HOBO---A Review

           If you’re like me, you tend to view Canada and Canadians as an embarrassment to the entire continent.  It’s fundamentally a degenerate place, the end product of centuries of incest and frostbite, and I think most Americans feel the most humane thing we could do would be to invade, take all their fresh water and baby seals, and shut the place down.  Anything worthwhile in Canada, like Gretsky or Monte Hall or Celine Dion, winds up in America anyway, so what’s really the point of allowing the country to lurch onward towards its ultimate oblivion?  I mean, do we really need to see who they choose as Prime Minister after Justin Trudeau?

          And then you stumble across an artifact of Canadian culture like “The Littlest Hobo.”  And you think: “Well, OK.  Maybe there’s some hope for these poor bastards after all.”

          Created by, and mostly written by Dorrell McGowan, 114 half-hour episodes of “Hobo” were produced between 1979 and 1985.  The star is a German shepherd (actually five different ones), named London in real life and referred to by various nicknames on the show.  He is the only continuing character.  All the humans are different in every episode.

          London’s character bears some resemblance to Kwai Chang Caine, David Carradine’s shaolin monk in “Kung Fu.”  Like Caine, the Hobo has no home.  He wanders around Canada helping the oppressed and having adventures, and then he wanders off down the road at the end, when he has solved everybody’s problems.  Caine prevailed because he was possessed of ancient spiritual wisdom and martial arts skills.  Hobo’s advantage is that he is considerably smarter than any of the human beings in the show (because of course, they are all Canadians).

          He foils terrorist plots, he transports life-saving medicine through forest fires, he helps a disabled child acquire self-esteem, he brings down drug-smugglers, and he saves dopey three-year-old kids lost in the woods.  (And I’ve only seen the first sixteen shows.)

          I am on a one-episode-per-day regimen, which will take me to the end of June, though I sometimes cheat and watch two, telling myself as I do that sometime in the next three months I may be knocked unconscious or get arrested and be unable to watch my daily dose so I should probably catch up in advance.  My session with the littlest Hobo is often one of the (many) highlights of my day.

Copyright2023MichaelKubacki