A hillarious comedy show shown on Channel 4 on British TV staring Dom Joly in which he plays tricks and generaly confuses the British public (old people usually make good targets).

His sketches include:

  • Mobile Phone:In which he has a giant mobile phone (1 ft long) and shoults really loudly into it whilst trying to cause maximum annoyance.
  • Secret Agents:He dresses as a secret agent and says things like "Do you have the briefcase?" to passers by.
  • Hungarian Tourist:Akin to Monty Python's Hungarian Phrasebook Sketch. He will enter a taxi or some-such and mutter meaningless English phrases from a phrasebook.
  • Don't trust this man:He stands underneath a gigantic poster of himself with the legend "Don't trust this man". He then asks passers by to do some ridiculous favour for him.
  • Blind taste test:Him and a small crew will ask a member of the public to do a blind taste test on some product. When the person is blindfolded they run off.
  • Artist sketch: Dressed as an artist, he will start painting a portrait of someone. Then he scribbles "help me I'm stuck" on the canvas and runs off.
  • Frosty: Dressed as a snowman he throws snowballs at unsuspecting passers by.

All these are very funny. One of the best comedy shows on TV for ages.

As of early October, 2002, some parts of Trigger Happy TV are shot in New York! This isn't mentioned anywhere, but if you look closely you'll notice yellow cabs in some of the scenes, many of them with "NY Taxi" written in the doors, driving (with all the other traffic) on the righthand side of the street.

This caused some consternation among my circle of friends; we've long speculated that some of Dom Joly's sketches wouldn't work nearly as well in the United States. Thus far, we've seen one ice cream truck sketch and one Guardian Angel sketch filmed in New York.

In a letter on the show's website (http://www.triggerhappytv.com), Dom explains that "You American viewers see an international version on your screens....We are coming to the US very soon to inflict our brand of humour on your shores." Typical of Dom Joly humor, he ends the letter with "Look forward to meeting you all soon. Stay American!"

We will, Dom. We will.

While I am confident that Secret Agents and Hungarian Tourist would go over well with the populace of New York or LA(they're already accustomed to meeting crazy people on the street who speak nonsensically), I cringe at the thought of Mr. Joly pulling off a cell phone sketch on a crowded New York subway. He'd probably get his ass handed to him on a platter. An American version of the 'fabulous prizes' sketch, on the other hand, would work particularly well. We citizens of these United States do love the idea of getting something for nothing!

For completeness, I should explain:

  • Ice cream truck: He pretends to be selling ice cream to passerby from a smallish ice cream truck. When people try to buy something he smears ice cream on the window, begins disco dancing (complete with fog machine and disco ball!) or runs away.
  • Guardian angel: Dressed as a Guardian Angel in a red beret and loud red jacket, he stands on a streetcorner and screams threateningly at the top of his lungs "Alllll RIGHT! THIS STREETCORNER IS NOW PROTECTED BY THE GUARDIAN ANGELS! DOES ANYBODY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?"
  • Fabulous prizes: Dressed in suitably authentic-looking game show garb along with his entire camera crew, Dom cons foreign tourists into thinking they are participating in a game show and may win fabulous prizes. He leads them on a wild goose chase through the streets of London, making them run without resting for 20 minutes or more, and then climbs into a cab and rides away.

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