Vic Reeves Big Night Out

I felt the need to defend this programme after reading the first review written by someone who has never been a fan. Everybody is entitled to an opinion and i understand that Vic & Bob's humour is not for the masses. In fact it tends to be very much a love or hate thing (My mum loved it, my dad hated it!).

I remember the first time this was shown on television. I would have been around 15 years old and it had a huge impact on me. I had always been more into comedy than music like most of my mates and this was not only a new show but a brand new style of comedy, much in the same way that Python paved the way for so many comedians, i reckon BNO or rather Mr Reeves and Mr Mortimer did the same in the nineties. Not that comedy had gone stale during that time, we had some great programmes; Absolutely (the Scottish sketch show, not to be confused with Absolutely Fabulous), The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Fry & Laurie, Harry Enfield and Chums, etc etc. So for BNO to be such a breath of fresh air took some doing! These days you'd be hard pushed to find anything that stood out from the crowd, with the exception of The Office, The Mighty Boosh and Peep Show (with maybe a handful of others). But i can safely say that nothing has made my jaw drop in sheer wonderment in the way Vic & Bob did back then. Yes it was rough around the edges, the props were bad (that was the point) sometimes the timing was off, but you could forgive them anything for that next belly laugh.

They just simply did what they thought was funny. THAT'S it. No statements, no irony, satire or the need for any kind of structure. You saw, you laughed. End of. Visual humour that went way beyond slapstick and into another realm.

From the very first viewing they had me, i was hooked and woe-betide the video recorder if it malfunctioned during the show. Vic Reeves' Big Night Out is one of my fondest memories from my teenage years and throughout their careers Jim & Bob have remained two of my most favourite people in the world!

(Although i have to admit, i think the Smell Of series was ever so slightly better :P )

I consider Vic Reeves Big Night to be one of the finest comedy shows ever to have adorned British television. It was brilliantly funny, incredibly inventive and superbly performed. It is comedy in the true sense, in that the objects or names that Vic mentions (eg when he's looking at what the man with the stick has written on his helmet) are funny in themselves. Reeves and Mortimer had an unerring ability to know exactly what was funny. So one type of vegetable is funny, another is not. The mere mention of one celebrity's name is funny, another is not. This is observational comedy in its purest form, and a sign of witty, perceptive minds. Get the DVD of this and keep it close. They don't make many like this.

To me, this is/was the best television programme ever - simple as.

There's something about BNO that has stuck with me since I first saw it in the early nineties. It was cheaply made, a minimal cast, yet for that it was honest and ridiculously hilarious. It has a natural funniness that I've just not seen on anything since - it just didn't try too hard, it was just that funny.

But as a couple of reviewers have said here, either you get it or you don't - there is absolutely no middle ground. You won't 'half' like it. It is truly silly - but intelligent at the same time. Part of its humour is the way lots of different comedy concepts are seamlessly included - verbosity, falling over, sarcasm - it works on many levels. But there you go - I'm over-analysing.

Just watch it; if you don't find it funny, you've lost nothing. But if you do, you might have just discovered what you'll see as the funniest thing ever.

Just been gifted the DVD set for my birthday I'm having trouble writing this as my sides hurt from laughing so much Genius is often banned about these days but in this case Genius is the only word fitting VIC REEVES WILL SAVE US ALL!

This show is hilarious. When it first came out it changed the way I saw the world. In the UK it was the last show that everyone watched and everyone talked about it every week.

Comedy snobs might criticise it for catchphrases and prop comedy, but only the ones who think Otto and George should be marked down for being a puppet act. Sure, a lot of hack comedy uses props, puppets or catchphrases but to use them and be strikingly original (And derivative) takes genius. The point of comedy is to be funny. Stick your rules where the sun don't shine.

It's regrettable that none of their subsequent work has lived up to this striking beginning* but, to paraphrase Josef Heller, whose has?

This show made the world a better place for me and millions of others and I'm forever grateful. Thank you Slim. Thank you, stocky feller.

*On TV anyway. Vic's drawings are brilliant and Bob's podcast Athletico Mince is superb.