it just sort of pushed back into the passenger spot and just sat there.

"I also worked on a farm with a fellow who was always inventing new machines to help out in the fields. Add that to spending all of our family's summer holidays at a cottage up north and an engineering degree at university, and you end up with Red Green."

A fitting ending for Possum Lodge

As The Red Green Show progressed through the years, Smith had the opportunity to meet many of the shows fans at events throughout North America and at the show's tapings in Toronto. So, when it came time to wind the show down, he knew the direction he wanted to take it.

"We have a really good relationship with our fans," Smith says. "I didn't want to betray that by having some stupid ending where everyone dies, the lodge blows up or we find out it was all a dream.

"I wanted to make it clear that this was the last new show, but also let the fans know that somewhere, Possum Lodge and the gang still exist and are still going along in their lives, just not on TV anymore. They keep moving on in their lives, just like we all do."

For Smith, moving on in life translates into retirement. His brother Dave is leading Smith's S&S Production Co. and with the exception of possibly providing a bit of voice work for a proposed animated series about Patrick McKenna's Harold character, Smith has no qualms with saying that he won't be playing Red Green any longer.

"There's absolutely no question that I won't be putting on the Red Green uniform anymore," he says. "I think that Johnny Carson provided the best model for bowing out gracefully. We all have really great memories of this show and I don't want to ruin mine by having people ask each other in ten years, 'Who's that old guy dressing up like Red Green?'

"There's an old show business saying that describes those folks as 'forgotten, but not gone' and I will do my best to avoid that. I've been retired now for five months and it is the best job I've ever had."

Appreciation all around

Before he and the show took their final curtain call, the people of Canada took time to show Smith their appreciation for the character. In November, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Geminis (Canada's version of the Emmy Awards) and in February Smith was named to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor.

As retirement sets in, Smith says he is grateful for the unimaginable success the show has attained and unprompted, he exclaims his appreciation for Wisconsin's Red Green fans who were always among the most vociferous during live pledge specials for the show.

"The people of Wisconsin have been great to me and to the show," Smith says. "I'll always remember the great response I got when we came down for the (Duct Tape Forever) movie premiere. Even when we would tape the show, there were always folks from Wisconsin who would drive up to watch. They're just a terrific group of people and I thank them immensely."