History Series / TheArmstrongAndMillerShow

** Pharius and Horschstadt, two centuries-old vampires utterly confused by [[SocietyMarchesOn the modern world]].

* SocietyMarchesOn: Much to the chagrin of [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Pharius and Horschstadt]], who preferred the 18th century.

* Several sketches in which a man has a perfectly amicable conversation with several people, wishes them goodbye, leans over a desk microphone, and says in his best Bond villain voice, "'''[[AC:kill them]]'''".

* Parodies of 1970s [[PublicServiceAnnouncement public information films]] [[note]]Authentically presented in 4:3 aspect ratio though the rest of the series is in widescreen[[/note]] giving useless or dangerous advice.

* AlmightyJanitor: A Geordie window cleaner gives a philosophical monologue consisting of ideas for solving various major crisis facing the world, such as climate change or terrorism, before finishing with "but what do I know?"
* BatterUp: The final losing contestant in the Critical Factor is bludgeoned to death with one of these (while simultaneously being suffocated with a plastic bag over his head).

** The poor sod in the Dandylions; he only asks for a little help, which inevitably starts a brawl that ends with him [[DestinationDefenestration being thrown out a window]].

* DiscriminateAndSwitch: The couple who's elderly German and English grandparents meet for the first time, are set up as ex-military and begin bickering over the war, only to forgive each other and agree to let the past rest. It's when the topic switches to who was more responsible for the breakup of Katie Price and Peter Andre's marriage, that the fistfight breaks out.

-->'''Pundit''': [[SuddenlyShouting ALRIGHT, YES!]] I'm a drunk! A pathetic, pitiful drunk! And many's the time when I've woke up in a gutter with my clothes caked in piss and shit and vomit! But believe you me, your mockery could never equal [[IHatePastMe my own self disgust]]. But we've all got our secrets, haven't we? A dark, rotting core inside all of us. ''(points to one pundit)'' [[DomesticAbuse You beat your wife]]. ''(turns on the next)'' [[FunctionalAddict You're hooked on drugs]]- oh sorry, "painkillers"! ''(turns on the presenter)'' And ''you'' are knobbing that lassie off the nature program while your poor wife's away in Northampton with the cancer!

** Pharius and Horschstadt, two centuries old vampires utterly confused by [[SocietyMarchesOn the modern world]].

** In [[Series/TheKryptonFactor The Critical Factor]], the losing contestants are brutally executed while the presenter (Miller) talks to the round's winner.

* KillItWithFire: One of the losing contestants in The Critical Factor is executed by being knocked out, having petrol poured all over him, and a match struck.

** In series 3, an actual pirate in the stereotypical style is now living the life of a middle-class house husband. He longs to return to the old life, but his wife is insistant that he doesn't.

** "And it is of course, absolutely priceless" ''[said before Dennis Lincoln-Park destroys yet another invaluable artefact]''

* SceneryCensor: Played utterly straight in the Nude Practice sketches, which consisted of completely straight versions of country vet dramas in which the only comedy element was that both Armstrong and Miller went about their serious large animal veteranarian practice entirely naked, with genitals concealed by newspapers, teapots etc. Continued to be played straight when Sarah Alexander's character Roberta joined the practice, subverting her obvious role as MsFanservice, up until the moment that her character gained the trust of a local farmer -- at which point this trope was [[NakedPeopleAreFunny spectacularly averted]].

* ShownTheirWork: As noted in the DVD extras, the team took great pains to ensure that their period-sketches were accurate. In "How Many Hats" this extended as far as working out exactly what year this show would have taken place in, and finding a period appropriate picture of Princess Margaret for the ending.
* SocietyMarchesOn: Much to the chargrin of [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Pharius and Horschstadt]], who preferred the 18th century.

* TheStinger: Every episode ends with one, typically the finale to a sketch already shown in the episode. In the last episode of the first series, for example, a producer turns the "Kill them" line on the two stars after the wrap up for the series.

** Played With. The dentist from the first series is the sketch that produces the most {{Squick}} of the number that the two do, discussing [[TooMuchInformation highly disgusting activities or very graphic sexual practices]] in great detail. However, the humour doesn't come from the vulgarity, it comes from [[ReactionShot Miller's expressions]] and the fact that the dentist has his fingers in the patient's mouth the whole time.

** "How Many Hats" ends this way when the panellists start attacking their fourth (Miller) for calling them out on the ridiculously obvious/pointless nature of the game. The annoucer cuts to a period-accurate picture of Princess Margaret.
* WhamLine: [[invoked]]The point of a series of sketches in which couples describe their relationship to the camera. They end with one of the saying something which would ruin relationships normally, such as one partner being described as a managing director, and the other as a Nazi sympathiser.

** Several Brabbins and Fyffe sketches cut to the Test Card [[note]]Test card "C" from the black and white era although the sketches are in colour[[/note]] when they start getting too filthy to broadcast. Usually this is used as a CurseCutShort, although a song beginning "[[JailBait The loveliest thing about teenage girls...]]" is cut off before it can go any further.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAbzVx4eOdw Parodied]] this in a sketch which involves random people getting press-ganged by the Royal Navy into joining the "South Harbour Club Patrol" after buying t-shirts reading exactly that. And if that concept isn't 18th century enough, then Somali pirates attack South Harbour... by firing audible cannon broadsides.

-->'''Pundit''': [[SuddenlyShouting ALRIGHT, YES!]] I'm a drunk! A pathetic, pitiful drunk! And many's the time when I've woke up in a gutter with my clothes caked in piss and shit and vomit! But believe you me, your mockery could never equal [[IHatePastMe my own self disgust]]. But we've all got our secrets, haven't we? A dark, rotting core inside all of us. ''(points to one pundit)'' [[DomesticAbuse You beat your wife]]. ''(turns on the next)'' [[FunctionalAddict You're hooked on drugs]]- oh sorry, "painkillers"! ''(turns on the presenter)'' And ''you'' are [[YourCheatingHeart knobbing that lassie off the nature program]] while your poor wife's away in Northampton with the cancer!

* YourCheatingHeart: Roger continually returns home early, oblivious to clues that his wife and best friend Pete are having an affair. He accepts the increasingly ludicrous explanations.

** Gordon Ramsay's staff beat him to death in response to his endless criticism in a one-off sketch.

** Their ''UsefulNotes/ComicRelief'' sketches include a cameo by Mitchell and Webb ([[spoiler:"Kill them!"]]), and another by Geoffrey Palmer as a senior RAF officer, who manages to set our heroes straight on a couple of points by lapsing into their vernacular.
* BigNo: Happens in one of the sketches featuring the man who, when out shopping, acts out disastrous events featuring his family and the new purchase.
* {{Brownface}}: In the sketch about the pirate who misses his old lifestyle, Armstrong plays a woman of unspecified tropical origin.
* BrutalHonesty: The basis of the "Frank Dad" sketches, in which a young boy asks typical questions of his father ("Why did you and mum split up?", "Why did Gran die?" etc) and left stunned by the harsh answers ("It was all your fault", "Her alcoholism", respectively, etc).

''The Armstrong and Miller Show'' is an English sketch comedy series starring the eponymous double act of Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller. The duo originally broke into British television with a series entitled simply ''Armstrong and Miller'', which ran from 1997 to 2001 on Paramount Comedy and Channel 4, whereas the newer series began six years later in 2007 and aired on [=BBC1=]. The third series of ''The Armstrong and Miller Show'' ended in December 2010. A fourth was planned but neither Armstrong nor Miller could find the time it would take to make it.

* TheCameo: Morten Harket (lead singer of A-Ha) of all people turns up in the Farmer's Market Song ([[DontExplainTheJoke 'cause his name rhymes with "market", geddit?]])

* TheCastShowoff: Armstrong's great musical talents are frequently put to use in the show.

* JerkAss: Quite a few, spread throughout the sketches.
* ManChild: The bored exam invigilator whose antics to amuse himself include pretending to be a ninja who rips off a student's head and kicks it about like a football.
* NationalStereotypes: Brabbins and Fyffe's "Foreigners".

** Brabbins & Fyffe, very clearly based on Flanders & Swann.

** "Shit... I forgot to put the bins out."

* WhamLine: [[invoked]]The point of a series of sketches in which couples describe their relationship to the camera. They end with one of the saying something which would ruin relationships normally, such as one partner being described as a managing director, and the other as a Nazi sympathiser.

* BenevolentBoss: Played For Laughs. The head of MI6 is this, often to the point of hindering operations that threaten national security. He once interrupted a terrorist [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique interrogation]] so the staff could present the agent with a birthday cake.

* AerithAndBob: A science-fiction sketch set on board a StarTrek-esque ship. The joke is that the characters and place names (though not those of entire species/cultures) all sound like ordinary English names, such as the leader of a race of aliens being called "Ian Nolan".

** GordanRamsay's staff beat him to death in response to his endless criticism in a one-off sketch.
* DudeNotFunny: [[invoked]]Parodied in a set of sketches in series 3. A character will have a {{slapstick}} accident and, while they're trying to regain their composure, Miller will walk into view, [[BreakingTheFourthWall look into camera]] and say "This isn't funny, but it actually happened to a friend of mine, so ..."

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Played for laughs, obviously. A pair of old-fashioned vampires try to get virgin blood as if they're "on the pull" but are often beaten or outwitted by modern {{Twilight}}-inspired vampires.

* VampiresLoveJesus: In one Pharius and Horschstadt sketch, the girls they are trying to seduce talk them into joining a group of evangelical Christians.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The fountain that appears in the the title card of the Enlightenment sketches is actually the final artifact destroyed by Lincoln-Park.

* WhamLine: [[invoked]]The point of a series of sketches in which couples describe their relationship to the camera. They end with one of the saying something which would ruin relationships normally, such as one partner being described as a managing director, and the other as a Nazi sympathiser.
* VampiresLoveJesus: In one Pharius and Horschstadt sketch, the girls they are trying to seduce talk them into joining a group of evangelical Christians.
* VulgarHumor:
** Played With. The dentist from the first series is the sketch that produces the most {{Squick}} of the number that the two do, discussing [[TooMuchInformation highly disgusting activities or very graphic sexual practices]] in great detail. However, the humour doesn't come from the vulgarity, it comes from [[ReactionShot Miller's expressions]] and the fact that the dentist has his fingers in the patient's mouth the whole time.
** Brabbins & Fyffe, being a filthier take on Flanders & Swann, is another Played With example. They're incredibly dirty but their songs remain very classy and witty. Before they're hit with the impromptu censor, anyway.

* GenreSavvy: In the later "Enlightenment" sketches, Dennis Lincoln-Park seems at least partly aware that he's in a setting where priceless relics can be destroyed with the slightest touch, and takes exaggerated care when handling them. Not that it helps in the slightest.

* WalkAndTalk: A recurring sketch features a man striding purposefully down endless corridors, ''TheWestWing'' style, while underlings duck in and out delivering him assorted pointless trivia.

Comparisons to ''ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' are inevitable, as both shows starred a double act, ran during similar time periods, and were slightly renamed versions of earlier sketch shows. In contrast to Mitchell and Webb, however, Armstrong and Miller do not have readily apparent character archetypes (layman/boffin, straight man/indignant man, et cetera).

''The Armstrong and Miller Show'' is an English sketch comedy series starring the eponymous double act of Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller. The duo originally broke into British television with a series entitled simply ''Armstrong and Miller'', which ran from 1997 to 2001 on Paramount Comedy and Channel 4, whereas the newer series began six years later in 2007 and aired on [=BBC1=]. The third series of ''The Armstrong and Miller Show'' ended in December 2010.

* ButtMonkey: Declan.

* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The RAF pilots sketches. Isn't it.