With his awkwardly hilarious demeanor and thick-lensed glasses, Bubbles has endured as the breakout character of Bubbles’s most hilarious profanity-filled quotes. Indulging in one misadventure after the other with his friends Ricky and Julian, Bubbles has turned into a pop culture icon. With the character appearing in the Trailer Park Boys’ original run, its movies, and even spinoffs like the animated series, Bubbles has become synonymous with the mockumentary series, as has the actor who plays him.

When he’s not sporting Bubbles’s spectacles, Mike Smith is also known as one of the founders of the television network Swearnet, which spawned its own movie in 2014. Starting Swearnet with his Trailer Park Boys co-stars Robb Wells and John Paul Tremblay, Smith has established himself in the entertainment industry beyond the Bubbles character. But if this wasn’t enough, Smith has also dabbled in non-acting pursuits like music, entrepreneurship, and coming to the aid of Trailer Park Boys fans. Further, even his long-running involvement with Trailer Park Boys brings out some behind-the-scenes trivia that only a few fans of his character would know.

10 Bubbles Originally Started Out As Cart Boy

Before Bubbles, there was Cart Boy. As a long-time friend of the Trailer Park Boys creator, Mike Smith displayed the earliest signs of his comic timing in Mike Clattenburg's 1995 short film The Cart Boy. Smith's IMDb page also credits the short as his earliest acting credit. Physically similar to Bubbles, Smith's titular bespectacled character steals shopping carts much to the dismay of two mall security guards (played by Robb Wells and John Paul Tremblay, both of whom later starred as Bubbles’s fellow Sunnyvale residents Ricky and Julian). Hence, this 10-minute short served as a precursor to Smith’s career-making role.

9 Mike Smith Made Voice Cameos In Archer & A Stoner Comedy

While Mike Smith also performed the part of Bubbles in Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series, this was not his first voice role, as he previously played a character on one episode of Archer. The animated spy satire has welcomed so many high-profile actors in guest roles in the past that it can be difficult to keep track of some surprise cameos like Smith voicing a Mountie (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in a season 3 episode. Voicing the Mountie with a more authoritative tone than he portrays Bubbles with, Smith’s cameo can be hard to spot. Smith also voiced a bong in the 2015 stoner comedy Dude, Where’s My Ferret.

8 Mike Smith Gets Into Car Accidents On Set

Like the other lead characters of Trailer Park Boys, Bubbles engages in a lot of reckless driving throughout the show. Behind the scenes, actor Mike Smith has also had a few car accidents on set. As Smith revealed to AutoTrader, most of the mishaps were because he can’t see anything out of his character's glasses. So, when Bubbles crashed a go-kart through a fence and into a tree in season 5, that actually happened. Thankfully, Smith was unharmed. With no safety teams involved in the earlier seasons, Smith mostly relied on a walkie-talkie that he carried while driving. He would yell on the walkie-talkie whenever he was about to crash.

7 Mike Smith Is A Rock Band Guitarist

Mike Smith was a musician before he became an actor. Even in Trailer Park Boys, Bubbles occasionally shows his skills on the guitar owing to Smith’s musical background. He served as a guitarist for the Juno Award-nominated Canadian alternative rock band Sandbox from 1993 to 1998. In a 1996 interview by journalist Steve Newton (now retained in his blog Ear of Newt), a then-23-year-old Smith revealed how he and his bandmates used to get fan mail. Even though they lost out on Best New Artist at the Junos, Smith was pretty content with his musical life, and Sandbox released two albums before their 1998 split.

6 Mike Smith's Past Jobs Include Sound Mixer, Cableman & Production Assistant

Mike Smith has had top billing in all Trailer Park Boys movies and Swearnet: The Movie, along with appearances in the sports comedy Champions and the documentary Being Canadian. Beyond Mike Smith’s movie and TV roles, he also served as a sound mixer for the Kathryn Bigelow thriller The Weight of Water, the romantic comedy Love That Boy​​​​​​, and several episodes of the first season of Trailer Park Boys. Additionally, Smith was also credited as a sound cableman for the John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale romantic comedy Serendipity, and he was attached to the sports comedy Goon as a production assistant.

5 Mike Smith Has Owned Two Bars

The actor behind Bubbles has ventured beyond Sunnyvale Trailer Park for other real-estate pursuits. Mike Smith launched a Bubbles-themed bar and eatery in 2006 called Bubble’s Mansion. The establishment was located in Downtown Halifax but operated for only four years (via CBC News). The main reason behind its closure in 2010 was government hikes in drinking prices and wages, which made Bubble’s Mansion unable to compete with other bars. In 2008, Smith became co-owner of another bar named Bubba’s Rays, a sports bar located in Halifax that has also since closed.

4 Mike Smith Saved A Fan's Life

Apart from all the fun and games of the show, the Bubbles actor can be helpful in real life. The best example of this is the time when Mike Smith raised funds to help a Trailer Park Boys superfan in 2019. As reported by CTV News, Tom Termeer is a London native who was suffering from Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalalgias, a condition that leads to severe chronic headaches. Even after four brain surgeries, the pain endured. When Termeer seemed to have used up all his resources for any future cures, Smith came to his aid by kickstarting a crowdfunding campaign that eventually raised over $10,000.

The raised funds were used to pay for Termeer’s medical bills and for a stem cell procedure that eventually cured the fan of his condition. “Mike saved my life. Wholeheartedly, 100 percent, he saved my life," Termeer told Global News. The operation was truly a life-saver, as the Londoner suffered from headaches for a 14-year-long period. After he was fully recovered, the Trailer Park Boys fan also got an opportunity to spend time with Smith and his co-stars. Termeer appeared on an episode of the Swearnet podcast Park After Dark where he talked about what he described as “the world’s most painful disease” and how Smith helped him out.

3 Mike Smith Performed At Guns N' Roses Concerts

Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose has been obsessed with Mike Smith’s character on Trailer Park Boys. As reported by Metal Injection, the singer’s iration for Bubbles even allowed Smith to perform and sing in character in a few Guns N’ Roses concerts in the 2000s, complete with the glasses and plaid shirt. He also ed forces with rapper Snoop Dogg, appearing as Bubbles in two episodes of Dogg’s chat show GGN: Snoop Dogg's Guide Double G News Network.

2 Mike Smith Voiced Another Trailer Park Boys Character

While it is common knowledge that Mike Smith also plays the alter egos of Bubbles, such as the puppet Conky, only the most avid Trailer Park Boys fans would know that he also voiced Donny. He mostly appears as an unseen character on Trailer Park Boys who can often be heard hurling profanities and insults at Bubbles and his friends. Even though Donny is finally sort of revealed in later episodes — with a blurred-out face — Dino Ninos (who previously played many background characters on the show) is just acting as the body double for the character, who is still voiced by Smith.

1 Bubbles' Glasses Used To Give Mike Smith Headaches

The backstory behind Bubbles’ glasses can be traced to the original Trailer Park Boys movie in 1999 when Mike Smith actually donned a similar pair. He explained in a Sharp magazine article that these glasses were gifted to him by his then-girlfriend, and seeing Smith act funny while wearing them prompted Mike Clattenburg to cast him as Bubbles. The prop glasses that Bubbles wears throughout the show have actual optic power, and they used to give Smith pounding headaches while filming. However, as Smith told The Big Issue in 2013, the headaches don’t bother him anymore and his brain can “turn off the eye pain somehow."