The show ran for four series between 1990 and 1997; the first two (1990 and 1992) were broadcast under the title Harry Enfield's Television Programme, with the last two (1994 and 1997) as Harry Enfield & Chums, although thanks to various subsequent specials and a Clip Show called Harry Enfield Presents, it continued until 2001. In terms of adding new Stock British Phrases to the lexicon, it wasn't quite as prolific as The Fast Show, but it still came up with several memorable characters and catchphrases of its own. In particular, Kevin the Teenager would go on to have his own spin-off movie, Kevin & Perry Go Large.
These tropes are SO UNFAIR!
- Affectionate Parody:
- Smashie and Nicey were poking fun at the then-current disc jockeys at BBC Radio One who'd been there since The '60s ... which backfired horribly, as not only were most Radio One presenters over the age of 25 fired by the mid-90's, Smashie and Nicey were even mentioned by name by the station controller when describing the outdated, out-of-touch image he wanted Radio One to lose in order to draw in and retain younger listeners (those being the station's core target demographic).
Enfield and Whitehouse later stated that they were horrified by this turn of events, and included a sketch in which Smashie and Nicey have an on-air rant against their Bad Boss before leaving the station for good. - "The Playboys" sketch is a parody of 1970s action series such as The Persuaders! and Jason King, replete with dodgy special effects, misuse of stock footage, continuity errors, blatant sexism and a nonsensical plot.
- Smashie and Nicey were poking fun at the then-current disc jockeys at BBC Radio One who'd been there since The '60s ... which backfired horribly, as not only were most Radio One presenters over the age of 25 fired by the mid-90's, Smashie and Nicey were even mentioned by name by the station controller when describing the outdated, out-of-touch image he wanted Radio One to lose in order to draw in and retain younger listeners (those being the station's core target demographic).
- Ambiguously Gay: Nicey from Smashie and Nicey. In his on-air chats with Smashie, he often mentions spending time with a "young friend" of his, and then while they're playing music he mentions to Smashie that said "young friend" is male. This aspect of his personality got some very heavy hints in the 1994 special which focussed on Smashie and Nicey, in which Nicey is seen to have several young, scantily-clad male visitors at his mansion. Who always make a point of running away whenever they realise that they're in-shot.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: The show's first Kevin started out as one of these and remained so throughout Television Programme, in sketches titled "Little Brother". Despite a similar initial appearance and the same first name as the Chums incarnation, he appears to be a different character to the better-remembered Kevin the Teenager (due to the different parents and sudden lack of an older brother).
- Apologises a Lot: Jürgen the German. It's kind of his thing. Especially when it comes to World War II.
- As Himself: A few British celebrities made cameo appearances as themselves, notably Tony Blackburn and then-Formula One driver Damon Hill.
- Awesome, but Impractical: "English for Aliens" was easily the most popular of the one-off sketches (according to Enfield) but it was never revisited because the costumes were too cumbersome and prone to overheating.
- Awful Wedded Life: The Arguing Couple, a married couple who quite clearly have grown to despise each other, stuck in a seemingly endless argument which consists of them constantly flinging insults at each other (often to others irritation), yet won't separate or get a divorce for the sake of their son David.
- Black Comedy: The "For the Sake of the Children" sketch and some in the "Old Gits" segments (e.g., where they replicate Damien Hirst's art installations by hacking a puppy in half with a meat cleaver).
- Breakout Character: Kevin the teenager, who got his own movie.
- British Brevity: Four series of six episodes each, plus three Christmas specials, two other specials note and a six-episode Clip Show. So a total of 35 episodes, broadcast over a period of eleven years.
- Captain Obvious: One sketch with Mr. You-Don't-Want-To-Do-It-Like-That has him discussing a football match with a number of real football pundits. All find themselves in complete agreement that the losing team didn't want to let goals be scored against them, but instead should have tried to score more goals than the other team, because that would have allowed them to win.
- Catchphrase: Some of the most popular include -
- Aliens (in high pitched squeaky voice): "Tree!"
- De Dutch Coppersh: "He is my partner and alsho my lover."
- Greyson and Mr Cholmondley-Warner: "Good evening, Greyson." "Good evening, Mr Cholmondley-Warner."
- Jürgen the German: "I feel I must apologise for the conduct of my nation during ze Var."
- Kevin the Teenager: "That is SO UNFAIR!!! I HATE YOU!!!"
- In Kevin's first incarnation as Little Brother he had another catchphrase which doubled as a shout-out: "Bloody hell, Baldrick!"
- Mr. You-Don't-Want-To-Do-It-Like-That: "You don't want to do it like thaaaat!" and also "Only me!"
- The Old Gits: "Nyyyeer!"
- The Palace of Righteous Justice: "...HURRAH!"
- Scousers: "Areet, areet, caam down caam down!" and "Dey do dough, don't dey, dough?"
- The Self Righteous Brothers: "Oi! [celebrity's surname] NO!"
- Smashie and Nicey: "Poptastic!"
- Stan and Pam Herbert: "We are considerably richer than yow!"
- Tim Nice But Dim: [after just having been punched/ripped off/etc by someone] "What a thoroughly bloody nice bloke!"
- The Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Ladies: "Young man!"
- Waynetta: "I am smoking a fag!"
- Chocolate Baby: Waynetta dumps Wayne because she's the only mother on the estate who hasn't got one ("I wanna braaaan baby!"). Wayne eventually solves this by fathering a child with Naomi Campbell.
- Christmas Episode: There were three in total — Harry Enfield's Festive Television Programme (1992), Harry Enfield & Christmas Chums (1997) and Harry Enfield's Yule Log Chums (1998).
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: When Little Brother became Kevin the Teenager, his older brother disappeared.
- Clip Show: Harry Enfield Presents, broadcast in 2001 with each episode based around individual characters or premises from the series, was this. This was preceded by the 1999 special Harry Enfield Presents Kevin's Guide to Being a Teenager, which followed the same format and was intended as a precursor to the Kevin & Perry Go Large movie, which hit the cinemas in 2000.
- Creator Provincialism: Parodied with the Mr Cholmondeley-Warner routines, which begin with a turning globe ident in which the British Isles are the same size as the Americas or Africa.
- The Comically Serious: Thirties public information film hosts Mr. Greyson and Mr. Cholmondley-Warner, with impeccable reserve, narrate how to evade muggers via hypnosis; farcically myopic predictions of life in the distant future, and "how to maintain not only a stiff upper lip".
- Cross-Cast Role: Enfield as one of the Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Ladies, and Kathy Burke as Perry from the Kevin sketches.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The 1930s public information films fronted by Mr. Cholmondley-Warner and Mr. Greyson ("Women! Know Your Limits! Thinking too much makes you ugly!"), and the accompanying "advertisement breaks" (which encouraged teenagers to smoke, recommended feeding babies gin in order to make them sleep, etc).
- Dirt Forcefield: Played for laughs in "The Playboys", where the protagonists engage the villain's Amazon Brigade in a Mud Wrestling battle; in the next shot they are seen climbing out of the ring, completely clean again.
- Double Take: The first series did not feature a pair of characters called "The Double-Take Brothers".
- AAHHHH! Yes it did!
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The first series had title cards at the beginning of sketches, which was dropped from the second series onwards.
- Kevin started out as an annoying, hyperactive little boy before being retooled into the grumpy teenager he became more famous for being.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
- Freddie and Jack's housekeeper, Mrs Housekeeper (it's never made clear whether or not that is her actual name).
- Recurring extra Fat Bloke was only ever referred to as Fat Bloke.
- Evil Old Folks: The Old Gits in spades.
- Freestate Amsterdam: "De Dutch Coppersh" are one of the best known expressions of this stereotype of the Netherlands.
- Grumpy Old Man: The Old Gits, although "grumpy" is a big understatement.
- Hair-Trigger Temper:
- The Scousers, in parody of Brookside, easily provoke each other to fierce confrontation.
- Frank, of the Self Righteous Brothers, speculates how some celebrity or other might conceivably step out of line, then shouts in protest at the hypothetical misdemeanour.
- Historical Figures in Archival Media: Used in the 1994 special Smashie & Nicey: End of an Era, notably the scene in which a younger Nicey interviews The Beatles. Awkwardly.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Parodied. Lance can't sing for shit in English, but can sing excellently in Italian.
- Hot for Teacher: In one skit, Kevin develops a crush on his attractive teacher. As does his father.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: "English for Aliens" is a comedic version of the trope.
- Humble Hero: Played with; Smashie tries to be this, what with his not liking to talk about his "charidee" work, but he does make a point of saying that he doesn't like to talk about it rather a lot. Nicey eventually gets so annoyed with this that he calls him out on it.
- Jerkass: Plenty, but The Gits take it up to eleven.
- Kavorka Man: Wayne, who somehow manages to father a child with supermodel Naomi Campbell.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Mr. You-Don't-Want-To-Do-It-Like-That. He was eventually retired when Enfield got fed up with him.
- Like Father, Like Son: In one episode, Kevin is shown to have a crush on an attractive English teacher. At a Parent's Evening, Kevin is so smitten with her he can barely manage to respond when his mother and teacher talk to him. When it's time to leave, it is shown that Kevin's dad is just as captivated by her, staring (and smiling) as if in a trance.
- Mockumentary: The 1994 special Smashie & Nicey: End of an Era was one of these — complete with archive footage with them spliced into it. The usual laughs are noticeably absent as the two characters, whose backstories are revealed as being both pathetic and somewhat disturbing in equal measure, are basically pensioned off ... although they would later return in a Comic Relief special three years later, and again in a special edition of Pick of the Pops on Radio Two in 2007.
- Monochrome Apparition: At play when the Old Gits were killed off in the "Four Funerals and a Wedding" sketch. When Alf reunites with old flame Ivy, his lifelong partner-in-gitting Fred dies, seemingly of a broken heart. In revenge, Fred returns from the grave to sabotage Alf and Ivy's car just after they get married. While Ivy survives, Alf dies ... and the sketch ends with the ghosts of both Gits, bleached entirely in ashen white, happily dancing on each others' graves.
- Mood Whiplash: One Kevin & Perry sketch had the boys planning to go to a Wild Teen Party... then we learn that Kevin's grandfather just died. Later on in the show we get another scene with Kevin and his parents talking about his grandfather's death in a way that really
tugs at your heartstrings. There's another sketch at the end of the episode where Kevin's Nan is thanking him for missing the party and staying with her instead. It's just as, if not more well-written than any other sketches they did... but it's still kinda weird. - The Movie: Kevin & Perry Go Large, in which Kevin and Perry go off to Ibiza to become DJs and lose their virginities (the whole sub-plot from the series about Kevin becoming a pleasant and polite young man after losing his virginity had by this point already been retconned as a dream his mother had had).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Michael Paine, who is Michael Caine reimagined as a nosey neighbour.
- Tory Boy was heavily based on William Hague, a cabinet minister in the last years of the Major government who had been a prominent Young Conservative in his teens, having famously made a speech at the Conservative Party's annual national conference when he was just sixteen; after the Tories' 1997 election defeat, he became the party leader at the age of just 36. Enfield also claimed to have mixed other than-contemporary Conservative politicians such as Michael Howard and Michael Portillo into the character, alleging that they were "Tory Boys who have never grown up". In one episode, Tory Boy's mum openly wished that he'd joined the Labour Party instead, prompting him to morph into "Tony Boy", a pastiche of Tony Blair.
- Smashie and Nicey were based primarily on veteran DJs working for Radio One at the time; Smashie was based on Tony Blackburn, Noel Edmonds and Mike Read, whilst Nicey was based on Alan Freeman and Simon Bates, though other then-current DJs such as Tommy Vance and Dave Lee Travis were also believed to have influenced the writers.
- Northern Irish and Nasty: One sketch from a Christmas episode featured William Ulsterman, a character clearly modelled on Ian Paisley, loudly berating a party host for failing to provide cheddar cheese and pineapple on a stick as part of the selection of nibbles.
- Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: The main joke of the "Modern Dad" sketches.
- Once an Episode: After a one-off appearance by "Fat Bloke" in series 1 proved an unexpected fan hit, Fat Bloke was randomly inserted into sketches in series 2 and for series 3 appeared at the end of each episode to sing them out with an eccentrically chosen song ("The show's not over till the Fat Bloke sings!"). This seems to be a Shout-Out to Morecambe and Wise's "Lady who comes down at the end".
- Oop North: As usual in Enfield's comedy, a common theme (the Scousers, Julio Geordio, etc.).
- A special, "Harry Enfield's Guide to the North of England", collected these sketches and added segments reviving a less popular character, a Yorkshire industrialist stereotype named George Whitebread, who had appeared in two isolated sketches in the first series (and who had his own [[catchphrase]]: "No offence!").
- Perry goes to an Oasis gig and comes back with a Mancunian accent. Kevin attempts this too, with disastrous results.
- Loadsamoney's polar opposite was a Geordie called Buggerallmoney. Enfield recalls debuting him in a stage performance in Newcastle and making such a hash of the accent that the audience didn't buy into it until he (in character) snapped and started calling them "Makems" (someone from Sunderland), at which point the audience erupted into laughter.
- Overnight Age-Up: Parodied at the stroke of midnight on Kevin's thirteenth birthday. He immediately transforms from the annoying, hyperactive little brother into the moody, sullen teenager he became better known as.
- The Parody:
- An impressively elaborate addition to the Terminator saga, which, in a Merchant Ivory-style setting, pits the DX940 (Martin Clunes) against Lord Fotherington Carstairs.
- One Christmas Special is an elaborate parody of Titanic, fitting all the characters into appropriate roles as a Universal-Adaptor Cast.
- "Il Postino Pat" is a parody of Postman Pat set in Fascist-era Italy, in which the live actors move around rigid-limbed in the manner of their puppet counterparts.
- Telecocknies, which revolved around four cockneys sitting around the pub shouting parodies of teletubby phrases.
- The last episode of the last Chums series ended with all the characters singing in a parody of the BBC's then-recent "Perfect Day"-based advertisement.
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- Perverse Sexual Lust: Although the reference didn't survive into the final show, one script mentions that Tim Nice But Dim has a thing for Lara Croft. Then of course there were the The Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Ladies...
- The Pig-Pen: Wayne and Waynetta Slob have suspect personal hygiene and live in absolute squalor to the point where Waynetta gets stuck to the carpet in the kitchen.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Harry Enfield has theorised that Mr. Dead (a parody of Mr. Ed with a talking corpse instead of a talking horse) failed to make an impact because he failed to realise that the (British) viewing public didn't share his enthusiasm for old American TV and so didn't get the reference.
- Premature Aggravation: The central joke of the Self-Righteous Brothers, who get more and more worked up about entirely hypothetical scenarios involving celebrities.
- Raging Stiffie: A recurring theme of the Kevin the Teenager sketches.
- Retraux: The Mr Cholmondely-Warner 1930s public information films, as well as the London Palladium-style opening and closing scenes.
- Running Gag: The appearance of Fat Bloke in a Stealth Hi/Bye cameo role, and later to sing them out ("the show's not over till the Fat Bloke sings!").
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: A comically exaggerated example. In the final episode of the regular series, Kevin at last loses his virginity. The next morning, he has been transformed from an unspeakably horrible teenager into a charming, polite and helpful young man, to his parents' incredulous delight (and Perry's disappointment). However, this was retconned in a subsequent Christmas special, turning out to have been just a dream of his mother's.
- Shout-Out: In the tie-in song "Loadsamoney (Doin' Up the House)", the title character claims that "I got more money than Stock, Aitken, & Dennis Waterman put together", nodding to both the prolific music production trio Stock Aitken Waterman and the actor Dennis Waterman.
- Sketch Comedy
- Small Name, Big Ego: The Self-Righteous Brothers are built around this trope, as are Stan and Pam (the "we are considerably richer than yow" couple).
- Strawman Political:
- Tory Boy, a stereotype of the Young Conservatives (the youth wing of the Conservative Party, which at the time was infamously dominated by the party's hard-right faction); also a specific parody of then Conservative leader William Hague (who, to the Labour-supporting Enfield's horror, was the same age as him). To balance matters, Enfield had plans to introduce his friend and political counterpart "Ginger Lefty" (based on his own youth) but this idea never made it to film. One Christmas special did briefly transform Tory Boy into "Tony Boy" after his mother wished he'd joined the Labour Party instead.
- Also Freddie and Jack, two middle-aged housemates who are ardently Tory and Labour respectively and argue about whether everything from public toilets to whether Doctor Who was better under a Conservative or a Labour government (but once joined forces to bully former Liberal leader David Steel, appearing as himself).
- Tory Boy, a stereotype of the Young Conservatives (the youth wing of the Conservative Party, which at the time was infamously dominated by the party's hard-right faction); also a specific parody of then Conservative leader William Hague (who, to the Labour-supporting Enfield's horror, was the same age as him). To balance matters,
- Sudden Name Change: Kevin's original surname was Carter, but it was later changed to Patterson. Possibly to avoid confusion with the song by the Manic Street Preachers.
- Super Zeroes: A short-lived sketch in the first season, titled "The Palace of Righteous Justice", revolved around four heroes who had fairly adequate superpowers, but were absolutely useless at their jobs.
- Teens Are Monsters: Kevin the Teenager. Although interestingly, he and Perry tend to be reasonably polite when addressing the parents of other teenagers. We usually see Perry acting respectfully towards Kevin's parents while Kevin himself is abominably rude to them, but when Kevin goes to Perry's house, their roles are reversed.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: One-off character "Mr Got Out Of Bed The Wrong Side This Morning" — who does indeed get out of bed on the wrong side, and suffers a series of Amusing Injuries in consequence. Mangled and bleeding, he addresses the camera: "That's put me in a bad mood for the whole day!"
- Those Two Guys: Lee and Lance. Enfield describes them as the most "standard" characters in the show with Lee being the thick bloke who thinks he's smarter than he actually is and Lance being the thicker bloke.
- Unwanted Assistance: Mr. Don't instructs anyone who crosses his path on how better to attend their current task, be it grocery shopping, barbecuing, or playing Hamlet onstage.
- Upper-Class Twit: Tim Nice-but-Dim is an exaggerated version of "posh" yet pleasant and stupid people that Enfield knew. He is a fictional Old Ardinian with an eccentric public school-influenced dress sense involving jeans and a school blazer worn over a striped rugby shirt. He was written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman as an antidote to contemporary portrayals of ex-public schoolboys as sharp-minded, high-achieving young men, and instead chose to base the character on former school contemporaries who had plenty of money and good manners but were light of intellect.
- Visual Pun: A one-off sketch sees a young boy call upstairs for help with his homework. Being "in the loo" note , his dad tells him to come upstairs. The boy enters the bathroom and lifts the closed toilet lid. Somehow, for some reason, his dad's head is inside the toilet bowl.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Waynetta (whose own name could qualify for this) insists on giving her children names like Frogmella and Spudulika on the grounds that she finds them "exotic".
- Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Lee and Lance started off as mechanics, but later became flower merchants and fishmongers.
- Wild Teen Party: Kevin throws one, which results in the house getting trashed. Fortunately for him, his long-suffering mum is there to give him a hug.
- Witty Banter: The way in which radio DJs do this was parodied by Smashie and Nicey.
- Women Drivers: The subject of one of the spoof public information films.
