Ensemble Dark Horse: From The Russell Howard Hour, Harry and Chris, a standup filk song duo who became popular enough to be brought back two more times, unlike every other standup guest.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: He's pretty popular outside of Great Britain, such that putting the show on YouTube and blocking it domestically (where they can watch it on BBC's iPlayer) is profitable. He's even made headway into the States, despite BBC America deciding not to carry the show. One reason for Russell's popularity in the US is the way he targets all of their acceptable targets head on, like hard right pundits and "fair and balanced" media. There's also some mild poking at African-Americans, but that's down to Author Appeal really.
Harsher in Hindsight: Any time he shows Boris Johnson as a hilarious buffoon inevitably became this once he became Prime Minister as Russell has lost all admiration for him and now utterly despises him for his performance as a leader during 2020-2022.
Russell comments that everything's so sex obsessed that in twenty years time the news will become pornographic. Already happening.
In Series 2, Russell jokes about putting idols' names on stuff like condoms by suggesting 'Robert Pattinson on a tampon', clearly a nod to the whole vampire thing. One year later, Fifty Shades of Grey, derived from Twilight, has its own spin on tampon usage.
Russell unknowingly drew some flak for sitting with one leg folded out of view when interviewing a man with a prosthetic leg. When he appeared on The Last Leg in 2018 he does it again.
In one episode, he told the story of how he was stung by a jellyfish and his mother volunteered to piss on it (implying that she did). A few days later, the same thing happened to his brother and Russell had to piss on the wound as well. The funny bit? Urinating on a jellyfish wound actually makes it worse and you're supposed to scrape off the stingers (like with a credit card for example) and then either pour hot water on it or pour vinegar on it to stop the venom.
In a first season episode, he finds it laughable that students would take their parents on their gap years, noting that his mum hates travelling. He and his mum would later be the focus of the travel documentary series Russell Howard & Mum: USA Road Trip.
His reaction to a new Star Wars trilogy is "Shit, it will be". Given how polarising said trilogy turned out to be, this was almost prophetic.
Nightmare Fuel: Russell destroying the hamster toys in Series 1, Episode 9 can be rather disturbing, especially if you're a life-long Toy Story fan.
Unexpected Character: It's easy to forget that YouTube is responsible for a lot of the clips used, leading up to YouTubers like Glozell and Shay Carl getting airtime.
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