The Mighty Boosh Series 1 (2004) – I Am So In Love With This Show

What is The Mighty Boosh?

It’s quite difficult to explain what Mighty Boosh is, I will just quote what the creators said in one of their many TV interviews.

Host: The Mighty Boosh, critically acclaimed as it is…for people who haven’t seen the show, would you like to explain what is it about?
Noel: Can’t be explained can’t it? Go on Ju!
Julian: It’s a loose cardigan of ideas.
Noel: It’s sort of a collage of dreams, isn’t it?
Julian: some people said it sort of psychedelic George and Mildred.
Noel: It’s a documentary about a wasp [laugh]…no it’s not. It’s really hard to explain exactly.

Even Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding have difficulty explaining their own TVShow 😉

To be honest, the first time I saw The Mighty Boosh, I was a bit perplexed, “What is this?” the comedy was a bit dry and unusual. I haven’t yet seen such comedy show before. It had so many strange characters, music and crimps, the two main characters were so contrast, and the stories were sometimes really odd and surreal. But…the more I watched it the more it intrigued me and the more I got more than a giggle through their comedy. I thought it was a very creative comedy/story and it glued me completely. The first series can be considered as a bit lighter and easier to grasp than the second and third.

This first series was aired in 2004 but it took 6 years in the process. I was planning to write the history before the review but it went too long and I had to separate it into two posts. The history of the Boosh coming up few days from today.

I can easily say that this series in definitely in my top 5 favorite series of all time (it kicks Mission Impossible from my previous list and goes straight to number 3)

This first series centered on Howard Moon and Vince Noir working on a shady zoo called Zooniverse. They were two zoo-keepers who had been working together for years. The cages in the zoo were small and none of the animals was real. The manager had no care at all toward the animals.

Howard Moon (played by Julian Barratt) is actually much smarter than Vince but he is the kind that likes to talk big. He claims he is this and that and destined to be a great man in the future. He is very gloomy. He has deep crush on one of the workers, Mrs. Gideon but she thinks he doesn’t exist.

Vince Noir (Noel Fielding) is a happy go round person. Nothing seems to let him down. He smiles all the time and always looks happy. He is a gifted child because he can communicate with animals. Vince is a bit thick, all he thinks about is the latest fashion style and his hair. Despites all of that, he is a very loyal person who always come to save Howard.

Bob Fossil (Rich Fulcher) is the zoo manager. He keeps making new term for animals, like the grey leg face man (his way of saying Elephant). He is in love with Dixon Bainbridge. He is very annoying!

Naboo (Michael Fielding) is Naboo the Enigma, a shaman works in the zoo. He is a good shaman but always looks like he is high on acid.

Dave Brown who will become Bollo in every episode of series 2 and 3 appeared as many characters in series 1.

All five main cast of The Mighty Boosh (Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, Rich Fulcher, Michael Fielding and Dave Brown) played more than 1 character throughout the entire series.

The Whole Gang (from left to right): Bollo (Dave Brown); Naboo (Michael Fielding); Fossil (Rich Fulcher); Vince (Noel Fielding); Howard (Julian Barratt)

They always started with Howard and Vince introducing the show in front of red curtain. They always began with “Hi, welcome to the show. My name’s Howard Moon and this is Vince Noir”. Howard would explain everything in a very serious gesture while Vince mostly tried to look cute and all smiley.

Let’s see what’s going on in series one 🙂

COME WITH US NOW THROUGH A JOURNEY OF TIME AND SPACE

Killeroo was about Howard fighting a Kangaroo in a boxing match. The zoo manager, Mr. Fossil wanted to make a lot of money by setting up a fight between Howard and a kangaroo. At first Howard said no but Fossil had something that can put Howard in shame and made him unable to face the woman of his dream, Mrs. Gideon. To help Howard, Vince trained him although he himself wasn’t sure Howard would win.

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Mutants was about Dixon Bainbridge (the zoo’s owner) messing up with the animals. He was trying to mix human and animal together and created a kind of mutant. Vince and Howard, under Mrs. Gideon’s request, investigated the missing python and ended up finding the truth about the mutants.

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Bollo is a gorilla. Vince was very close to him but he was already really old and about to die. The woman who sponsored Bollo wanted to check on him and Fossil not wanting to let her know that the gorilla was sick asked Howard to pretend as Bollo. The Grim Reaper came and took Howard as he thought Howard was Bollo.

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Tundra was about Howard and Vince first adventure outside the zoo. They went to Artic Tundra after hearing about the Egg of Mantumbi from Bainbridge. The music in this episode is one of my favorites. I found the video in youtube 🙂 see how adorable Noel is in the video!!!

Tundra has a loooong history. They performed it on stage as the Artic Boosh. The Mighty Boosh pilot was Tundra. Their first national tour also included part of tundra.

Jungle began with Bainbridge wanting to sell the zoo. Howard told Vince about Tommy, the previous owner. He was so sure Tommy is still alive. They searched for him in the jungle as a way to save the zoo.

I mentioned about crimp earlier in this post, here is an example of their crimp

Charlie was the first episode that showed animation. Vince was telling the story of Charlie the gum. The story was so surreal. In this episode, Howard wanted to be a writer but the publisher was more eager to publish Vince’s Story of Charlie. One of

Howard: Look at you! You loose your panda; you loose the book deal, you still happy as a bean
Vince: It’s this poncho, I can’t believe it. It’s impossible to be unhappy in a ponco

Electro showed how childish Vince can be. He was asked to be in an electro band and suddenly he acted as if he was already a big rock star. He caused major argument in the bad and causing the keyboardist leaving the band. Meanwhile Howard was dealing with the scary Spirit of Jazz and unable to help Vince.

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Hitcher introduced one of the most famous characters in the Boosh, The Cockney Hitcher with his green skin and polo eye. Many fans often dressed as him when they held their tour. The story began with Ivan, the Russian bear, went wild and attacked people. Howard and Vince had to take him to The Zoo for Animal Offenders. They tried taking shortcut which led them to The Hitcher.

I don’t know whether this post can make you wonder about The Boosh or not…but I sure hope it does. I think Boosh is a timeless comedy, it’s a kind of cult.

Just an extra info. All the music is written by Julian Barratt while the characters sketches and any other paintings in the series are drawn/painted by Noel Fielding. They wrote the show together.

Paul King, the director, mentioned that

“You’ll never met two people who can generate more materials than Noel and Julian, they could sit down and chat for half hour and out, and it would be perfectly watch-able television”

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