"HELLO?! WHAT?!? NAH, I'M ON A TV TROPES PAGE! TV TROPES!! NAH, IT'S RUBBISH! OKAY, CIAO!!"
Trigger Happy TV is a hidden camera/sketch show starring Dom Joly. It ran between 2000 and 2001 with a total of 15 episodes and opening theme is a segment from "Connection" by Elastica.Unlike other hidden camera shows the comedy isn't at the expense of the public, instead it is Dom that is the butt of the joke leaving the British public be unwitting extras to his many bizarre stunts.
Notable sketches are:
- The Millionth Customer: Dom and a group of people stand outside a shop and tell the customer they are the millionth customer, and so they have a free run of the shop in the style of Supermarket Sweep. By the time they return Dom and Co are gone. The best moment, easily, came when they did this outside of an adult bookstore/sex shop, causing the "lucky" winner to quickly shuffle off and run away
. - The Burglar: Dom while dressed as an archetypal burglar asks directions to houses of people who are on holiday and requests ladders.
- The Street Artist: Dom pretends to draw a picture of a tourist in a busy place. After a while he writes a different message on his easel, then wanders off and leaves them sitting on the stool.
- The Fat Guy(s): Dom and occasionally others don fat suits and awkwardly cram themselves into tight spaces such as theatre aisles, phone booths and alleyways. The crowning moment for this sketch came when Dom and another fellow blocked off a lengthy descending escalator while riders behind them seethed with aggravation.
- The Celebrity: while doing an interview with a celebrity something interrupts the questions, most famously is that he was "kidnapped" at one point.
- The KGB Spy: While dressed in a trenchcoat, Dom attempts to pass on a suitcase to various people by using codes "You are Grey Squirrel, yes?".
- Another twist was put on this: after Dom left, having established that the unfortunate target wasn't "Grey Squirrel", someone else would enter shortly afterwards...in a squirrel costume.
- The Two Dogs: Two men dressed up as dogs beat each other up in various locations.
- Has numerous variations, including bunches of dogs attacking a cat or vice versa.
- The Annoying Phone Call: The Show's most famous sketch, Dom while in a quiet location will pull out a massive phone and shout into it. Famous? NAH, THIS SKETCH IS SHIT! NAW, IT'S RUBBISH! OKAY! YEAH, CIAO! In the American version aired on Comedy Central, these opened each episode.
- The Rabbits: Two people dressed in full-body rabbit costumes, going at it with vigor in public. The crowning moment for this sketch was when an elevator door opened to reveal this to three waiting people. None boarded.
All three of the original series are now available to watch on YouTube through the channel Dead Parrot, along with Joly's similar hidden-camera program World Shut Your Mouth.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ashes to Crashes: Purposefully scattered so they'd drift over a nearby family.
- Ax-Crazy: Series 1 and 2 features a brown dog and a Dalmatian, one of whom is constantly attacking and beating up the other one in public with whatever's to hand. In Series 1, the brown dog is the attacker: in Series 2, the Dalmatian gets revenge.
- Blah, Blah, Blah: Dom Joly recites a poem that consists entirely of this through a bullhorn, and is applauded.
- Briefcase Full of Money
- Candid Camera Prank: With the key difference that unwitting participants remain unwitting the entire time (it was explained to them and permission was obtained to use the footage after the fact, but this was not shown onscreen).
- Drives Like Crazy: In one sketch, Dom (dressed in a full auto-racer anti-fire suit and helmet) comes screaming up to a line at a cab stand in a heavily beaten car. "FASTEST CAB IN LONDON!!!"
- Dreadful Musician: A recurring skit has Dom will walk up to patrons of cafes sitting outside and offer to play music for them, only for his playing and singing to be completely out of tune.
- Feathered Fiend: When Pigeons Attack
- Furry Fandom: One of the more obscure sketches has an old man walking down an alleyway for about ten seconds...before a hoard of Fursuiters comes rushing at him, yelling and screaming and waving picket signs.
- The Grim Reaper: One particularly memorable sketch involved several people standing outside an office building on a smoke break. The camera pans over to show a man dressed like Death, scythe and all, watching them intently and checking his watch.
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: Dom tries to hitchhike as such a character, complete with a bloodstained white jumpsuit. Later on, he enters a launderette to get the blood off his jumpsuit.
- Jump Scare: Part of the humor in the phone sketches comes from the onlookers who get startled by Dom's "HELLO?!" greeting. One poor woman right behind him in a bookstore briefly went into an arm-flapping conniption from the shock.
- Killer Gorilla: Well, perhaps "Killer" is not the right word, but whenever gorillas feature in Dom's pranks, they're nearly always attacking people, hammering cars, snatching baby carriages, and generally being nuisances.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: The Rabbits, naturally.
- Mobile Maze: A rare Real Life version, where a mobile prism of shrubbery is used to block someone in a hedge maze.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: The "Swiss tourist" (i.e., Dom) who learned English from a medical textbook.
- Nice Mice: Subverted by the Stalker Mice Epidemic. They won't stop following that poor soul home.
- No Indoor Voice? NO, IT'S RUBBISH! YEAH, CIAO!
- Out-of-Character Moment: The "HELLO!!" man is unusually quiet when he's on the phone in the Christmas special.
- Police Are Useless: Well, if they're played by Dom Joly, the police will spend more time mistaking harmless old people for criminals than catching a Blatant Burglar.
- Screwball Squirrel: A gang of people dressed like grey squirrels who run around beating people up in the park, or raiding supermarkets for nuts.
- Spy Speak: "You are Grey Squirrel, yes?"
- Re-Release Soundtrack: The Region 2 DVD left the soundtrack entirely intact. North America, however, was not so lucky; this is why there is no official Region 1 DVD, as well as why North American rebroadcasts replaced the music with instrumental soundalikes.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: Dom Joly calls the pest control to deal with a "big rat" living in his house? The rat is a grown man in a suit who lies on Dom's sofa reading a newspaper.
- Stealth Insult: Downplayed. One sketch in Series 2 features Dom as a man taking French lessons from a recording. Most of the sentences he learns are basically anti-French threatening insults, e.g. "I'm gonna break your bar up, you French frog-eating bastard."
- Stepping Out to React: One sketch in Series 3 sees Dom pretending to be a meditation teacher, only for a deafening car alarm to go off outside the building. Dom tells his class to carry on meditating, before leaving the room and shouting at the car's owner, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! I'M TRYING TO DO A MEDITATION COURSE!! YOU ARE TOTALLY RUINING IT!! THERE'S PEOPLE IN THERE TRYING TO RELAX!! YOU ARE GETTING ON MY BLOODY NERVES!! AND TURN THAT OFF! I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!" As soon as he's finished shouting, the car alarm turns off, and Dom immediately calms down and goes back to meditating with his students.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Sometimes he'd be the one boarding (squeezing into a packed car wearing a huge fat suit, pretending to be blind and trying to walk into the wall), and sometimes Dom would already be inside (sitting down to dinner at a fully set table, using the toilet and reading a newspaper) and indignantly hit the "close" button when he notices he's being stared at.
- The Unintelligible: Dom would sometimes ask people for help or information in inarticulate gibberish, growing increasingly frustrated with their confusion before finally giving up and storming off with a perfectly intelligible "Great, so you can't help me, either!"
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Dom plays a younger man attending a bowling green with two old men. After bowling past their balls, he runs off into the bushes, pulls out an electric guitar, and starts strumming it while singing "YOU LOSE! YOU LOSE! YOU LOSE! I'M THE WINNER! I'M THE WINNER! I'M THE WINNER!"
- "Wanted!" Poster: Dom has, on occasion, stood underneath a massive poster printed with his face and the words "Do Not Trust This Man". He then asks passersby if they will loan him money.
- The strange part is, IT ALWAYS WORKS.
