MELISSA BLOCK, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand.
You either really love "The Mighty Boosh." Or you just don't get it. Or more likely, you've never heard of them. Here's a taste.
(Soundbite of TV series, "The Mighty Boosh")
Mr. JULIAN BARRATT (Actor): (As Howard Moon) That is just making me feel physically sick. What is that gloomy racket?
Mr. NOEL FIELDING (Actor): (As Vince Noir) That's The Human League.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) That is electro-nonsense.
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) They're electro pioneers. They invented music.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Invented music?
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) Yeah.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) What happened before then then?
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) It was just tuning up before then.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Are you aware of the music known as jazz? Are you aware of jazz music, the movement of jazz?
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) Why do you keep going on about jazz for?
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Because it's the most important art form in the 20th century.
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) No one listens to jazz. Science teachers and the mentally ill, that's all jazz is for.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) You better take that back, you electro-ponce.
BRAND: "The Mighty Boosh" is a British TV comedy. Imagine a cross between "Monty Python," "H.R. Pufnstuf" and "Flight of the Conchords." It stars two comedians and a small cast of characters, some of whom aren't human. They've traveled to the Arctic to find a magic egg, and carried on an existentialist debate with coconuts on a desert island. Oh, and they do it all while making up silly little songs they call crimps.
(Soundbite of TV series, "The Mighty Boosh")
Mr. BARRATT and Mr. FIELDING: (As Howard Moon and Vince Noir) (Singing) Ooh, ooh, ooh, I did a twisty Ooh ooh ooh, a tiny twisty. Twist them up, twist them down. Twist them all around like the cobra dancing to the music of the pipe, the pipe, the pipe, the pipe of life.
BRAND: The TV show is a cult hit in Britain and the Boosh just wrapped up a short tour here in the States where you can catch their show on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim." Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding are the stars and creators of "The Mighty Boosh." They join us from the BBC Studios in London. Welcome to the show.
Mr. BARRATT: Hi.
Mr. FIELDING: Hey.
BRAND: I kind of did a lengthy description of your show.
Mr. FIELDING: I liked it, yeah.
Mr. BARRATT: That was a saucy intro.
BRAND: How would you describe your show?
Mr. BARRATT: Oh, I can't do that very well. So…
Mr. FIELDING: I draw pictures of it. I'm drawing a picture of the show now.
Mr. BARRATT: Yeah, this is radio, though.
BRAND: Radio. This doesn't quite work.
Mr. BARRATT: So I could describe it in sounds: un haday ha(ph). How's that?
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: How did you two come up with your characters?
Mr. FIELDING: They're not only characters. They're just us.
BRAND: Is it you?
Mr. FIELDING: They're not very far away. They're about 12 centimeters away from our actual characters.
BRAND: So you really are into jazz and you really are into The Human League?
Mr. BARRATT: It's just a documentary, "The Boosh." We started writing together and we just - I am into jazz and Noel's into pop and we sort of just accentuated those aspects of our self and…
Mr. FIELDING: You can't lie about this stuff. You can't invent it. It has to come from somewhere, otherwise it feels fake.
Mr. BARRATT: Means we don't have to do as much research.
Mr. FIELDING: Mm, yeah.
BRAND: One of my favorite episodes is "The Nightmare of Milky Joe." Can you set that up for us?
Mr. BARRATT: That's our favorite, I think, because it's just sort of about -we're washed up on a desert island and I'd seen "Castaway" with Tom Hanks and thought that would be a good thing to happen to me and Noel, but I thought it would be interesting if, you know, I was speaking to something and making friends with an inanimate object. And then, you know, Vince turns up and goes, what are you doing? I'm here. And he goes, well, I want a decent conversation, you know.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. FIELDING: So he's got a coconut.
Mr. BARRATT: So he's got a coconut, which he dresses up. And then, of course…
(Soundbite of TV series, "The Mighty Boosh")
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) I met a woman.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Who's this?
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) None of your business.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Are you going to introduce me?
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) This is Ruby.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Ruby? It's a lovely name. Very pleased to meet you, Howard Moon. Don't get up.
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) Nice, isn't she? Can I help you in any way?
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) Yeah. I was just wondering if you would both would care to join me and Milky Joe this evening for a night cap.
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) No, we're fine, thanks.
Mr. BARRATT: (As Howard Moon) I spruced up the hut a little bit, actually, given it a bit of makeover, you might interested in having a look see. Both of you.
Mr. FIELDING: (As Vince Noir) That sounds electric, but we'll take a rain check.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BARRATT: Well, it's quite interesting is to play it very seriously because it's almost like a quiet sort of dramatic, tragic, sort of storyline and - but if you play it really seriously, but it's got coconuts in it, it just becomes sort of funny without having to do much.
Mr. FIELDING: Also, we used the puppet company who make puppets and they were making the coconuts very animated and very…
Mr. BARRATT: Bit Disney-ish.
Mr. FIELDING: Really brought them to life. And we said we think we just need to have faces sort of almost drawn or, you know, eyes - (unintelligible) coconuts and have them very deadpan and still. They didn't talk or do anything because it was funnier for some reason.
Mr. BARRATT: I think we were talking to Matt Stone and Trey Parker recently, when we came to the States. And they were saying they have a similar thing with their characters, this sort of deadness to them that they'll need.
BRAND: The creators of "South Park."
Mr. FIELDING: Yeah.
Mr. BARRATT: Yeah, a stillness that they want from - to make something funny, you know.
Mr. FIELDING: Or deadpan.
BRAND: Did - so how do you actually make the props and design effects?
Mr. BARRATT: We used to do, yeah, when we toured it was just me driving and because, of course, Noel doesn't drive, so I would drive us. And then we would build all the props (unintelligible) the music and we would turn up and we would do everything, you know…
Mr. FIELDING: Everything.
Mr. BARRATT: So, everything we made from gaffer tape…
Mr. FIELDING: Love gaffer tape. You can make anything out of gaffer tape.
Mr. BARRATT: We became a bit of a look and so we tried to maintain that, even though we could afford not to make things from gaffer anymore. But we sort of wanted to maintain that look.
BRAND: So you started in - started doing standup before live audiences and created "The Mighty Boosh" as a theater piece and then took it to TV?
Mr. FIELDING: We got paid to write a TV show and then when we gave it to them they didn't really understand it because there's a lot of dialogue on the page and it was just pages of dialogue. And they sort of didn't really understand it. So we thought, oh, let's do it live and then show them how it works, you know. And then they sort of said it's great live, but how it would work on TV? We're just going around and around in circles, so…
Mr. BARRATT: We built a TV and got inside it and showed them.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. FIELDING: And it worked like that.
Mr. BARRATT: Yeah, shrunk ourselves down and used puppets to demonstrate how we would work on TV. I think we initially wanted to - we said initially that we wanted to do like Python and that was sort of like, everyone, I mean, we all grew up on Python, but we sort of, rather than just a stream of consciousness type show, we wanted a sort of adventure and a sort of team of people within that, sort of to go through the madness.
Mr. FIELDING: We never really did sketches either.
Mr. BARRATT: No.
Mr. FIELDING: We were always interested in narratives for some reason, little stories or adventures.
BRAND: It sounds like, 'cause you - all of this was so just handmade and just the two of you doing everything at the beginning and now your show has become this cult hit in the U.K. and you're trying to conquer the U.S. Are you surprised by your popularity?
Mr. BARRATT: We're not trying to conquer the U.S.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BARRATT: Always so violent. They just, you know, we're just coming over and going to…
Mr. FIELDING: Just breezing in.
Mr. BARRATT: Breezing about.
Mr. FIELDING: Caressing people.
Mr. BARRATT: Running a hot bath and, you know, get in if you want.
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: Can you help Americans out and tell us what "The Mighty Boosh" means. What does Boosh mean?
Mr. BARRATT: You don't need to know, it's fine.
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: I do, I do. Now I really want to know.
MR. BARRATT: Actually, where it came from was my little brother had big curly hair when he was a kid and his little friend was Portuguese or something and he used to say, oh, you got a mighty boosh. I used to think that was absolutely hilarious. So, probably just jotted it down and we just came across it one day and Julian went, we should call our show "The Mighty Boosh." But I don't know, really. It doesn't really mean anything. It could mean whatever you want. But people call us the Boosh anyway now, so it's a bit more like a band rather than lawyers. Barratt and Fielding sounds really dull, doesn't it?
Mr. FIELDING: The Barratt-Fielding show.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. FIELDING: Here they come.
Mr. BARRATT: Their wry observation.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. FIELDING: Wouldn't be the same show, would it?
Mr. BARRATT: Little Barratt and Barratt.
Mr. FIELDING: We'd have suits on.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. FIELDING: This is Fielding. What have you been up to? Tough day at the office?
Mr. BARRATT: Oh yes. That's why we're not called Barratt and Fielding. Just - it doesn't work.
BRAND: Doesn't work. No, it doesn't work. Thank you both very much.
Mr. FIELDING: Thank you.
Mr. BARRATT: Thank you.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: That's Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, the stars and creators of the BBC comedy show "The Mighty Boosh." All three seasons of the Boosh have just been released on DVD here in the States. And you can find video clips of "The Mighty Boosh" in the Art and Life section at the new npr.org.
Copyright © 2009 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.