Mongrels

Puppets, it would seem, can get away with pretty much anything. Under normal circumstances all comic references to Anne Frank are subject to a blanket prohibition, but Mongrels extracted guilty laughs by suggesting that it was an overzealous game of Yahtzee, not Dutch collaborators, that gave away her whereabouts to the Nazis.

Mongrels features a menagerie of endearing fluffy animals, with occasional support from a passing live actor, the star of which is a sensitive, confrontation-phobic, urbane urban fox called Nelson. Other characters include a snooty Afghan Hound bitch, a kleptomaniac pigeon, a latino cat and several rats. Episode one opened with a houseful of cats dining on the rotting corpse of their elderly owner, moved swiftly on to embrace the twin themes of defecation and castration, paused briefly for a musical number extolling the virtues of prejudice, before climaxing in a Saw style torture scene involving the use of microwave ovens.

Somewhere in the frantic mix sweet natured Nelson found time to embark upon a doomed romance with a chicken, prompting several oddly touching moments, before the show, and the fox, reverted to their true 'red in tooth and claw' natures.

Mongrels sets out to be offensive, but does so with an irresistible combination of wit, imagination and gleeful enthusiasm. I laughed out loud several times, I sniggered childishly throughout and on at least one occasion I felt sick, which counts as a ringing endorsement.

To borrow a gruesome Americanism, the show features the "vocal talents" of Lucy Montgomery, Dan Tetsell, Rufus Jones and Katy Brand, all of whom sounded as though they were having more fun than is decent.

Mongrels, BBC THREE

In the words of Brian Conley's seldom- remembered Gordon The Gopher-abusing kids' telly sketch: "It's only a pup-pet!"

Not that the cast of Mongrels only being stuffed animals with some bloke's hands rammed up their jacksey - or the fact that it's strictly not for kids - has got any thing to do with it.

I think we all know what BBC Three is for - in a nutshell: bum bum titty titty ha-ha - but its new sitcom, Mongrels, has caused me no small amount of odd times.

On paper, I am so there. Its pitch makes me pitch. A puppet show, but for adults? About a metrosexual fox, mardy pigeon, spoilt Afghan hound and a borderlineretarded Mexican cat called Marion (male)? A show in which the humour comes in "salty dark tang", and other savoury flavours for the amusement epicure? That is an entertainment buffet that I shall approach with a large plate. I am going to fill my hoot-boots on this one. Step back, boys - Mummy's on her lunch break, and it's going to be soup and a rofl.

And, indeed, the first two minutes looked insanely promising. The metrosexual fox - Nelson - is fixing up blind dates on MySpace and abusing someone else's credit card. We cut to the former CBBC presenter Toby Anstis, staring at his credit card bill and exclaiming, "Thirty-six quid? To Duchy Originals?" before cutting back to the fox stuffing its face with Ginger Thins. The sheer random unexpectedness of it was rousing - I thought I was in for a half-hour of solid lulz-a-poppin'.

But three minutes later, a trend started to emerge. Gags on 9/11, Harold Shipman, Christopher Reeve, Anne Frank and Richard Whiteley - castration, urination, a dog trying to poo on a bed, and a song called F*** Chickens, in which the conceit was that chickens are a bit like immigrants. Look - these are nervous times for comedy, particularly at the BBC. In a post- Sachsgate world, approval for edgy humour is a nightmare, and getting new comedy commissioned in the first place is about as easy as trying for a unicorn with IVF. Mongrels felt as though someone had taken a winningly daft idea and then top-loaded it with every single edgy joke submitted to the BBC in the past two years, so that Compliance could go through them all in one time-efficient go. The end result was to have you still wincing from the previous miss-hit base joke as the next one came along. It made you feel a bit... sore, after a while.

It was a sad waste of fake fur and a dandy, metrosexual fox.

Fur flies over Mongrels: Did show 'rip off' C4 series?

Producers of an old Channel 4 puppet comedy have suggested that BBC Three's new show Mongrels has 'ripped off' their ideas.

BBC's 'Mongrels' accused of plagiarism

BBC Three's new comedy Mongrels has been accused of copying a 2001 Channel 4 series.

If I were to tell you that Mongrels (Tuesday, BBC Three) is an adult puppet show about stray dogs that featured jokes about Christopher Reeve, 9/11 and Harold Shipman you might reasonably opt to attend an entire course of Joanna Bourke lectures instead. This, though, would be a big mistake. The first episode of Mongrels was very funny, full of invention and possessed of an unquestionably curdled charm that's none the less hard to resist.

Yet the real clincher - for viewers of a certain age - is that one of the puppets, Nelson, the fox, looks exactly like Basil Brush. Less self-confident than Basil, Nelson fell in love with a chicken called Wendy whose husband was a 'wife-pecker'. But it all ended badly, amid dark mutterings about inter-species breeding. Yup, I'm afraid so - it's those damn negative stereotypes again.

Mongrels is a mixed breed

The first episode of Mongrels, a new eight-parter which airs Tuesdays on BBC Three, proved exactly that, a mixed breed of sitcom, sickcom and, well, just a little bit of shitcom.

Mongrels Episode 1 review

Good fun, fairly entertaining, and possibly even a grower, but Episode 1 was more toothless and crude than I was expecting.

TV review: Mongrels

Mongrels lazily relies on its gimmick with an underwhelming script which goes for the obvious joke every time. The show is certainly more coherent than some of BBC3's efforts, but it doesn't add up to belly laughs, more mild smiles.