The latest project of British actor and comedian Noel Fielding, better known as one half of The Mighty Boosh, described by Channel 4 as "a psychedelic character based comedy show half-filmed and half-animated", although really, that description barely does it justice. Released in 2012.
Each episode involves Noel (playing an exaggerated version of himself), his friend Dolly, his anteater butler Smooth and his cleaner Andy Warhol having various bizarre adventures in Noel's jungle home. Added to this are numerous sketches, cartoons and musical interludes, often entirely unrelated to the main plot, involving such characters as Sergeant Raymond Boombox (an incompetent New York cop with a talking knife-wound on his left arm) Roy Circles (an anthropomorphic chocolate biscuit with disturbing racist tendencies) and Noel's landlord Secret Peter (a brain-damaged purple blob with a passion for tennis).
In short... it's very, very odd.
The show returned for a second series under the name Luxury Comedy 2: Tales from Painted Hawaii - in July 2014. Similar to how each series of the Boosh takes place in a different setting, we now see Noel and chums run Luxury Coffee, a café on a top of a volcano in Hawaii, and is intended by Fielding, both in the show and in interviews, to be more sitcom-based as a reaction to the mixed response of the first series. Don't worry, it's still pretty bonkers, though.
This series features the following tropes:
- Abnormal Ammo: The angry dolphin in a fighter jet fires pasta bullets at Noel's house. As well as a broken rainbow fused by Terry Gilliam 's shit.
- An Aesop:
- "Paul Panfer" raises debate over whether or not remaking films dignifies the original. Tony Reason claims they're shallow and devoid of any artistic integrity. By the end of the episode, the spirit of Elvis Presley himself thanks Paul Panfer for remaking his old movies and reviving interest in his filmography.
- The Cucumbers of Cool episode points out how being trendy isn't worth the stress of staying cool and if you want to be mundane, there's no shame in that. Noel even lampshades at the start of the episode that he wants to do some social commentary.
- Affectionate Parody: Series two is one of sitcoms.
- Amazing Technicolour Population: Sgt Boombox's skin is neon yellow for some strange reason.
- Ambiguously Human: Both Andy Warhol and Sgt Boombox are considerably more human looking than most of the rest of the cast, but Andy Warhol speaks in a Machine Monotone and Sgt Boombox has yellow skin.
- Amicable Exes: Noel and Dolly used to date. Now, despite their near-constant bickering, they seem to have no problem staying friends.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Count Ziggenpuss the singing fishfinger and Roy Circles the depressed chocolate biscuit are the most notable examples. Then there are characters like Ice-Cream Eyes and Ian Guage (the singer with croissants all over his face) who seem to be human-food hybrids.
- The second series has Peanut Jones, a man with a giant peanut for a head.
- Aside Glance
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Ian Guage, Noel's tribute to Jacques Brel, sings in faux-French gibberish.
- Ass Shove: Apparently Tony Reason's method of familiarising himself with a new work colleague is to insert his finger into that person's anus. That said,
Tony doesn't even have fingers, so Lord knows how he manages it. - Attractive Bent-Gender: Apparently Andy Warhol is this when he masquerades as Frida Kahlo. Although it's plainly just Andy in drag, Smooth still seems to fancy him.
- Back from the Dead: Dondylion, having been run over by several vehicles in episode 6, shows up alive and unharmed in episode 7. It's implied that this is because he's a figment of Noel's imagination.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Noel's feud with King Tutta the mountain has shades of this. Throughout the episode a distant mountain keeps tutting and looking disgusted every time Noel makes a joke. Noel retaliates by scorching the mountain's cheek with a hot teaspoon, but later realises he was actually tutting because he was performing a capella with some other mountains, at which point Noel apologises and admits to being "slightly in love" with King Tutta.
- Better as Friends: Noel and Dolly have zero sexual tension despite having once dated. Noel gets a bit irritated whenever Dolly mentions men she dated behind Noel's back when they were together, though.
- Series two ups the Ship Tease between the two quite a bit, although since it was initially nonexistent, there's still not all that much of it.
- Big Eater: Sgt. Boombox, who regularly stops for a snack while apprehending criminals.
- Big "NO!":
- Boombox has one when he lets his nemesis Count Ziggenpuss escape.
- George Orwell has one in the second episode of the second series, when he realises that island has become the subject of a reality show.
- Bishie Sparkle: Noel wears glitter on his cheeks throughout the final episode and he's as close to a real life Bishonen as you can get.
- Black Comedy: Some sketches border on this, none more so than those involving Dondylion.
- Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Big Chief Woolabum Boomalackaway.
- Catchphrase: Dolly always says "X is really turning me on right now!"
- Childhood Friends: Noel and Dolly have known each other since they were four years old, according to a deleted scene shown in the Making Of documentary on the series one DVD.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Several of the more bizarre and terrifying characters from series one do not return for series two, most notably The Audience.
- Civilized Animal: What with anthropomorphism being a massive staple of the show this crops up quite a lot, particularly with Tony Reason - the successful music producer who just happens to be a stingray. Pretty much every animal who appears on the show is sapient to one degree or another, and many inanimate objects can inexplicably talk.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: It would probably be easier to name the characters who aren't Cuckoolanders...
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite being mostly in delusion it seems Fantasy Man can be quite a fighter when off his meds.
- Deranged Animation: About as deranged as humanly possible, and then some.
- Domestic Abuse: Secret Peter beats his wife. Played for laughs as she's a non-anthropomorphic peanut.
- Even Evil Has Standards: More like Even Weirdos Have Standards. Noel loves all things weird and strange but when Andy Warhol uses a weird situation to grab a woman's breasts without her permission, Noel takes time out of being burned alive to call him out on it.
- Everyone Is Bi: Noel, Smooth, Dolly and Andy Warhol appear to be pretty much game for anything, this is probably true for every character but... it's best not to think about it.
- Extreme Omnisexual:
- Being a talking animal or an object doesn't stop Noel from being attracted to someone.
- Dolly might be an even worse case. Inanimate objects can "Really turn her on right now."
- Fish People: Recurring character Daddy Push has a winkle shell for a head. What he's hiding under there is anyone's guess.
- Freudian Excuse: The motorbiking lychee fruit raped an olive because he never got over the death of his father.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Smooth is "mixed race" as in, his father is human and his mother is an anteater.
- Informed Flaw: Noel is apparently a huge loser and everybody was painfully aware of it the whole time, but too nice to say anything to him. What about him that makes him uncool is never made clear, but it's supposedly incredibly obvious.
- I Reject Your Reality: Unlike most characters who show up in the various jokes, Fantasy Man does not exist in Noel's world, but in (an) actual reality which he constantly tries to escape from into a 80's text adventure world.
- In the second season it turns out that his dream world seems to lie somewhere between reality and fantasy and he can indeed cross the borders.
- Ironic Echo: Dolly is insulted when Noel asks her whether her latest bizarre activity was a joke or a concept. Later, she asks him the same question when the Jelly Fox scenario turns out to be a bizarre bout of make-believe by Noel.
- Laughing Mad: The Audience.
- Lighter and Softer: Series two is considerably more "normal" and less terrifying than series one. It's still incredibly weird, though.
- Machine Monotone: Andy Warhol speaks like this for some reason. Particularly weird in that he otherwise doesn't appear to be a robot at all.
- Madness Mantra: Dondylion has one. "It's all bleedin' coming together..."
- Magical Native American: Big Chief Woolabum Boomalackaway. He can see into the future.
- Though like Fantasy Man himself it's implied he is just a caucasian homeless who can share Fantasy Man's daydreams.
- Meta: Noel and friends are aware that they're in a TV show, and go beyond Breaking the Fourth Wall to full on manipulating the medium.
- Mind Screw: Watching a single episode can result in sensory overload, and even if it doesn't you'll still be rendered speechless by it.
- Mind Screw Driver: Series 2 to a certain degree. It's still obscenely weird, but it goes nowhere near the levels of series one and creates a semi-consistent universe and has plots that can be easily followed.
- Monster Clown: Some sketches feature a cackling purple clown known only as The Audience who sits in a cloud making shapes out of mashed potato. He actually appears to be quite friendly, despite being borderline incomprehensible and utterly horrific to look at.
- Monster of the Week: Semi-frequently in series one. A regular occurrence in series two.
- Nightmare Face: Pretty much every character played by Noel seems to be designed to make these.
- Noodle Incident: The reason Noel and Dolly broke up is left unclear. The series two finale heavily implies he wanted her to anally finger him, which she refused.
- Only Sane Man: Smooth, to a certain degree. He's still pretty damn weird, but he's as close to normal as you can get in this show.
- The Peeping Tom: The pineapple who borrows Noel's eyes and uses them to watch people shaving their balls.
- Police Are Useless: Sergeant Boombox and his colleague, Hooper.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Dolly, who supposedly has many jobs (model, DJ, knitwear designer) but we never see her doing any of them.
- Really Gets Around: Dolly has dated most of the cast. Several of them while she was still dating Noel.
- Reality Show: Reality Man tries to turn the show into one in the second season.
- Retool: Series two brought on a fairly major one. The cast lost several characters, a setting was fully established and it became more of an adventure show rather than a sketch comedy.
- Riddle Me This: "If it takes a year to drink a horse, how long does a Spanish priest have to cry for, when rolling up a hill against a north-facing breeze...bearing in mind that it's winter and dark, and the priest is covered in ball bearings and his own shit?"
- Robot Maid: Andy Warhol certainly acts like one at least.
- Self-Deprecation: Series two is filled with mocking how much everyone hated series one, with Noel and friends frequently commenting on their lack of viewership and an entire episode revolving around saving their one and only fan from getting hit by an asteroid.
- Servile Snarker: Smooth, who is often the voice of reason to Noel, despite being part anteater.
- Signature Laugh: When Andy Warhol laughs, a string of "individual laughter sheets, strung together like theatre tickets or sausages" comes from his mouth.
- Sketch Comedy: Series one. Series two is more of a sitcom with occasional cut away sequences.
- The Smurfette Principle: Dolly is pretty much the only woman in the universe.
- Split Personality: the Bobbatron's personality veers from pleasant and helpful to psychotically angry at the drop of a hat.
- The Stoic: As per Mike Fielding's usual routine, Smooth is unflappable.
- Surreal Humour: Sometimes outright disregarding the humor part for the sake of delving as deep as it can into surrealism.
- Talking Animal: Tony Reason, Dondylion, Smooth (although he appears to be more of a human-animal hybrid), and many other animals featured in the show
- Talking Heads: Most of the sketches are of this persuasion.
- Unexplained Accent: Despite allegedly being Noel's friend since childhood, Dolly has a thick German accent. This is hardly the weirdest thing about the show.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Noel is slightly freaked when he realises his new cleaner Frida Kahlo is just Andy Warhol in a frock. Subverted with Smooth, who knows full well it's Andy and still takes him out on a date.
- The Voiceless: Plasticine Joey Ramon, who thankfully has a narrator describing everything he does or thinks.
- Windmill Crusader: Fantasy Man
- Your Head A-Splode: Ian Guage, whose musical advances towards a piece of toast are rejected so many times he eventually explodes with the heartbreak.
- Also happens to Joey Ramone as a result of a wheat allergy.
- You Say Tomato: Dolly's German accent often provokes this response from other characters.
