Fun House

Oh hello there, now you may have heard about Glad To Be Sad, but do you recall the most hated cancelled sitcom of all? I'm talking of course about the little known BBC sitcom known only as Fun House. Produced by BBC and running for only one series from 2006 to 2007. Fun House was intended to be not like your average sitcom, and was meant to be a darker and more cynical comedy all about how we live in a society full of corruption and cinnamon sinners. Fun House centres around a tourist named Bob McAlister who works as a barrister in a local coffee hut. One day while heading to London to meet with his family for the Summer holidays, Bob ends up picking up two clowns named Eddie Laughing and Mr Big Nose. The two are carrying some kind of Faberge egg, and they claim to be on the run from the Russian Mafia. They beg for Bob to give them a lift to the airport, but during the car ride things take a turn as the pair kidnap Bob by stuffing him into an Aldi bag. Eddie Laughing then takes control of the wheel, and both he and Mr Big Nose take Bob to their hangout over on Atlantic Quays. The hangout is of course the aptly named Fun House which the show is named after. The front door is shaped like a massive tooth and there is no door handle. You have to give the door a right good push in order to get inside, and even then it's a struggle. n
Once inside Fun House, Bob found himself at the mercy of an insane pair of clowns. This is where the plot of the series comes into play. Basically, the plot of the series revolved around Bob and his attempts to escape Fun House only to constantly get rekidnapped by Eddie Laughing and Mr Big Nose. Eddie Laughing and Mr Big Nose were about as basic of a double act as you could possibly act. Eddie was the composed and rather timid clown while Mr Big Nose was the crazy murderous clown who wished to skin Bob and make him into a drum. Now, Eddie wasn't actually lying about the Faberge egg as it really did belong to the Russians, but he knew they would never think to look inside Fun House as they thought the place to be condemned and under heavy guard from the Royal Guards. Now in regards to the show's cynical representation of corruption. Throughout the course of the show, Bob repeatedly tries to contact the police and he sometimes manages to get on the phone with them, but the police in this show oh man are they cynical! They laugh at Bob's pleas who begs for them to send a SWAT team to save him, but they simply tell Bob and his clown friends to have themselves a merry little whoppy party. I only have one very important question in regards to those remarks. What the fuck is a whoppy party? A party where you stick whoppers on your feet in order to anger your local chef. Hmm yes perhaps that could be it. Now sadly, the series ended before we ever got to see Bob escape. Unlike Glad To Be Sad, it is unknown if a follow up series was ever in the works as the show's production company; Widdecombe And Pump have been very secretive in regards to their work on the series.
Widdecombe And Pump is a massive production company and talent agency who were hired by BBC in 2003 to make some programs for the network including Dinner Date With Ronald Villiers an acclaimed show in which women and seagulls are invited to have dinner with acclaimed TV extra; Ronald Villiers and they also produced a really cringey made for TV movie entitled, "Dinner Kings," The film was about a red polo shirt wearing man named Tim who plans to open up his own fish and chip restaurant much to the chagrin of his boss; the local shipmaster who wants Tim to join him in his grand plot to rob all of the milk lollies from their local Iceland. No man could handle that! There's also a really pointless sub plot revolving around Tim finding love in the captain of his local football team. He soon finds himself way over his head as he becomes involved in a love triangle with his bethrow and a rather cynical penguin who never speaks who goes by the name of Pepperoni. Pepperoni was quite the ladies man on set according to my contacts over at Widdecombe, he would dance on the tables during lunch breaks in filming and he would have all the broads going nuts. Pepperoni had actually been one of the executive producers for Fun House, but he had never written any of the episode instead preferring to have other people write the load for him. Despite it's overly sappy and DISGUSTING story, Dinner Kings was made with universal critical acclaim after it received a worldwide release on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
The BBC were so impressed by it's success, that they asked if Widdecombe would be interested in making a sitcom for the network. Widdecombe agreed happily. Having been inspired by the clown centred sitcom; Glad To Be Sad, Widdecombe opted to make a show all about clowns but with a much more cynical and darker edge that Glad To Be Sad has so sourly lacked. Pepperoni's former gym teacher at Hartley Dale High School turned freelance scriptwriter; Mr Pitcher offered to write the show. He had already helped Widdecombe with producing the screenplay for Dinner Kings. Mr Pitcher was not a very good writer as he got far too busy flirting with his wife who he would always bring on set with him. How sweet but not really when you take into account the fact that his wife is the most annoying fucking penguin that I have met in all me days. Her voice is so loud it makes glasses break and windows shatter. She too had taught Pepperoni when he was school. Long ago and yet not so very long ago. Unlike Mr Pitcher, that turnip always had it out for Pepperoni and would regularly yell at him when he would play with his food which was ass noodles. Yes they were noodles dipped in ass sauce. Now some more details about Fun House, before we start discussing the series as a whole is the fact that the show had a theme song. The theme song was the song; House Of Fun by the British band Madness. Allegedly, Madness had not given BBC the rights to use their song, but BBC did not care as they had a lot of cash to burn if you catch my drift. I really hope you do, because I certainly don't.
Despite it's short lifespan having only six episodes of the course of one series, Fun House has been renowned for its dark and cynical humour as well as the fact that the series regularly incorporated elements of black comedy including one episode where Bob's pet dog Seymour is run over by Mr Big Nose. Bob had asked for his dear dog to get him some sausages from Tesco, but the dear dog ended up paying the price. There were episodes revolving around Bob being forced to attend one of Mr Big Nose's morgue parties and another episode where Bob finally escapes Fun House only to meet another hitchhiker named Luis Sera. This was actually the series finale. Together, Bob and Luis conspire to take control of the Fun House by pretending to be big fat businessmen who wish to buy Fun House in order to convert into a spotted dick themed amusement park. Of course, Mr Big Nose and Eddie Laugh are not stupid and they were able to see through the ruse. In one of the show's darkest scenes and that's honestly saying a lot for this series, Bob was held at gunpoint by Eddie Laugh's newly made Russian buddies (he had made peace with them in the previous episode by selling them the Faberge egg), while Mr Big Nose whacks Luis' skull in with a comically oversized mallet. "Pride must always come before a fall!" Mr Big Nose bellowed at the very top of his lungs as he slammed his mallet down right into Luis' skill killing him instantly.
In one episode, Bob tries to escape by hiring Special Detective Sam Bramsberry to investigate Fun House. "Special Detective Sam Bramsberry! Sam to my friends on... oh you know the rest I'm sure." Sam said whilst shaking Bob's hand all the while pulling the smuggest face I have ever seen. Why so smug Bramsberry ay why so smug? In any case, Bramsberry was able to recover enough information to put Eddie Laugh and Mr Big Nose away for life, but he ended up getting his drink drugged by the pair. They had laced his glass of OJ with a healthy dose of vodka, so ole Bramsberry ended up having a massive Iceland style party with the pair which culminated in all three of them dancing through the streets of London. Bob who was watching this entire scene play out from his window simply remarked, "well now I really have seen everything!" Much to Bob's chagrin. Bramsberry ended up reporting to his superiors that nothing was wrong and this is the reason why in all future episodes, the police refuse to take Bob's claims about Fun House seriously much to the annoyance of him and the members of the audience. Great going Sam Bramsberry! Special Detective my arse!
There was also an episode in which Bob gets a new bunkmate in the form of an old man named Willis who uses a zimmer frame. He tries to escape Fun House by entering the correct bar code, but he takes so fucking long trying to figure it out that he ends up getting caught in the act by Mr Big Nose who yells, "TOO LONG!" Poor ole Willis then proceeds to suffer the same fate as Luis. Actually even worse, as he is thrown into a pot of boiling hot mustard. At first, the mustard didn't appear to affect Willis that much as he came out from the pot but then he started to sing like a bee. He then proceeded to grab a hold of his hair as he cried, "I could have been Pope!" He then sank into the depths of the boiling hot mustard never to be seen again. As a consequence of adding such dark subject matter into their show, Mr Pitcher received a visit from Television Centre senior executive; Mr Cusack who may have ties to the Easily Offended Knights of Nottingham given the fact that his older brother was a member of the Knights. Mr Cusack aside from being a very powerful television exec was also a shareholder in Hammersmith Hospital and owned 15% of all of the hospital's assets including the really shit grey and murky coffee you can get from the machine which has no buttons but it does have windows. I'm getting a tad bit distracted aren't I love? Anyways, Mr Cusack arranged a private audience with Mr Pitcher at his office in the old rundown ruins of PNN Headquarters in Antarctica
Mr Pitcher found himself at the mercy of an unforgiving Mr Cusack who wished for Pitcher to make great changes to the program. In regards to the show's rather over abundance of animal cruelty, Mr Cusack yelled, "what were you thinking man? We're trying to run a company here! After all, we are not communists." After saying that last part, Mr Cusack snickered a snicker and pulled the smuggest face that you'd ever see. Not only did he want the animal cruelty elements gone, Mr Cusack also wanted Mr Big Nose to become a nicer character who doesn't want to make Bob into a fancy throw rug, but actually wants to make Bob his brother. Aside from his complaints about the show, Mr Cusack was also very angry about Mr Pitcher bringing his wife onto the set of each episode. "What is the problem with that exactly?" Mr Pitcher asked as he waddled over to a nearby window which overlooked the valley. "What's wrong with it? Are you really that stupid my boy?" Mr Cusack remarked. You see; Mr Pitcher would lock his wife in his dressing room while he helped film the episodes and he would never bother to check on her much to the chagrin of his employees. Mr Cusack did not want a civilian wondering around in the BBC's private headquarters, so she would no longer be allowed to accompany her husband to his work. "So what do you say?" Mr Cusack asked as he placed his hand out, but Mr Pitcher pretended not to see it as he said, "no, no, and no! If you do these things and I then must leave." Of course none of these changes ended up coming into place, as the show was cancelled and this incident also led to Mr Pitcher taking early retirement from his career as a screenwriter. He went back to Hartley Dale and got a job as maths teacher where he gained a bad rep for ripping student's homework apart as he didn't know how to do fractions. Oh that poor little penguin! No not little penguin friend. Big penguin. Big penguin little penguin cardboard box!
Fun House was critically panned during it's inception and it is criticised to this day for it's very dark sense of humour. Unlike Glad To Be Sad, it is unknown if there were ever plans for another series when the show was canned as Mr Pitcher refuses to answer any questions regarding the show. One time, Pitcher appeared as a surprise guest of honour at a stage show in Kent, and when people including incredibly rude news reporter Gareth Eggplant kept pestering him by asking questions about the show, Pitcher left the stage in protest. Oh and speaking of Gareth Eggplant, he actually wrote a couple of episodes for the series including episodes 2 and 4. Gareth Eggplant was only just starting to find his footing as an incredibly rude news reporter and he thanks the show even to this day for saving him. Also while working on Fun House, a pigeon flew into Gareth's mouth while he was in the BBC Studio's parking lot. Just thought you'd like to know that love. The show's reception has being getting better and better in more recent years as it now holds 5.5 on IMDB. The show is incredibly hard to find nowadays as it is not available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, or even BrtiBox. You can still find every episode by buying the DVD, but you can only find it on really dodgy shopping sites that have like a billion viruses on them, and you get a brand new one every time you click on something. Good luck with that. Also, the cover of the DVD has nothing to do with Fun House, and instead features a picture of an incredibly confused butler who looks really confused and like he's just smelt the smelliest fart that has ever been smelt.
It was incredibly cheap to make as most of the episodes were set within the confines of Fun House and that in itself was just one big massive set. In fact, the first and last episode are the only ones to take place outside of the Fun House. Although, sometimes the local police station appears whenever Bob attempts to call them for assistance, but little known fact is that the set used for the police station is actually part of the same set used for Fun House. The more you know am I right? Fun House was indeed very cost effective and that proved to be crucial as the BBC refused to provide additional funds for the series. In order to gain more funds for the series, Mr Pitcher asked for a loan from Donald Love head of Love Media and a private investor in BBC stocks. "A deal is a deal so you'll see a penny from me." Donald Love said as he shook Pitcher's feather signalling the fact that the pair had a deal. Using some backup reserves, Love was able to provide additional funding for the series which is why the final episode has much better production values than the rest of the series. Sadly, the extra funding from Love had come far too late as the series was soon after cancelled. Mr Pitcher had already left the show in protest after his visit from Mr Cusack, and the rest of Widdecombe were baffled on to how to proceed with a second series.
According to Widdecombe's official Twitter page, they have said that if a second series was to be made it would have heavily toned down the scary elements of the first series and turned the show's two antagonists Eddie Laugh and Mr Big Nose into far more comedic characters. They also had plans to give Bob a chicken that has no bones, sorry that was a joke no in reality they planned to give him a pet bulldog named Chuck Bramston The III who would go on to serve as the show's mascot. They wanted to bring a dog into the fold in order to appeal the show more to the masses. They also planned to introduce a love interest into the series for Bob. Funnily enough, Bob's actor who was ironically actually named Bob in real life has said that he was very upset that a second series was never made as he really liked the show and Eddie McFeddie who played Eddie Laugh is actually really close friends with him in real life. Sadly, Bob is less than kind towards his other co-star Jacob Adler who played Mr Big Nose. On set, Mr Adler was reportedly a pain to work with. He already had experience with Widdecombe having appeared in Dinner Kings and another one of their made for TV movies entitled, No Nose Yet Knows. No Nose Yet Knows is all about an ugly little shrew who rubs her nose so much that it makes her boyfriend very sick. So sick that he ends up getting heated and by that I mean he turns into a radiator. The shrew falls in with a crime gang called The Noses which are led by a man named Mr Nosey who is of course played by Jacob Adler. No Nose Yet Knows very rarely gets shown anymore after the BBC received several threatening phone calls from Mr Nosey who claims that he doesn't like the fact that a character in the movie shares his name. He demanded to be paid royalties for every time the movie gets shown on television hence why it is not showed that often anymore. Ole Nosey has gone quite downhill and has become very miserable on the account of a postman tricking Nosey into looking into his bag only to end up getting his erect nose caught in a mouse trap. Keep that nose down will ya Nosey?
Jacob Adler got way too into his role as Mr Big Nose and he never acted out of character when during breaks in the shooting. He wanted to wear his clown makeup at all times even during lunch and even when he went home to his wife and kids. His wife was very scared of her husband's clown makeup, but she couldn't do anything about the matter as her husband would threaten to send her to Grandmother Edgar if she even dared interfere. Adler is a very sadistic man as he would often bonk Bob and Eddie with his mallet for real during breaks in shooting. Though granted, the mallet was actually just made of plastic it still hurt like a motherducking race car as ole Adler would not hold back when hitting people with it. He also once pulled a DISGUSTING prank on Mr Pitcher which involved him decapitating Pitcher's beloved pet goose, and placing the head of said goose into Pitcher's bed. Waking up the following morning, Pitcher nearly died of fright and saw a nose attached to the goose' head which read, "kiss him once for me!" It wasn't until years later that Pitcher learned that Jacob was behind it as he actually believed the crime to be the work of the local Albanian gang who were known trouble makers for Widdecombe And Pump, but that's another story entirely. Stay another stay another day. Ha! Man why do you keep giving me these ones Vinnie? Now that we've talked a little about the actors, let's chat some more about the show itself and discuss some of the six episodes in detail. Not all of them mind! There just isn't enough time for the time has to come to talk of ships and vegetables and royalty. That as well as the fact I kind of have a warm meal waiting for me at home.
Now none of the episodes had names just so you know, but the second episode is widely regarded to be the darkest in the series. Perhaps second darkest and second only to the series finale. This was the episode revolving around Willis but there was a lot of dark moments in the episode that I had previously neglected to talk about. After introducing himself to Bob, Willis gets asked what his life was like before he got kidnapped by Eddie Laugh and Mr Big Nose. According to Willis, he had spent the past six years in a retirement home just north of Strawberry. A very sick flashback scene came on screen which showcased all of Willis' hardships while living at said retirement home. The home's foreman would brick up the rooms of the home so that nobody could get even if they needed to use the bathroom, also the home had no windows or signs to let you know where it is. All of the staff wear horrifying clown make up and perform experiments on the old people by injecting them with banana mush. You may think that would kill the residents, but in actuality it just turns their skin yellow like some kind of Simpson. Using mainly spoons and a fork, Willis was able to dig a tunnel underneath his bedroom and he went on the run to Soho hoping that some of his friends down there could help him out. Instead, they turned on him and handed him over to Eddie Laugh. These aforementioned friends were actually involved with the Russians that Eddie later sells the Faberge egg to so as you can quite clearly see it's all coming together like a beautiful synagogue
Another episode of the series gained controversy from bee keepers for a scene involving Mr Big Nose setting fire to a bee hive. While living at Fun House, Bob attempted to make the best of it by building himself a little bee hive which is subsequently set on fire by Mr Nose. He had purchased a massive birthday cake for Bob, and while presenting it to him he ended up tripping on a twig and well you can guess what happened with the cake landing atop the hive. The cake had like 8999 candles on it so you better all of the bees died. Taking this to be the final straw, Bob found a hole in the wall in his room and started cutting through the hole through the use of an old hacksaw he kept in his pockets at all times. He finally manages to escape said hole only to get caught immediately by Mr Big Nose who wraps his big beefy arm around Bob's shoulder before asking rhetorically, "what's your hurry Murray?" The reason this episode generated so much hate from the bee keeping communities was the fact that real bees were used and killed in this episode, although in actuality they weren't really bees they were actually wasps. Mr Pitcher had insisted that the production team use wasps instead of bees as he couldn't bare to think of a poor little bee getting hurt in any way. Oh what a gentlemen! Of all six episodes, this is the hardest one to find as it very rarely appears in any of the DVDs that you can buy for the series much to mine and many others' chagrin. Now surprisingly, in spite of the show's many controversies it has actually attracted quite a few famous fans most notably Steve Martin and Martin Scorsese. Why so many Martins? Steve Martin loved the show that he has an entire shrine dedicated to the show located in an undisclosed location. I wouldn't recommend looking for it because well let's just say you'll be worse than hurt.
For the longest time, Martin Scorsese bragged about the possibility of making an American adaption of the series for Netflix. He planned on casting Steve Martin as Bob and his homie Robert De Niro as Mr Big Nose. Side note; when Scorsese called De Niro to ask if he'd be willingly to star in the series De Niro asked in a real confused tone of voice, "you what?" He didn't even sound like he was faking it. He sounded really confused, but Scorsese knew that he would be able to get De Niro on board once he brought up the fact that the show could make him a lot of dough. Scorsese had a lot of plans for this American remake including a whole band of clowns to the show instead of just two including a female clown who would more than likely serve as a love interest for Bob. Mr Big Nose renamed Fat Nose for the remake was written as the ringleader of the clowns, but sadly the show never came to be. Steve Martin has stated during separate interviews with the Lost Heaven Inquirer and Empire Bay Times that he would have loved to play Bob if the remake had happened and he also hoped to have a role in the series if ever got a stage show adaptation in the same fashion as Glad To Be Sad. Probably best that doesn't happen given how much of a disaster that stage show turned out to be.
For many years, the cast and crew who worked on Fun House were very reluctant to talk about their time on the series. Even Bob tries his best to avoid talking about the series or at least he did originally as he didn't want his role in the series tainting his career. By the 2010's, Bob had established himself as a dramatic actor starring in several serious dramas which are so serious that it's almost a crime. He didn't want to run the risk of Fun House ruining his career in the same vein that Glad To Be Sad ruined the careers of many of it's actors. Most of the actors involved in Fun House are still acting to this day with the exception of the actor who played Willis who sadly died in 2011 after getting hit by a bus after he watched The Muppets in the cinema with his fam. His estate had not given me permission to mention the actor's name and I shall honour their wishes. Eddie McFeddie still acts to this day in bit parts in low brow comedy films while Jacob Adler became involved in a joint piano teaching venture with Dr Teeth. Adler has mellowed considerably in recent years and has become quite the recluse as aside from his new found piano teaching job, he never leaves the comfort of his own home as he now lives inside the shell of a Great Grandfather Snail. He is also very upset with how Dr Teeth treats his students as he frequently yells at them and calls them, "horse eaters!" Serves you right really Jacob, you should have known better than to cheat a friend, and by that I of course mean you should have known that better than to work for Dr Teeth.
I'll be honest I'm not a very big fan of Fun House as it's one of those shows that makes you feel incredibly uneasy while you watch it. Granted, the show has it's funny moments before often than not it leaves a constant pit of dread in your stomach that never goes away. It makes me very uncomfortable because the show is very dark, and I'm not talking about the subject matter of some episodes I mean that the show is actually really dark. So dark in fact, that some episodes require you to light a torch in order to even be able to see what's going on. Seriously, they really could have done with adding a few extra stage lights just so that people could actually see what was happening on screen, but not like it matters anyway. Much like Glad To Be Sad, i am very glad that no revival series is in the works and I hope one never does get announced as Fun House will never catch on no matter what decade it gets aired in. If Glad To Be Sad represents the positive aspects of clowns in our media, then Fun House most certainly represents the negative aspects of clowns in media that Glad To Be Sad had fought so hard not to show. Well what do you think of Fun House? I really want to know. Write your review down on a piece of paper, and then wrap that paper onto a brick and force a pigeon to carry it for you. I'm sure it'll be able to carry all of that weight don't you? Alright bye!
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