...I SHALL have minibites this Christmas...AND BEYOND!!!
At last! The greatest TV comedy sketch show in recent (or ancient) history, is finally available on DVD. Words can't really do justice to the freewheeling, anarchic genius of this truly glorious show. Its funny, I never really liked the Big Night Out, and Ive not enjoyed much of Vic and Bob's output since, but I think that's because I remember watching the first series of Smell.. as a kid, and was so knocked out by it that nothing they've done since could ever come close to it.
The first series was crammed full of more great ideas than probably every other TV sketch show in history put together. Vic and Bob positively filled the comedy cup to the brim with delriously brilliant daftness, then let it overflow, just for good measure. Further, it was a musical, as much as a comedy treat. The intro songs were catchy, lyrically inspired and brilliantly choreographed. And unlike the Big Night Out-where Bob was a mere sidekick- here he is a proper comedy partner. Indeed Vic and Bob's love-hate relationship has never been more brilliantly captured than here. Also, whereas the BNO was more or less straightforward vaudeville, here the feel is much more cohesive- the sketches and gags segue into one another in an almost dreamlike way which suits the show's total absurdity.
There are too many highlights to mention in the first series. There's the priceless interview with "Lovejoy" (aka Bob talking in a cod-Red Indian accent), there's the exploits of Gregory Mitchell and "Corky." There's the Reeves and Mortimer products sketches, (Such as "Quack-quack and alco-comb," and the "Convex boundary fence tax-evasion system"), and of course, the sheer lunacy of Uncle Peter, a character who makes you wonder if he's acting, or whether he genuinely has been released from a lunatic asylum. The show seems to teeter on the edge of anarchy at times, and yet, like all great comedy, there is method to the madness.
Like Im Alan Partridge (the only other recent British comedy show which has made me laugh till I almost died), the first series was significantly better than the second. But its worth having series 2, if only for the spoofs of Masterchef ("Its a shoe-cake. A cake-a-shoe, cake-like-a-shoe"), Stars in the Their Eyes, and "Bob's Organ" ("New York, Madrid, HULL- the whole world!")
The scandalous thing is, nobody I know watched the first series of this veritably prescious cultural artefact. So do yourself a favour and rectify the sitauation now- after all, its a Reeves and Mortimer product -"and that's about as good a guarantee of satisfaction, as you can get." (wink)