Tuesday October 27, 2009 at 6:02

The Mighty Boosh I remember the first time I watched The Mighty Boosh. I’d just watched the latest episode of Gossip Girl at Arran’s house. I’d heard my friends reference elements from the Boosh sporadically, “peppermint nightmare” this and “alabaster retard” that. Per request, Arran put the first series onto a USB drive for me. I watched every episode that night, instantly enamored by every facet of the show. Dialogue like “First post, the post that hurts the most” and Howard’s cream poetry were so fresh, it blew me away. This is one of two possible reactions to the Boosh. You either love it or hate it. Several weeks later, I showed it to the girl du jour (I don’t remember her name. They come and go, you know what I’m saying). She reacted with revulsion and shock. I imagine showing her 2girls1cup would’ve produced a less outraged reaction. She just couldn’t take it. Among my core group of friends, I seem to be the only one who hasn’t grown out of my Boosh fervor. They still love it, and remember it fondly, and will enthusiastically participate in a lengthy quoting session, but they’ve outgrown an obsession for it. I have a theory that this is because they’re all very well-adjusted people, far more than I, though perhaps that’s over-analysing it. Around the third quarter of 2008, a potent combination of cosmic coincidences forever changed me, and a critical ingredient of this personality potion was The Mighty Boosh. The Shoreditch bitch Vince Noir and his fluttering fashionability spoke to me on a deeply personal level, igniting the inspirational inferno that still greatly influences my style and persona.That may be my favorite paragraph ever, though for all the words it didn’t say much. Coincidental, considering the insubstantiality of its subject. Uhhh… as I was saying…To label it “surreal” is to misunderstand the show. It’s a superficial label; At first it may seem surreal, but a more accurate adjective is “absurdist”. It doesn’t follow the typical rules, and thus the show can go anywhere. The “World of the Mighty Boosh” has its own logic and rules, as any fantasy universe must, but it also contains so many possibilities. Noel sometimes compares it to The Office: “It’s a great show, but it’s set in an office. Which gives them clear restrictions and limits; it’s just writing about stuff that happens in an office. You can’t have them upside down, or in a horse’s eye.” David Hewlett once said that when film-makers have no money, it often makes their work better because they need to be more creative to work around their lack of resources. In the case of the Boosh, their DIY ethic has led to a unique aesthetic. The show has a distinct style that’s immediately recognisable. Another part of its brilliance is that it’s pure escapist entertainment, something increasingly rare. Every writer has something to say these days, and every episode serves as an allegory for the current topics. Whether they’re overtly confronted (like in the molasses-thick opining Boston Legal) or more subtly alluded to, everybody wants their opinions heard. Not the Boosh. When asked what message they’re trying to send, they spend the rest of the interview pondering what their message would be. In the end, Noel settles for making absurd comments and concluding with “I’m really just trying to make Julian laugh. He’s laughing upside down on the sofa.”. While that wasn’t his answer to the question, it might as well have been. Their motivation is just to make each other laugh. This insularity can be alienating, and that’s part of what’s awarded them cult-status appeal for so long. I learned a new word today: anglophile. I might describe myself as such, though I find labeling yourself with such broad terms is generally a bad idea. I grew up on a cultural diet massively influenced by the omnipresent United States. I won’t say that the American entertainment culture is shit; that’s so reductive for something so expansive, and there’s no doubt I like a lot of the things Americans make. I just find British culture so much more interesting. This anglophilia is perhaps an intellectual rebellion, having become tired of America after decades of exposure. When I think about my favorite shows and films, American content features prominently. However, the material I find most inspiring, most influential, are shows like Spaced, Skins, and of course, The Mighty Boosh.This is not a review. I can’t tell you whether you’ll like it or not, it’s too complex to make that judgement. You’ll either get it or you won’t. If you do get it, we’ll probably get along very nicely, and if you don’t… well, we’ll probably still get along, but you’ll find yourself shooting me quizzical looks quite often. You’ll wonder why I check every can of hairspray for “Robert Smith’s Tears” and why I’m awake at 3am thinking about making a collage of Winklepickers. We’ll also probably never sleep together. Look, I can’t help that I sound like the Killeroo when I come. That’s just the profound impact The Mighty Boosh had on me.

The Mighty Boosh

I remember the first time I watched The Mighty Boosh. I’d just watched the latest episode of Gossip Girl at Arran’s house. I’d heard my friends reference elements from the Boosh sporadically, “peppermint nightmare” this and “alabaster retard” that. Per request, Arran put the first series onto a USB drive for me. I watched every episode that night, instantly enamored by every facet of the show. Dialogue like “First post, the post that hurts the most” and Howard’s cream poetry were so fresh, it blew me away. This is one of two possible reactions to the Boosh. You either love it or hate it. Several weeks later, I showed it to the girl du jour (I don’t remember her name. They come and go, you know what I’m saying). She reacted with revulsion and shock. I imagine showing her 2girls1cup would’ve produced a less outraged reaction. She just couldn’t take it.

Among my core group of friends, I seem to be the only one who hasn’t grown out of my Boosh fervor. They still love it, and remember it fondly, and will enthusiastically participate in a lengthy quoting session, but they’ve outgrown an obsession for it. I have a theory that this is because they’re all very well-adjusted people, far more than I, though perhaps that’s over-analysing it. Around the third quarter of 2008, a potent combination of cosmic coincidences forever changed me, and a critical ingredient of this personality potion was The Mighty Boosh. The Shoreditch bitch Vince Noir and his fluttering fashionability spoke to me on a deeply personal level, igniting the inspirational inferno that still greatly influences my style and persona.

That may be my favorite paragraph ever, though for all the words it didn’t say much. Coincidental, considering the insubstantiality of its subject. Uhhh… as I was saying…

To label it “surreal” is to misunderstand the show. It’s a superficial label; At first it may seem surreal, but a more accurate adjective is “absurdist”. It doesn’t follow the typical rules, and thus the show can go anywhere. The “World of the Mighty Boosh” has its own logic and rules, as any fantasy universe must, but it also contains so many possibilities. Noel sometimes compares it to The Office:

“It’s a great show, but it’s set in an office. Which gives them clear restrictions and limits; it’s just writing about stuff that happens in an office. You can’t have them upside down, or in a horse’s eye.”

David Hewlett once said that when film-makers have no money, it often makes their work better because they need to be more creative to work around their lack of resources. In the case of the Boosh, their DIY ethic has led to a unique aesthetic. The show has a distinct style that’s immediately recognisable.

Another part of its brilliance is that it’s pure escapist entertainment, something increasingly rare. Every writer has something to say these days, and every episode serves as an allegory for the current topics. Whether they’re overtly confronted (like in the molasses-thick opining Boston Legal) or more subtly alluded to, everybody wants their opinions heard. Not the Boosh. When asked what message they’re trying to send, they spend the rest of the interview pondering what their message would be. In the end, Noel settles for making absurd comments and concluding with

“I’m really just trying to make Julian laugh. He’s laughing upside down on the sofa.”.

While that wasn’t his answer to the question, it might as well have been. Their motivation is just to make each other laugh. This insularity can be alienating, and that’s part of what’s awarded them cult-status appeal for so long.

I learned a new word today: anglophile. I might describe myself as such, though I find labeling yourself with such broad terms is generally a bad idea. I grew up on a cultural diet massively influenced by the omnipresent United States. I won’t say that the American entertainment culture is shit; that’s so reductive for something so expansive, and there’s no doubt I like a lot of the things Americans make. I just find British culture so much more interesting. This anglophilia is perhaps an intellectual rebellion, having become tired of America after decades of exposure. When I think about my favorite shows and films, American content features prominently. However, the material I find most inspiring, most influential, are shows like Spaced, Skins, and of course, The Mighty Boosh.

This is not a review. I can’t tell you whether you’ll like it or not, it’s too complex to make that judgement. You’ll either get it or you won’t. If you do get it, we’ll probably get along very nicely, and if you don’t… well, we’ll probably still get along, but you’ll find yourself shooting me quizzical looks quite often. You’ll wonder why I check every can of hairspray for “Robert Smith’s Tears” and why I’m awake at 3am thinking about making a collage of Winklepickers. We’ll also probably never sleep together. Look, I can’t help that I sound like the Killeroo when I come. That’s just the profound impact The Mighty Boosh had on me.

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    Some notes on JAKEC’s post: (Apologies...Trolling) *It’s probably not in your best...
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