History Creator / LouisTheroux

* CerebusSyndrome: Louis’ earlier documentaries such as Weird Weekends and When Louis Met generally have a much more quirky and lighthearted tone to them in comparison to much of his later work like Dark States, Altered States and Savile; likely as a result of Louis becoming more mature with age.
** The trend seems to have started with 2007’s The Most Hated Family In America, which in a way makes the Westboro Baptist Church a KnightOfCerebus.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: In ''Shooting Joe Exotic'', Louis is allowed to investigate Joe Exotic's former personal belongings by Carole and Howard Baskin, and discovers a journal entry wherein he ruminates on his rough childhood and even claims that his oldest brother had molested him. However, when Louis visits said brother and brings this up, he reveals that Joe made this up too, having made the exact same claim against two other people, including their father. While they did have to endure many harsh physical punishments, Joe was simply a manipulative, gaslighting narcissist driven primarily by greed.

* ''Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic'' -- A follow-up to ''Most Dangerous Pets'', specifically on the founder of the former GW zoo after his subsequent conviction for murder-for-hire against animal rights activist Carole Baskin and the ''Series/TigerKing'' media tsunami.

* SituationalSexuality: Louis Theroux encountered this when he interviewed several {{transgender}} inmates in his prison documentary "Behind Bars". They have to watch out that another prisoner doesn't kidnap them and keep them in their own cell for some length of time. They're just that starved of having a female presence at "home". He also came across a few gay couples, including one man who was straight on the outside.

Louis Theroux (born 1970) is a British documentary filmmaker, whose career has mostly been spent working for Creator/TheBBC, first coming to attention with the series ''Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends'', and continuing that with a series of one-off documentaries produced starting in the 2000s. Theroux's documentaries usually take place in America, and usually feature him getting up-close and personal with members of fringe communities, including prisoners, gamblers in Las Vegas, plastic surgery addicts, Neo-Nazis, and perhaps most famously, the Westboro Baptist Church. He very rarely makes actual judgements on those he is interviewing, but at the same time isn't afraid to ask probing questions.

* ''When Louis Met...'' -- Ran for two seasons, and had Louis looking into the personal lives of celebrities including Creator/JimmySavile, Paul Daniels, Chris Eubank, Keith Harris, and politicians Neil Hamilton and Anne Widdecombe.

* ''The Most Hated Family in America'' -- The first of two documentaries on the Westboro Baptist Church
** ''America's Most Hated Family in Crisis'' -- His first follow-up documentary, again featuring the Westboro Baptist Church, and this time with something of a focus on members who have left the group

* MixedAncestry: Louis's father Paul is American whereas his mother Anne is English. This is why he's able to film in America on such a frequent basis. To complicate matters, he was actually born in Singapore (his parents were working there at the time).

Louis Theroux is a British documentary filmmaker, whose career has mostly been spent working for Creator/TheBBC, first coming to attention with the series ''Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends'', and continuing that with a series of one-off documentaries produced starting in the 2000s. Theroux's documentaries usually take place in America, and usually feature him getting up-close and personal with members of fringe communities, including prisoners, gamblers in Las Vegas, plastic surgery addicts, Neo-Nazis, and perhaps most famously, the Westboro Baptist Church. He very rarely makes actual judgements on those he is interviewing, but at the same time isn't afraid to ask probing questions.

* CamWhore: Louis visited a camgirl (Kagney Linn Karter) as part of his documentary ''Twilight of the Porn Stars''. The girl in question was also a porn starlet who appeared in conventionally distributed adult films, which is a pretty common form of crossover in the industry.

* CamWhore: Louis visited a camgirl as part of his documentary ''Twilight of the Porn Stars''. The girl in question was also a porn starlet who appeared in conventionally distributed adult films, which is a pretty common form of crossover in the industry.

* SexEqualsLove: One of the questions that Louis asks in his porn documentaries is how the performers are able to separate the two given their chosen careers. As he eventually concludes, it's not as simple as it looks, with one middle-aged performer for example explaining to Louis that somewhere he yearns for a long-term relationship, and wonders if any of the multitude of girls he has sex with on a regular basis feel something for him emotionally.

* MyGreatestFailure: Judging by ''Savile'' and several other interviews at around the time of its first broadcast, it's pretty clear that Louis regards his failure to see Jimmy Savile who who he really was to be this. The fact that he met two of Savile's victims (albeit ones who described Jimmy in glowing terms as a boyfriend), and worked out that Savile started a relationship with one of them when they were 15 but dismissed that as a relic of that era, weighs particularly heavy on him.

* ButtMonkey: During his Las Vegas visit Louis teamed up with two Vegas regulars, John and Tim for a night of blackjack. At the end of it all, Louis was $200 better off than when he started, Tim was about $4,000 worse off, and John ended up losing at least ''$50,000''; possibly even more, since he was still gambling when Louis and Tim went off to get some breakfast. On top of that, his luck was so bad that Louis and Tim went on winning streaks whenever he want to another table, but promptly started losing again when he returned.
* CamWhore: Louis visited a camgirl as part of his documentary ''Twilight of the Porn Stars''. The girl in question was also a porn starlett who appeared in conventionally distributed adult films, which is a pretty common form of crossover in the industry.

* OnceAnEpisode: During Series 1 of Weird Weekends, Louis took his acoustic guitar everywhere and if one of his subjects expressed an interest in music, he would play along with them at some point in the episode. A couple of examples are him playing [[DavidBowie Space Oddity]] with a UFOologist, and playing Christian rock with a group of Fundamentalists. This was often a great bonding experience for him, but was dropped from later series, presumably for time reasons.

* ChristmasEpisode: "Weird Christmas" that concludes the first series of Weird Weekends. It has someone reappear from each of the four previous episodes ("Fundamentalists", "UFOs", "Porn" and "Survivalists"). The four don't exactly get along, with the fundamentalist being critical of anything he sees as obscuring the message of Christ, the porn star being very arrogant and unwilling to participate in group activities, the ufo-ologist being regarded as insane, with the survivalist being the only one who can get along with everyone.

* SituationalSexuality: Louis Theroux encountered this when he interviewed several {{transsexual}} inmates in his prison documentary "Behind Bars". They have to watch out that another prisoner doesn't kidnap them and keep them in their own cell for some length of time. They're just that starved of having a female presence at "home". He also came across a few gay couples, including one man who was straight on the outside.

* BaitTheDog: The prison documentaries have a lot of moments where a prisoner may momentarily act seemingly friendly to Louis, then in the same breath be completely upfront that he'd be their prey if he were on the inside with them.

* LargeHam: "Thor Templar" of the Weird Weekends episode on UFOs. During his most famous scene, he claims to be channeling an alien to speak through him, which involves a highly theatrical performance, to the point where Louis and the camera man are finding it hard to keep a straight face. When he appears again in the episode "Weird Christmas", he manages to make even TheStoic JJ Michaels burst out laughing.

* LargeHam: "Thor Templar" of the Weird Weekends episode on UFOs. During his most famous scene, he claims to be channeling an alien to speak through him, which involves a highly theatrical performance, to the point where Louis and the camera man are finding it hard to keep a straight face.

** Joey from 'Extreme Love Autism', who is extremely attention seeing, loud and intrusive, making him a one-kid SpotlightStealingSquad, and the highlight of the episode for many.

** Joey from 'Extreme Love Autism', whose is extremely attention seeing, loud and intrusive, making him a one-kid SpotlightStealingSquad, and the highlight of the episode for many.

* AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle: One of the teenagers interviewed in "Extreme Love: Autism", when asked if he minded having autism, agitatedly responds "AuTISM is my life" when he should have said "AUtism". His pronunciation and general oddness of the statement turned it into a MemeticMutation.