Smell of Reeves & Mortimer...

[Wet Blanket]

I still remember my first exposure to Vic and Bob, when I was 9 and allowed to stay up one Friday night, and seeing the last episode of the first series of Smell Of... I still remember being almost unable to breathe from laughing at Vic's job interview where Bob has a big plum for a head.

George Michael is indeed one of the funniest things to have ever been broadcast. The second funniest is the Masterchef sketch with Vic as a sinister floating Lloyd Grossman.

[chrispmartha]

[thenoise]

The dvds were typical BBC bit of half arsery. YouTube is full of TV appearances of them back in the day pratting about on shitty talkshows etc, there are the one off videos and stuff, even their numerous adverts. Let alone the longer Vhs versions (which I have still never seen). Nope just one crap interview. They couldn't even be bothered to put chapter stops at the beginning of each sketch. Basic stuff.

The Top Tips video is on Prime and its great.

[ProvanFan]

You've not impressed the bloke from Go West

[Wet Blanket]

I remember being massively disappointed by the DVDs not being the VHS extended episodes for series one; weren't they cut from 40 to 30 minutes quite late in the day, something to do with the BBC changing standard comedy slots? The extra material isn't so much missing sketches as the existing ones being longer. There's a different sort of rhythm to the episodes.  Once you've seen the longer edits the broadcast versions feel a lot more 'chopped up'.

Reeves and Mortimer's Driving School is up on YouTube, which despite being endorsed by the RAC can't possibly have been much use to learner drivers, but is a fantastic slice of extended R&M tomfoolery, possibly the missing link between The Weekenders and Catterick

[idunnosomename]

Youse are right, all the big broad strokes are hilarious, but even your man saying "my name is Bill Decker, and I'm a murderer" in that fucking I LOVE YOU t-shirt, fuck me it's just perfect right the way through.

Can anyone say with certainty whether it's Vic or Bob doing the dance itself?

well just William of Ockham. I mean, it looks like other animated stuff bob does. And the missing the cues is just sublime how funny it is he gets it just wrong enough to be perfect

Also ive just realised he doesnt even sing hahaha

[badaids]

The Top Tips video is on Prime and its great.

Interested in this opinion. It was totally panned at the time and hated by both Viz and Vic and Bob not just because of the final product but because of the bad faith of the writing team and producers behind it and the 100s of changes they made to the perfectly formed top tips. There's a great bit about it in Chris Donald's autobiography, in which he claims that there were supposed to be two videos but they struggled to edit together a single video and ruined nearly all the tips. Astonished to hear it's on Amazon Prime still going 30 years later.

However I've never actually seen it.  Is it really any good?

[I.D. Smith]

Smell Of.. is where I got on the Vic and Bob fan wagon. I'd actually tried with Big Night a couple of years prior but I found it a bit incomprehensible at the time, although I think I was probably a bit too young for it at that point (I was about 9 or 10). Also, as I had to watch it with my parents closely monitoring the material, and with it being a late night Channel 4 show, I was constantly on edge that it would suddenly get really embarrassingly rude and nudey at any moment (Vic and Bob were an unknown quantity to me and my family at that point, so we had no idea what could happen).

But Smell Of... is where it all clicked for me. Loads of little turns of phrase and pronunciations of words that, for better or worse, I still unconsciously use today, came from that show. I loved that show much, and it influenced me at a young, impressionable age, I can't sing its praises highly enough.  From memory, the first series felt the more surreal one, more in line with the Variety-Show-gone-weird atmosphere of Big Night Out, whereas the second series felt more slapstick and like a traditional sketch show, but that could just me being influenced by the colour and style Vic's hair being more Big Night Out in the first series than the second. Loved both series' equally though.

The DVDs sadly were a bit of a half-arsed job, as others have mentioned. I seem to recall lots of stuff being cut from the VHSs I had, although it's been years since I watched both versions[nb]no VHS player, and lots of my DVDs are now packed away due to the prevalence of streaming over the years[/nb] so I can't remember off the top of me head what the differences are, but maybe it's time to revisit them.

[chrispmartha]

Smell Of.. is where I got on the Vic and Bob fan wagon. I'd actually tried with Big Night a couple of years prior but I found it a bit incomprehensible at the time, although I think I was probably a bit too young for it at that point (I was about 9 or 10). Also, as I had to watch it with my parents closely monitoring the material, and with it being a late night Channel 4 show, I was constantly on edge that it would suddenly get really embarrassingly rude and nudey at any moment (Vic and Bob were an unknown quantity to me and my family at that point, so we had no idea what could happen).

But Smell Of... is where it all clicked for me. Loads of little turns of phrase and pronunciations of words that, for better or worse, I still unconsciously use today, came from that show. I loved that show much, and it influenced me at a young, impressionable age, I can't sing its praises highly enough.  From memory, the first series felt the more surreal one, more in line with the Variety-Show-gone-weird atmosphere of Big Night Out, whereas the second series felt more slapstick and like a traditional sketch show, but that could just me being influenced by the colour and style Vic's hair being more Big Night Out in the first series than the second. Loved both series' equally though.

The DVDs sadly were a bit of a half-arsed job, as others have mentioned. I seem to recall lots of stuff being cut from the VHSs I had, although it's been years since I watched both versions[nb]no VHS player, and lots of my DVDs are now packed away due to the prevalence of streaming over the years[/nb] so I can't remember off the top of me head what the differences are, but maybe it's time to revisit them.

Very much echoes my thoughts on it, there's probably very few days that a line from smell of doesn't enter my thoughts or indeed dialogue.

I literally cannot here the word shoebox without repeating it in bob's marvin gaye voice.

[DrGreggles]

You've not impressed the bloke from Go West

Coogan's best work.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Reeves and Mortimer's Driving School is up on YouTube, which despite being endorsed by the RAC can't possibly have been much use to learner drivers, but is a fantastic slice of extended R&M tomfoolery, possibly the missing link between The Weekenders and Catterick

I loved Driving School.

"My name is Victor Maranello, popstar and Advocaat drinker, I know you young people like that kind of thing"

"I earn upward and in excess of 120 pounds and week and that's no word of a lie!"

[willy crossit]

The best R&M series proper, edging out Bang Bang for me (although The Club is still the finest R&M thing. I like to read through the 'small moments in comedy' thread from time to time and I swear it comes up every couple of pages which is impressive for something that's probably only about 50 mins total).

My dad taped it for me when I was little and when my auntie and uncle would come round to look after me I would just watch it endlessly. Quite scary and strange in places which definitely helped draw me in.

The DVD release was a big thing for me because I hadn't seen it properly since then and it was amazing to watch all those half-remembered sketches and bits again.

So many great bits. One character who gets overlooked a bit is Vic's Chris Bell who I love when he pops up - I remember seeing him described on wikipedia simply as 'an ignorant, belligerent Cockney' which I always thought is such a good description. Just a complete pain in the arse.

[jobotic]

SHOW ME YOUR BOTTOM


This one of your wife's stockings? Blimey she's a big old bird.


Funny to me that my dad was a Monty Python fan but when I'd ask to watch R&M round his house he'd say it was just unfunny nonsense.

[thenoise]

Oh my parents absolutely hated R&M. Which was certainly part of the appeal early on.

Monty Python was a little bit Oxbridgey, which made laughing at their juvenile nonsense acceptable in their eyes.

[The Culture Bunker]

My dad was never that taken with Vic, but thought Bob was brilliant. I'm not sure in the similarity in Boro and Cumbrian accents has something to do with it, but even now he'll still be enthusing when Bob has been on 'Would I Lie To You?'

[idunnosomename]

I have the DVDs, but it is indeed a damned shame how shit they are

[poodlefaker]

Popadoodledandy is worth the watch, if you fast forward through the bands; it's astonishing that they never re-used such golden stuff as the Eno / Wakeman sketch, which goes to show how confident and creative they were at that time.

I also have fond memories of the BBC2 Night-in with Vic and Bob around the same time (?) - top quality material for such a schedule-filling format.

I had a friend who had The Weekenders on  VHS; when I asked to borrow it he brought it round, sat and watched it with me, then took it home because it was too precious to lend.

[DrGreggles]

Popadoodledandy is worth the watch, if you fast forward through the bands

Apart from Cud!

[poodlefaker]

My old mum loved Vic and Bob; her other favourites were Brucie and Morecambe and Wise, because of the way they moved, she always said: very light on their feet. R&M were the only other  comedians with that quality, in her opinion.

[Catalogue Trousers]

'Greg...Greg, you ponce...'

[ProvanFan]

Take care, clergy on a cliff top

[beanheadmcginty]

I honestly think Slade in Residence would have worked as a proper sitcom in its own right.

[All Surrogate]

I do like that the BBC props department loved Vic & Bob because of the insane things they wanted in the shows.

[petril]

I honestly think Slade in Residence would have worked as a proper sitcom in its own right.

I could see it either being like late Friday night grown up weirdness(ie they casually throw in a swear word every ten minutes for no reason and never refer back to it)

or more exciting, a proper anarchic CBBC sitcom. 4.35 on Friday. Christmas special where the real Nod shows up in a guest part

[jobotic]

She just lay back boozing

[Cold Meat Platter]

Nice slab of dark.

[PaulTMA]

I remember being an alter boy and the "angel seen near kiwi shoe polish factory" bit popping into my head and having to run round the back due to laughing hysterically

[dr beat]

I also have fond memories of the BBC2 Night-in with Vic and Bob around the same time (?) - top quality material for such a schedule-filling format.

I love University Challenge haircuts.

Spoiler alert

The Encirclement of Terror

[close]

[ProvanFan]

I remember being an alter boy and the "angel seen near kiwi shoe polish factory" bit popping into my head and having to run round the back due to laughing hysterically

You ruined that song, sweet boy!

[The Crumb]

This has inspired me to do a rewatch, so many forgotten moments of joy. They seem to be having an absolute blast making it, it's great spotting all the corpsing. The bit with the banjos in the ending song of episode 4 really got me.