The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer is a BBC TV sketch show written by and starring double act Vic & Bob (Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer). Its first series appeared in 1993 following the duo's move to the BBC after parting company with Channel 4. The show developed and expanded upon the absurd, anarchic comedy that the pair had first explored on Channel 4's Vic Reeves Big Night Out.
The major development from the previous series was that Mortimer now hosted the show alongside Reeves. As well as Mortimer getting his name in the title, he and Reeves sat together behind the large prop-strewn desk.
With virtually all of the Vic Reeves Big Night Out characters consigned to the past (only Greg Mitchell and the Stotts survived, with the Stotts appearing in the second series), a whole range of new characters appeared. The show also featured pre-recorded sketches, toast and a lavish studio set laden with columns and pillars, and in the centre the enormous letters R&M, from which the duo emerged at the start of each show.
The show would usually close with the song "Let's Have a Little Bit More", which saw the pair enthusing about various smells, from "Pol Pot's dungarees" to "Lulu's hairdos".
Series 1 The first series established the format of the show. Each programme began with an absurd introduction, narrated by Patrick Allen ("Austria, 1930, a young boy is challenged by his mischievous grandfather to attempt to throw a handbell at the local village idiot") before the studio set appeared and Allen introduced the duo ("Please welcome Libya's foremost air-conditioning engineers, Reeves & Mortimer"), after which the pair would sing a song before seating themselves at the desk to tell silly jokes, introduce their guests and endorse various Reeves & Mortimer products (such as the "Reeves & Mortimer Walk-Me-Home Cheddar" and "The Home Vibration Cowboy Unit").
A regular feature was a spoof of a then-current TV programme, such as Food & Drink, which saw host Chris Kelly (Bob), whose head was made of toasted cheese and a box of tea bags, and whose legs gradually became ridiculously long, afterwards boiling his head in a pot to "prepare a nice pot of tea", and Antiques Roadshow, where a termite mound containing the singer Prince was found inside a wardrobe. Perhaps the most bizarre was Noel's Addicts, an insane parody of a show hosted by Noel Edmonds in 1992 about people's hobbies.
The duo would frequently promise a celebrity guest such as Burt Reynolds, who turned out to be Vic in a strange outfit yelling about his book Coping With Stress, Cuban soap star Juan Nelly The Elephant (Vic), who kept intermittently turning into an electrical salesman, and Ian Crust, the Inventor of the Bag (Bob).
At the end of series 1, Bob played a huge practical joke on Vic, who lapsed into a coma. After a rousing final song, Bob unplugged his life-support machine.
Characters
The Bra Men – Pat Wright & Dave Arrowsmith
Two aggressive, donkey-jacket wearing men from the North East town of Hartlepool (Vic and Bob), who get extremely upset at people for "lookin' at my bra". They accuse anyone, be it the postman, a traffic warden or a milkman of "inspecting our charms" and also get very angry if someone inadvertently comments that they are "flat-chested". Also, despite telling the unwitting person they are dealing with where to stick the items they have to give them, they usually just take them anyway. These two were reportedly based on men with whom Reeves worked in a factory.
Le Corbussier et Papin
Vic and Bob as two extraordinarily flatulent Frenchmen, in a series of sketches that were filmed in the style of arty French comedies (titles included "L'homme, L'homme, L'femme (La fenêtre)"), accompanied only by whimsical music and the duo's deliberately dubbed on French-speaking voices (the French dialogue made virtually no sense.) They usually saw the pair riding along on their bicycles before encountering things which were deemed worthy of investigation (a kids' playground, where they got a roundabout spinning by the sheer volume of flatulence; a funfair where they attempted to fart-start a motorbike). The two would frequently shout "Papa" and "Nicole" in reference to Renault Clio's Papa and Nicole advertivising campaign.
Slade in Residence
This series of spoof sketches saw the '70s glam rock group Slade in their council house. Noddy (Vic), Jim (Paul Whitehouse) and Don (Mark Williams) were the three mischievous ones who were constantly arguing, wrecking the house and messing around with fireworks, much to the annoyance of the motherly Dave (Bob). Also featured famous Midlands musicians Ozzy Osbourne (Neil Morrissey), UB40, Roy Wood and Simon le Bon (last two Charlie Higson).
Mulligan & O'Hare
An eccentric folk duo, possibly spoofing the style of Foster & Allen, both named Dermot. Both wear tight polo necks. Mulligan (Vic) has breasts, presumably due to an incident with hormone replacement pills, while O'Hare (Bob) has a big beard. They sing songs such as "Frustrated By Weeds" and "My Rose Has Left Me", the latter about O'Hare's ex-wife Rose, a bald woman who went "to Kenya with the bloke from Allied Carpets." They have released groundbreaking albums, such as The Onion Ring, Moods, Coffee Break, Pancake Day and Tittybiscuits, and are well known for their instrumental cover versions of popular songs such as "When a Child is Born" and "Brimful of Asha". After several years away from the limelight, Mulligan and O'Hare appeared in episodes of Shooting Stars in 2010, and in 2014 they appeared on The Life of Rock with Brian Pern.
Otis Redding & Marvin Gaye
Vic and Bob played the soul music legends as the show's resident "agony aunts"; two tiny puppets who were on a TV in a cupboard, "sitting on the dock of the bay watching the ships coming in and going out again." Both spoke in a Teesside accent and in blackface. Bob's Marvin became increasingly bored and unhappy as the series progressed, complaining that they never saw any ships and wanting to go "down the Grapevine to have a drink" but Otis and Marvin were always more than willing to offer expert advice on such matters as "how to deal with Guy Fawking of the leg."
Barry White
"The Walrus of Love" Barry White was played by Vic in blackface as a huge puppet who had tiny little legs and spent his time seducing women with his smooth-talk, and cooking chopped liver. The women turned out to be a pineapple and a piece of copper pipe.
Jack Dent & Eric Potter
These two were always up-to-no-good in a series of '60s style public information film spoofs, set in the Country, the Factory and the Home. The narrator would frequently interrupt Vic and Bob in the middle of some nefarious activity ("Hey you?" "Who, us?" Yes, you... don't you know that the wallpapering of ploughs is prohibited under the country code?" "No." "Well, it is, for it can cause ploughwright distraction leading to seed misplacement, so stop it.") The narrator was revealed on each separate occasion to be a guitar-wielding spring onion, a crab, and a man called Mr Porridge, whom the duo shot. These sketches used the voice of Patrick Allen – the voice-over man for the series, and utilised his previous experience narrating public service films.
The Booze For t'Baby Man
A man who wandered around in a brown mac, and frequently asked Vic and Bob if they had "any booze for t'baby?" to which they would reply, "You can't give a baby BOOZE".
Whisky & Brandy Bolland
Two fey Scotsmen who appeared in the Antiques Roadshow spoof, investigating a wardrobe which contained "wee clothes, wee shoes... almost too wee." They eventually discovered a termite mound with Prince living inside it. They had their suspicions before finding him, because he had "only painted 18 inches above sea level." Brandy (Vic) then removed the diminutive singer and booted him through a basketball hoop. Whisky (Bob) remained convinced that Brandy was in fact Dr Nemesis.
Greg Mitchell & Corky
One of the only survivors of Vic Reeves Big Night Out was the puppet Greg Mitchell, the "gorgeous sandy coloured labrador" who was always wasting money on ludicrous things. His fey voice would give way to a guttural Cockney bellow as he would despairingly yell, "My wife's gonna kill me". His friend Corky was a dodgy mongrel cum gangster who stitched Greg up with a bungled bank robbery.
Derek & Chester
Two gruff, boozy men who appeared on the Food & Drink spoof reviewing the Lovely Brown Boozes, before Derek (Vic) let slip that his girlfriend Maggie had left him. They then appeared in Antiques Roadshow wanting to get a bottle of Babycham valued, before giving it generously to the Booze For t'Baby man.
Uncle Peter
Played by comedian Charlie Chuck, Uncle Peter was a big-haired, battered-suit wearing lunatic with a bizarre gait and an unnerving habit of shouting incomprehensibly ("DONKEY!") He was in a band, which featured himself and an unidentified electric organ player played by Trevor Peacock. The band saw Peter shout random nonsense before completely destroying his drumkit. Peter was always wary of being sent back "to t'dark place" by Vic and Bob.
Series 2 The second series appeared in 1995, and a few changes to the format of the first series had occurred. The unusual introductions followed by a song continued (an example was a history of cheese followed by an upbeat song investigating the link between cottage cheese and voodoo) and the same closing song (which originally appeared on the pilot for Vic Reeves Big Night Out), but while the set was essentially the same, the desk was different - it had a slick, red surface, a metal body and a fox stretched across its entire length.
While still offbeat and irreverent, the second series had a less absurd, more overtly slapstick atmosphere to it, with Vic increasingly the buffoon to Bob's disapproving figure. Any disagreement was usually the cue for the duo's now-trademark fights with increasingly large frying pans and hammers.
The finale to each show would usually see a despairing Bob attempting to entertain the audience, whether singing The Way We Were on skis or For All of Us from within a glass bottle, playing The British Countryside on the flute, or playing his enormous organ, which happened to contain a fully functioning pub. Vic would barge in and ruin everything for Bob before the usual, rousing "Let's Have A Little Bit More" song would close the proceedings.
Reeves & Mortimer products were no longer advertised by the duo themselves, but in the form of "commercials." Products this time included the coffee-table books Dogs in Their Hats and Cats in Bomber Jackets, Webster's Savoury Edible Tights and Papa's Nappies For Men.
Spoofs of then-current TV shows continued, including MasterChef spoof, with Vic as Loyd Grossman with a huge bulbous head floating around the studio to the sound of bells, and the contestants including Morwenna Banks as Joan Baptiste, who presented a faceplate in the form of Jesus Christ, with her own severed ears the speciality, Matt Lucas as the victorious Quentin Mint, who presented a human backside with a side salad, and Bob as the hapless Lucas Bon'chomme whose replica cake of a shoe ("Cake like a shoe, it's a shoe-cake") turned out to be a real shoe, as did his "cakey-phone."
Episodes Cheese (5 May 1995) Haircuts (12 May 1995) Toddlers (19 May 1995) Clothes (26 May 1995) Muscle Chemicals (2 June 1995) Flight 709 (9 June 1995)
Characters Many of the characters from series 1 returned. Uncle Peter was as insane as ever, tormenting the duo with his tales of upgrading to "donkey" status in British Rail carriages, leaving his family heirlooms lying around on the desk and showing off his singing German owls.
The Booze For t'Baby man continued his quest to find some booze for his baby, which eventually brought him a bottle of Babycham, for which he was moderately thankful.