Following the return of the show on the BBC last week, I went back and watched the first series again. The first thing that strikes you is how much more straight it’s played compared to what follows. Of course at the time it still seemed pretty out of the ordinary, but the questions are much more sensible than they ended up, and the sketch show element isn’t present yet.
The big changing point feels like the Christmas episode, with the incredibly over the top musical opening that felt like Big Night Out, but with a Two Ronnies budget, Vic and Bob’s bizarre variety dreams made flesh. Then we get the clip round, where we see a clip from the “Roswell Incident”, a skit acted by Vic and Bob, rather than the archive footage they’d been using for the round up to this point.
The change is reflected in the credits, up until the Xmas episode, the show had a question researcher. With the Xmas episode’s new direction of just utter nonsense, that’s no longer needed. Also missing in the credits is Simon Ross (Jonathan’s brother) as “Format Consultant”. It’s now the show everyone remembers, pure Vic and Bob, guided by the hand of the Fast Show’s Charlie Higson as script supervisor.