The Mighty Boosh-Series 1 (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Featurette-Making Of-Inside The Zooniverse Featurette-History Of The Boosh Outtakes Gallery-Photo Audio Commentary-Four episodes, Julian Barrat, Rich Fulcher, Noel Fielding Featurette-Musical Bits
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	224:35 (Case: 240)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Paul King
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Noel Fielding Julian Barratt Michael Fielding Rich Fulcher Matt Berry Victoria Wicks
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI	$29.95	Music	Julian Barratt

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Howard Moon (Julian Barrat) and Vince Noir (Noel Fielding) are zookeepers at the Zooniverse, they live in a little hut on the zoo grounds that doubles as their office. Howard is an intellectually conceited, jazz obsessed grump with a lust for the head of the zoo's reptile house. Vince, the self proclaimed "king of the mods", is an ever-positive, aloof fellow whose life revolves around hair and Gary Numan. The Mighty Boosh tells of their adventures "through space and time" - an excuse to take the pair to whatever warped place the writers' minds could venture.

    The Zooniverse is a rather compact British zoo that is shonkily run by the crass American Bob Fossil (Rich Fulcher) on behalf of the philanthropic adventurer Dixon Bainbridge (Matt Berry). Fossil may not know the names of any of the animals, but he is an expert at kissing Bainbridge's well-travelled backside. This pair frequently act as a catalyst for the adventures of Vince and Howard. Other important Zooniverse regulars are Naboo (Michael Fielding), the shaman who runs the zoo's gift shop and provides spiritual advice for all, and a wide assortment of animals.

    The format of The Mighty Boosh is vary similar to that of The Goodies. A twisted logic drives each episode and the humour is incredibly silly. Each episode is shot entirely in studio with simple, yet effective, sets and props that are designed to give the show a "live cartoon" feel to the proceedings. The show turns to song at least once per episode, another brush of The Goodies although The Mighty Boosh truly makes their incorporation of the novelty song their own and in an ever wonderfully absurd way. There is no continuity between episodes, each is an entirely self contained odyssey and everyone finds themselves in pretty much the same place at the start of each (which frequently sees characters that have perished in one episode alive and well in the next).

    The Mighty Boosh is one of the freshest comedies about at the moment. There is nothing else quite like it being made nowadays. It is silly, lives in its own little world and, in a word, brilliant.

    The episodes on this two-disc set are:

1. Killeroo: Blackmailed by Bob Fossil into fighting a kangaroo in an underground boxing match, Howard turns to Vince to learn how to fight.
2. Mutants: Animals and zookeepers have been going missing throughout the zoo and all signs point to Dixon Bainbridge's secret laboratory being involved.
3. Bollo: Bollo the gorilla is on his last legs, but a wealthy zoo sponsor wants to see him in action so Howard is roped into donning a monkey suit to impersonate him. Unfortunately he does such a convincing job that death accidentally takes him to monkey hell in Bollo's place.
4. Tundra: Howard and Vince search the arctic tundra for the fabled "Egg of Mantumbi" in an effort to outdo Dixon Bainbridge. Alas, this exploration leads them to the evil ice demon "Black Frost".
5. Jungle: In order to prevent the sale of the zoo to property developers, Howard and Vince enter the zoo's long-closed Jungle Room to try and find the zoo's previous owner Tommy Nooka.
6. Charlie: Howard becomes a writer in an attempt to impress Mrs Gideon, head of the zoo's Reptile House, but finds frustration when Vince outdoes him with his stories of Charlie the bubblegum man.
7. Electro: Vince joins an electro-pop band. Howard, still scarred from having sold his soul to the Spirit of Jazz, attempts to warn him of the dangers of musical fame.
8. Hitcher: Transporting an enraged bear to animal prison, Vince and Howard get lost and are captured by a madman hitchhiker.

Video

    The show is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video is of the standard you would reasonably expect of a recent British comedy series - very good, but not great. The image is quite sharp. There is a small degree of low level noise noticeable in each of the episodes. There is a good degree of detail visible in shadows and dark scenes.

    The colours in the show are quite bold, but skin tones are occasionally a touch on the pink side.

    The series looks to have been shot in-studio on video, so there are no film artefacts visible. A degree of pixelation is noticeable throughout the episodes, but it is generally not distracting. One exception to this is the early portion of the last episode Hitcher, particularly around the 4:00 mark, where pixelation is obvious in the faces of the two lead characters. There are no other noticeable MPEG compression related artefacts.

    English subtitles are provided. Based on the portion I sampled, they appear accurate and reasonably well timed.

    This is a RSDL disc, but layer breaks occur between episodes and are consequently not noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    One English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kbps) soundtrack is present in each episode. It is of a high quality for a stereo track.

    The dialogue is clearly audible and well synchronized throughout.

    The show breaks into song at least once every episode, but otherwise features little in the way of music. The musical numbers particularly highlight the great sonic depth featured in the soundtrack.

    There is a noticeable degree of pro-logic surround usage in the soundtrack, particularly during the musical numbers. The musical numbers also feature plenty of deep bass that is picked up in the subwoofer region.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Inside The Zooniverse Making Of Featurette (28:06)

    A rather comprehensive and entertaining "Making Of" featurette. Running from the initial concept and development stages of the show, through to the construction of the outrageous costumes and makeup, set development and music development. Each of the interviewees are quite funny and informative without being too full of themselves.

History Of The Boosh Featurette (9:38)

    A featurette that traces the life of The Mighty Boosh from its original pitch through various stage show incarnations and finally to the show itself.

Boosh Music Clips (12:11)

    Most of the musical numbers from the episodes are available as individual clips on the second disc. Although this presents nothing that can't be seen in the episodes themselves, it's a good feature simply because the musical bits are frequently the most fun in the episodes.

Outtakes (6:14)

    A handful of rather amusing outtakes. Many, and certainly the funniest, arise from ad-libs gone out of control.

Picture Gallery

    25 promotional stills for the show, navigated via the remote.

Commentary With Julian Barrat, Noel Fielding and Rich Fulcher

    Commentaries are available for four of the episodes (Bollo, Tundra, Electro and Hitcher) . The content of the commentaries varies immensely in both content and quality. The three commentators generally have no idea what to say and aren't interested in doing a technical commentary, so the result is a hit and miss bag of gags and anecdotes. Not a bad listen while you're doing the ironing, but far from essential.

    An identical set to the Region 4 release is available in Region 2. The Mighty Boosh is not currently available in Region 1.

    Simply brilliant. An outrageous comedy in the spirit of The Goodies, though set in a far more bizarre universe - the Zooniverse!

    Video quality is decent, fairly typical of a recent British comedy. Audio is very good. The extras are quite substantial.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall