"Come with us now on a journey through time and space... to the world of the Mighty Boosh."Thus begins each episode of the gleefully surreal British comedy series The Mighty Boosh, which is finally available Stateside on DVD beginning today after brief runs of the series' three seasons to date on both BBC America and Adult Swim over the past few years. Available as three separate two-disc sets, The Mighty Boosh: Seasons One, Two, and Three offer up a delightful look inside the deliciously twisted minds of creators and stars Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.
Despite their relative anonymity in the States, The Mighty Boosh has long been a watchword for comedians and comedy fans in the know. Each episode of the series, which began as a stand-up act and then a radio series before making the leap to the small screen, follows the unlikely duo of Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) and Vince Noir (Noel Fielding) as they get themselves into a series of acid-trip misadventures.
The three seasons of The Mighty Boosh are positively overflowing with musical riffs, crimping (yes!), animation, image projection, philosophizing moons, talking gorillas, and druggie shamans. There's no real sense of continuity or cohesion; characters murdered on-screen in one episode return in the next no worse for the wear. Everything has a feeling of a waking dream about it. Or in some cases ("Eels" or "The Legend of Old Gregg") an outright nightmare.
Which is what I love so bloody much about The Mighty Boosh: you never know just what you're going to get episode to episode. Season One finds the duo working as zookeepers, Season Two as housemates in a Dalton flat, and Season Three as shopkeepers at Nabootique, a second-hand shop owned by shaman Naboo the Enigma (Michael Fielding) and his familiar gorilla Bollo (Dave Brown). But the setting never matters; it's always a jumping off point for some supremely weird journeys into the psychedelic.
Howard and Vince couldn't be more different: Howard's a jazz freak with a penchant for organizing stationery and worshiping vintage vinyl records of obscure musicians; Vince is the anthropomorphized embodiment of au courant fashion and music, a cutting-edge bohemian who is several steps ahead of the public in every sense. Together, they comprise a winning mix of yin and yang, id and ego, and twisted self-indulgence. There's no scrape that these two don't wind up in, whether it's summoning an evil elderly woman demon named Nana and inadvertently unleashing Nanaggedon, searching for the fountain of youth on a distant planet, battling a flatulent syringe-fingered crack-addicted urban fox, tangling with a green, murderous Cockney alien called The Hitcher, or creating coconut people after getting stranded on a deserted island.
Barratt and Fielding play a host of other characters in addition to Howard and Vince, creating some memorable (and at times terrifying) personalities in the process. In addition to The Hitcher, the half-man, half-fish transsexual Old Gregg (with a downstairs mix-up and a love of Bailey's), the dim-witted Man in the Moon, and the aforementioned Crack Fox remain some of the most stunning and twisted creations ever created for television. (And that's to say nothing of Rich Fulcher's Bob Fossil or the slew of characters he contributes to the mix.)
But words really fail when it comes to the unique magic of The Mighty Boosh, which has to be seen to be enjoyed and understood. There's no way to explain the magic carpet stag party, stationery village, Old Gregg's Bailey's sketches, Tony Harrison's tentacled head, or gun-slinging transvestite Eleanor without actually seeing them for yourself.
The three box sets each feature extended episodes (compared, that is, to those that aired on Adult Swim) along with hours and hours of bonus material on each set, including publicity featurettes, making of documentaries, outtakes, commentary, picture galleries, musical numbers, deleted scenes, promos, trailers, and the original Boosh pilot, just to name a few.
Ultimately, these releases will change the way you look at comedy (and possibly the world around you) and I completely predict that you'll be won over by The Mighty Boosh's winning blend of surreal comedy, out-there musical numbers, and bizarro characters. So why not open the doors of perception, take a magical journey through time and space, and pick up the three volumes of The Mighty Boosh today? After experiencing the loopy charms of one of the most original and unique television series ever, your brain will thank me in the morning.
Pick up copies of The Mighty Boosh: Seasons One to Three for a suggested retail price of $29.98 apiece. (N.B.: each season box set is sold separately.) Or pick up copies today in the Televisionary store for $19.99-$24.99.
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