It's that time of year again: Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are out of the joint and looking to get wasted.

No, it's not another session of Parliament. It's time for season five of Canada's coolest cult comedy, Trailer Park Boys (returning tonight on Showcase).

Ten new half-hour episodes are comin' atcha (with a big-screen feature -- produced by Canadian-born Hollywood mogul Ivan Reitman -- in the works).

Here's the story: The thrill of sitting in a Nova Scotia stir is wearing off for our heroes (played by John Paul Tremblay, Robb Wells and Mike Smith). Ricky (Wells) is especially pissed because the screws won't let him smoke in the joint anymore.

Once free, Julian (Tremblay) -- sure there's a fortune waiting for them when they catch up with their grow-op pot pals Cory and Trevor -- springs for a limo. First stop: Terry and Dennis' grandmother's place for a refreshing hash break.

That's where Mio and Nobu Adilman come in. The look-a-like brothers, best known for hosting the CBC high school quiz show Smart Ask as well as frequent late night ZeD guest hosts, play ruthless Japanese/

Canadian druglords on the first two episodes (they also show up later in the season).

It's probably not the career move dad Sid Adilman, who covered the entertainment scene for decades for a rival Toronto daily, had in mind. But, in an interview at the Sun this week, Mio and Nobu were still high from the experience.

"They swear a lot -- our mom won't watch it," Nobu says.

According to the storyline, Terry and Dennis know Ricky from childhood. In real life, Nobu knew TPB creator Mike Clattenburg from when the two used to bump into each other on the Halifax arts scene.

Nobu had pitched a few story and music ideas over the years. Clattenburg finally called and offered some face time instead.

Playing gangstas is cool, Mio says. "Culturally we come from a long line of thugs," he says of the characters. "It's a huge compliment to be seen this way."

It was like being on Kojak, Nobu says. The guys got to strike all sorts of nifty gun poses and actually fire off real guns, including semi-automatic weapons and Uzis. It never got chop-sockey, which would have been blatantly over the top, the boys say.

"It was awesome," says Nobu, still nursing a sore shoulder from all the recoil action. "We did nothing but shoot guns the whole first day. I have a whole new appreciation for Steven Seagal."

Mio -- who says he got dinged off the head by several casings -- was "scared s---less" but, ever the trooper, still "willing to take a hit for Canadian television."

At least he'd already banked much of the drug lingo from his days tending bar at the rough and tumble Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto. "I served a long list of shady characters, the kind who don't like getting their pictures taken," he says.

The heavy use of firearms was a new ballistic wrinkle for the notoriously low-budget TPB. Ballistics experts ordered the cast to drop 'em and freeze after every take while they carefully collected the heaters.

The series, which takes place in fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park (somewhere near Halifax), was shot this season for the first time on a fake trailer-park set. On past seasons, they used an actual trailer park, but that wasn't an option this time as Smith (Bubbles) told the Sun a few months back. "There's this one guy who owns all the trailer parks (near Halifax) and he's not into it, he's really religious," Smith said.

Then there were all the fans showing up, looking for dope and disrupting the actual tenants (who didn't want to share their dope).

The new set is composed of a dozen or so broken down trailers bought for peanuts, according to the Adilmans. "It was weird," Mio says. "You'd go to makeup in one trailer, lunch in another and then shoot your scene in a third. The whole day was spent going from trailer to trailer."

The story called for Julian, Ricky and Bubbles to meet Terry and Dennis at their grandmother's house. The casting director scoured Halifax for an 80-year-old Japanese actress. Finally, the mom of a local

sushi chef (Mrs. Saito) was rushed into duty.

"She didn't speak a word of English," says Nobu, who acted as both drug runner and interpreter. "I was trying to translate things like 'Homey hug.' It was ridiculous."

Turns out that Terry and Dennis' "business partner" is none other than freaked-out TPB wacko Cyrus (Bernard Robichaud). All hell breaks loose when he busts in on the scene, which called for granny to tiptoe in with a tray full of tea as bullets whizzed overhead.

No Adilmans were hurt during the making of this picture. The usual gang of idiots appear in future episodes.