‘I Am the Liquor’: An Ode to Mr. Lahey’s Finest Moments l

Growing up with my friends in a small town north of Edmonton, Trailer Park Boys was our religion—it was our credo.

We spoke like them, acted like them, and for a tortured but thankfully brief period we tried to drink the same amount as them. The number of times I've jokingly started chugging from a bottle while walking ominously backwards is—well, I can't remember for obvious reasons, but I assume it was a lot. We would go see their live shows, I still have photos of the time that Mr. Lahey and Randy came to Fort Saskatchewan and did a body shot off of a buddy. Hell, we used to drive to (or ride snowmobiles through the fields) to Evergreen Trailer Park and drink in their bar as an homage to the show.

To me, Trailer Park Boys is the greatest Canadian television show to ever be produced bar none— Degrassi can suck it. The impact that this show, its creators, and actors had upon the minds of rural kids countrywide simply can't be overstated.

While you might (rightly) say, "Well, Mack, these aren't the best people to model yourself after," we knew that and did so anyways. But just like pretty much everyone else who had a questionable role model during their youth, we all grew up and turned out to be contributing members of society, so kindly take the ol' condescension elsewhere please. But I digress, what I'm trying to say here, is that I've seen lots and lots of the Trailer Parks Boys.

So hearing about the passing of John Dunsworth—the man who played the liquor (Mr. Lahey) one of the greatest villains and anti-heroes in Canadian TV history—hit me perhaps harder than any other celebrity death so far. This was a man I grew up watching, one that helped shape my smart but ever so dumb sense of humour. Dunsworth died Monday at the age of 71, and by all accounts it was unexpected as the tour Dunsworth was on with Patrick Roach (Randy)—his fictional lover and partner in crime and trailer park supervising—was scheduled perform that day. After seeing all the tributes pour in shortly after his passing, he will clearly be missed by his family and those he worked with.

Dunsworth was a gifted actor and, obviously, could improvise with the best of them—his shitliloquies were unforgettable—but what really set him apart was his physical comedy. The man could take some of the dumbest concepts ("I'm mowing the air Randy!!") and turn it into gold. His acted stumble while pretending to be shit-hammed should have won awards. For me, and I assume many other people, Lahey was the best part of the show. Whether he be scheming, cursing out the boys, or just drunk out of his fucking mind, he almost always had the most memorable parts of an episode.

Dunsworth had a life outside of Lahey. He had a family, ran provincially for the NDP in the 1980s, acted on the stage, and appeared in several movies and other television shows—most recently the Syfy show Haven. But, for me, I knew him as the man behind Jim Lahey, the perpetually drunk trailer park supervisor. So, for what it's worth, these are my five favourite Lahey moments. By no means is this a perfect list, nor should it be the go-to-list for all things Lahey—it's simply my list. If you don't like it you're more than welcome to get a job in the content mines and put up a rival one.

5) The breaking of Mr. Lahey—Dear Santa, Go Fuck Yourself

Mr. Lahey wasn't always this way. No, there was a time when he was off the liquor. In the Christmas special, Dunsworth does a spectacular job of making his character slowly break over the duration of the hour-long episode. The ordeal starts with him getting his car stuck and is a slow burn until the moment where he's fighting Ricky in a church. But, of all the moments in the episode, the one where Lahey crawls up to the table with a shredded plastic bag for a beard after fully going off the rails to which Randy states "Mr. Lahey, you're fucked" is a sight to behold.

4) "Propane propane, to start the flame" - Propane Propane

Outside of J-Rock, Trailer Park Boys isn't a show that features much by the way of musical moments but there is one that sticks out: "Propane, propane to start the flame." Lahey has completely lost it in this episode, Barb's not getting back together with him and Randy has left him. The boys are running around attempting to sell hundreds of pounds of weed to Snoop Dogg but have to use a propane truck, so they need to get rid of the propane. Enter Lahey coming to get some as a broken man with a broken mind: he's got a hockey stick with two propane tanks on either side, a fucked up shirt, and, most brilliantly, a broken cigarette. He sings his tune, pisses himself and stumbles out of the scene and directly into our hearts.

3) "I'm mowing the air, Randy!" - Way of the Road

There is perhaps no finer moment of simple physical comedy transcending itself in the entire show than when Lahey attempts to mow the air. About halfway through the first episode of the sixth season, Randy says that he is breaking up with Lahey because his drinking is out of control and nothing is working to get him off the sauce. After getting his passed-out ass out outta a kiddy pool, Lahey stumbles inside and sits down to watch some home movies that Randy shot. Hidden up in that collection is Dunsworth offering us a short glimpse of redneck magic—it involves a simple lawnmower and a couple twirls but it's so much more, I can't even really describe it.

"Would you like a little Lahey show, Randy? That'd be nice wouldn't it?"

2) "The Shit Hawks are coming" — Trailer Park Boys: The Movie

This, in many ways, is the character of Mr. Lahey broken down into it's most primal form. You get everything: a shit analogy, some intense threats, and the insanely good physical comedy I alluded to earlier. When Lahey confronts Bubbles, who calls him a "crazy drunk bastard," Dunsworth gets up real close to Mike Smith (Bubbles) and intimidatingly starts a shitliloquy about shit hawks for the ages with the all the power of a Patrick Stewart doing Hamlet or something (I dunno, I'm not the most cultured man in the world.) Then he whips out a full mickey of, I assume, dark rum (Lahey's drink of choice) and begins to walk backwards with while downing it and gets in his car—the whole time Dunsworth doesn't break eye contact with Bubbles. It's an intimidating, funny, sad, and brilliant performance that takes place in less than two minutes.

1) "I am the liquor" - I Am The Liquor

Could there be anything else? The top pick of Dunsworth's finest moments as his iconic creation is not so much about physical comedy as it is about the absolute finest delivery of a line that will live forever. The episode's plot isn't super relevant, all that matters is the scene. The camera enters in a room filled with enough liquor to kill an elephant and you see Lahey convincing Randy-Bobandi to go along with his devious plan. Bobandi, obviously having some trepidations about the plan, asks him, "Is this you or the liquor talking?" "Randy," he answers after a long swig, "I am the liquor," pulling off the single best line delivery in Canadian television history.

Thanks for the laughs, Mr. Dunsworth.

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