Victor and Hugo

Victor and Hugo: Bunglers in Crime
Also known as Bunglers in Crime
Created by Brian Cosgrove
Mark Hall
Directed by Brian Cosgrove
Starring David Jason
Jimmy Hibbert
Brian Trueman
Edward Kelsey (2 episodes, 1992)
Composer(s) Dave Roylance
Bob Galvin
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of series 2
No. of episodes 30
Production
Executive producer(s) John Hambley
Producer(s) Brian Cosgrove
Mark Hall
Running time 22 minutes
Production company(s) Cosgrove Hall Productions for
Thames Television
Distributor FremantleMedia
Broadcast
Original channel ITV Network (Children's ITV)
7TWO (Australian repeats)
Picture format 4:3
Original run 6 September 1991 – 29 December 1992
Chronology
Preceded by Count Duckula
Followed by Avenger Penguins

Victor and Hugo: Bunglers in Crime (commonly referred to as just Bunglers in Crime) is a British animated series made by Cosgrove Hall Productions for Thames Television and screened on Children's ITV from 6 September 1991 to 29 December 1992, and was based on the five-time villains of Gaston and Pierre from Count Duckula; it was the company's second co-production with Carlos Alfonso Studios of Spain after the aforementioned Count Duckula, and also their last cell-animated project before the collapse of Thames Television at the end of 1992.

It was also the last show to feature the voice of David Jason, and featured guest appearances from many other Cosgrove Hall character creations, including Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Soames and Potson, and even Damson Bunhandler - but despite heavy demand from fans, only the first episode, "Panda-Monium", has been released on DVD as part of a compilation. This can be owed to the fact that the show was made at a time when Children's ITV were phasing out their animations, in favour of more live-action shows, and none of the thirty episodes were ever screened more than once in the United Kingdom due to Thames' loss of franchise;[1] however, for a brief period in early 2010, it was repeated on the Australian TV network 7TWO (only with commercial breaks).

The series centred on the exploits of two bumbling French criminals, the eponymous brothers of the title; despite referencing the French author Victor Hugo (who died more than 100 years before they were even thought of) in their names, both brothers were unintelligent. The plot of every episode focused on Victor, Hugo, Interpol (their parrot), and their English-based business "Naughtiness International" getting hired by criminal figures to steal something - and Victor would come up with a "meticulous plan" to achieve this goal, which was routinely botched by Hugo. Most episodes usually ended with the brothers imprisoned (but others, including the first and last, did not).

Recurring characters

Victor (KPV-46690)

The taller of the brothers, Victor was also clearly the leader for Naughtiness International; his two most striking characteristics were his fedora hat, and his manicured moustache (the latter enabling him to appear suave). He also wore a pair of white gloves, which were given to him for his birthday by Interpol (as referenced in the tenth episode "Scout's Dishonour", which was also the first episode he was seen without them) - and his English was significantly better than Hugo's, although he was continuously at risk of spoonerisms. Despite his constant raging at Hugo, Victor did show more than once that he secretly cared deeply about his brother, like in the ninth episode, "Dummy Run" (when he thought that Hugo had been frozen to death); he was voiced by Jimmy Hibbert, who had previously voiced several guest characters for The Wind in the Willows (including Mr. Toad's villainous double, Isambard, in A Tale of Two Toads), Queen Edith in Alias the Jester, Doctor Von Goosewing and Gaston in Count Duckula, and Doctor Aloysius J. (who was later renamed to "Augustus P.") Crumhorn in Danger Mouse (he also voiced the Bigfoot in "Bigfoot Falls" and the Mark 3's computer in "Pillow Fright", as well as the first of the Australian-accented snooker-playing aliens in "The Intergalactic 147").

Hugo (RNT-77853)

Victor's younger brother, Hugo always wore a beret and actually looked like a burglar (right down to his ever-present eye-mask); he was always subservient to "My Victor", and was often the butt of slapstick comedy. While his intelligence (and English skills) were notably inferior to those of Victor, Hugo was often able to make sense of his brother's spoonerisms - and he would often describe their chosen profession as "criminiminals". Despite that notable handicap of a lack of ability, he also always had the job of driving the van (which was yellow); Hugo's voice, like that of Pierre from Count Duckula, bore a striking resemblance to the Goon Show character Bluebottle, and the two characters often made similar exclamations. He was voiced by David Jason, who previously voiced Danger Mouse for Danger Mouse, Mr. Toad for The Wind in the Willows, and Count Duckula and Pierre for Count Duckula.

Interpol the Parrot

A cynical East End Multicolour (which is a very rare breed of parrot), Interpol lived in Victor and Hugo's van, and provided a voice of reason in rapid-fire Cockney English; it is not saying very much to comment that Interpol was by far the most intelligent member of the group. Aside from residing in the van constantly, Interpol was also able to function as a telephone - he would ring when sat on his perch, and his beak was put to the person's ear. Victor also used him to dial out by pressing his talons like a keypad; in one episode, Hugo used him as a makeshift pair of scissors. Interpol was also voiced by David Jason, but in the eighteenth episode, "Treasure Haunt" (which guest-stars Count Duckula and his two long-suffering servants, Igor and Nanny), he (like Igor) was not actually given any lines.

Lord and Lady Hobbes-Sutclyffe, Piers Flimsy and Ponsward the Butler

The token "English country family" from whom the brothers were hired to burgle on three occasions (episodes 8, 18, and 27), the Hobbes-Sutclyffes lived at Hobbes-Sutclyffe Hall (as the name implies), where Lord Hobbes-Suttclyffe (voiced by David Jason) kept his elephant gun and his wife (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert) hosted dinner parties; their butler Ponsward (voiced by Brian Trueman) was the brains of the household, while their stuck-up nephew, Piers Flimsy (also voiced by Brian Trueman) fancied himself as something of a detective, in the manner of Lord Peter Wimsey. In the eighteenth episode, "Treasure Haunt", another, possibly deceased member of the Hobbes-Sutclyffe family, Sir Pelham, is mentioned while Victor is berating Hugo for "selling" the Hall to Nanny (from Count Duckula) in exchange for it, when he was about to "sell" it to a rich American dog tourist for $500,000 (initially referring to the map as "an old bit of rag").

The Wretched Dog

A small dog played a very important role in most episodes; at various points, often when the plot appeared to be flagging, the dog would run up one of Victor's trouser legs, remove his boxer shorts and run off with them down his other leg. This running gag also appeared at the end of most episodes (prefaced by the statement by a glum Victor that "At least in here, nothing else can possibly go wrong!") - and Hugo particularly enjoyed the dog's appearances, often muttering "good doggie!". In production material from the now-demolished Cosgrove Hall studio, the dog's name is given as Baskerville (as in the Sherlock Holmes tale The Hound of the Baskervilles), although, he was never referred to as such on screen; one episode that he is known never to appear in is the eighth one, "The Case of the Vose Vase".

Penelope the Earwig

Penelope was Hugo's pet earwig who lived in a matchbox, Hugo would always affectionally refer to her as "My Penelope"; Penelope did not actually speak, instead communicating by squeaking (by Jimmy Hibbert), and rarely came out of her matchbox. On the rare occasions where she did come out, she looked like a small grey insect with blonde hair and a dress - and Interpol did not like her at all, but she felt the same way about him (as evidenced in the twelfth episode "Private Ears", when Interpol said "Gawd, now 'e's talkin' to an earwig!").

Monsieur Meccaneaux

Despite his French name, M. Meccaneaux was a working-class accented English rat who was frequently called by the brothers to repair the van (generally after Hugo's bad driving had caused an accident), and on occasion, to provide other forms of technical expertise such as the building of the Concrete Destruction Ray (known by Victor as the "Discreet Correction Ray"), in the twenty-fourth episode, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Dolt". M. Meccaneaux was almost unintelligible due mainly to his habit of interrupting his own trains of thought as he went along and punctuating certain observations with laughter - and, on one occasion, Hugo politely asked Victor what he had just said, only to be met with the response "He say...he say...I am not sure what he say.". He would also show up very quickly at the scene of the accident, once requested over the radio by Victor (with the line "Send for M. Meccaneaux!"); he was, once again, voiced by David Jason.

The plot

The opening crime

Most episodes (one notable exception being the twenty-ninth one, "But Me no Butlers"), started with the brothers on the run from having committed another crime; these are usually heard reported via radio (or TV) news report. However, as the opening dialogue continued, it always became apparent that Hugo had done precisely the wrong thing - for example, that fourth episode, "Cowboys and Indiscipline", has Victor asking Hugo about how he thought they went in robbing "The Duke of Battersea's Home". Hugo's response is "The Duke of Battersea, he is having a lot of doggies, yes?", to which Victor corrects him, "The Duke of Battersea, he is having a lot of doggies, no! That was the Battersea Dogs Home!"; similarly, the nineteenth episode, "Tempers Fugit", begins with a news broadcast (by Damson Bunhandler, from two episodes of Danger Mouse) about the theft of the Christmas lights from Piccadilly Circus. Over the report, the viewers hear Victor telling Hugo that, "I said 'Pull up the van at the lights in Piccadilly Circus.', not 'Pull down the lights in Piccadilly Circus and put them in the van.'!" once they have showed up at M. Millennium (voiced by Edward Kelsey)'s antique-clock-filled mansion.

The phone call

With only one exception, the brothers receive their latest commission (around which the plot of the episode revolves) by telephone; the phone (Interpol) is located in the van, and Victor answers it, as Hugo is engaged in driving (badly). For one episode, Hugo attempts to assume superiority in the partnership, and answers the phone himself - and the standard greeting on the phone is "Hello, this is Victor of Victor and Hugo - Naughtiness International, no crime too big, no crime too small. How may I help you?", delivered in the cod-French accent adopted by Victor. Hugo's alternate rendering begins "Hello, this is Hugo of Hugo and Victor - Naughtiness International, no big small crime too..." before trailing off; the caller's voice would also always emerge as indistinct speech through Interpol's open beak.

The meticulous plan

In his capacity as the brains of the partnership, Victor would devise a meticulous plan, and then explain it to Hugo, who in one episode refers to it as a "ridiculous plan"; Hugo would then repeat it back to Victor in a garbled form, full of spoonerisms and other puns. One example of this, is in the sixteenth episode "Is There a Doctor In The House?" - the plan to steal a quick-growth formula from Professor Peak at Saint Spooner's Hospital in order to let a criminal mastermind grow an army of giant ants to devour the world. Hugo renders this as "We peek at the spoon in the hospital, and grow quickly a professor's formula that will take the ants to the train."; invariably, the plan goes awry. This was usually flagged up by Victor's question of "Hugo, did you (perform a particular action)?" - and Hugo's response takes the form of "Yes," (at which Victor looks pleased), "And no." (at which he looks crestfallen), "But mainly...no." (previously used by Pierre for the five occasions he and Gaston appeared in Count Duckula, and at which time something exceedingly dangerous occurs).

The arrest

Generally, as a result of the dangerous omission by Hugo, the brothers are arrested and jailed; Victor takes this opportunity to explain that "At least in here, nothing else can possibly go wrong!", at which point the Wretched Dog steals his boxers. Victor sometimes chases after the dog - and after the dog steals Victor's boxers, Hugo scolds the dog for being naughty...only to whisper about how he likes the dog. At the end of the twenty-fifth episode, "Pie in the Sky", the Wretched Dog runs up the trouser leg of Hugo after the van lands!

Catchphrases

Much of the humour for this series derived from catchphrases (some of which were previously used by Gaston and Pierre); among these were:

One recurring visual gag (which had previously been pioneered by Gaston and Pierre in Count Duckula) was Victor shoving Hugo's beret in his mouth to shut him up, while a second one (which was created specifically for this series) was Hugo yanking on Victor's necktie to attract his attention, and inadvertently choking him in the process; Victor would say (in a strangulated voice) "The tie, Hugo...get off the tie!" until he did, including on one occasion in the twelfth episode, "Private Ears", when Hugo was holding on to it to keep himself from falling to the ground (they were climbing up the Gazanian Embassy wall, with suckers they had bought from a hardware store on their hands, until Hugo took both of his suckers off the wall and left himself hovering in midair, at which point Victor said was impossible).

Opening sequence

The opening sequence features the two brothers preparing to blow up a safe as the show's theme song is sung; unfortunately for them, the explosion propels the safe through the ceiling, and in the confusion they both run out of what is revealed to be an upper-storey window. Having fallen to the ground, they enter their van and prepare to drive off - and Victor, laughing, tells Hugo "You know Hugo, it will be alright this time. Nothing can go wrong!". Hugo responds "Yes Victor, I know!" and begins to drive; at this point, bits fall off the van and the brothers escape that disaster, only to find their path blocked by police cars. They turn around and are immediately landed on by the falling safe, the door of which falls off, to reveal Hugo making his alternative suggestion of the title - "Hugo and Victor...that's what I think, anyway.". The theme was sung by composer Dave Roylance, with David Jason and Jimmy Hibbert singing the "Victor and Hugo"s.

Episode list

Series 1 (1991)

Series 2 (1992)

Credits

Tie-in book series

Apart from Thames Video's VHS release of the first, fifth and sixth episodes (which is now almost impossible to find), this show spawned a series of tie-in books by Jimmy Hibbert and Rod Green; they featured Cosgrove Hall's short-lived triangular logo on their front covers (which was a reference to Thames Television's last one, introduced in 1990) and entitled "Fu Man's Choo Choo", "In the Big Nap", "Out to Lunch", "The Great Golden Turnip Caper", "The Great Train Robbery", and "Where Beagles Dare". Some of these books were also available as audio cassettes, which were read by Jimmy Hibbert - and he also filled in for David Jason as Hugo and Interpol upon these cassettes.

References

  1. ↑ Amazon.co.uk - The Most Wanted Classic Kids' TV (DVD).

External links