20 Years Later, 'The Mighty Boosh' Is Still a Comedy Revolution (2024)

The Big Picture

The Mighty Boosh started as a stage show before transitioning to BBC radio and then television in the UK.
The show's surreal, nonsensical world-building and iconic characters set it apart from other British comedies.
The series' legacy includes launching the careers of its cast members, impacting the UK comedy scene, and maintaining a devoted fanbase.

It’s been 20 years since The Mighty Boosh first aired on the BBC in the U.K. Starring Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, the surreal comedy pair grew quickly from having a cult following into a popular award-winning series. While the show never achieved that same level of mainstream success in the U.S., it certainly left a legacy that reaches far beyond its initial cult status.

The Mighty Boosh began as a stage show, winning much acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then was later turned into a BBC radio show. From there, it found its way into the British mainstream through its television series in 2004, standing out from many of its contemporaries with its iconic characters, creepy visuals, absurd songs, and overall surrealist tone. It featured some of the U.K.’s comedy greats who have since gone on to leave their imprint on much of the U.K. and American comedy scenes. Besides its two leads, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, the people behind the show include director Paul King, Richard Ayoade, Rich Fulcher, Simon Farnaby, and Matt Berry.

The Mighty Boosh

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The Evolution of 'The Mighty Boosh'

After three runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Mighty Boosh was a much-hyped, award-winning stage show that began in 1998, later going on to win the Perrier Best Newcomer Award. Their follow-up 1999 show, Arctic Boosh, garnered a Perrier Award nomination, and they returned again to the festival with Auto Boosh in 2000. After their third Edinburgh appearance, the show was commissioned for six episodes on BBC radio; originally known as The Boosh, the radio series followed zookeepers Howard Moon (Barratt) and Vince Noir (Fielding) as they worked at Bob Fossil’s (Rich Fulcher) Funworld.

Around the time of The Boosh radio series in 2001, it was not uncommon for successful comedy shows to begin as BBC radio incarnations before moving to TV. Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen, and Flight of the Conchords all transitioned to television from BBC radio. In 2004, The Mighty Boosh television series ran its eight-episode first season on BBC Three, a more niche television station than BBC One or Two. The series went online-only for a number of years and returned to the airwaves in 2022. The Mighty Boosh found its cult following on BBC Three, and soon after, it began airing as repeats on the more established BBC Two, where it found its way into the British mainstream and aired for three seasons.

'The Mighty Boosh' Dominates With Its Creepy Visuals and Catchy Songs

Every episode of The Mighty Boosh featured a key song; they were always silly, catchy, and acted as the hook for the entire episode. Intertwined with the characters and storylines, many of them were earworms that could get stuck in your head for days, weeks, or months on end. Music played such a strong part in the show, and The Mighty Boosh created their own style of music called “Crimp,” a form of a cappella that was improvisational with lyrical nonsense, accompanied by rudimentary dance moves, and performed in sync by at least two people. When put together as The Mighty Boosh, the creepy DIY visuals from the mind of Noel Fielding and the ridiculous songs from the mind of Julian Barratt fused together to become endlessly imitable, feeding into the surrealist tone of the show.

Looking past the surrealism, there was friendship and joy at the show’s heart. It was obvious that the cast was having a great time, embracing the bizarreness they were putting forth. While the series was always cartoon-ish and ridiculous, by the end of its run, The Mighty Boosh had started to show signs of being too self-aware of its success and had lost some of its unabashedness in favor of self-referential, knowing nods. The series peaked in 2008 when they put on The Mighty Boosh Festival, as the cast became more like rock stars than comedians.

The Characters in 'The Mighty Boosh' Balance Out the Series

Unlike its contemporaries, The Mighty Boosh mixed up its formula on a regular basis, with each season taking place in a different setting. Series one was set in the “Zooniverse,” the second series was set in the Dalston flat of a shaman, and the third series was set in the Nabootique, the characters’ shop in the then London hipster area of Dalston. Changing the setting allowed the premise to refresh after each season and the surrealist element to take over and find new shenanigans for main characters Vince Noir and Howard Moon to get into.

In contrast to many British sketch shows, The Mighty Boosh built a world for its characters rather than just bringing them out in a series of sketches. This world-building format perfectly suited the show and its characters due to its extreme penchant for nonsensical content. It was tough enough to grasp the show while watching it, as the series offered more of a weird vibe than a cohesive narrative, but the world that Fielding and Barratt built helped to somewhat ground this nonsense in its own absurd reality.

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Recurring characters were always emerging in The Mighty Boosh, and they were usually played by the main cast. These characters always had a very distinct aesthetic, and often developed memorable catchphrases. The Moon, for instance, was basically Noel Fielding with shaving cream on his face, superimposed onto a spherical image of the moon, rambling about being the moon. Living among a pile of garbage behind the Nabootique, The Crack Fox, played by Julian Barratt, was a distinctly disturbing invention with syringes for fingers and a demented demeanor. The Hitcher, again played by Fielding, is the most villainous of all The Mighty Boosh characters, with a strong co*ckney accent and a vaguely witchy appearance.

'The Mighty Boosh' Has a Longstanding Legacy

20 Years Later, 'The Mighty Boosh' Is Still a Comedy Revolution (3)

As short-lived as three seasons of The Mighty Boosh TV series were, the series propelled the careers of the talent behind the scenes. Its breakout star, Noel Fielding, went on to produce two seasons of his own show, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, carrying over the surrealism and similar DIY aesthetic as The Mighty Boosh, though it never achieved the same level of success or following. Fielding went on to be a staple on British television with stints on Never Mind the Buzzco*cks and The IT Crowd, eventually settling into his hosting role on The Great British Bake Off. Most recently, he starred in the comedy series for Apple TV+, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin.

Julian Barratt’s profile is more low-key than Fielding’s, but his body of work is quite prolific, featuring TV shows such as The Great, Flowers, Sally4Ever, and the hilarious film, Mindhorn, which he stars in and co-wrote with The Mighty Boosh alum, Simon Farnaby. Twenty years since The Mighty Boosh first aired on the BBC, the seriescontinues to shape today’s comedy scene. From stage, to radio, to television, and back to the stage, the show broke through with its unique aesthetic, catchy songs, creepy characters, and bold surrealism. It launched a group of comedians who still work at the top of their game, even two decades on. In spite of going on to produce a respectable body of work after the series ended, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt are primarily beloved as the two stars of The Mighty Boosh in the U.K., a show that's still being quoted with its visuals and songs etched in our minds forever.

The Mighty Boosh is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

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