History Radio / Nebulous

* BrownNote: The new colour "Garrow" causes all who look at it to go crazy and begin [[EatTheDog eating dogs]]

--> '''Rory''': [[BuxomIsBetter Four big scoops]].

--> '''Harry''': [[PunctuatedForEmphasis NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! THAAAAAAAAAAANK! YOOOOOOOOU!]]

* Fiction500: Jack Winslow, CEO of GlobalCorp, is so rich he could buy his own body weight in diamonds. Every hour on the hour. For a whole week. [[EscalatingPunchline Every year, for the rest of his life. As a treat]].

* FutureImperfect: '' Good Bod, yes''. A lot of knowledge was lost in the Withering: [[LostTechnology how to make vacuum cleaners & fire]] ("though thankfully, that last one came back pretty quickly"); people remember great scholars of the past - [[Creator/LeonardoDaVinci Da Vinci]], [[UsefulNotes/GalileoGalilei Galileo]], [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Barney the Dinosaur]]; "What exactly ''was'' the [[Literature/Guinness world records Guinness Book of Freckles]]?"; Paula wishes to meet famous historical figures [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon Brandy]] and [[Music/BritneySpears Broccoli Spears]]; and modern theologians believe there to have been four true deities - the evil twins Yin & Yang, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui/ Feng Shui the Destroyer]], and of course, [[WesternAnimation/{{Bod}} Merciful Bod]].

* FutureImperfect: '' Good Bod, yes''. A lot of knowledge was lost in the Withering: how to make vacuum cleaners & fire ("though thankfully, that last one came back pretty quickly"); people remember great scholars of the past - Da Vinci, Galileo, Barney the Dinosaur; "What exactly ''was'' the Guinness Book of Freckles?"; Paula wishes to meet famous historical figures Napoleon Brandy and Broccoli Spears; and modern theologians believe there to have been four true deities - the evil twins Yin & Yang, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui/ Feng Shui the Destroyer]], and of course, [[WesternAnimation/{{Bod}} Merciful Bod]].

* DistinctionWithoutADifference: Nebulous isn't saying that a [[ContrivedCoincidence coinci]][[ApocalypseHow clasm]] will be ''deadly''; but they ''are'' lethal, and they ''can'' kill.

* DistinctionWithoutADifference: Nebulous isn't saying that a [[ContrivedCoincidence coinciclasm]] will be ''deadly''; but they ''are'' lethal, and they ''can'' kill.

* MyGreatestFailure: Nebulous blew up the Isle of Wight while trying to move it to the left a bit. It ruined his career, [[spoiler:his subsequent attempt to avert the disaster failed,]] and nobody lets him forget it.

--> '''Nebulous''': Weapons are the last resort of the unarmed man.

** Both legs

** Heart,

* DoesntLikeGun: Nebulous is staunchly against the use of violence, and was appalled when the military began using his 'baser' invention as a weapon.

Imagine ''Series/DoctorWho'' starring an underfunded ObstructiveBureaucrat, and you have ''Nebulous'': a BBC Radio 4 AfterTheEnd comedy series which parodies much of British Science Fiction, in particular ''Franchise/{{Quatermass}}'' and the aforementioned ''Series/DoctorWho''. ''Nebulous'' follows the adventures of Professor Nebulous, leader of K.E.N.T.: the Key Environmental Non-judgemental Taskforce, which just happens to be based in a London launderette. K.E.N.T. is tasked with picking up the pieces after an environmental disaster known as "The Withering": a CosyCatastrophe that has led to the extinction of vegetarians, tarts[[labelnote:*]]the British slang for lower-class promiscuous women, not the fruit-preserve-filled pastry[[/labelnote]] and white dog-doings. The series exists almost solely to [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] SpeculativeFictionTropes, and many episodes are [[AffectionateParody Affectionate Parodies]] of other shows.

* TakeOurWordForIt: Due to audio drama being what it is, the hints of what exactly the hideously mutilated Harry must look like and which parts of his body may still exist get more and more outrageous.
** Over the course of the series, Harry has stated that he has lost his hands (he initially claimed to retain one but more recently stated that he only has a mechanical grabber), fingers, feelings, toes (all ten, which he now keeps in a jar), both legs, upper lip (although he retains the lower one), chin, mouth, nose, nerves, head (although Nebulous notes that Harry retains ''most'' of his head), brain (replaced with a chip that apparently causes him headaches), back (although he does have a hunch), arse (he mentioned that he has rented one from an unidentified source), spleen, heart, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs eyeteeth, normal teeth, and eyes]] (with his optical scanners apparently processing the information and presenting it as a pie chart for some reason). The only thing he definitely still has is an inner ear. That is now an outer ear. On his neck, which he has also lost.
** Such is the nature of his appearance that the animated pilot only ever showed his scanners looking out rather than any character looking at him.

Imagine ''Series/DoctorWho'' starring an underfunded ObstructiveBureaucrat, and you have ''Nebulous'': a BBC Radio 4 AfterTheEnd comedy series which parodies much of British Science Fiction, in particular ''Franchise/{{Quatermass}}'' and the aforementioned ''Series/DoctorWho''. ''Nebulous'' follows the adventures of Professor Nebulous, leader of K.E.N.T.: the Key Environmental Non-judgemental Taskforce, which just happens to be based in a London launderette. K.E.N.T. is tasked with picking up the pieces after an environmental disaster known as "The Withering": a CosyCatastrophe that has led to the extinction of vegetarians, tarts[[labelnote:*]]the British slang for lower-class promiscuous women, not the fruit-preserve-filled pastry[[labelnote]] and white dog-doings. The series exists almost solely to [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] SpeculativeFictionTropes, and many episodes are [[AffectionateParody Affectionate Parodies]] of other shows.

-->'''Nebulous:''' The Withered Zone itself poses no threat, sir. It is merely a sterile wasteland. To the untrained eye, it might as well be a quarry.

Imagine ''Series/DoctorWho'' starring an underfunded ObstructiveBureaucrat, and you have ''Nebulous'': a BBC Radio 4 AfterTheEnd comedy series which parodies much of British Science Fiction, in particular ''Franchise/{{Quatermass}}'' and the aforementioned ''Series/DoctorWho''. ''Nebulous'' follows the adventures of Professor Nebulous, leader of K.E.N.T.: the Key Environmental Non-judgemental Taskforce, which just happens to be based in a London launderette. K.E.N.T. is tasked with picking up the pieces after an environmental disaster known as "The Withering": a CosyCatastrophe that has led to the extinction of vegetarians, tarts and white dog-doings. The series exists almost solely to [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] SpeculativeFictionTropes, and many episodes are [[AffectionateParody Affectionate Parodies]] of other shows.

-->'''Nebulous''' : How ''dare'' you talk to Harry like that? He may look like an overcooked Christmas pudding in a Bath chair, but he is easily your equal.

* PacifistHero: Nebulous is staunchly against the use of violence, and was appalled when the military began using his 'baser' invention as a weapon.

* AirVentPassageway: parodied

--> '''Harry''': [[PunctuatedForEmphasis NOOOOOOOOOOOO! THAAAAAAAAAAANK! YOOOOOOOOU!]]
* BlackHelicopter: L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H. maintain a fleet of them.

* BrownNote: the colour "Garrow" causes all who look at it to go crazy.

* CasanovaWannabe: Rory claims to be the team's ladies' man. There is absolutely no evidence for this.
* CataclysmBackstory: The Withering.
** The Withering apparently occurred within the characters lifetimes (Rory and Paula mention having both lost their fathers to the Withering), but appears to have caused mass amnesia - Nebulous is ecstatic at the opportunity to discover what life was like before the Withering, and the knowledge of how to make '' fire'' was temporarily lost.

* ChasteHero: Nebulous remains oblivious to his assistant Paula's obvious and blatant attraction to him
** In fact she is somewhat beyond blatant, frequently disrobing, placing his hand on her and molesting him while unconscious.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: K.E.N.T.'s cover is that they're a laundry. Much to Professor Nebulous's annoyance, their sponsors in the Government seem more inclined to buy equipment for the laundry than for eco-troubleshooting operations.

* FutureFoodIsArtificial: parodied, as no-one has any issues with cannibalism, but the idea of eating soya-based Soylent Beige makes people retch in horror.

* LostTechnology: parodied, since the lost technologies include the vacuum cleaner and fire (although luckily, that one came back pretty quickly).
* MeatVersusVeggies: taken to extremes, parodying the fact that there were more than a couple of ''Series/DoctorWho'' stories [[AuthorTract promoting vegetarianism obsessively]].

* NoEndorHolocaust: spoofed in "The Deptford Wives" when Nebulous decides to blow up the whole island with a nuclear device, killing Professor Diplodocus to save the world. Paula and Rory dedicate the final scene to casually speculating that the infrastructure of the island meant it must have had at least five hundred innocent employees who were just doing their jobs who surely also must have been killed, to which Nebulous insists that it was only the professor and there ''was minimal loss of life''.

* ParodyEpisode: many episodes are fairly close parodies of classic sci-fi series.

* ShoutOut: aplenty: