History Series / TheSmellOfReevesAndMortimer

** The first series also had short films with high production values (presented as an ImagineSpot on Vic's part) which replicated an iconic scene from a film, such as running on the beach from ''ChariotsOfFire'', before crudely inserting a vegetable in place of someone's head or similar, with a label declaring low prices on veg. This was eventually explained as Vic blowing the budget on advertising, having forgotten that Reeves and Mortimer don't sell fruit and veg.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Between the mock-variety show format and the dynamic between Vic and Bob, the series often comes off as a more surrealistic version of Creator/MorecambeAndWise. This is especially evident in a series of RunningGags usually involving Bob attempting to do a 'serious' piece (albeit with a rather silly twist, such as his attempt to sing Barbara Streisand's "The Way We Were" while wearing a pair of skies), with Vic popping up in the background to distract, upstage or otherwise annoy him. This reflects the familiar dynamic of Ernie Wise as the deluded would-be 'serious' artist and Eric Morecambe as the clown happily-if-obliviously puncturing his pretensions.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Between the mock-variety show format and the dynamic between Vic and Bob, the series often comes off as a more surrealistic version of Creator/MorecambeAndWise. This is especially evident in a series of RunningGags usually involving Bob attempting to do a 'serious' piece (albeit with a rather silly twist, such as his attempt to sing Barbara Streisand's "The Way We Were" while wearing a pair of skies), with Vic popping up in the background to distract, upstage or otherwise annoy him.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Between the mock-variety show format and the dynamic between Vic and Bob, the series often comes off as a more surrealistic version of Creator/MorecombeAndWise. This is especially evident in a series of RunningGags usually involving Bob attempting to do a 'serious' piece (albeit with a rather silly twist, such as his attempt to sing Barbara Streisand's "The Way We Were" while wearing a pair of skies), with Vic popping up in the background to distract, upstage or otherwise annoy him.

* SleazyPolitician: Councillors Cox and Evans of the Aldrington-on-Sea District Council Planning Committee, two shifty, obese gentlemen with poor comb-overs who'd show up in a [[StylisticSuck cheap PSA]] for whatever ridiculous public initiative they'd come up with. These would inevitably cheap, nasty, designed primarily to line their own pockets and would always backfire in some way, resulting in Cox and Evans getting into a fist fight while screaming "''You fat bastard!''" at each other.

Rather than ''Big Night Out''`s parody of variety shows, ''The Smell'' was a sketch show interspersed with Vic and Bob sitting at their desk and doing surreal things before an audience, a format which would later be built upon for ''Series/ShootingStars''. An intermittent character was the incoherent Uncle Peter (comedian Charlie Chuck) and guest actors included Matt Lucas and David Walliams (later of ''Series/LittleBritain'') and Simon Day and Paul Whitehouse (later of ''Series/TheFastShow'').

** Men with Bras: "What you lookin' at mate?! Are you looking at my bra?!" and "Howay!"

* {{Corpsing}}: Quite frequent, but memorable occasions include Vic's false moustache [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi60CCM9jZU falling off]], and [[Music/ThePolice Sting]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Zot1i7bJk collapsing with laughter]] during his interview with the Stotts.

Rather than ''Big Night Out''`s parody of variety shows, ''The Smell'' was a sketch show interspersed with Vic and Bob sitting at their desk and doing surreal things before an audience, a format which would later be built upon for ''Series/ShootingStars''. An intermittent character was the incoherent Uncle Peter (comedian Charlie Chuck) and guest actors included Matt Lucas and David Walliams (later of ''Series/LittleBritain'') and Simon Day and Paul Whitehouse (later of ''TheFastShow'').

* EarlyBirdCameo - Swiss Toni appeared once to sell the Men With Bras a car before he became a regular on ''TheFastShow'', much less before he got his own series.

** OtisRedding and Marvyn Gaye (said in Geordie accent): "We're here sittin' on the dock o' the beeyah watchin' the ships cummin' in and gooin' aht agin"

* WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs: Kinky John Fowler, introduced in ''Bang Bang'' as compere of the Club, later reappears as a policeman in ''Catterick'' with no explanation.
** In addition, a recent tribute to Steve Coogan featured Kinky John as a TV executive, Tom Fun and Derek as cameramen, and Carl and Chris as BBC security.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Smell_of_Reeves_and_Mortimer_1768.jpg
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->''Like a shrimp in a suitcase lying on a window ledge,\\

These things you'll find constantly irritate our minds!''

* BritishAccents - Characters are often given incongruous Geordie accents for comedy value. Everyone in the Slade segments has a Birmingham accent.

* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether - Not quite this trope, but in the 'Slade' segments it appears that every rock star in [[SweetHomeMidlands Birmingham]] live next to each other.

* YouFailBiologyForever: A segment parodying the overuse of metaphors in public information films, in which Vic and Bob explained the human body in terms of the appliances in a house...but wrongly.
--> '''Vic''': Your body has its own central heating, in the form of your lungs. Hot foods such as steak, pies and soup are transferred directly to the lungs whereupon they heat the entire body.

* EverythingIsBetterWithExplosions - On ''Bang Bang'' the Stotts insist on starting every interview with "a nice explosion", and in a variation on EveryCarIsAPinto, perhaps the most surreal sketch of all involved a car whose bonnet and boot lids would blast off into the air, then land and explode in an absurdly oversized detonation.

--> '''Bob:''' I love the smell of FidelCastro!

-->-- opening song for episode 1, very much setting the tone

* TheParody: A few remarkably surreal examples, more towards the earlier part of the show's run. Some examples of shows parodied include ''Stars in their Eyes'', ''Noel's Addicts'' (and ''NoelsHouseParty''), ''Countryfile'', ''Masterchef'', ''The South Bank Show'' and ''The Antiques Roadshow''.

* TrademarkFavouriteFood: Cup-a-Soup for all the members of Slade.

The second surreal comedy show put together by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, following ''VicReevesBigNightOut''. Considered to be some of Vic and Bob's best work. Had two series, in 1993 and 1995.

* {{Mockumentary}}: ''The Club'', covering hapless attempts by the owners of the "fourth best club in Hull" to keep it going. Nearly all the characters were played by Reeves or Mortimer, and despite the comedy one perceives an oddly serious sorrow on their part for the death of the traditional variety club that it symbolises and from which they originated (see ''VicReevesBigNightOut''). Quite similar to ''That Peter Kay Thing'' and ''Phoenix Nights'' in a way, but predates them by a year.

* SpeakOfTheDevil: Literature/HerculePoirot appears when Bob misreads Vic's note asking for "dancing marionettes and Pierrot" as "dancing majorettes and Poirot".

* TheParody: A few remarkably surreal examples, more towards the earlier part of the show's run. Some examples of shows parodied include ''Stars in their Eyes'', ''Noel's Addicts'' (and ''NoelsHouseParty''), ''Countryfile'', ''Masterchef'', ''The South Bank Show'' and ''The Antiques Roadshow''.

* TheMusical: Each episode starts with a different musical number (some original, some ironic covers) and ends with the signature "I Love The Smell".