Line #3 Radio/TheMaryWhitehouseExperience


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MWExp.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:L-R: Robert Newman, David Baddiel, Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis.]]
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4	You know the sort of people who want to know what ''The Mary Whitehouse Experience'' was? That's you, that is.
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6	''The Mary Whitehouse Experience'' was a British SketchComedy that ran on TV and radio in the late 1980s and early 1990s, named of course after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse Mary Whitehouse]], a well-known MoralGuardian. The format consisted of a number of sketches called 'The ''Something'' Experience' (for example, The Family Experience) and would feature one the performers making comments about a subject before cutting to a sketch revolving around the subject. Frequently, no attempt was made to disguise the studio nature of the show and props and costumes tended to be minimal. The team consisted of two writer performer duos, Rob Newman & David Baddiel (whose material tended to be about up to the minute trendy indie bands) and Stephen Punt & Hugh Dennis (whose material tended towards more mundane observational comedy). Newman and Dennis tended to be the more surreal and bizarre performers, while Baddiel and Punt acted as their StraightMan.
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8	Frequently occurring characters included Hugh Dennis's Mr. Strange, AKA the "Milky Milky" man (a weirdo with a strange fascination for milk that was past its sell-by-date), Rob Newman's Ray who is permanently stuck in SarcasmMode (except when he's actually being sarcastic) and the History Today professors (two old men who trade YourMom type insults).
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10	!!Lovely. Tropey-tropey.
11	* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Hugh Dennis plays the embarrassing dad: "Hey what's this? It's got a good beat!"
12	* BlackComedy: The sixth "Things People Say to the Television" sketch features the main four watching ''Series/DadsArmy'' and repeatedly muttering "He's dead... he's dead... he's dead..." every time a cast member who had died before or since the series ended in 1977 appeared on screen, a sardonic comment on the fact that just ''two'' of the core seven cast members (Creator/CliveDunn and Creator/IanLavender) were still alive by 1991.[[note]] Creator/JamesBeck died of pancreatitis in 1973, Creator/JohnLaurie of emphysema in 1980, Creator/ArthurLowe of a stroke in 1982, Creator/JohnLeMesurier of a heart attack brought on by cirrhosis in 1983, and Creator/ArnoldRidley of injuries sustained in a fall in 1984.[[/note]]
13	* BritishBrevity: The TV show ran for only two series.
14	* BrickJoke: Often used. For example 'The Telephone Experience' began with two kids making prank calls to people with strange surnames. After a few other sketches, Steve Punt came on to wonder what the very first telephone conversation was. We then cut back to the same two kids mocking Alexander Graham Bell.
15	-->"Is that a Bell? Can I hear a Bell? Well you'd better answer the door."
16	* CatchPhrase: A few.
17	** "Lovely. Milky-milky."
18	** Ray's "Oh no what a personal disaster", said in a very sarcastic tone of voice (obviously).
19	** "That's you, that is."
20	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Rob Newman's impression of Shaw Taylor's TV appeals for witnesses to crimes: "A bomber jacket style bomber jacket".
21	* {{Fetish}}: Mr. Strange had an unhealthy obsession with milk that's gone off, leading to lots of PervertedSniffing.
22	* FictionalPoliticalParty: One sketch, broadcast during the run-up to the 1992 general election as a parody of party political broadcasts, had Mr. Strange offering himself as an alternative to UsefulNotes/JohnMajor and Neil Kinnock (respectively, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at the time). He claimed to be different from them because "I don't wash my pants -- it's not nature's way".
23	* ImprobablePilotingSkills: The team subverted this trope. A sketch noted that as the skills required to pilot a modern jet fighter in combat were converging more and more with those necessary to succeed in air-fighting computer games, the next generation of RAF aces were not going to be craggy manly ''Literature/{{Biggles}}'' types. Oh, no. A sketch followed through the recruitment and training of up to eleven spotty, geeky, teenage nerds into the Royal Air Force (played by Baddiel and Punt), who all became fighter aces in an unspecified war somewhere.
24	* LighterAndSofter: Parodied. Goth band Music/{{The Cure\|Band}}'s attempts to go in this direction were parodied by Rob Newman who would portray lead singer Robert Smith singing novelty songs (such as "The Sun Has Got Its Hat On") in the same doom laden style as he always has done.
25	* MrFanservice: Rob Newman.
26	* SoundToScreenAdaptation: the show began on Creator/{{BBC}} radio, as a rare digression into the spoken word for the music station Radio One.
27	* SpecialGuest: Robert Smith!
28	* TakeThat: Frequent, including the very title of the show.
29	* UnpluggedVersion: A nice in-universe invocation. ''Newman and Baddiel In Pieces'' had a series of sketches in which they would pretend to be a techno or synthpop band doing an Unplugged concert. They'd come on, shout or in the case of Music/{{Kraftwerk}} robotically intone, the line from the band's big hit, and then shuffle off again in embarrassment.
30	* TheUnsolvedMystery: The tie-in book mentioned a piece of graffiti above an incredibly busy main road in London stating "M. Khan is bent." and wondered who precisely M Khan was. Two things about this particularly intrigued the team: 1) Why "M. Khan" was being so formally identified and 2) Why the "M. Khan" himself never complained despite the length of time the graffiti was up for.
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Context Radio / TheMaryWhitehouseExperience