The Paint Show
From The Rubber Chicken
The Paint Show was a radio program hosted by Gord Myren and Andrey Summers that aired from 1995-2006. Excerpts from the long-running show appeared sporadically throughout season one of The Rubber Chicken Podcast.
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Subject Matter
For its 829 episodes, enthusiastic discussions on The Paint Show spanned subjects including, and generally limited to:
- Alkyd paint
- Latex paint
- Elastomeric paint
- Comparisons between any of the above.
The show's ninth season saw the introduction of lifestyle and home renovation segments, along with a third host, Perry the Puppet Pal. This move proved unpopular with long-time viewers and the format was promptly restored to its more established, less exciting format. (Perry became the host of a children's spinoff, Fun With Watercolors, which rates substantially higher to this day.)
Finale and Subsequent Investigation
The show met a tragic end during an on-air accident. Both hosts suffocated on alkyd paint fumes after Gord made the studio air-tight (apparently an essential step in the sound-proofing process that every other audio technician throughout history has miraculously survived).
Further details on the incident are sketchy at best, owing largely to the detective in charge, whose report skimmed over the deaths, but described the taste of his own shirt in pages of poetic, metaphor-drenched detail. The case was subsequently reassigned to a man who purportedly solved it immediately, but himself committed so many morally-grey crimes in the process that his own investigation became almost moot.
Controversy
To this day, continuity-savvy fans (or "Paintstakers" as they prefer to be known) fiercely debate the legitimacy of The Paint Show within The Rubber Chicken's Really Lame Mythology.
Andrey and Gord's characters in the The Paint Show podcast sketches both displayed aspects of their canonical selves (Andrey's tendency to mope about his ex-girlfriend, Gord's tendency to say indeed), implying they were the Real Deal. Yet both were apparently killed off in the season one finale, while their regular counterparts survived to perform a rousing musical number seconds later.
Several common theories follow:
- The pair were rescued immediately after the sketch's end, either by a nearby member of the Painting Community who heard their plight on air, or by a poorly-coordinated SWAT team intending to kick down another door entirely.
- The hosts are not Andrey and Gord as we know them, but very similar doppelgangers from a nearby dimension.
- The Paint Show has not yet occurred chronologically, but is being broadcast back in time from a Terrifying Post-Apocalyptic Future.
- They did indeed die, only to be immediately reanimated by The Mooon People. (See also: Harold Holt.)
- In season two, the show focussed on a broader RLM, in which the season one era podcast exists as a show-within-a-show. It is therefore likely that Andrey and Gord from the Really Lame Mythology (or RLM), as played by Andrey and Gord in Reality (or RLT), were voicing character versions of themselves and merely breaking character. Whether this was bad acting on the part of the characters or the real actors has yet to be determined.
TV Spinoff
List of Episodes
TBA
