Mongrels (TV series)

Plot

Main article: List of Mongrels episodes

Mongrels looks at the lives of five animals that hang around the back of a pub called The Lord Nelson in Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London. The protagonist of the series is Nelson (Vulpus metrosexualus), a fox who lives a metrosexual lifestyle. Described as: "The only wild fox in East London with subscriptions to all the major broadsheets (excluding The Sunday Times), Nelson is, as he never tires of introducing himself at dinner parties... 'An urbane fox!'"

Nelson's love interest and best friend is Destiny (Canis self-absorbedbitchicus), an Afghan hound, though she has no interest in him. Destiny is also the pet dog of Gary (Tony Way), the landlord of The Lord Nelson. However, like the other humans that appear in the series, he is unable to understand what Destiny and the other animals say. Elsewhere there is Marion (Felis retardicus), an unintelligent cat who Nelson acts as a father figure towards. He has been abandoned by several owners and is very corruptible. Then there is Kali (Aves aggravaticus), a sadistic pigeon who likes to revel in the misfortune of others, and speaks with a Black English accent. She has several grudges, including a hatred for humans and foxes for the way they treat birds. Lastly, there is Vince (Vulpus cunticus), a violent, foul-mouthed fox who considers himself a proper animal. Almost all his lines contain at least one swear word that is always censored.

There is no over-riding story arc between episodes, but each episode does contain recurring elements. During each episode, there are cutaways from the main plot to create extra gags. Most episodes also feature at least one celebrity appearance and every episode features a comic song.

Cast and characters

• Rufus Jones as the voice of Nelson, an urban fox who has embraced a middle-class, metrosexual lifestyle. Operated by Andy Heath
• Dan Tetsell as the voice of Marion, a homeless Persian alley cat. Operated by Warrick Brownlow-Pike
• Lucy Montgomery as the voice of Destiny, a beautiful Afghan Hound. Operated by Richard Coombs and Sue Beattie
• Katy Brand as the voice of Kali, a cynical, vindictive and street smart pigeon. Operated by Iestyn Evans
• Paul Kaye as the voice of Vince, a violent, foul-mouthed and sociopathic fox. Operated by various puppeteers
• Tony Way as Gary, Destiny's owner.
• Ruth Bratt – various incidental characters.

Creation

The show took five years to make. The idea was first suggested between the creator and director of Mongrels, Adam Miller, and the show's head puppeteer, Andy Heath, when they worked on the CITV show Ripley and Scuff.

Miller described Mongrels as: "an adult sitcom, trying to do for puppetry what American shows like The Simpsons have done for animation. Obviously that's aiming very high. Think [stage musical] Avenue Q meets Family Guy but with puppet animals." He also said that: "We wanted to make something that had the pace of an American animation but with British sensibilities, that was adult, but not crude, that was based in the realities of the animal world, and that didn't rely on the puppets to do the comedy."

The original idea, known as The Un-Natural World was of an urban fox living in Brixton called Nelson, who was so used to living in the city that he had lost any sense of being an animal. It also featured a cat, Marion, who was trying to encourage Nelson to be more animal-like.

While Miller was working on a BBC Three sitcom he pitched the idea to producer Stephen McCrum. McCrum criticised the way Miller ended the first script, which ended with Nelson and Marion leaving where they live. McCrum told him it was best to set the series in a single place rather than have the characters move from one place to another. McCrum then suggested taking Nelson and Marion, and writing a script about them. Later, another writer, Jon Brown came in to write and at this time rules were set out with regards to writing the show, such as the animals could not be dressed in clothes unless it was in a flashback sequence or during a song.

The new script was then pitched to the BBC. The pitch tape they made was based on the same pitch used by The Muppet Show. This was done as a tribute to it, with Miller arguing that when The Muppet Show did it, "it just must have just knocked the socks off the people who saw it, because it's like nothing you've ever seen before, and we thought: 'Why fix what ain't broke, so we did our own very British version of that." The producers liked it but did not fully understand what the show was about. Miller, Brown and a third writer, Daniel Peak began to write scripts over a period of four years. A pilot was eventually filmed and the BBC commissioned a full series, targeted at adults. Despite the adult nature, Miller did not want to make the show too crude. Eight episodes were filmed so as to spread the cost of making the series over each episode.

Character development

When writing for the commissioned series began, the character of Nelson was originally depicted as being brash and obnoxious. This was later changed to make him more metrosexual, middle class and likeable. Developing the character of Destiny, Nelson's love interest, was a challenge to the programme makers. Kali was created to be a villain, with Miller describing her as a "Hitler-figure". Vince was partly based on the brash version of Nelson.

In the unbroadcast pilot We Are Mongrels, another character was included called Debbie. Debbie was a suicidal chicken who never left her coop. However, it was decided that the character did not go anywhere and could not be sustained for a full series, so the character was axed. Another chicken character called Wendy appeared in the first broadcast episode as a reference to Debbie. Both characters had the same voice actress, Ruth Bratt, who performed Wendy's voice in exactly the same manner as that of Debbie.

Casting

Rufus Jones was among the first people auditioned for the role of Nelson. After several other auditions with other actors, Jones was called upon to play the part. Paul Kaye at one time provided the voice for Nelson before taking the role of Vince.

It was then decided by the creators to make Marion a foreign character and to find an accent that reflected this. There was discussion about Iranian-British comic Omid Djalili playing the role. In the end, Tetsell was cast after auditioning with a poor version of Djalili's Iranian accent. Tetsell describes the voice as a mixture of, "every accent on the planet", but with the joke that Marion was meant to be a Persian cat.

Puppets

When the puppet for Marion was first created, he was depicted as having stripy fur, but looked more like a mouse in the eyes of the crew, so his puppet was changed. Marion's image was based on topless photos of the comic actor James Corden.

The show's puppeteers claim there are different problems working with different characters. For example, Destiny is the largest puppet and so moving her is more difficult. As Marion spends much of his time sitting on top of a rubbish bin, his puppeteer, Brownlow-Pike, has to stand inside a bottomless bin for long periods of time. Kali is said to be the most difficult puppet to work with, because as she has no hands she is limited to what she can hold.

Recording

The show was originally entitled We Are Mongrels, but the title had to be changed for two reasons: one was that the title was too similar to another BBC Three comedy show, We Are Klang. The other is that none of the characters were mongrels. Therefore, new suggestions were called for. Rejected titles included I, Nelson; Humans! Everywhere!; Undergrowth and Never Been Stroked. The last of these titles was rejected after one of the show's additional writers, Danielle Ward; "said it sounded like 'a makeover show for virgins'." During this time the crew referred to the show as Mongrels and it eventually became the show's title.

When writing for Vince the writers blanked out all of the characters swearing like it is done on the show, but when it came to recording the programme the swear words had to be put in for Kaye to read them. During read-throughs of the scripts, a toy horn was honked whenever Kaye swore to give an idea of what it would sound like during the programme.

The show also aims to be environmentally friendly in its production. A report from the BBC's in-house publication Ariel: "From reusable water bottles filled from tanks of tap water to double-sided scripts, Mongrels is aiming to be the most sustainable production at the BBC." The production team also use reusable or compostable cutlery in their canteen, reducing any future merchandise packaging to just a barcode, and replacing conventional lighting with fluorescent tube lights. This last move reduced the electricity bill for the second series by a third, saving £500 a week.

Reception

Mongrels was given mixed reviews, with some considering its quality to be inconsistent, with a reviewer for tvBite.com saying that the show was "a bit hit and miss" but also that, "even the laugh-free moments have a well-written sheen." and that the work put into the jokes show. Jane Simon of the Daily Mirror wrote: "While most of it is very funny, some of the gags about Harold Shipman completely misjudge the tone. Maybe the age group BBC3 is aimed at reckon anything is fair game for comedy." *The Independent'''s Tom Sutcliffe said that: "It does have its laughs, though, because the script isn't entirely about crass shock value", but that the sitcom, while aimed at adults, is "not really for grown-ups." Sam Wollaston of The Guardian was mainly positive about *Mongrels'', but said that the main reason he thought it was funny was because it depicted "cuddly children's toys [...] saying things you wouldn't normally expect cuddly children's toys to say. Like 'You are such a cock-end'", and that, "the novelty will wear off at some point not too far away".

On 18 January 2012, Dan Tetsell revealed on Twitter that Mongrels had been cancelled, saying: "we've all been sacked now". Miller posted another, longer message online saying:

Awards and nominations

Mongrels won the Royal Television Society Craft and Design Award 2009–2010 for "Production Design – Entertainment and Non-Drama" led by production designer Simon Rogers. It was also nominated for the award for "Tape and Film Editing – Entertainment and Situation Comedy" led by film editor Nigel Williams, but lost to Pete versus Life.

In 2011, Brown won the BAFTA Craft Award for "Break-through Talent". The series was nominated for the Ursa Major Award for "Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series" in 2010 (series 1) and 2011 (series 2).

In 2012, Andy Heath and Iestyn Evans won the Royal Television Society Craft & Design Award for special effects in Mongrels Series 2.

Appearances in other programmes

On 13 August 2011, the cast of Mongrels took part in the BBC's Comedy Prom, in which they performed the song "Middleclass is Magical" from the seventh episode of the first series, "Marion The Superfluous Feed Character". The performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and later broadcast on BBC Two on 27 August 2011.

Mongrels characters Nelson and Marion appeared in the Children in Need skit Puppet Aid, which aired on BBC One on 19 November 2021.

Plagiarism accusations

Mongrels has attracted anger from production company Fit2Fill which claimed the BBC "ripped off" their 2001 Channel 4 sitcom Pets, claiming to have received 30 emails from viewers that the two shows were similar. The producer of Pets, Andrew Barclay said: "We checked the BBC's Mongrels website this morning and the Beeb do appear to have hired the same puppet builders and puppeteers as Pets. We also notice that *Mongrels''' executive producer is Mark Freeland, to whom we did once pitch a *Pets'' follow-up show."

The co-creator and co-producer of Pets, Brian West, wrote that Mongrels producer McCrum told him that Pets was not discussed during the production of Mongrels. Afterwards, Andy Heath, a puppet builder who worked for both shows, said:

Home media

The first series of Mongrels was released on DVD (region 2 and 4) and Blu-ray (region free) on 16 August 2010. The DVD and Blu-rays featured the unbroadcast pilot amongst their extras. A planned DVD release of the second series was cancelled. The DVD release of Series 2 was later rescheduled for October 2012. The series was also released via iTunes.

References

References

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3. "Marion is a simple soul". BBC Three.
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5. (25 June 2010). "The fur flies over Mongrels". Chortle.co.uk.
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21. Simon, Jane. (22 June 2010). "Mongrels, BBC3, 10pm". [[Daily Mirror]].
22. Sutcliffe, Tom. (23 June 2010). "Last Night's TV – The Biology of Dads, BBC4; Tribal Wives, BBC2; Mongrels, BBC3". [[The Independent]].
23. Wollaston, Sam. (23 June 2010). "Last night's TV: The Biology of Dads, Mongrels and Special 1 TV". [[The Guardian]].
24. (24 November 2010). "RTS Craft and Design Winners 2009–2010". [[Royal Television Society]].
25. (8 May 2011). "Television Craft Awards Winners & Nominees in 2011".
26. "ABOUT THE U.M.A.". Ursa Major Awards.
27. (27 November 2012). "CRAFT & DESIGN AWARDS 2012".
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30. (17 November 2021). "The nation's favourite puppets and TV characters join forces for BBC Children in Need sing along".
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