Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt
Come with us now on a journey through time and space...
The Mighty Boosh is a zany British comedy series about two friends, Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) and Vince Noir (Noel Fielding), who have bizarre adventures together. Most episodes involve Howard and Vince leaving the zoo (first series), their flat (second series), or their second-hand goods shop (third series), for a number of distant locations (including the Arctic tundra, Monkey Hell, and the planet Xooberon). Here they will eventually have to fight a
Monster Of The Week while meeting a range of strange characters, many of whom are also played by Barratt and Fielding.
The humour of the show is based on a combination of non sequiturs, pop culture references, psychedelic visuals, and musical interludes, along with the clearly low budget — but nonetheless very creative — settings and costumes. The humour ranges from the silly to the surreal, and a good deal of its charm is due to the fact that there is not a trace of cynicism to any of it. Imagine a children's show for adults, and you're a third of the way there.
Also part of the show's appeal is the home-made feel it has. Fielding designs many of the visual elements (including the artwork featured in the animation) while Barratt composes all of the music (and plays a mean guitar), and many of the extras are Barratt's and Fielding's friends and family.
The Mighty Boosh was originally a stage act, and then a radio series, before it became a TV show. It then returned to the stage between series one and two, and another live tour is scheduled for 2008.
This show provides examples of:
- All Just A Dream
- Anime Anatomy (Naboo the Enigma has a crotch "as smooth as the bonnet of a Porsche")
- Aside Glance
- At Arms Length
- Attractive Bent Gender (Vince proudly claims this status)
- Bamboo Technology (literally, out of bamboo)
- Beware Of Hitchhiking Ghosts
- Big Lipped Alligator Moment (At least once an episode)
- Brainless Beauty (Vince, almost literally: he has one brain cell.)
- Brainwashed (Howard, Vince, Naboo and Bollo in "The Call of the Yeti")
- Bread Eggs Milk Squick (Bob Fossil's monologues)
- Breathless Non Sequitur (both verbal and visual)
- Catch Phrase
'Howard: "I can't die...I've got so much to give!"
Tony Harrison: "This is an outrage!"
Old Gregg: "I'm Old Gregg!" (granted, besides his official appearance in one episode, his other appearances have been in deleted scenes and the live show)
Bollo: "I got a bad feeling about this."
- Celibate Hero (Rudi in "The Priest and the Beast")
- Crowd Song: Everybody join in! "Bouncy bouncy/Oh such a good time/Bouncy bouncy/Shoes all in a line..."
- Dead Person Conversation (Montgomery Flange in "The Chokes")
- Deranged Animation
- Doppelganger (Lance Dior and Harold Boon of "The Flighty Zeus")
- Double Entendre (e.g., Howard Moon: [colon] explorer)
- Dude Looks Like A Lady (Vince)
- Everythings Better With Monkeys (Bollo)
- Everythings Cuter With Kittens (Naboo gives Howard a picture of kittens in a barrel to look at, as a form of Anger Management therapy.)
- Evil Laugh (live show)
- Fake Band (The Black Tunes, Kraftwork Orange, Orange Work-Kraft)
- Fantastic Voyage ("Journey to the Center of the Punk")
- Fetish Fuel (mind control, Vince's jumpsuits...)
- Flashback
- Flashback Cut
- Friend To All Living Things (Vince can communicate with animals)
- Form Fitting Wardrobe (Hello, mirrorball suit!)
- Gilligan Cut
- Ghost In The Machine ("Journey to the Center of the Punk")
- Grotesque Gallery ("Mutants")
- Heterosexual Life Partners (Howard and Vince)
- Although according to Vince's brain cell in "Journey to the Centre of the Punk" he is bi but doesn't feel it with Howard.
- Ho Yay (between almost all of the characters at one point or another)
- I Have Many Names (Rudi van Di Sarzio: "I go by many names...")
- Improbable Hairstyle (well, Vince's hair is always improbable, but it's exceptionally so in "The Nightmare of Milky Joe")
- Lampshade Hanging ("Party," which has some fun with the age difference between Howard and Vince [and actors Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding])
- Le Film Artistique (''The Doctor and the Pencil''
in "The Chokes")
- Lemon Wacky Hello (Tommy Nookah and his "cheese dreams")
- Leitmotif (Naboo's theme)
- Memes ("I'm Old Gregg!" "Who the f—— is John Simm?!?")
- Metaphorgotten
- Miles Gloriosus ("Howard Moon: Man of Action...Don't kill me! I've got so much to give!")
- Monster Of The Week
- Nightmare Fuel (The Hitcher, the Crack Fox, Old Gregg, take your pick!)
- Charlie, the Hubba-Bubba nightmare!
- The Moon, unholy emperor of Uncanny Valley. It... haunts my dreams.
- When...when you are the moon, you pretty much split people down the middle. Some go: awww, look at the moon up there with huis creamy white face. He's all gentle. While others go: UGH! He's a vanilla rapist, get im away from my kids.
- No Fourth Wall
- Odd Couple (Howard and Vince, and Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, for that matter)
- Ominous Fog (heralds the appearance of Old Gregg)
- Ominous Latin Chanting
- Once An Episode (The Moon, the musical numbers... it's got a couple of Once An Episode bits.)
- Perky Goth (Vince, temporarily, in "Nanageddon")
Vince: You're going to have to get a bit dark, like me.
Howard: Like you? You're the least dark person I've ever met. You're like candy floss.
- Popular Is Dumb ("Prince of Camden" Vince is...not always the sharpest knife in the drawer)
- Running Gag (Howard's tiny eyes, Vince being mistaken for a Howard's wife, etc.)
- Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic (averted through copious improvisation)
- Secret Test Of Character ("Jungle," the live show, etc.)
- Sound To Screen Adaptation
- Spirit Advisor (Montgomery Flange in "The Chokes")
- Talking Animal (Bollo, various bears, fish, the Crack Fox, etc.)
- Ted Baxter (Howard)
- The Cameo (Roger Daltrey, Gary Numan, the bands Razorlight and the Horrors)
- The Chew Toy (Howard)
- The Dumbledore (Naboo is an extremely long-suffering and cynical version)
- The Grim Reaper ("Bollo")
- The Man In The Moon
- The Minnesota Fats (Lance Dior and Harold Boon in "The Power of the Crimp")
- The Obi Wan (Tommy Nookah in "Jungle," Montgomery Flange in "The Chokes")
- The Philosopher (Howard)
- Well he certainly would like people to think of him like this but his god awful poetry and incoherent monolouges reveal that he's actually got more in common with Vine than it first appears. But while Vince is open about being a brainless beauty obsessed with fashion and music Howard desperately tries to pretend he'd a deep intellectual. Which is probably why he's so depressed and angry come to think
- The Power Of Rock (highlighted in "The Priest and the Beast")
- Too Kinky To Torture (Bob Fossil)
- The Woobie (Howard; when he's not being a complete stuffed-shirt, he's usually a combination of this and The Chew Toy)
- Unspoken Plan (subverted, in "The Fountain of Youth")
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist (both Howard and Vince — as endearing as they are, Howard's stuffiness and Vince's shallowness are significant)
- Witch Doctor (Naboo again)
- And the Shaman's Council are made up entirely of "Super magic men"
- Yawn And Reach (between Howard and a coconut)
