A Scottish Sketch Comedy written and directed by Brian Limond, Limmy's Show! has a cast of himself and others in sketches that are often dark and surreal in nature. Limmy plays a host of characters that often mock certain stereotypes of people in everyday life, while also occasionally having a fictionalized version of himself making comedic observations on the absurdity of the world around him.
With the success of Limmy's previous endeavors as a live performer and podcaster, the BBC ordered for a 6 episode series that premiered on January 11, 2010. A second series was done after in 2011, with the third and final series of Limmy's Show aired on November 12, 2012. A Christmas Special however, was done in December of 2013. Limmy, an avid social media user, went on Twitter to say that he didn't want to continue Limmy's Show in lieu for another BBC pilot he's working on. Limmy has gone on to create and star in Limmy's Homemade Show!, a Spiritual Sequel series filmed on his own around his house and his hometown in which he plays every character.
Limmy's Show provides examples of:
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Many of Limmy's sketches have this. In response to people thinking his show sucks, Limmy interrupts a sketch just to say an
MST3K Mantra for them. - Breaking the Fourth Wall: When playing as himself, Limmy does this to get the audience's attention for his observational commentary.
- Darker and Edgier: While the show traffics in Black Comedy from the very beginning, it does get progressively darker in tone and more mature in subject matter with each series. By Series 3, some episodes are positively bleak.
- Death by Ambulance: Downplayed in that he doesn't actually die, but one of the skits has Limmy walking up a roadway, musing to the camera, "Imagine getting knocked down by an ambulance! That'd be funny, wouldn't it?" followed immediately by an ambulance running completely over him and speeding off without stopping. Cut back to Limmy, now on the ground and in pain, regretfully saying, "It's not [funny]....it's not."
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Jacqueline McCafferty in Series 3.
- Erudite Stoner: Parodied with the character of Dee Dee. In one sketch relating to a CD compilation commercial, Dee Dee tells that he often spots out things that nobody usually does. He describes this ability as due to the fact that he doesn't work.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Wee Gary and John Paul are never seen in person, the former because Limmy likely couldn't convincingly portray a small child, and the latter because he's always either wearing a mask or acting as the P.O.V. Cam.
- Jerkass: John Paul. He essentially terrorizes anybody he comes into contact with.
- Phone-in Game Shows: Parodied with the Adventure Call sketches with Falconhoof, which parodied text adventure games and phone-in game shows with erratic callers.
- Product Placement:
- One of the "adventures" from Adventure Call is basically just a lengthy advertisement for a fictional soda called "Barry's Red Cola".
- Done in reverse for "Water". Limmy shills... tap water. Plain ol' tap water. It's treated as a miracle that it costs nothing, compared to drinking bottle water.
- Re-Release Soundtrack: The Netflix release removed some of the copyrighted music and either replaced them with generic pieces (as with the Adventure Call theme, or "Holiday Rap" used in this sketch
) or cut those scenes altogether (as with this sketch from S02E01). - The Scrappy: In-Universe, Jingle the Jester is seen as this for Adventure Call, prompting the caller to order Falconhoof to "kill Jester" as soon as the story begins.
- Shout-Out:
- Snippets from Oxygène by Jean-Michel Jarre are featured prominently in the Adventure Call sketches.
- Dee Dee has a poster for The Orb in his bedroom, and music from the group are used in his sketches.
- Dream Scheme, a made up show featured in Series 3, is clearly a parody of Balamory.
- Tap on the Head: Averted. When Limmy brings his laptop bag down full force onto a mugger's head, the audible squish sound and the way the mugger just crumples to the ground make it clear that he is not okay.
