When Stepchild’s Child Support dropped in 2007 and some cameos of Boozy the Clown popped up, those who remember the Whiskey movies and the antics of Sean Johnson and Sean Kearns probably had a little nostalgic laugh to themselves—I know I did.

After that little tribute to the old days Boozy pretty much disappeared again, until lately. Over the past few weeks I’ve been seeing pics pop up on Facebook of Gnarcore blogger/filmer Dave Brockelbank dressed up as Boozy, which until today, I had dismissed as some Halloween antics. Then this poster on gnarcore.com caught my eye. So I had to ask, is Boozy back?

For those of you who don’t remember the Whiskey video series here’s a quick history lesson. In the mid 90’s Vancouver-area shreds Sean Johnson and Sean Kerns started filming not only their shredding but also everything that happens after shredding. Dirt-bikes riding through grocery stores? Smashing bottles over your head like it ain’t no thing? Excessive drinking? Hell yeah, these movies had it all. Boozy, Johnson and Kerns made me think snowboarding was the most badass sport ever and, for a kid like me growing up in Bella Coola, prompted many unsuccessful attempts at smashing beer bottles over my head (I’m not suggesting anyone try this by the way. The goose eggs on my head the next day were huge). Here’s a little taste of what the pre-Jackass shenanigans were all about.

Before I return to my original question it might help to ask why the Whiskey series and Boozy was born in the first place?

Snowboarding in the mid-90’s was blowing up. Companies were going public and Jeff Brushie signed the first million-dollar snowboard contract. Even Pepsi-cola was making boards. So what do you do if you feel the sport/lifestyle you know and love is on the brink of destruction by an influx of interests who know and care little about it? Well you likely say, “Fuck that, we’re doing our own thing,” which is pretty much what Johnson and Kerns did.

Now take a look at where snowboarding is at today. With the coming Olympic year the sport is in the spotlight again and for the first time it's starting to get more than just lip service from the mainstream media. Action Sports specific coverage continues to grow, athletes are appearing in non-endemic T.V. commercials, CTV has the Over The Bolts series following the Canadian National team on their way to the 2010 Games and of course there’s Peak Season (which is a different discussion altogether).

As with the growth in the 90’s it’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, getting paid large sums of money to shred is pretty sweet, but I think there’s a pretty strong parallel between how snowboarders feel about this growth both now and then. Enter Boozy. What better time for him to re-appear on the scene to help keep it real? Plus I heard drunk clowns and partying snakes get along great (shit, it’s already starting to sound like the circus that was the Whiskey era). If Boozy really is back it’s definitely a good thing for snowboarding—sometimes we need to reminded that sliding sideways on a glorified piece of petex and wood isn’t actually all that serious. If it’s true, welcome back bud.