''Unnatural Acts'' (also spelt ''(Un)natural Acts'') is a British

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

series featuring comedians

Julian Barratt Julian Barratt Pettifer (born 4 May 1968) is an English comedian, actor and musician. As a comedian and comic actor, he is known for his use of surreal humour and black comedy. During the 2000s he was part of The Mighty Boosh comedy troupe along ...

and

Noel Fielding Noel Fielding (; born 21 May 1973) is an English comedian, artist, and actor. He was part of The Mighty Boosh comedy troupe alongside Julian Barratt in the 2000s, and has been a co-presenter of ''The Great British Bake Off'' since 2017. He is kn ...

. It was first broadcast in 1998 on the Paramount Comedy Channel, now known as

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...

. Other stars included

Seán Cullen Seán Cullen (born 29 August 1965) is a Canadian actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for combining improvisation with mimicry and music. He is known for providing voices of characters in shows like '' Best Ed'', '' Seven Little Monsters,'' ...

, Rich Easter, and Rich Fulcher.

Recurring sketches

The Zookeepers

One of the recurring sketches shows

and

as zookeepers, having the same kind of wordy, bragging discussions that later became an integral part of ''

The Mighty Boosh The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows, The Mighty Boosh (1998 stage show), ''The Mighty Boosh'', Arctic Boosh, ''Arctic Boosh'' (1999) and Autoboosh, ...

''. Some of the topics from ''Unnatural Acts'' were kept in ''The Mighty Boosh'', e.g. "don’t touch me", "never tremble with a newt" and "his eyes are like black holes", as well as the many threats of the nature "I'll come through your flesh like soft cheese", "I'll take your arms off gently, it will tickle, but then I'll punch your stumps" or "I'll get forty trained grasshoppers to kick your eyes out and replace them with wheat. You’ll be known as 'wheat eyes'". The zookeepers are called Alan and George, but there are mentions of a person called Bob Fossil. Parts of Bob Fossil's traits in ''The Mighty Boosh'' can be spotted in some of Rich Fulcher's characters in ''Unnatural Acts''.

Street vendor

Another recurring sketch is a distinctively northern English crazy street vendor (

) who attempts to sell such things as chicken puppets, earrings and batman capes.

Gay policemen

Another recurring sketch is two policemen who instead of focusing on the job flirt and/or have little relationship fights with each other.

The Lighthouse

An old man and a little boy get up to shenanigans in a lighthouse, such as playing hide-and-seek or opening the refrigerator door repeatedly. The "wind" joke from the Mighty Boosh series one episode "Charlie" originated in this sketch.

"It's too hard."

A husband (

) and wife attempt to do simple things (read a bus schedule, play Monopoly) but are hindered by their farsighted inability to read anything, and quickly give up, often muttering, "It's too hard."

Connections with ''The Mighty Boosh''

*The recurring Alan and George characters are played by

and

and work in a zoo, much like Howard Moon and Vince Noir. *Alan and George mention a zookeeper called Bob Fossil. *A character played by Rich Fulcher is referred to as 'Bob' and another as 'Robert'. *An alien creature played by Rich Fulcher resembles Tommy Nookah. *A tramp played by

is shown selling

Batman Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...

capes. The Mighty Book of Boosh and Boosh Live reference Howard as previously being a tramp who sold Batman capes. *The lighthouse keeper searches for the source of a wind blowing, which turns out to be his young child companion. Vince performs a similar trick on Howard in ''Charlie''. *In a conference, Julian Barratt refers to eels. Similarly, Mighty Boosh has an episode and song titled 'Eels'.

References

External links

* * 1998 British television series debuts 1998 British television series endings 1990s British television sketch shows British English-language television shows {{UK-comedy-tv-prog-stub