Eye-popping, thick-rimmed, and instantly recognizable, Bubbles' glasses in the hit cult TV show "Trailer Park Boys" are as tied to his character as much as his love for cats. But how did Bubbles acquire his signature look?
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00:00Eye-popping, thick-rimmed, and instantly recognizable, Bubbles' glasses in the hit cult TV show
00:07Trailer Park Boys are as tied to his character as much as his love for cats.
00:12But how did Bubbles acquire his signature look?
00:15Trailer Park Boys started as a grassroots project that slowly grew into a cult classic,
00:21and despite its popularity, it still checks many of the requisite boxes for cult status.
00:26After the show became a hit on Netflix, Trailer Park Boys garnered a loyal fanbase that fell
00:31in love with the likes of Julian, Ricky, Bubbles, and Mr. Lahey.
00:37Trailer Park Boys may basically be kind of, sort of mainstream now, but no matter how
00:41many episodes the fans consume, diehards and first-timers alike may find themselves wondering
00:47one particular question.
00:49What's up with Bubbles' glasses?
00:51There's no doubt that the well-meaning Bubbles, who is played by Mike Smith, is a massive
00:55breakout character, and those extra-thick Coke bottle specs of his are almost too good
01:01to be true.
01:02So, where did the eyewear come from?
01:04Did the makers of the show run against their lo-fi production values and commission the
01:08glasses?
01:09Or did they luck out by finding the glasses that, let's face it, look more or less like
01:13Bubbles found them dirt cheap at a yard sale somewhere?
01:16As luck would have it, the latter option actually isn't too far from the iconic glasses' true
01:22origin story.
01:24Here's how the makers of Trailer Park Boys came up with Bubbles' glasses.
01:28Mike Kladdenberg, the creator of Trailer Park Boys, told Sharp Magazine that he hired Mike
01:33Smith to do sound for the feature film that gave birth to the series, which was shot in
01:371998.
01:38At his house, Smith put on the infamous glasses and eased effortlessly into character.
01:44Kladdenberg liked what he saw, and, as they say, a star was born.
01:48Jean-Paul Tremblay, who plays Julian, the muscle-bound Trailer Park resident who wears
01:52black shirts and always has a glass of rum and coke in hand, is also enthused about the
01:57way Smith introduced Bubbles to them.
01:59He said,
02:00"'Mike Smith totally developed that character.
02:02He threw those glasses on one day and we were like, wow, this guy needs to be on the show.'"
02:07"'I don't know how you passed your eye test, son, but you can't see jack s----.'"
02:11In the very same interview, Smith himself explained how he came to possess those sweet
02:15brains.
02:17Smith explained,
02:18"'My girlfriend at the time was in Texas visiting family, and they went to an estate sale and
02:23she found these glasses.
02:24They were 50 cents, and she knew that I would think they were funny because they were so
02:27thick so she bought them as a joke.'"
02:30Showcase wasn't as convinced about Bubbles as the makers of the show were at first, but
02:34Kladdenberg eventually managed to persuade the channel to include the character in the
02:38show, though he had to make a short film starring an early version of Bubbles to do so.
02:43In hindsight, this was probably worth it, as Kladdenberg feels that Trailer Park Boys
02:48might not have succeeded at all without the inclusion of Bubbles.
02:52While the glasses are no doubt an instrumental part of what just might be the single most
02:56important character in Trailer Park Boys, Smith had to suffer for his art, because Bubbles'
03:02signature eyewear is just about as comfortable to use as you'd expect.
03:06However, he eventually learned to deal with it.
03:09Smith told Big Issue in 2013,
03:11"'They give you a proper whopping headache, but now when I put them on, my brain turns
03:15off my eye pain somehow.'"
03:22.