What would “Trailer Park Boys” have been without the misguided authoritarian cacaphony of Mr. Lahey? Not half as funny, to be sure.
Vindictive, petty, obstinate, predatory: who better to try — and fail — to foil the plans of Ricky, Julian and the other miscreants at Sunnyvale Trailer Park? No one but the disgraced ex-cop — twice — who always has someone in his crosshairs but never quite gets his “man” (unless that man is shirtless, cheeseburger-loving assistant trailer-park supervisor Randy ... but that’s a story for another time).
As wonderfully portrayed by John Dunsworth, Jim Lahey holds a hallowed spot in the philosopher’s section of the Antihero Hall of Fame for more than just the many and entertaining ways he employs fecal imagery to get his point across. There are plenty of pages on the Web where you can find lists of these “Lahey-isms” or “shit-isms,” if you prefer; the subject of this post is to focus on Lahey’s fascinating decrepitude during the TPB’s run of 55 episodes over seven seasons (and two feature-length movies).
Mr. Lahey has a problem with the bottle ...
... and with his rock-star-level boozing, usually it isn’t long before he’s off on another crazy plot to capture the “shit birds” of Sunnyvale in the act of being their reprobate selves.
In his own twisted mind, Jim Lahey is cetain he’s doing the right thing by trying to clean up the park and deal with the criminal elements that the “real” police never seem to catch. Too bad for him — and good for the audience — that his aim is so skewed that he ends up making a bigger mess of things. Yet he always finds a way to persist; in his own words...
"When life throws shit balls at you, you get a shit bat."
"When life throws shit balls at you, you get a shit bat."
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