I recently listened to Harry Hill do an interview on the Danny Baker show and they mentioned this show while discussing his return to live comedy shows. I decided I had to find this show to rewatch it as I had only ever seen any episode once (the good old days before on-demand TV) and I remembered loving it when I was in my mid-late teens. I've done this "walking back" thing with several shows recently and the results haven't always been good – sometimes things haven't dated well, sometimes I remember them better than they are and other times, frankly, I maybe didn't have the best taste as a teen; as a result I was a little worried that I would find this show to be one of those.
I needn't have worried because not only is this show very funny indeed but it is so well delivered that it hasn't dated at all. The style of humor wonderfully random but almost never random for the sake of it – this way lies pointless silliness and stupidity and it is a path that the Harry Hill show doesn't tread. What we get instead are loads of catch-phrases and running jokes that not only hit the mark but actually grow and become funnier with repetition, whether this is within the episode or running through the whole season. On top of this we have catchphrases and jokes that bleed into other sketches, which add to the feeling of chaos and creativity.
The show revolves around Hill and he is bang on the money here – selling the lines whether where are actual jokes or just a throwaway aside. His supporting characters are almost as strong and I loved seeing Stouffer the Cat again as he is not only a great character but a great piece of puppetry nonsense! I was not such a big fan of Nana Hill or the clowns but both running jokes still made me laugh – just that neither felt as strong as the majority of the material across the season. Additionally impressive was that this was the first season and yet it is pretty much spot on.
Badgers. Pork or lamb? Having a system and so on; my memory did not fail me – this is hilarious. It is the type of surreal humor that looks so random one assumes it must be made up on the spot but yet is funny and tight enough to prove that it is actually a lot of work and talent. Great show and now I have to hunt down the second season!