Series / House of Fools

House of Fools is a Sitcom written by and starring Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, creators of such programmes as The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and Shooting Stars. The show centres around the inhabitants of Bob's flat and their neighbours, who frequently turn up uninvited, and cause all kinds of surreal hilarity to ensue over the course of each episode. Vic and Bob play Vic and Bob, alongside Matt Berry, Morgana Robinson and Dan Skinner as their neigbours and guests.

The show ran for two series and a Christmas special before suddenly being axed in 2015.

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This series provides examples of:

• Ambiguously Bi: Pretty much everyone except Julie.
• Ass Shove: Happens several times, usually at Vic's expense. For example, in "The Probation Affair", Bosh pushes Vic out of a window by driving at least a metre's worth of broom handle into Vic's bottom.
• Bad Santa: Whilst not outright evil, Santa in "The Bobble Hat Affair" is revealed to be a racist whose presents are based on cultural stereotypes.
• Becoming Part of the Image: In the first episode, Vic punches a hole in a painting of an African pygmy tribesman and puts is head though it (with his face replacing that of the pygmy) in order to talk to Bob through the wall of clutter.
• Birthday Episode: "The Birthday Affair" is centred around Bob's birthday.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Whilst every episode has Vic and Bob setting up the episode through song, this trope becomes a bigger source of gags in the second series, with characters occasionally addressing the audience, and references to character, plot and "moving the story along". This gets taken to ridiculous levels in "The Lost Plot Affair", which features the characters trying to find a plot for the episode. The crowning moment of it all is probably this line from Bosh:
  Bosh: First of all, may I say good luck to everyone involved in this plotless episode. Personally I'd have gone for something a little bit more structured like what Miranda does, but sadly I was outvoted by thiiiiiiiiiiis pack of twats.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Vic, Beef and Bosh praise Bob in American accents after he gets them a photo of ghost for their competition, complete with typically American phrases.
  Vic: You big beautiful bastard!
  Beef: Bob, I always thought you were a grade-A asshole.
  Bosh: But you're not, you're a real stand-up guy!
• Buffy Speak: The rodent that steals Bob's wig in "The Wig Affair" is mostly referred to as a "rat beaver thing".
• Butt-Monkey: Bob to whatever Vic's got planned this week.
• The Casanova: Beef, mostly with African women.
• Christmas Episode: "The Bobble Hat Affair".
• Cloudcuckoolander: Most, if not all of the main characters.
• Comically Oversized Butt: Bob has to visit his promiscuous neighbour Julie's house to borrow her camera so he can take a photo of a ghost for a competition and win a chimpanzee for Vic (it's a long story). Before that, however, she shows off her backside to him, revealing that she's got it plumped up, "Like the black girls do", so she can now use it as a shelf. And she demonstrates this by carrying a model train around on it.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In "The Conan Affair", Bob punishes Vic for breaking the television with his gauntlet by force-feeding him a marrow. He does this by launching the whole thing straight into Vic's mouth using an inner tube.
• Cosmetic Horror: Happens to Julie in "The Botox Affair" after using Sharon Osborne's out-of-date botox.
• Deadpan Snarker: Bob's son Erik to everything his father does.
• Death as Comedy: Bruce Willis' death by exploding pie in "The Pork Pie Affair".
• Distaff Counterpart: In the second series, Erik gets a girlfriend who acts and dresses exactly like him.
• Dodgy Toupee: Bob wears one of these.
• Every Episode Ending: Each episode ends with the characters singing a suitably madlib'd version of The Day We Went To Bangor recapping the episode's plot.
• Flashback Echo: In "The Wig Affair", Beef mentions that the "rat beaver thing" that has stolen Bob's wig has lived in the house since their fathers lived there. Cue flashback to the 1970s, where the "rat beaver thing" steals Bob's father's caramel wafer. This then leads to another flashback to the 1950s with almost identical dialogue, where the rodent makes off with Vic's grandfather's brisket.
• Funny Foreigner: Bob's son from Norway Erik, who is portrayed by real-life Norwegian comedian Daniel Simonsen.
• Groin Attack: The "Heidenberg stretch". To add some context, Vic ends up getting stuck through a wall, so Bob eventually resorts to the Heidenberg stretch - he grabs Vic's testicles, pulls them back as far as they will go, then lets go, the force of which pushes him out of the wall.
  • Also happens when Beef tries to climb over an electric fence in "The Erik Affair".
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All episodes are titled "The ______ Affair"
• Imagine Spot: Thoughts, fantasies and predictions occur in brief sequences, with the characters represented by dolls, puppets and action figures.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Bob's son Erik is an antisocial Manchild who spends most of the time locked away in his bedroom, openly insulting his father and coldly shooting down any effort for Bob to even bond or make contact with him. The only time he has ever shown any compassion for Bob is when he thinks his father has been killed by his Norwegian ex, and even that makes him want to wretch.
• Large Ham: Beef, as one might expect, although the rest of the cast could just as easily qualify.
• London Gangster: Bosh's old cellmate Ben Gun, who's also a pork pie-maker.
• Maintain the Lie: Forms the plot of "The Probation Affair". Bosh needs to convince his probation officer that he has a house, a job and a girlfriend, or he'll be sent back to prison.
• Meaningless Meaningful Words: Played for Laughs in "The Ghost Affair" when Beef gives a short speech about ghosts:
  Beef: Ghosts, pitiful wraiths, trapped in suspense, amongst hordes of half-dead Jezebels, clutching newspapers, with wooden tits, and cigarettes in the other hand... I've no idea what I'm talking about.
• Moth Menace: Vic writes his script for a promotional film on the back of a moth, and it escapes, eats all their clothes, and grows gigantic.
• Naked People Are Funny: Erik spends most of the second series opener completely in the buff when Vic fails to get him a suit for his blind date.
• Once an Episode: Running gags in this show come by the bucketload, the most notable examples include:
  • Vic boasting "If I was an idiot, would I be able to do this?" and proceeding to do said idiotic thing.
  • Julie taking a photo of one the male characters' crotches (usually Vic).
  • Bob's toupee coming undone (and getting glued back on with a pritt-stick).
  • Vic and Bob setting up the plot of the episode with a song, and Beef breaking into song whenever he's introduced onscreen.
  • Bosh calling someone a "twat".
  • Erik and Rachel dry-wretching at something Bob has done, normally in provocative situations.
  • The staircase getting wrecked.
  • Bob spilling his cup of tea. Not accidentally, but by forcefully pushing it over with his hand for no reason at all.
• Only Sane Man: Bob, who is often visibly frustrated at being surrounded by idiots.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Martin, Julie's first husband (who she killed.) The way he's different is that he can do a Kamehame Hadouken.
• Power Makes Your Voice Deep: If you drink Bosh's bodybuilder juice, you basically behave like a demonic wrestler.
• Precision F-Strike: Characters sometimes say "effing" or "eff", but the full word is only occasionally used, such as when Erik describes Vic's horse-themed wallpaper as "fuckin' genius".
• Pooping Where You Shouldn't: The show starts off with Bob trying to organize a film night with his date to watch Conan the Barbarian (1982), but various things go wrong, such as his flatmate Vic accidentally lodging a medieval gauntlet in the television screen, and his other flatmate Beef- a Large Ham and womaniser- deciding to go for "an Eartha Kitt" in the kitchen. Vic later confirms that Beef left his poo in the kettle, much to Bob's anger.
• Shout-Out: The frequent references to Bob's wig are probably based on a similar Running Joke used by Morecambe and Wise. (Reeves and Mortimer have sometimes been referred to as SpiritualSuccessors to Morecambe and Wise. Reeves even bears a certain resemblance to Morecambe.)
  • There's also the unmasking of "Professor Lightbulb", an obvious reference to Scooby-Doo:
    Bob: Right. Let's find out who you really are, Professor Lightbulb, or should I say... [removes vase] Vic?
    Beef: So Vic was Professor Lightbulb the whole time!
    Vic: Yes! And I would have got away with it if it wasn't for that caretaker!
• Sickening "Crunch!": When Bosh breaks Bob's leg and then stands on it in "The Danceathon Affair".
• Stalker with a Crush: Julie to Vic.
• Stylistic Suck: The show makes great use of its low-quality special effects.
• Surreal Humour: It's a Vic and Bob production, after all.
• Token Minority: The Butcher Boy played by Romesh Ranganathan.
• The Unfavorite: Bob is this in the eyes of his son Erik, who to add insult to injury, idolises his lodger Vic.
• Uranus Is Showing: This joke made when Vic, Beef and Bob are riding on the back of a giant moth in space:
  Vic: Hey, Beef, see that planet over there?
  Beef: Oh yeah?
  Vic: Do you know what it is?
  Beef: Uranus.
  Vic: Yeah but you're not allowed to call it that any more.
  Beef: So what do you call it?
  Vic: Urarsehole!
• Verbal Tic: Bosh's sentences usually end with "you twat".