Bubbles:
Bubbles is the heart and soul of Sunnyvale, not to mention the smartest person in the park. He loves his best friends Julian and Ricky, cats, shopping carts, the music of Rush, truck-driving, spaceships and this year adds model trains to the list. If it were up to him Bubbles would lead a quiet life in the park. Unfortunately, he’s constantly getting caught up in Julian and Ricky’s schemes and is afraid they – or even he – will go to jail again. The start of season seven sees Bubbles more frustrated than ever with the boys and as the season goes on it’s clear he’s reached the breaking point.
Mike Smith:
Mike Smith was born and raised in Thorburn, Nova Scotia. He started playing hockey at the age of four but showed early signs of musical genius when he learned to play guitar at the age of seven. Continuing with both hobbies for the majority of his life, Mike eventually gave up hockey to concentrate on being a musician.
He attended St. Francis Xavier University where he earned a degree in English. In 1992, Mike’s career in music began to take off. He played guitar and was one of the principal songwriters in the band Sandbox and signed a record deal with EMI in Canada and Nettwerk in the U.S. Nominated for a Juno Award, East Coast Music Awards and a Casby Award, Sandbox released two albums with EMI and Nettwerk – Bionic and A Murder In The Glee Club.
In 1999, Mike started composing music for film and television as well as doing location sound recording for film. Mike Clattenburg asked Mike to record sound on a project called Trailer Park Boys which he was about to start shooting with Robb Wells and John Paul Tremblay. During the making of that film, Clattenburg saw Mike imitating a character he had been doing for years and immediately saw the potential. Clattenburg decided to write the character into the series and thus the birth of the loveable character Bubbles.
Mike worked on the US cable pilot called Espia as writer and musical director and appeared as Bubbles in the music video Legal by Canadian artist Snow. He also appeared with Robb Wells (Ricky) and John Paul Tremblay (Julian) in The Tragically Hip’s music video, The Darkest One, featuring Don Cherry. Just before that, Mike joined Robb and John Paul on a cross-Canada tour with the musical group, Our Lady Peace. In 2004, Mike (as Bubbles) played guitar and sang Closer to the Heart with Rush for a tsunami benefit concert televised by CBC.
As a testament to the fact that Bubbles has endeared himself to audiences across the country, Mike won a Gemini in 2003 – it was the Viewer’s Choice Award for Favourite Comedian
