Roger Mellie

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Roger Mellie - The Man on the Telly

Roger Mellie ("The Man on the Telly") is a fictional character featured in Viz magazine. His catchphrase is "Hello, good evening and bollocks!", satirising David Frost's catchphrase of "Hello, good evening, and welcome". The character (like many of the other characters in Viz) is a foul-mouthed and obnoxious misogynist, who manages to maintain a career as a television presenter at both the fictional Fulchester Television (FTV) and the BBC. He is the ostensible author of Roger's Profanisaurus (ISBN 1-902212-05-3), a pun on Roget's Thesaurus.

Viz's founder and main contributor Chris Donald has said that the character of Roger Mellie was inspired by the off-screen behaviour of Rod Griffiths, a 1980s Northern UK regional TV presenter. However, Donald also states that Roger Mellie is actually nothing like Griffiths in fact, and other presenters have also been worked into the character, including Look North presenter Mike Neville. One occasion featured Roger's full name being given as "Roger Michael Neville Mellie".

Roger's long-suffering straight man is Tom. In early strips, Tom is a director or sometimes a producer. In later strips, he appears as a portmanteau figure, often appearing to act as agent for Roger, or a television executive, to suit the needs of the script. In one issue, he even has a sign saying 'Tom - Straight Man'. Tom's catch phrase is 'Where the Hell is Roger?'. Both Roger and Tom have crossed over into Billy the Fish on more than one occasion, realising they are in the wrong comic strip and then leaving.

Born in 1947 in Fulchester, Roger was educated at Fulchester Mixed Infants, Bartlepool Grammar School, and the Oxford Remand Centre. Roger was hopeless at school, and was bottom of the class for every subject. He began his broadcasting career as a cub reporter on the news with Robert Dougall and shot to fame doing genital mutilation routines at the London Palladium. He was soon recruited by Fulchester Television, and became a popular TV personality. He also established his own production company, MellieVision, and it snowballed from there. He now spends most nights in Acton, where he often stays at his favourite lap-dancing club until gone three in the morning. He now lives in Fulchester with his 17-year old Thai wife, and 15 Straffordshire Bull Terriers. Roger is quite a colourful character: He has had five past wives (Two of which were 'accidentally' murdered), is an undischarged bankrupt; a convicted rapist; a hopeless alcoholic; a right-wing bigot, and a recovering cocaine addict, among other things. On one occasion in 2006, while requiring a liver transplant (due to chronic alcoholism), Roger became a hit-and-run driver: he ran over and killed a motocyclist without stopping, later receiving the dead man's liver for himself, then celebrating the successful liver transplant with a booze-up at the nearest pub.

Sometimes the strip follows current or recent events. For instance, in a parody of the kidnapping of Alan Johnston Tom was organising awareness efforts after Roger is kidnapped in Beiruit. After eight days, Roger reveals himself at BBC Television Centre to Tom, and it turns out the whole thing is just Roger's new attempt to seek publicity. Attempting to blow the whistle on the scam, Tom discovers that the whole BBC is in on the deception and reluctantly takes part by being a fake phone-in contestant on BBC Radio 4.

In another strip, Roger finally finds mainstream success by presenting Bargain Hunt only to have it ruined when a dead body is fished out of his swimming pool.

He has also written several books, 'They Don't Call Me Roger For Nothing', 'Sorry I'm Late, Tom','Shit Yourself Slim', 'Roger Mellie's Ad Break', and 'Roger's Profanisaurus'.

Roger enjoys opening supermarkets, visiting his favourite strip club, swimming (In his 50K pool), Guinness, dog fighting, badger fighting, visiting his favourite pub, and golf. His favourite newspaper is the News of the World, and his favourite TV show is 'UK Fanny Van' on Red Hot TV.

An animated TV series was released on video tape and also broadcast on Channel 4 in 1991, with Peter Cook providing the voice of Roger, and Harry Enfield doing all of the other voices. Roger also appeared in the 1991 Viz video game as the commentator for all the races.