Steve Smith brings Red Green back to the Bing

You’ve probably seen Steve Smith on TV while flipping through the channels, but you likely know him best as his alter ego Red Green. The Canadian comedy series “The Red Green Show” was a staple of public television for 15 years and is frequently re-run, and it’s been beamed into so many living rooms that Smith says people are still surprised that he and Green aren’t the same person.

“After all these years, I’ve met thousands and thousands of people, and the common thread is that the ones who are fans of me have a relative or a neighbor who’s like me, and they like him,” Smith said. “In other words, they have an uncle that’s like Red Green and they like that uncle, so therefore they like Red Green.

“I’m the beneficiary of the affection they have for someone in their family.”

Since “The Red Green Show” went off the air in 2006, Smith has been touring as Green, and he brings his newest one-man show, “I’m Not Old, I’m Ripe,” to the Bing Crosby Theater on Monday.

“This is the first autobiographical (live) show, which I think is a natural progression,” Smith said. “I think as people get older, they tend to want everybody to know that they lived, so they want to describe their life in real time. So Red gets up and talks about his family and growing up and meeting girls and getting married, everything that’s happened to him in life. … It’s much more chronological than previous shows, but, of course, the material is all brand new.

“I’m enjoying the live performing more than I ever did TV.”

“The Red Green Show,” which premiered in 1991, was a hybrid of sitcom and variety show, and it parodied the home improvement programs that dominated public television at the time.

Green, who broadcast from a studio in the fictional Possum Lodge, was an obviously hapless handyman, and his projects were both hilariously impractical and often involved the liberal use of duct tape. He doled out a lot of advice, but you’d be foolish to take any of it to heart.

“Even if Red Green is wrong, he’s honestly wrong,” Smith said. “He’s not saying something he doesn’t think; he just shouldn’t be thinking it.”

Smith assumed that the Red Green character, a parody of Canadian TV host Red Fisher, would be a flash in the pan, but his antics caught on.

“It was supposed to be a summer job,” he said, “and it went 15 seasons.”

During its 300-episode run, “The Red Green Show” was nominated for numerous Gemini Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Emmys) and spawned an independent feature film called “Duct Tape Forever” in 2002.

Much of the series was filmed in front of a studio audience, so Smith says he’s comfortable in front of a crowd. “I’m Not Old, I’m Ripe” is the third live show Smith has taken on the road, and he’s noticed that the average age of his audience has gotten younger with each tour.

“I think kids are seeing it on YouTube,” Smith said. “I hear kids saying they didn’t know (the show) was ever on television. They only know it from the internet. When I’m in Spokane, I bet there will be a 10-year-old kid and a 90-year-old guy there, and they may be laughing at different things, but they’ll be enjoying the show.

“And Red is basically a 90-year-old 10-year-old, so that covers that.”