Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer is a BBC sketch comedy series starring Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. It is very much a Sequel Series to their previous sketch show The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, complete with the 'two men at a desk' format and featuring many of the same characters, including fan favourites Mulligan O'Hare and The Stotts. However, the TV parodies and the eccentric assistant were phased out, resulting in a more freeform style.
Even more surreal than its precedessor, Reeves and Mortimer considered it superior but it was less popular with the fans, perhaps because each episode was weighed down by a large part of it being devoted to a single recurring setting called The Club, a fly-on-the-wall documetary spoof about a nightclub, which was somewhat divisive. Bang Bang also developed some characters and concepts that had been introduced in The Smell, such as Tom Fun.
It first aired on BBC2 in January 1999, lasting for only one season.
The series provides examples of:
- Breast Expansion: In one sketch, Vic and Bob perform a dance routine, disguised as blonde German women with moustaches, with their bosoms growing rapidly (achieved by large beachballs hidden under their turtleneck sweaters) as they continue.
- Cowardice Callout: Paul Barron, the owner of Barron's Nightclub, is prone to doing dodgy things for the sake of his club and refusing to face up to it when those things backfire, and the more level-headed Tony (who was brought up in Hong Kong and therefore combines Brutal Honesty and Asian Rudeness in one package) always calls him out for "having no balls for the job". One of the most defining moments is when Paul, decides to have Les Dennis replace Kinky John, the club's normal compere (a Hot-Blooded Cloudcuckoolander who talks and behaves like a parody of Vito Corleone), and instead of telling Kinky John himself, Paul asks Tony to do it while he "checks on the Doritos to make sure they're not damp". Tony is none too happy about this:"You got no balls, Paul Barron! [to the camera] This is typical! Kinky John will take it all out on me, and I have nothing to do with this decision!"
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Orlando Herring, host of 'America's Most Incredible', goes to visit an 'incredible' vegetable in Arkansas, which turns out to be a guy buried in the soil with his face painted like a melon. He then immediately launches into a (fortunately censored) foul-mouthed tirade against the presenter.
- Naked People Are Surreal: In most episodes of Bang Bang the front of the desk is semi-transparent and a naked man can be seen crouching beneath it. In one episode there's a naked woman as well, but there seems to be a partition separating her from the man.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A recurring skit involves impressions of a seemingly random cast of celebrities involved in unusual situations, which always have the disclaimer that were originally considered "unfunny" to be broadcast. These include then-prime minister Tony Blair preparing for a Glastonbury gig with members of his cabinet as his band.
- Once an Episode: each episode involved someone dying, a shell-less egg emerging from their mouth, and then their body fading away in a dramatic fashion (usually this was in the very surreal car sketches, but once migrated to the studio). Vic and Bob explained in interviews that the egg was supposed to represent a soul.
- Springtime for Hitler: Vic gives Bob chat-up lines for a woman called Chantelle, but all the things he's written for Bob are either insulting comments about Chantelle's Gag Nose or comments about Bob having an STD. Ultimately, however, Chantelle thinks Bob's insults are flirty comments, and they leave the studio together. Vic, nonplussed, tries the same thing with American model Patrice- but Patrice takes the insults to be exactly what they are, and furiously berates Vic while beating him with her handbag.
